“My dear and illustrious master,” answered Pasteur (July 18, 1865), “in the face of your letter and its expressions of affectionate confidence, I cannot refuse to submit to you a paper which you must promise to throw away if it should not be exactly what you want. I must also ask you to grant me much time, partly on account of my inexperience, and partly on account of the fatigue both mental and bodily imposed on me by the illness of our dear child.”
Dumas replied: “Dear friend and colleague, I thank you for your kind acquiescence in Lavoisier’s interests, which might well be your own, for no one at this time represents better than you do his spirit and method,—a method in which reasoning had more share than anything else.
“The art of observation and that of experimentation are very distinct. In the first case, the fact may either proceed from logical reasons or be mere good fortune; it is sufficient to have some penetration and the sense of truth in order to profit by it. But the art of experimentation leads from the first to the last link of the chain, without hesitation and without a blank, making successive use of Reason, which suggests an alternative, and of Experience, which decides on it, until, starting from a faint glimmer, the full blaze of light is reached. Lavoisier made this art into a method, and you possess it to a degree which always gives me a pleasure for which I am grateful to you.
“Take your time. Lavoisier has waited seventy years! It is a century since his first results were produced! What are weeks and months?
“I feel for you with all my heart! I know how heartrending are those moments by the deathbed of a suffering child. I hope and trust this great sorrow will be spared you, as indeed you deserve that it should be.”
The promise made by Dumas to give to France an edition of Lavoisier’s works dated very far back. It was in May, 1836, in one of his eloquent lectures at the Collège de France, that Dumas had declared his intention of raising a scientific monument to the memory of this, perhaps the greatest of all French scientists. He had hoped that a Bill would be passed by the Government of Louis Philippe decreeing that this edition of Lavoisier’s works would be produced at the expense of the State. But the usual obstacles and formalities came in the way. Governments succeeded each other, and it was only in 1861 that Dumas obtained the decree he wished for and that the book appeared.
Certainly Pasteur knew and admired as much as any one the discoveries of Lavoisier. But, in the presence of the series of labours accomplished, in spite of many other burdens, during that life cut off in its prime by the Revolutionary Tribunal (1792), labours collated for the first time by Dumas, Pasteur was filled with a new and vivid emotion. His logic in reasoning and his patience in observing nature had in no wise diminished the impetuous generosity of his feelings; a beautiful book, a great discovery, a brilliant exploit or a humble act of kindness would move him to tears. Concerning such a man as Lavoisier, Pasteur’s curiosity became a sort of worship. He would have had the history of such a life spread everywhere. “Though one discovery always surpasses another, and though the chemical and physical knowledge accumulated since his time has gone beyond all Lavoisier’s dreams,” wrote Pasteur, “his work, like that of Newton and a few other rare spirits, will remain ever young. Certain details will age, as do the fashions of another time, but the foundation, the method, constitute one of those great aspects of the human mind, the majesty of which is only increased by years....”
Pasteur’s article appeared in the Moniteur and was much praised by the celebrated critic Sainte Beuve, whose literary lectures were often attended by Pasteur, between 1857 and 1861. The chronological order that we are following in this history of Pasteur’s life allows us to follow the ideas and feelings with which he lived his life of hard daily work combined with daily devotion to others. Joys and sorrows can be chronicled, thanks to the confidences of those who loved him. His fame is indeed part of the future, but the tenderness which he inspired revives the memories of the past.
In September, 1865, little Camille died. Pasteur took the tiny coffin to Arbois and went back to his work. A letter written in November alludes to the depth of his grief.
It was à propos of a candidature to the Académie des Sciences, Sainte Beuve was asked to help that of a young friend of his, Charles Robin. Robin occupied a professor’s chair specially created for him at the Faculté de Médecine; he had made a deep microscopical study of the tissues of living bodies, of cellular life, of all which constitutes histology. He was convinced that outside his own studies, numerous questions would fall more and more into the domain of experimentation, and he believed that the faith in spiritual things could not “stand the struggle against the spirit of the times, wholly turned to positive things.” He did not, like Pasteur, understand the clear distinction between the scientist on the one hand and the man of sentiment on the other, each absolutely independent. Neither did he imitate the reserve of Claude Bernard who did not allow himself to be pressed by any urgent questioner into enrolment with either the believers or the unbelievers, but answered: “When I am in my laboratory, I begin by shutting the door on materialism and on spiritualism; I observe facts alone; I seek but the scientific conditions under which life manifests itself.” Robin was a disciple of Auguste Comte, and proclaimed himself a Positivist, a word which for superficial people was the equivalent of materialist. The same efforts which had succeeded in keeping Littré out of the Académie Française in 1863 were now attempted in order to keep Robin out of the Académie des Sciences in 1865.