Signor Susani was looking forward to producing for that one year 30,000 ounces of seed. In the presence of the prodigious activity of this veritable factory—where, besides the microscope women, more than one hundred persons were occupied in various ways, washing the mortars with which the moths are pounded before being put under the microscopes, cleansing the slides, etc.; in fact, doing those various delicate but simple operations which had formerly been pronounced to be impracticable—Pasteur’s thoughts went back to his experiments in the Pont-Gisquet greenhouse, to the modest beginnings of his process, now so magnificently applied in Italy. A month before this, J. B. Dumas, presiding at a scientific meeting at Clermont Ferrand, had said—
“The future belongs to Science; woe to the nations who close their eyes to this fact.... Let us call to our aid on this neutral and pacific ground of Natural Philosophy, where defeats cost neither blood nor tears, those hearts which are moved by their country’s grandeur; it is by the exaltation of science that France will recover her prestige.”
Those same ideas were expressed in a toast given by Pasteur in the name of France at a farewell banquet, when the 300 members of the Sericiculture Congress were present.
“Gentlemen, I propose a toast—To the peaceful strife of Science. It is the first time that I have the honour of being present on foreign soil at an international congress; I ask myself what are the impressions produced in me, besides these courteous discussions, by the brilliant hospitality of the noble Milanese city, and I find myself deeply impressed by two propositions. First, that Science is of no nationality; and secondly, in apparent, but only in apparent, contradiction, that Science is the highest personification of nationality. Science has no nationality because knowledge is the patrimony of humanity, the torch which gives light to the world. Science should be the highest personification of nationality because, of all the nations, that one will always be foremost which shall be first to progress by the labours of thought and of intelligence.
“Let us therefore strive in the pacific field of Science for the pre-eminence of our several countries. Let us strive, for strife is effort, strife is life when progress is the goal.
“You Italians, try to multiply on the soil of your beautiful and glorious country the Tecchi, the Brioschi, the Tacchini, the Sella, the Cornalia.... You, proud children of Austria-Hungary, follow even more firmly than in the past the fruitful impulse which an eminent statesman, now your representative at the Court of England, has given to Science and Agriculture. We, who are here present, do not forget that the first sericiculture establishment was founded in Austria. As to you, Japanese, may the cultivation of Science be numbered among the chief objects of your care in the amazing social and political transformation of which you are giving the marvellous spectacle to the world. We Frenchmen, bending under the sorrow of our mutilated country, should show once again that great trials may give rise to great thoughts and great actions.
“I drink to the peaceful strife of Science.”
“You will find,” wrote Pasteur to Dumas, telling him of this toast, which had been received with enthusiastic applause, “an echo of the feelings with which you have inspired your pupils on the grandeur and the destiny of Science in modern society.”
The tender and delicate side of this powerful spirit was thus once again apparent in this deference to his master in the midst of acclamations, and in those deep and noble ideas expressed in the middle of a noisy banquet. But it was chiefly in his private life that his open-heartedness, his desire to love and to be loved, became apparent. That great genius had a childlike heart, and the charm of this was incomparable.
He once said: “The recompense and the ambition of a scientist is to conquer the approbation of his peers and of the masters whom he venerates.” He had already known that recompense and could satisfy that ambition. Dumas had known and appreciated him for thirty years; Lister had proclaimed his gratitude; Tyndall—an indefatigable excursionist, who loved to survey wide horizons, and who in his celebrated classes was wont to make use of comparisons with altitudes and heights and everything which opens a clear and vast outlook—had a great admiration for the wide development of Pasteur’s work. Now, Pasteur’s experiments had been strongly attacked by a young English physician, Dr. Bastian, who had excited in the English and American public a bitter prejudice against the results announced by Pasteur on the subject of spontaneous generation.