LETTERS. 611 



ever name you call it, from which an animal is not only produced, 

 but by which it is afterwards governed, and to the end of its 

 life preserved. As all this, I say, is not readily accounted for, 

 so do I hold it scarcely less difficult to conceive how pestilence 

 or leprosy should be communicated to a distance by contagion, 

 by a zymotic element contained in woollen or linen things, 

 household furniture, even the walls of a house, cement, rub- 

 bish, &c., as we find it stated in the fourteenth chapter of 

 Leviticus. How, I ask, can contagion, long lurking in such 

 things, leave them in fine, and after a long lapse of time pro- 

 duce its like in another body? Nor in one or two only, 

 but in many, without respect of strength, sex, age, tempera- 

 ment, or mode of life, and with such violence that the evil 

 can by no art be stayed or mitigated. Truly it does not seem 

 less likely that form, or soul, or idea, whether this be held 

 substantive or accidental, should be transferred to something 

 else, whence an animal at length emerges, all as if it had 

 been produced on purpose, and to a certain end, with foresight, 

 intelligence, and divine art. 



These are among the number of more abstruse matters, and 

 demand your ingenuity, most learned Nardi. Nor need you 

 plead in excuse your advanced life ; I myself, although verging 

 on my eightieth year, and sorely failed in bodily strength, 

 nevertheless feel my mind still vigorous, so that I continue to 

 give myself up with the greatest pleasure to studies of this kind. 

 I send you along with these, three books upon the subject you 

 name. 1 If you will mention my name to his Serene High- 

 ness the Duke of Tuscany, with thankfulness for the distin- 

 guished honour he did me when I was formerly in Florence, 

 and add my wishes for his safety and prosperity, you will do a 

 very kind thing to 



Your devoted and very attached friend, 



WILLIAM HARVEY. 



30th Nov. 1653. 



1 [Nardi had written to Harvey requesting him to select a few of the publications 

 which should give a faithful narrative of the distractions that had but lately agitated 

 England. ED.] 



