21 



until the thing has come to be accepted as an 

 estabHshed truth. 



Harvey was shrewd enough to perceive that 

 such a system of reasoning, which had continued 

 in use up to the period in which he lived, did not 

 assist in the disclosure of the secrets of nature. 

 He says, " The method of investigating truth 

 commonly pursued at this time is to be held as 

 erroneous and almost foolish, in which so many 

 inquire what others have said, and omit to ask 

 whether the things themselves be actually so or 

 not ; and single universal conclusions being de- 

 duced from several premises, and analogies being 

 thence shaped out, we have frequently mere veri- 

 similitudes handed down to us instead of positive 

 truths." 



Men's minds must have evidently now become 

 occupied with the new system of philosophy set 

 forth by Lord Bacon, in his " Novum Organum," 

 or " true directions concerning the interpretation of 

 Nature." One of the aphorisms of this work clearly 

 exhibits the difference between the new system and 

 the old. 



