FOR THE NATIONAL WEALTH 73 



lieved in Pasteur as the romantics of 1830 be- 

 lieved in Victor Hugo. They saw before them 

 virgin lands and unimagined sources. Thanks 

 to the genius, the faith and the religious spirit- 

 that the master infused into his work, he in- 

 spired these younger men with his own enthusi- 

 asm, and they believed themselves born to rev- 

 olutionise the ideas which had served as dog- 

 mas for their predecessors ; and such a belief is 

 strangely intoxicating to young brains ! Among 

 the assistants and students who gathered 

 around M. Pasteur in the little laboratory in 

 the Rue d'Ulm, there was a continual inter- 

 change of conceptions and of projects very 

 different ones from those that are born and die 

 daily apropos of literature or philosophy, for 

 these discussions dealt with the only form of 

 truth that is capable of being verified, namely 



science." 



But, while Pasteur kept secret the object he 

 had in view during the course of his experi- 

 ments that were often long, difficult and count- 

 less times recommenced, when he had once ob- 



