8 Vesalms : [lect. 



" studious, the bodies of those condemned to death were exposed 

 " to public view," they came upon a corpse " which had proved 

 " such a sweet morsel to the birds that they had most thoroughly 

 " cleaned it, leaving only the bones and ligaments." With his 

 friend's help he climbed up the gallows and attempted to carry 

 off the skeleton, but in the hurry of such a theft in open 

 daylight he only succeeded in getting part of it ; accordingly 

 that evening he got himself shut out of the city gates, secured 

 in the quiet of night the rest of the skeleton, and returning 

 home by a roundabout way and re-entering the city by a 

 different gate, safely carried it in. 



In 1537, after a year's stay at Louvain where, in the February 

 of that year, he put forth his first juvenile effort, a translation 

 of the ninth book of Rhazes, he migrated to Venice, the enlight- 

 ened if despotic government of which was in all possible ways 

 fostering the arts and sciences, and striving to develope in 

 the dependent city of Padua a University which should 

 worthily push on the new r learning. It may be worth while 

 to note, as an instance of how in the web of man's history 

 threads of unlike kind are made to cross, that among the monks 

 who had charge of the Hospital at Venice, at which Vesalius 

 pursued his medical studies, was one who bore the name of 

 Ignatius Loyola. We may well imagine that these two young 

 men crossed each other's path in the hospital wards or grounds, 

 perhaps even conversed with one another. One was gathering in 

 a rich harvest of exact knowledge which six years later he was 

 to embody and give to the world in a great book, the beginning 

 of modern biologic science. The other was busy with a scheme 

 for the spiritual welfare of mankind which six years later took 

 shape as the Order of the Jesuits. The one with his eyes fixed 

 on man's body brought forth a work, the fruits of which have 

 profoundly influenced and are still profoundly influencing men's 

 minds. The other, with his eyes fixed only on truth and 

 goodness, began that which after him became the incarnation 

 of Authority, an engine powerful it is true for good, but often 

 used for the support of lies and for the maintenance of evil. 

 No two things have fought and are fighting each other more 

 bitterly than the things which have sprung from the two 



