Ixxiv THE LIFE OF HARVEY. 



lord ambassador would be really angry with him, for there was 

 not only danger of wild beasts but of thieves." 1 



The burthen of the long and able letter to Slegel, of Ham- 

 burg, is still the Circulation. The one addressed to Morison, 

 and the two to Horst, treat of the discovery of the receptacu- 

 lum chyli and thoracic duct by Pecquet. Harvey has been 

 held wanting to his greatness in having refused his assent to the 

 facts of the distinct existence and special office of the lympha- 

 tic system. But, non omnia possumus omnes; Harvey had 

 his own work laid out for him, and the lymphatic system was 

 not a part of it. Asclli's book on the 'Lacteal Viens/ 2 was 

 even published before Harvey's own Exercises on the Heart 

 and Blood had appeared, and must have been familiar to our 

 physiologist ; but that he failed to perceive the import of that 

 discovery, and never inquired particularly into it, cannot surely 

 be rightly laid to him as a charge ; and then, when the newly- 

 discovered system of vessels acquired extension from the re- 

 searches of Pecquet, Rudbeck, and Bartholin, Harvey felt that 

 he was both too old and too infirm to enter on the examination 

 of so extensive and delicate an anatomical question. In entire 

 consistency with his noble nature, however, and in striking 

 contrast with his own opponents, he nowhere formally denies 

 the existence of the new lymphatic vessels ; nor does he once 

 oppose the authority of his name to the investigation of the 

 truth. On the contrary, he states his objections, " not as being 

 obstinately wedded to his own opinion, but that he may show 

 what can readily be urged in opposition to the advocates of the 

 new ideas. Nor do I doubt," he proceeds, " but that many 

 things now hidden in the well of Democritus, will by and by be 

 drawn up into day by the ceaseless industry of a coming age." 3 



1 Aubrey, Op. cit. p. 384. In the printed work the phrase runs thus : " Not only 

 danger of thieves, but of wild beasts." Crowne's anecdote suggests the proper 

 reading. 



* De Venis Lacteis. 4to, Milan, 1622. 



3 First Letter to J. D. Horst, 



