Page 122 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS 119

no reason why Pasteur should have understood the body.
He never received any medical, physiological or biological
training and had no pretensions to being a naturalist.
Chemist though he was, he seems to have had no intuitive
sharpness for the branch of science to which he turned his
attention. When he took his degree of Bachelor of Science,
his examiner appended a note to his diploma stating that
he was only "mediocre in chemistry." He does not even
seem to have been particularly quick in grasping the ideas
of other people, for we have seen what a long time it took
before he realised the correctness of Bechamp's explana-
tion ofpe brine. It was in worldly wisdom that his mind was
acute. Fortune favoured him, and he wasjilways on the
alert to seize opportunities; but, sad to say, it seems that
he was not above pushing himself at someone else's
expense, even though the progress of science were thereby
hampered, and we can only deplore this misuse of his
admirable persistence and energy.
While Pasteur learned nothing more about life than the
fact that there are living organisms in the air, Professor
Bechamp continued his untiring experiments. Fate was
kind in bringing to his help Professor Estor, another
worker fully qualified by training and experience. The
two scientists were hard-working men, with their minds
well exercised by their daily toil, their very discoveries
bred, in many cases, by their clinical observations.
Bechamp made discoveries in the same way that a Beet-
hoven composes, a Raphael paints and a Dickens writes,
that is to say, because he could not help himself, he could
not do otherwise. In pathetic contrast, we find men to-day
taken away from practical work and set down in labora-
tories to make discoveries. In many cases, they have mediocre
minds which could never originate an idea of any sort.
All they can follow are routine theories and their so-called
"discoveries" are of the type that pile up error upon error.
Provide a man with his practical work, and if he have the
discoverer's rare insight, as night yields to day, so will
practice find enlightenment. What is urgently needed i s