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It not by reason of the egoistical satisfaction of our private vanity that the world-to-day pays homage to savants. No; it is because it knows that a savant really worthy of the name devotes a disinterested life to the great work of our epoch—I mean to say to the improvement, too slow, alas! for our taste, of the condition of every one, from the richest and happiest to the humble, the poor, and the suffering. That is what the public declared nine years ago in this same hall when honouring Pasteur. That is what my friend Chaplain has tried to express on the beautiful medal which the President of the Republic will presently offer me. I do not know if I have completely fulfilled noble ideal traced by the artist, but I have tried to make it object and end, the directing idea of my existence. (en) |
