LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 245 



and of research into means of preserving life had 

 been handed over to the service of war. Normal and 

 cultured life was arrested. And that was the out- 

 come of civilisation. 



Metchnikoff felt as if he had suddenly been dropped 

 into the abyss of centuries, into the times of human 

 savagery. He could not accustom his mind to the 

 idea of such a fall ; it seemed to him a paradox, an 

 impossibility, that civilised peoples could not do 

 without sanguinary fights in order to solve questions 

 of mutual relations. 



The events which were taking place agitated and 

 depressed him all the more that he had not the 

 possibility of becoming absorbed in scientific investiga- 

 tions ; he was completely thrown off his balance. 



And as, one by one, the news came of the death 

 in action of several of the young men who had left 

 the Institute, Metchnikoff's grief knew no limits. He 

 could not bear the idea, now a terrible reality, that 

 these brilliant young lives should be sacrificed, 

 victims of those who should have directed the peoples 

 towards peace and a rational life, and who, instead of 

 that, threw the most precious part of humanity into 

 the abyss of death. War became a dark, sinister 

 background to his daily life. The victims of war 

 were not only those who fell on the battle-field, but 

 included him whose whole life -effort had been 

 directed towards the conservation of human exist- 

 ence and the search for rational conceptions. The 

 contrast between his aspirations and the cruel reality 

 had been to him a blow which his sensitive and suffer- 

 ing heart was not fit to bear. 



The Germans were advancing rapidly. Then 

 came the sad days of panic, when the inhabitants 



