44 HERBERT ALBERT RATNER 



If these comments truly delineate Harvey's contribution, we 

 are faced with the following paradox: Harvey, who was edu- 

 cated superbly in the traditional education of his time, who 

 considered himself a loyal traditionalist in science and philoso- 

 phy, and who utilized philosophical arguments based on the 

 established teleology of the day, all of which are alleged to be 

 antithetical to scientific advance, was also the same Harvey 

 who produced a brilliant, original and revolutionary work of 

 science which laid the groundwork for modern physiology and 

 medicine. 



To explicate this paradox, it seems incumbent upon us to 

 keep open the possibility that the fruit of his labors bears a 

 direct relationship to the tree that bore it and the intellectual 

 soil that nourished it. That Harvey was well educated, and 

 respected and utilized his learning heightens this possibility. 

 Furthermore, Harvey was one of the few successful investiga- 

 tors in the history of science who actually thought about and 

 wrote on scientific methodology, and whose thinking on this 

 permits us to measure his reciprocal accomplishments. 



It is ironic, in contrast, that the modern scientist looks upon 

 Harvey's contemporary, Francis Bacon, as the father of modern 

 science, despite history's testimony that no scientific dis- 

 covery can be attributed to the Baconian method. It is par- 

 ticularly ironic since there is no indication that Bacon even 

 recognized Harvey's striking contribution. A leading Bacon 

 scholar writes, " The probability is that ... he regarded the 

 theory as hardly worthy of serious discussion."" Contrari- 

 wise, Harvey, who was Bacon's personal physician, said of him 

 derogatorily that, although he enjoyed his wit and style, Bacon 

 " writes philosophy like a Lord Chancellor." ^- 



The alternative of the hypothesis that Harvey's contribution 

 flowed from his past is a dismal one. It forces one to conclude 

 that Harvey was a schizophrenic, a duality — a sterile scholastic 

 and a fertile scientist — rather than a unity; and that his " bril- 



^^ Thomas Fowler, Bacon's Novum Organum, Edited with Introduction, Notes, 

 etc., 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1889) p. 28. 



^^ John Aubrey, Lives oj Eminent Men (London, 1813), vol. 2, p. 381. 



