THE ASYMMETRY OF THE CYCLE OF
LIFE 147
seriously
contradict one of mine.” In passing, be it remarked that every word of this
passage might be applied to happenings at the present time regarding the
problems of cancer. Then Pasteur explained how the whole series of his
marvellous discoveries, chemical, bacteriological, or medical, hung together
and formed a complete chain—e.g., anthrax, the pure fermentation of
beer, the acetification of vinegar, the diseases of vines, the means of
preventing them, and, lastly, going back seventeen years, the first link in the
chain of discoveries, that of the double tartrate crystals, and the facts concerning
their dimorphism.* “ The best proof that an observer is right is the uninterrupted
fruitfulness of his work.”**
Pasteur
worked for seventeen years at his chain of discoveries; it was in 1907
nineteen years since the first link of my chain was forged. The thread each of
us obtained at the start was the discovery of the antithesis of two things: he,
the two kinds of tartrate crystals; I, the two distinct and separate nervous
systems in the life-cycle of a fish.
Why
should all this be? What connection was there between the two facts, which,
apparently, were as wide apart as the poles? The evident fact has already been
referred to, that in 1904 the two independent lines of work were converging,
but it was more than this. It was a union. The thing which impelled Pasteur’s
work incited mine also. The antithesis he discovered was in
* Pasteur, Louis: “De Ia Dissymmétrie Moléculaire
des Produits Organiques Naturels.” Lecon professée devant la Société Chimique,
1860.
** This chain-like
character of Pasteur’s researches has been commented upon by others—thus by
Miall (“History of Biology.” 1911)—but I doubt whether any of the commentators
have grasped the true significance of Pasteur’s meaning.