358 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE xiv 



everything and explained nothing, down to our 

 own times. 



Now the essence of modern, as contrasted with 

 ancient, physiological science appears to me to 

 lie in its antagonism to animistic hypotheses and 

 animistic phraseology. It offers physical explana- 

 tions of vital phenomena, or frankly confesses that 

 it has none to offer. And, so far as I know, the 

 first person who gave expression to this modern 

 view of physiology, who was bold enough to 

 enunciate the proposition that vital phenomena, 

 like all the other phenomena of the physical 

 world, are, in ultimate analysis, resolvable into 

 matter and motion, was Ren Descartes. 



The fifty-four years of life of this most original 

 and powerful thinker are widely overlapped, on 

 both sides, by the eighty of Harvey, who survived 

 his younger contemporary by seven years, and takes 

 pleasure in acknowledging the French philoso- 

 pher's appreciation of his great discovery. 



In fact, Descartes accepted the doctrine of the 

 circulation as propounded by " Harvseus medecin 

 d'Angleterre," and gave a full account of it in his 

 first work, the famous " Discours de la Me'thode," 

 which was published in 1637, only nine years 

 after the exercitation " De motu cordis " ; and, 

 though differing from Harvey on some important 

 points (in which it may be noted, in passing, 

 Descartes was wrong and Harvey right), he always 

 speaks of him with great respect. And so impor- 



