THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 



AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE DISCOVERY OF 

 THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD 



I. 



ONLY those of us, Mr. President and Fellows, who have 

 had the good fortune to hold the distinguished position 

 which by your kind grace, Sir, I hold to-day, only those 

 of us who have delivered the Harveian Oration, can 

 appreciate the extraordinary difficulties besetting a 

 subject, every aspect of which has been considered, very 

 often too, by men who have brought to the task a com- 

 bination of learning and literary skill at once the envy 

 and the despair of their successors. But I take it, Sir, 

 that in this Ambarvalia or commemorative festival for 

 blessing the fruits of our great men, ordained definitely 

 as such by him whose memory is chiefly in our minds 

 to-day, our presence here in due order and array, 

 confers distinction upon an occasion of which the 

 oration is but an incident. But, honour worthy of such 

 a theme should be associated with full knowledge of 

 the conditions under which these great men lived and 

 moved ; and here comes in the real difficulty, because it 

 is rarely possible to bring the fruits of independent 

 critical investigation into their lives and works. Par- 

 ticularly hard is it for those of us who have had to live 

 the life of the arena : our best efforts bear the stamp of 

 the student, not of the scholar. In my own case, a deep 



