Annual Report of the Council. 137 



his fundamental belief in a living cause of all such pheno- 

 mena; but in selecting, so to speak, these subjects of 

 research he was strongly influenced by his patriotism. He 

 aimed not merely at demonstrating the truth of his con- 

 victions, but at restoring prosperity to the ruined peasantry 

 engaged in sericiculture in the south of France; at in- 

 creasing the wealth of France, by promoting her great 

 wine industry, and (after.1870) by establishing a brewing 

 industry, which would make France the successful com- 

 petitor of Germany as a producer of beer. In regard to 

 his further memorable researches on anthrax and other 

 farm diseases, on fevers, and on hydrophobia, it is not too 

 much to say that his humanitarian aspirations, and his 

 ■desire to promote the welfare of his countrymen and the 

 glory of France, were even more influential than his love 

 for a science which he had made his own, which had 

 yielded such wonderful results already, and which held 

 out fascinating prospects of still more marvellous dis- 

 closures. As a result of the ardour and persistence of his 

 five years' investigation of the silk-worm diseases, Pasteur 

 was struck with paralysis, which left him partly a cripple 

 for the rest of his life. He died in Paris on September 

 28th, 1895. He was elected an honorary member of 

 this Society in 1886. In his " Discours de Reception," 

 on his election to the French Academy in 1882, as suc- 

 cessor to Littre, Pasteur modestly summed up his own 

 claims to the distinction as follows : " En prouvant que, 

 jusqu'a ce jour, la vie ne s'est jamais montree a 1'homme 

 comme un produit des forces qui regissent la matiere, j'ai 

 pu servir la doctrine spiritualiste fort delaissee ailleurs, 

 mais assuree du moins de trouver dans vos rangs un 

 glorieux refuge. Peut-etre aussi m'avez vous su gre 

 •d'avoir apporte dans cette question ardue de l'origine des 

 infiniment petits, une rigueur experimentale qui a fini par 

 lasser la contradiction. Reportons-en toutefois le merite 



