THE GROWTH OF TRUTH 29 



' Still the die is cast, and my trust is in the love of 

 truth and the candour that inheres in cultivated minds/ 

 With these words he consoles himself, knowing from 

 experience that the publication of even a portion of the 

 work, as in one place he calls the little book, would 

 raise a tempest. Zachafiah Wood in the preface to the 

 English edition, 1673, expresses what many of his con- 

 temporaries must have felt, ' Truly a bold man indeed, 

 O disturber of the quiet of physicians! O seditious 

 citizen of the Physical Commonwealth ! who first of all 

 durst oppose an opinion conformed for so many ages 

 by the consent of all.' De Bach of Amsterdam 

 describes the dilemma in which teachers found them- 

 selves : ' This new thing I did examine, which the first 

 entrance did seem very easily to be refuted, but being 

 weighed in a just balance, and having added to reason 

 my own ey-sight it was found inexpugnable, nay (the 

 very prick of truth enforcing) to be embraced with both 

 arms. What should I doe? Must Hippocrates be left, 

 Galen slighted ? No, if we follow the truth senced 

 with reason and our sense, we are still Hippocrates his, 

 we are still Galens ' (English edition, 1653). 



The history of the next thirty years illustrates the 

 truth of Locke's dictum in the struggle for acceptance. 

 Not the least interesting part of the story, it should be 

 told at greater length and with more detail than it has 

 yet received more than I am able to give it. That the 

 repeated demonstrations, aided by the strong personal 

 influence of the man, brought the College, as a body, to 

 the new views is witnessed rather by the esteem and 

 affection the Fellows bore to Harvey than by any direct 

 evidence. The appearance of the book in 1628 made 

 no great stir; it was not a literary sensation a not 

 uncommon fate of epoch-making works, the authors of 



