56 PASTEUR 



surface and continued to live, thanks to the 

 oxygen in the air, and formed at the same time 

 a protective layer for the anaerobics, which 

 were thus enabled to develop in the lower 

 depths. Pasteur was destined, later on, to 

 study in detail these phenomena which no one 

 before him had observed, and to gather new 

 light from them. M. Duclaux emphasises the 

 element of genius in these researches: 



"I have tried to present all these deductions 

 as a whole," he writes, "because as a matter of 

 fact they were the result of a few weeks of 

 work and meditation, and also because they 

 afford us an example of Pasteur's power of pen- 

 etration in perceiving and outlining a problem, 

 and the patience he exhibited in gathering to- 

 gether the elements essential to a solution. 

 Throughout the best years of his life this man 

 lived in advance of his time, a pioneer lost in 

 solitude, absorbed in the contemplation of the 

 horizons he had discovered and which his eye 

 alone could behold and traverse. What is less 

 surprising than his indifference to the details 



