CHAPTER III 



ON THE ROAD TO FAME 



IT needs only a brief examination in order to 

 realise that the works of Pasteur, even 

 those most widely different in appearance, fol- 

 low one another like the links of a chain and 

 present an admirable unity. Towards the end 

 of his studies of crystals his ideas became gen- 

 eralised, and extended his theory of molecular 

 dissymmetry to the constitution of the uni- 

 verse, while a certain laboratory experiment 

 was destined to turn his attention to ferments. 

 Having broken a crystal of tartrate, Pasteur 

 plunged it again into the mother liquid, and, 

 discovering that the crystal became restored in 

 its entirety, he compared this breakage to a 

 wound which is healed with thejielp of new 

 molecules of its own kind. On the other hand, 



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