The artificial products do not have any molecular dissymmetry; and I could not indicate the existence of a more profound separation between the products born under the influence of life and all the others.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the fundamental difference between natural and artificial products at a molecular level.
Louis Pasteur emphasizes that artificial products lack the molecular asymmetry that characterizes products of life. He suggests that there is a profound distinction between naturally occurring substances and those created artificially, implying that life has a unique influence that cannot be replicated by man-made processes.
In practice
In a scientific presentation discussing the differences between synthetic and natural substances.
To demonstrate experimentally that a microscopic organism actually is the cause of a disease and the agent of contagion, I know no other way, in the present state of Science, than to subject the microbe (the new and happy term introduced by M. Sédillot) to the method of cultivation out of the body.
The universe is an asymmetrical entity. I am inclined to believe that life as it is manifested to us must be a function of the asymmetry of the universe or of the consequence of this fact. The universe is asymmetrical; for if one placed the entire set of bodies that compose the solar system, each moving in its own way, before a mirror, the image shown would not be superimposable on the reality.
These are the living springs of great thoughts and great actions. Everything grows clear in the reflections from the Infinite.
Without theory, practice is but routine born of habit. Theory alone can bring forth and develop the spirit of invention. ... [Do not] share the opinion of those narrow minds who disdain everything in science which has not an immediate application. ... A theoretical discovery has but the merit of its existence: it awakens hope, and that is all. But let it be cultivated, let it grow, and you will see what it will become.
These three things-work, will, success-fill human existences. Will opens the door to success, both brilliant and happy. Work passes these doors, and at the end of the journey success comes in to crown one's efforts.
Chance favors those who are prepared.
In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.
The Earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides, is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars.
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
I’ve spent something like 17 years working on a theory for which there is essentially no direct experimental support.
An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
I'm afraid that it's not possible to design a defense against every conceivable threat that you can think of.
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