Transcriber’s Note:
The position of the footnote anchor 171 at page 229 isa guess of the transcriber as the anchor was missing in the original book.
The book cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
OPTIMISTIC STUDIES
BY
ÉLIE METCHNIKOFF
SUB-DIRECTOR OF THE PASTEUR INSTITUTE, PARIS
THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
EDITED BY
P. CHALMERS MITCHELL
M.A., D.SC. OXON., HON. LL.D., F.R.S.
Secretary of the Zoological Society of London; Corresponding Member
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1908
Élie Metchnikoff has carried on the high purpose of thePasteur Institute by devoting his genius for biologicalinquiry to the service of man. Some years ago, in a seriesof Essays which were intended to be provocative andeducational, rather than expository, he described the directiontowards which he was pressing. I had the privilegeof introducing these Essays to English readers under thetitle The Nature of Man, a Study in Optimistic Philosophy.In that volume, Professor Metchnikoff recounted howsentient man, regarding his lot in the world, had found itevil. Philosophy and literature, religion and folk-lore, inancient and modern times have been deeply tinged withpessimism. The source of these gloomy views lies in thenature of man itself. Man has inherited a constitutionfrom remote animal ancestors, and every part of his structure,physical, mental and emotional, is a complex legacyof diverse elements. Possibly at one time each qualityhad its purpose as an adaptation to environment, but, asman, in the course of his evolution, and the environmentitself have changed, the old harmonious intercoursebetween quality and circumstances has been dislocated inmany cases. And so there have come into existence manyinstances of what the Professor calls “disharmony,” persistencesof structures, or habits, or desires that are novilonger useful, but even harmful, failures of parallelismbetween the growth, maturity and decay of physical andmental qualities and so forth. Religions and philosophiesalike have failed to find remedies or efficient anodynes forthese evils of existence, and, so far, man is justified ofhis historical and actual pessimism.
Metchnikoff, however, was able to proclaim himself anoptimist, and found, in biological science, for the presentgeneration a hope, or, at the least, an end towards which towork, and for future generations a possible achievement ofthat hope. Three chief evils that hang over us are disease,old age, and death. Modern science has already made vaststrides towards the destruction of disease, and no one hasmore right to be listened to than a leader of the PasteurInstitute when he asserts his confidence that rationalhygiene and preventive measures will ultimately rid mankindof disease. The scientific investigation of old ageshows that senility is nearly always precocious and that itsdisabilities and miseries are for the most part due to preventablecauses. Metchnikoff showed years ago that thereexists in the human body a number of cells known generallyas phagocytes, the chief function of which is to devourintruding microbes. But these guardians of the body mayturn into its deadly enemies by destroying and replacingthe higher elements, th