And that separation, as he understood it, caused in him none of those conflicts which often determine a crisis in a human soul. As a scientist, he claimed absolute liberty of research; he considered, with Claude Bernard and Littré, that it was a mistaken waste of time to endeavour to penetrate primary causes; “we can only note correlations,” he said. But, with the spiritual sentiment which caused him to claim for the inner moral life the same liberty os for scientific research, he could not understand certain givers of easy explanations who affirm that matter has organized itself, and who, considering as perfectly simple the spectacle of the Universe of which Earth is but an infinitesimal part, are in no wise moved by the Infinite Power who created the worlds. With his whole heart he proclaimed the immortality of the soul.
His mode of looking upon human life, in spite of sorrows, of struggles, of heavy burdens, had in it a strong element of consolation: “No effort is wasted,” he said, giving thus a most virile lesson of philosophy to those inferior minds who only see immediate results in the work they undertake and are discouraged by the first disappointment. In his respect for the great phenomenon of Conscience, by which almost all men, enveloped as they are in the mystery of the Universe, have the prescience of an Ideal, of a God, he considered that “the greatness of human actions can be measured by the inspirations which give them birth.” He was convinced that there are no vain prayers. If all is simple to the simple, all is great to the great; it was through “the Divine regions of Knowledge and of Light” that he had visions of those who are no more.
It was very seldom that he spoke of such things, though he was sometimes induced to do so in the course of a discussion so as to manifest his repugnance for vainglorious negations and barren irony; sometimes too he would enter into such feelings when speaking to an assembly of young men.
Those discussions at the Academy of Medicine had the advantage of inciting medical men to the research of the infinitesimally small, described by the Annual Secretary Roger as “those subtle artisans of many disorders in the living economy.”
M. Roger, at the end of a brief account of his colleague’s work, wrote, “To the signal services rendered by M. Pasteur to science and to our country, it was but fair that a signal recompense should be given: the National Assembly has undertaken that care.”
That recompense, voted a few months previously, was the third national recompense accorded to French scientists since the beginning of the century. In 1837, Arago, before the Chamber of Deputies, and Gay Lussac, before the Chamber of Peers, had obtained a glorious recognition of the services rendered by Daguerre and Niepce. In 1845 another national recompense was accorded, to M. Vicat, the engineer. In 1874, Paul Bert, a member of the National Assembly, gladly reporting on the projected law tending to offer a national recompense to Pasteur, wrote quoting those precedents:
“Such an assurance of gratitude, given by a nation to men who have made it richer and more illustrious, honours it at least as much as it does them....” Paul Bert continued by enumerating Pasteur’s discoveries, and spoke of the millions Pasteur had assured to France, “without retaining the least share of them for himself.” In sericiculture alone, the losses in twenty years, before Pasteur’s interference, rose to 1,500 millions of francs.
“M. Pasteur’s discoveries, gentlemen,” concluded Paul Bert, “after throwing a new light on the obscure question of fermentations and of the mode of appearance of microscopic beings, have revolutionized certain branches of industry, of agriculture, and of pathology. One is struck with admiration when seeing that so many, and such divers results, proceed—through an unbroken chain of facts, nothing being left to hypothesis—from theoretical studies on the manner in which tartaric acid deviates polarized light. Never was the famous saying, ‘Genius consists in sufficient patience,’ more amply justified. The Government now proposes that you should honour this admirable combination of theoretical and practical study by a national recompense; your Commission unanimously approves of this proposition.
“The suggested recompense consists in a life annuity of 12,000 francs, which is the approximate amount of the salary of the Sorbonne professorship, which M. Pasteur’s ill health has compelled him to give up. It is indeed small when compared with the value of the services rendered, and your Commission much regrets that the state of our finances does not allow us to increase that amount. But the Commission agrees with its learned chairman (M. Marès) ‘that the economic and hygienic results of M. Pasteur’s discoveries will presently become so considerable that the French nation will desire to increase later on its testimony of gratitude towards him and towards Science, of which he is one of the most glorious representatives.’”
Half the amount of the annuity was to revert to Pasteur’s widow. The Bill was passed by 532 votes against 24.