82 THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN 



everything to the world ; and that now she finds that she 

 made a mistake. The claims staked out, it is stated, were 

 extravagant and untenable. 



When I was at Lahore and have been asked to address 

 popular audiences on scientific subjects I have not tried to 

 give what is called a popular lecture on science, for the 

 simple reason that I did not think that I would find an 

 audience that would take a popular lecture on science in a 

 way I wished it to be taken. I was confident that the great 

 bulk of the audience would have to be instructed in the very 

 elements of science, and to attempt this and, at the same 

 time, to give an account of the recent development of science 

 in the space of a single hour is perfectly futile. A popular 

 lecture on science is, therefore, very apt to reduce into a 

 mere tickling of the imagination and a display of imposing 

 experiments ; and to that I declined to stoop. What I have 

 done when I have spoken in India has been to try and 

 illustrate what science really is, by giving some account of 

 the life of a scientific man, and the particular man that I have 

 selected has been the great Frenchman Pasteur. 



In the first place, he was one of the greatest scientific men 

 who ever lived. In the second place, he was the man whose 

 scientific work told in an almost unparalleled degree and 

 with unparalleled rapidity upon the welfare of the human 

 race. In the third place, the work of Pasteur was devoted 

 to fields which are very much the same as those that above 

 all others await cultivation in India; I mean the fields of 

 agriculture and public health. And in the fourth place, the 

 life of Pasteur illustrates not merely the potency of science 

 as an instrument for the amelioration of the lot of humanity, 

 but shows what science at its best really is, not only intel- 

 lectually but philosophically and morally. May I remind you 

 now very briefly of the achievements of this wonderful man ? 



He was born in the year 1833, and after his school days, 



