24 Pasteur's Life and Researches. 



country. His chemical teachers in Paris were Dumas and 

 Balard, and both seem to have had their own special influence 

 in moulding his character. The vivacity of Balard and his en- 

 thusiam on the one hand, and the serene gravity, exactness, and 

 method of Dumas on the other, both answered the needs of 

 Pasteur's mind, so that the teachings of both were to be clearly 

 traced in Pasteur's researches. It is certain that this great 

 man owed to the freedom of work and the facilities for solitary 

 reading which he then enjoyed the first occasion for an investi- 

 gation which was the starting point to a discovery. Pasteur's 

 career as a scientific discoverer was a very remarkable one. 

 Glancing over his different researches it might almost be 

 thought at first sight that they dealt with a wide range of 

 subjects utterly unconnected with each other ; yet they were 

 really all more or less mutually dependent. And that 

 this was the case is more remarkable, as is shown by the 

 fact that again and again chance circumstances led him from 

 subject to subject. Whatever work came in his way he threw 

 himself into with the ardour of an enthusiast. Nothing 

 daunted him. Nothing could stay his progress. He has, as 

 Tyndall so well put it, that almost Divine power of " distilling 

 from facts their essence." His scientific genius is almost 

 irresistible, and difficulties fall before him like corn before the 

 reaper. Pasteur's life has been largely devoted to the study of 

 what had been called, not unaptly, " the infinitely little" — that 

 world of tiny organisations invisible to the naked eye, but so 

 marvellously potent, sometimes for good and at others for evil. 

 It is M. Pasteur who has shown that everywhere surrounding 

 us this invisible and unsuspected host lurk, some, it may be 

 said, friendly and ready to labour for us if we command 

 them ; others deadly enemies, biding time and opportunity 

 to attack, and even to slay us. Others, again, silently engage 

 in those great works of nature by which the earth is constantly 

 purified, and all traces of death and decay obliterated. And 

 not only has M. Pasteur traced the workings of this liliputian 

 army, but he has gone a great deal further, and has, it may 

 almost be said, brought it into subjection, for he has taught 



