Page 89 - Ethel D. Hume - Bešam ili Paster: Izgubljeno poglavlje u istoriji biologije

86 BfiCHAMP OR PASTEUR? —
naturalist, and who was taking little part in all the talk
because he was so hard at work wresting fresh secrets from
Nature.
Even admitting that he demonstrated before Pasteur,
and far more thoroughly, the role of air-borne organisms,
it may yet be asked how Bechamp's observations en-
lightened any better the deeper depths of the heterogenetic
mystery.
The answer to this is that, in his Memoir of 1857, the
Professor did not include certain of his observations. His
reason for the omission was that the results he obtained
seemed too^ contradictory to be accurate. Believing that
he had made some mistake, he set aside these particular
experiments for the time being. In the end, as the follow-
ing pages hope to set forth, his apparent failure was to
prove the solution of the problem and was to give, so he at
least believed, the basic explanation of the development of
organised life from the minutest commencements. It was,
in fact, according to him, to be the nearest elucidation ever
given of animal and vegetable upbuilding, of the processes
of health, disease and final disruption. In short, it was to
wrest from Nature the stupendous truth, which, in the
great Master's own words, rings out like a clarion:
"Rien rCest laproie de la mort; tout est la proie de la vie/" 1
1
"Nothing is the prey of death; everything is the prey of life!"