WILLIAM HARVEY, INI. D. 51 



for its wealth of detail [and] for its great accuracy in many 

 particulars . . . ," but rather on physiological considerations, 

 viz. on its ojfifice, duty and use." 



In another reference Harvey discusses an anatomical obser- 

 vation which " probably led Aristotle to consider this ventricle 

 double, divided transversely." ^^ Other than these, the remain- 

 ing references to Aristotle are utilized to help Harvey make or 

 confirm a particular point. 



Of particular interest is the reference to Aristotle where 

 Harvey enunciates the possibility of " a motion, as it were, in 

 a circle . . . which motion we may be allowed to call circular, 

 in the same way as Aristotle says that the air and the rain 

 emulate the circular motion of the superior bodies; for the 

 moist earth, warmed by the sun, evaporates; the vapors drawn 

 upwards are condensed, and descending in the form of rain, 

 moisten the earth again; and by this arrangement are genera- 

 tions of living things produced; and in like manner too are 

 tempests and meteors engendered by the circular motion, and 

 by the approach and recession of the sun." ^^ 



In connection with this passage, a recent translator and a 

 scientist of renown, who is now President of the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, is able to observe 

 only that " Harvey seems never to have heard of [the] studies 

 [of] Copernicus, J. Kepler, and G. Galilei [which] had over- 

 thrown the Ptolemical theory of the circular motion of the 

 stars in the heavenly spheres . . ." ~° 



But to think of this reference as a poetic metaphor to which 

 scientific error can be attached rather than as a striking evo- 

 cation of Aristotle's analysis of locomotion misses the precision 

 for the poetry in the analogy. 



Here one has to know certain passages from Aristotle's 

 works, Post. Anal, Bk. II, Ch. 12, Physics, Bk. VIII, Ch. 8 & 9, 



^^ Aristotle, History of Animals, Translated by D'Arcy W. Thompson (Oxford, 

 1910). 513 a 35, fn. 3. 



"Harvey, Works, ed. cit., ch. 17, p. 79. 



'" Ibid., ch. 8, p. 46. 



^° Chauncey D. Leake, op. cit., ch. 8, p. 70, fn. 1. 



