360 LOUIS PASTEUR 



occurrence to nourish the germ and its successive genera- 

 tions " ? 



In our Memoir of 1862, on so-called spontaneous gen- 

 erations, would it not have been an entire mistake to have 

 attempted to assign specific names to the microscopic or- 

 ganisms which we met with in the course of our observa- 

 tions? Not only would we have met with extreme dif- 

 ficulty in the attempt, arising from the state of extreme 

 confusion which even in the present day exists in the classi- 

 fication and nomenclature of these microscopic organisms, 

 but we should have been forced to sacrifice clearness in 

 our work besides; at all events, we should have wandered 

 from our principal object, which was the determination of 

 the presence or absence of life in general, and had nothing 

 to do with the manifestation of a particular kind of life 

 in this or that species, animal or vegetable. Thus we have 

 systematically employed the vaguest nomenclature, such 

 as mucors, torulae, bacteria, and vibrios. There was noth- 

 ing arbitrary in our doing this, whereas there is much that 

 is arbitrary in adopting a definite system of nomenclature, 

 and applying it to organisms but imperfectly known, the 

 differences or resemblances between which are only recog- 

 nizable through certain characteristics, the true signification 

 of which is obscure. Take, for example, the extensive 

 array of widely different systems which have been invented 

 during the last few years for the species of the genera 

 bacterium and vibrio in the works of Cohn, H. Hoffmann, 

 Hallier, and Billroth. The confusion which prevails here 

 is very great, although we do not of course by any means 

 place these different works on the same footing as regards 

 their respective merits. 



M. Robin is, however, right in recognizing the impossi- 

 bility of maintaining in the present day, as he formerly 

 did, " That fermentation is an exterior phenomenon, going 

 on outside cryptogamic cells, a phenomenon of contact. It 

 is probably," he adds, " an interior and molecular action 

 at work in the innermost recesses of the substance of each 

 cell." From the day when we first proved that it is possible 

 for all organized ferments, properly so called, to spring up 

 and multiply from their respective germs, sown, whether 



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