vi INQUIRY AND INTERPRETATION 139 



through the capillaries, and it can now be seen easily 

 by any student who will examine the web of a frog's 

 foot. The largest blood vessels seen are the small 

 arteries bringing the blood from the heart, the finest 

 are the capillaries through which the blood passes into 

 the small veins which carry it back to the heart and thus 

 complete the circuit. 



Harvey's work was an excellent example of the 

 application of the inductive method of study laid down 

 by Francis Bacon as the essential principle of scientific 

 progress ; but Harvey did not begin to teach the circula- 

 tion of the blood until 1619, and as Bacon died seven 

 years later he may be forgiven the omission of any 

 reference to it in his writings, though he must have 

 known of it. Harvey's opinion of Bacon's doctrines 

 is represented by his remark, " He writes philosophy 

 like a Lord Chancellor." 



John Hunter, who was born exactly a hundred years 

 after the publication of Harvey's work on the circulation 

 of the blood, paid no heed to Bacon's mechanical system 

 of arriving at scientific truth. This great anatomist, 

 biologist and surgeon, whose studies of the human 

 frame raised surgery from the art of the barber-surgeon 

 to the dignity of a science, and whose observations and 

 experiments embraced every object which he could 

 secure in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, did not 

 trouble about Baconian principles in his inquiries and 

 interpretations. He had a passion for knowledge, and 

 possessed the creative and constructive attributes 

 which enabled him to make discoveries and to co- 

 ordinate them. Writing to Jenner about certain 

 observations and experiments he desired him to make, 

 he said, " Be as particular as you possibly can " ; and 

 that sentence epitomises his scientific method. He 



