Pasteur, having thus rendered homage to J. B. Dumas, and having glorified his country by his presence, his speech and the great honours conferred on him, would have returned home at once; but the undergraduates begged to be allowed to entertain, the next day, some of those men whom they looked upon as examples and whom they might never see again.
Pasteur thanked the students for this invitation, which filled him with pride and pleasure, for he had always loved young people, he said, and continued, in his deep, stirring voice:
“Ever since I can remember my life as a man, I do not think I have ever spoken for the first time with a student without saying to him, ‘Work perseveringly; work can be made into a pleasure, and alone is profitable to man, to his city, to his country.’ It is even more natural that I should thus speak to you. The common soul (if I may so speak) of an assembly of young men is wholly formed of the most generous feelings, being yet illumined with the divine spark which is in every man as he enters this world. You have just given a proof of this assurance, and I have felt moved to the heart in hearing you applaud, as you have just been doing, such men as de Lesseps, Helmholtz and Virchow. Your language has borrowed from ours the beautiful word enthusiasm, bequeathed to us by the Greeks: εν θεός, an inward God. It was almost with a divine feeling that you just now cheered those great men.
“One of those of our writers who have best made known to France and to Europe the philosophy of Robert Reid and Dugald Stewart said, addressing young men in the preface of one of his works:—
“‘Whatever career you may embrace, look up to an exalted goal; worship great men and great things.’
“Great things! You have indeed seen them. Will not this centenary remain one of Scotland’s glorious memories? As to great men, in no country is their memory better honoured than in yours. But, if work should be the very life of your life, if the cult for great men and great things should be associated with your every thought, that is still not enough. Try to bring into everything you undertake the spirit of scientific method, founded on the immortal works of Galileo, Descartes and Newton.
“You especially, medical students of this celebrated University of Edinburgh—who, trained as you are by eminent masters, may aspire to the highest scientific ambition—be you inspired by the experimental method. To its principles, Scotland owes such men as Brewster, Thomson and Lister.”
The speaker who had to respond on behalf of the students to the foreign delegates expressed himself thus, directly addressing Pasteur:
“Monsieur Pasteur, you have snatched from nature secrets too carefully, almost maliciously hidden. We greet in you a benefactor of humanity, all the more so because we know that you admit the existence of spiritual secrets, revealed to us by what you have just called the work of God in us.
“Representatives of France, we beg you to tell your great country that we are following with admiration the great reforms now being introduced into every branch of your education, reforms which we look upon as tokens of a beneficent rivalry and of a more and more cordial intercourse—for misunderstandings result from ignorance, a darkness lightened by the work of scientists.”