They are tough, the germs of these little bodies, said the Master. --Three hours' boiling has n't killed 'em. Now, then, let us see what has been the effect of six hours' boiling.
He took up another flask just like the first, containing fluid and hermetically sealed in the same way.
--Boiled just three hours longer than the other, he said,--six hours in all. This is the experimentum crucis. Do you see any cloudiness in it?
--Not a sign of it; it is as clear as crystal, except that there may be a little sediment at the bottom.
--That is nothing. The liquid is clear. We shall find no signs of life.--He put a minute drop of the liquid under the microscope as before. Nothing stirred. Nothing to be seen but a clear circle of light. We looked at it again and again, but with the same result.
--Six hours kill 'em all, according to this experiment,--said the Master.--Good as far as it goes. One more negative result. Do you know what would have happened if that liquid had been clouded, and we had found life in the sealed flask? Sir, if that liquid had held life in it the Vatican would have trembled to hear it, and there would have been anxious questionings and ominous whisperings in the halls of Lambeth palace! The accepted cosmogonies on trial, sir!
Traditions, sanctities, creeds, ecclesiastical establishments, all shaking to know whether my little sixpenny flask of fluid looks muddy or not! I don't know whether to laugh or shudder. The thought of an oecumenical council having its leading feature dislocated by my trifling experiment! The thought, again, of the mighty revolution in human beliefs and affairs that might grow out of the same insignificant little phenomenon. A wine-glassful of clear liquid growing muddy. If we had found a wriggle, or a zigzag, or a shoot from one side to the other, in this last flask, what a scare there would have been, to be sure, in the schools of the prophets! Talk about your megatherium and your megalosaurus,--what are these to the bacterium and the vibrio? These are the dreadful monsters of today. If they show themselves where they have no business, the little rascals frighten honest folks worse than ever people were frightened by the Dragon of Rhodes!