THE HARVEY TRICENTENARY. 397 



already known, or to place them before you in a new light. And, 

 happily, this is not my function ; I have to act simply as your remem- 

 brancer, to play the part of the herald who announces the familiar titles 

 of a monarch on a state occasion. 



Harvey's titles are three : he was the discoverer of the circulation 

 of the blood; he wrote the " Exercitatio de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis; " 

 he formulated anew the theory of epigenesis, and thereby founded the 

 modern doctrine of development. 



His first and, in general estimation, his greatest title to our honor 

 has been challenged ; but only to the confusion of the challengers. A 

 century ago, your Fellow, Dr. Lawrence, in the excellent memoir pref- 

 aced to the college edition of Harvey's works, met the arguments of 

 those who had, up to that time, attempted to dim his fame, with a solid 

 refutation, which has never been answered, and to my mind remains 

 unanswerable. In our own day, Dr. Willis has stated the facts of the 

 case, and deduced the inevitable conclusion, with no less force and 

 cogency. And, having taken some pains to get at the truth of the 

 matter myself, I may state my clear conviction that Harvey stands 

 almost alone among great scientific discoverers ; not so much that, as 

 Hobbes said, he lived to see the doctrine he propounded received into 

 the body of universally-accepted truth, but because that doctrine was 

 both absolutely original and absolutely new. I have yet to meet with 

 a single particle of evidence to show that, before Harvey declared the 

 fact that the blood is in constant circular motion, there was so much as 

 a suspicion on the part of any of his predecessors or contemporaries 

 that such is the case. Neither in Galen, nor in Servetus, nor in Real- 

 dus Columbus, nor in Cassalpinus, is there a hint that a given portion of 

 blood sent out from the left ventricle passes through the body and the 

 lungs and returns to the place whence it started ; yet this is the es- 

 sence of Harvey's discovery. 



Hence, when we hear of pompous inscriptions being put up in Spain 

 to Michael Servetus, " the discoverer of the circulation," or in Italy to 

 Ccesalpinus, " the discoverer of the circulation," it is well to recollect 

 that churchyards have no monopoly of unhistorical inscriptions. In- 

 deed, have we not ourselves, within easy walking-distance, that famous 

 monument, the subject of Pope's scathing but just lines : 



" And London's column, soaring to the skies 

 Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies? " 



Sir, I have no sympathy with chauvinism of any kind, but, surely, 

 of all kinds that is the worst which obtrudes pitiful national jealousies 

 and rivalries into the realm of science. We will not shame ourselves 

 by permitting the fact of Harvey's English birth to enter into the con- 

 sideration of his claims as a discoverer ; but those claims once estab- 

 lished beyond dispute, it is, I hope, something nobler and better than 

 mere national vanity which brings vis together to celebrate his birth ; 



