212 PASTEUR 



"He had sudden inspirations, which bore him 

 on towards unexpected discoveries; he had in- 

 stincts of divination which pushed him forward 

 along unexplored paths; he had swift, headlong 

 rushes of thought that overleaped and antici- 

 pated the establishment of the truth, prepared 

 the way for it, made its attainment more rapid 

 and more sure. But when a scientific problem 

 had taken shape before him, in one of those 

 general flashes of illumination, he never con- 

 sidered it as solved until he had questioned all 

 nature, until he had classified or eliminated all 

 of the facts, until he had forced them, each and 

 every one, to give him an answer. 



"He was careful to guard against any philo- 

 sophical prejudice that might hamper the sin- 

 cerity of his observations. The experimental 

 method, he declared in his address at the time 

 of his reception at the Academic, should be de- 

 tached from all metaphysical speculation, and, 

 while claiming for his conscience the right to 

 assert loudly its spiritual and religious convic- 

 tions, he claimed no less energetically all the 



