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164 THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE 
therefore, to consent to the initiation of new experi- 
mental conditions. I further urged that the Com- 
mission had been appointed to report upon a simple 
question of fact, that M. Pasteur had challenged me 
to obtain certain results, before ‘‘ competent judges,” 
that I had come to Paris to repeat certain well-defined 
experiments before them, and that they were com- 
missioned to express an opinion thereon and on the 
experiments of M. Pasteur to the Academy of 
Sciences. 
A very long discussion ensued, but no satisfactory 
conclusion was arrived at. In the course of this 
discussion M. Pasteur thought fit to speak of “ my 
errors,’ and I had to remind him that the Commission 
had been appointed to decide which of us was in 
the right. 
In the evening I wrote to M. Dumas saying 
that after our conference in the afternoon, “| 
had a long conversation with M. Pasteur, and am 
going to his laboratory early to-morrow morning to 
show him the mode in which I make my experi- 
ments,” adding, ‘1 shall thus be enabled to learn 
what precise alterations he would desire in order 
that the experiments may be conducted in a manner 
satisfactory to himself. Afterwards | trust it may 
be more possible for me to meet the wishes of the 
Commission in regard to the inquiry.” 
At an interview with M. Dumas on Monday, 
July 16, I proposed a kind of compromise. The 
proposition was that on the present occasion we 
should have “the first element” of the inquiry as 
defined by M. Dumas in his letter of April 25, viz., 
