WILLIAM HARVEY, M. D. 53 



Harvey concludes that " All these phenomenon and many 

 others observed in dissecting, if rightly weighed, seem clearly 

 to illumine and fully confirm the truth contended throughout 

 these pages ... it would be difficult to explain in any other 

 way for what cause all is constructed and arranged as we have 

 seen it to be." 



Notwithstanding, the modern scientist with his dispropor- 

 tionate worship of observation manages for the most part to 

 ignore the role played by reason, thereby missing what is so 

 magnificent in this classic work. The carefully organized nature 

 of Harvey's demonstration can be detected by scrutinizing 

 Harvey's table of contents, which, because it is a contraction, 

 mirrors the logical structure of the masterpiece in bold outline. 

 The following represents a structural analysis of the table: 



Analysis of Harvey's Table of Contents " of an Ana- 

 tomical Exercise on the Motion of the 

 Heart and Blood 



Part 1. Prefatory 



A. Dedicatory: extrinsic to work, 



1. To the King: to civil authority, 



2. To Learned Physicians: to peers who respect truth. 



B. Introductory: intrinsic to work, 



1 . ' Introduction ': establishes the need for the work; 

 dated to the belief of scientists of that period. 



2. ' The Causes Moving the Author to Write ' (Ch. 1) : 

 establishes the difficulty of the work; timeless, as the 

 truths obtained from nature are permanent and belong 

 to posterity. 



Part 2. Motion of the Cardiovascular System (Ch. 2-7) 



A. Motion of the Containing Parts 



1. 'Motion of the heart through dissection of living ani- 

 mals.' (Ch. 2) 



^^ Words enclosed in single quotation marks are those used by Harvey as chapter 

 headings. Other quotations have individual reference numbers. 



