Page 28 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

ANTOINE BfiGHAMP 25

and religion, the one a search after truth, and the other,
the effort to live up to individual belief. His faith had
widened to a breadth incomprehensible to dogmatic bigots,
so that even the appointment of a Commission was sug-
gested to recommend the placing on the Roman Index of
his book Les Microzymas, which culminates in the acclama-
tion ofGOD as the Supreme Source. Bechamp's teachings
are in direct opposition to materialistic views. But those
priests had not the insight to see that the Creator is best
demonstrated by the marvels of Creation, or appreciate
the truth taught by Ananias, Azarias and Misael in calling
upon the Lord to be praised through His Works!
Impatient of petty bickerings, like most men of large
intellect, Bechamp found himself more and more at a dis-
advantage in surroundings where he was misinterpreted
and misunderstood. Neither were these his only worries.
He was suffering from the jealousy he had inspired in
Pasteur, and was smarting from the latter's public attack
upon him at the International Medical Congress in
London, which they had both attended in the year 1881.
Such behaviour on the part of a compatriot before a
foreign audience had seared the sensitive spirit ofBechamp
and decided him to reply to Pasteur's plagiarisms. As he
writes in the Preface to Les Microzymas 1 :— "The hour to
speak has come!"
Another hour was soon to strike for him. After enduring
for about eleven years the prejudices and persecutions of
the Bishops and Rectors of Lille, he felt unable to continue
to submit to the restraints placed upon his work. No cause
of complaint could be upheld against him; the charge of
materialism in his views could not be supported; but rather
than have his life-work continually hampered, the Pro-
fessor regretfully decided to send in his resignation, and
his son Joseph, for his father's sake, felt impelled to do the
same. Thus father and son, the shining lights of Lille's
educational circle, found their official careers cut short
and experienced that bitterness of spirit understood only
by those whose chief lode-star has been their work.
*p. 8.