WILLIAM HARVEY, M. D. 59 



sideration of the inner parts of other animals which in any- 

 way resembles that of man." ^- 



The fifth canon emphasizes that one should systematically 

 study other animals " according to the Socratic rule " for this 

 will permit one to refute and correct errors in natural phi- 

 losophy, and to discover the use, action and dignity of things, 

 and thereby obtain for anatomy knowledge of the causes of the 

 parts, the ends, their necessity and use. The Harvey passage 

 is as follows: 



Since the intimate connection of the heart with the lungs, which 

 is apparent in the human subject, has been the probable occasion 

 of the errors that have been committed on this point, they plainly 

 do amiss who speak and demonstrate the parts of animals generally 

 (as all anatomists commonly do) from the dissections of man alone, 

 and at that dead. They obviously act no otherwise than he, who, 

 having studied the form of a single republic, should set about a 

 general discipline of polity; or who, having taken cognizance of a 

 single farm, should imagine that he has scientific knowledge of 

 agriculture; or who, on one particular proposition attempts to 

 syllogize the universal. Had anatomists only been as conversant 

 with the dissection of the lower animals as they are with that of 

 the human body, the matters that have hitherto kept them in a 

 perplexity of doubt would in my opinion, have met them freed 

 from every kind of difficulty.^^ 



It should be seen here that in his dedication to comparative 

 anatomy, to Socrates' and Aristotle's rule, Harvey differs from 

 the modern scientist. The latter directs this branch of biology 

 primarily to taxonomy or to the elucidation of evolutionary his- 

 tory. The Socratic rule, on the contrary, is directed at eliciting 

 an essential definition through the use of the inductive method. 

 Socrates, according to Aristotle, was interested in what a thing 

 is, its essence, as the starting point for syllogizing. " Two 

 things may be fairly ascribed to Socrates," says Aristotle, " in- 

 ductive arguments and universal definitions, both of which are 

 concerned with the starting point of science." 



34 



'''Aristotle, The History of Animals, Bk. 1, ch. 16, 494 b 21-24. 



*^ Harvey, Works, op. cit., ch. 6, p. 35. 



** Aristotle, Metaphysics, Bk. M, ch. 4, 1078 b 18-30. 



