256 PERSONAL PREPARATION FOR RESEARCH. 



6 Harvey was another labourer of great perseverance in 

 the same field of science* He spent not less than eight 

 long years of investigation and research before he published 

 his views of the circulation of the blood. He repeated 

 and verified his experiments again and again, probably 

 anticipating the opposition he would have to encounter 

 from the profession on making known his discovery. The 

 tract in which he at length announced his views was a 

 most modest one, but simple, perspicacious, and conclusive. " 

 It was nevertheless received with ridicule, as the utterance 

 of a crack-brained impostor. For some time he did not 

 make a single convert, and gained nothing but contumely 

 and abuse. He had called in question the revered autho- 

 rity of the ancients; and it was even averred that his 

 views were calculated to subvert the authority of the 

 Scriptures and undermine the very foundations of morality 

 and religion. His little practice fell away, and he was left 

 almost without a friend. This lasted for some years, until 

 the great truth, held fast by Harvey amidst all his adver- 

 sity, and which had dropped into many thoughtful minds, 

 gradually ripened by further observation, and after a period 

 of about twenty-five years, it became generally recognised 

 as an established scientific truth.' 1 



Faraday, also, was a striking example of great industry. 

 ' The immense amount of work that he did is itself suffi- 

 cient evidence of his remarkable energy ; the " Royal 

 Society Catalogue" gives a list of 158 papers under his 

 name. He was above all things an experimentalist. If 

 he heard of a new discovery he always repeated the expert 

 ment for himself before he would accept it fully. " I was 

 never able to make a fact my own without seeing it," he 

 says ; " I could trust a fact, and always cross-examined an 



1 S. Smiles, Self Help, pp. 86-88. 



