WHAT IS " LIFE " ? 217 



Job, Goethe has followed Kit Marlowe, the author of the City 

 of Dreadful Night has followed the author of the Rubdiydt, and 

 Herbert Spencer, Lucretius ; but no one has lifted the veil. 



To-night I wish to range myself anew among the inquirers. 

 I would not say we can lift the veil, for in such inquiries, as in 

 all other investigations into nature, we can reach but to a certain 

 point. It seems to me, however, that it is possible to penetrate 

 farther into the mystery now than ever in the past ages. I hold 

 it right also that, being endowed with minds, we should strive 

 to understand all that we can regarding that which is of so deep 

 importance. All the same, it is with no little hesitation that I 

 have determined to make this the subject of my talk to you, 

 and that because, however much we may desire to treat the 

 purely scientific aspect of the subject, religion and the views 

 we have imbibed from earliest childhood inevitably obtrude. 

 It is not given to the majority, as it was to Darwin and to 

 Pasteur, to separate in all humility their scientific from their 

 religious lives and thoughts. 



I can recall an open-air dejeuner a la fourchette in a little 

 Parisian courtyard over on the " rive gauche" the sun glinting 

 through the trees upon the napery and glassware of the table : 

 a luncheon with ]mile Roux, the great pupil of the great master. 

 The conversation had turned upon Pasteur and his modes of 

 work and habits of thought. That happened close upon a score 

 of years ago, but I remember it as though it were yesterday. 

 And Roux then traced what long years of intimate fellowship 

 had taught him were the mainsprings of the great master's 

 activities. He spoke of his sincerity, his earnestness, the deep- 

 seated religiousness of his character, his attachment to the 

 Church, and the beautiful faith which dominated the family life. 

 It was a revelation to me, and I said as much. " No," said 

 Roux, " M. Pasteur never alludes to these matters in his writings. 

 He holds firmly that a man's faith and his knowledge of science 

 are two wholly different parts of his existence which it is pre- 

 sumption on his part to try to harmonize. Humbly and not 

 with pride should we regard our scientific knowledge and acumen. 

 The facts we have garnered are few compared with the vast bulk 

 of hidden knowledge ; the deductions we draw from those facts 

 are at the most to be treated as working hypotheses, liable to be 

 modified by further accumulation of facts." 



