HIS WORKS. Ixv 



Having now disposed of the claims that have been set up 

 in behalf of one or another as the discoverer of the circulation, 

 and shown, we trust satisfactorily, that these are all alike un- 

 tenable, we should now proceed to discuss the question of the 

 cui bono ? but this meets us in so forbidding an aspect, 

 brimful as is our mind with a sense of the all-importance of 

 the knowledge we had from Harvey, and seems so little to 

 belong to our subject, that we gladly pass it by unnoticed; 

 though it be only to find ourselves encountered by that other 

 topic, but little more congenial to our mood of mind and inti- 

 mate persuasion : The merit of Harvey as a discoverer. Few, 

 very few have been found to question this -, but as one man 

 of undeniable learning and eminence in his profession, 1 has 

 very strangely, as it seems to us, been led to do so, it will not 

 be impertinent if we cast away a few words on this matter. 



Discovery is of several, particularly of two kinds : one sensible 

 or perceptive ; another rational or inductive ; the former an act 

 of simple consciousness through an impression made on one or 

 more of the senses ; the latter a conclusion come to by the 

 higher powers of the understanding dealing with data pre- 

 viously acquired by the senses and perceptive faculties. "We 

 look through a telescope, for example, and we perceive a star 

 which no one else had seen before; we note the fact, and so 

 become discoverers of a new star. The merit here is not, 

 surely, very great, though the added fact may be highly im- 

 portant. Again, one of the planets is subject to such perturba- 

 tions in its course that to compose exact tables of its orbit is 

 held impossible. These perturbations are referable to none of 

 the known perturbing causes. A great astronomer suggests the 

 influence of an exterior and unknown planet as their cause. A 



culation. Those who can not see, must, contrary to the popular adage, be admitted 

 to be still blinder than those who will not see. 



1 Dr. William Hunter. Introductory Lectures, p. 59, (4to. Lond. 1784,) to which 

 the reader is referred for a singularly inconsistent and extraordinary string of 

 passages. 



e 



