But this strange neglect to give credit for the good work of others must not be posted too strongly against him in the Book of St. Peter, because you can see his fine imagination, that poet’s thought of his, making its first attempts at showing that microbes are the real murderers of the human race. He dreams in this paper that just as there is putrid meat, so there are putrid diseases. He tells how he suffered in this work with meat gone bad; he tells about the bad smells--and how he hated bad smells!--that filled his little laboratory during these researches: “My researches on the fermentations have led me naturally toward these studies to which I have resolved to devote myself without too much thought of their danger or of the disgust which they inspire in me,” and then he told the Academy of the hard job that awaited him; he explained to them why he must not shrink from it, by making a graceful quotation from the great Lavoisier: “Public usefulness and the interests of humanity ennoble the most disgusting work and only allow enlightened men to see the zeal which is needed to overcome obstacles.” IV So he prepared the stage for his dangerous experiments--years before he entered on them. He prepared a public stage-setting. His proposed heroism thrilled the calm men of science that were his audience. As they returned home through the gray streets of the ancient Latin Quarter they could imagine Pasteur bidding them a farewell full of emotion, they could see him marching with set lips--wanting to hold his nose but bravely not doing it--into the midst of stinking pestilences where perilous microbes lay in wait for him.... It is so that Pasteur proved himself much more useful than Leeuwenhoek or Spallanzani--he did excellent experiments, and then had a knack of presenting them in a way to heat up the world about them. Grave men of science grew excited. Simple people saw clear visions of the yeasts that made the wine that was their staff of life and they were troubled at nights by thoughts of hovering invisible putrid microbes in the air....