APPENDIX D: HARVEY 413 



any of the arts or sciences transmitted to us by the ancients, in such 

 a state of forwardness or completeness, that nothing is left for the 

 ingenuity and industry of others. On the contrary, very many main- 

 tain that all we know is still infinitely less than all that still remains 

 unknown ; nor do philosophers pin their faith to others' precepts in 

 such wise that they lose their liberty, and cease to give credence to 

 the conclusions of their proper senses. Neither do they swear such 

 fealty to their mistress Antiquity that they openly, and in sight of 

 all, deny and desert their friend Truth. But even as they see that 

 the credulous and vain are disposed at the first blush to accept and 

 believe everything that is proposed to them, so do they observe that 

 the dull and unintellectual are indisposed to see what lies before their 

 eyes, and even deny the light of the noon-day sun. They teach us 

 in our course of philosophy to sedulously avoid the fables of poets 

 and the fancies of the vulgar, as the false conclusions of the sceptics. 

 And then the studious and good and true, never suffer their minds to 

 be warped by the passions of hatred and envy, which unfit men duly 

 to weigh the arguments that are advanced in behalf of truth, or to 

 appreciate the proposition that is even fairly demonstrated. Neither 

 do they think it unworthy of them to change their opinion if truth 

 and undoubted demonstration require them to do so. They do not 

 esteem it discreditable to desert error, though sanctioned by the 

 highest antiquity, for they know full well that to err, to be deceived, 

 is human ; that many things are discovered by accident and that 

 many may be learned indifferently from any quarter, by an old man 

 from a youth, by a person of understanding from one of inferior 

 capacity. 



My dear colleagues, I had no purpose to swell this treatise into a 

 large volume by quoting the names and writings of anatomists, or to 

 make a parade of the strength of my memory, the extent of my read- 

 ing, and the amount of my pains ; because I profess both to learn and 

 to teach anatomy, not from books but from dissections ; not from 

 the positions of philosophers but from the fabric of nature ; and then 

 because I do not think it right or proper to strive to take from the 

 ancients any honor that is their due, nor yet to dispute with the 

 moderns, and enter into controversy with those who have excelled in 

 anatomy and been my teachers. I would not charge with wilful 

 falsehood anyone who was sincerely anxious for truth, nor lay it to 

 anyone's door as a crime that he had fallen into error. I avow myself 



