INTRODUCTION 1 . 



IN the many Harveian Orations which have been 

 delivered since the death of the founder of modern 

 physiology the direct aspects of his honour and of his 

 work have been exhausted ; of late years the orators 

 have concerned themselves with indirect aspects. Some 

 of my friends have said to me that they lack a per- 

 spective view of Harvey and his work ; that even highly 

 educated men have little sense of his relation to 

 medieval thought, or of the evolution of medieval into 

 modern thought. Of the several stars of the constella- 

 tion of Copernicus, Gilbert, Galileo, Harvey they had 

 some knowledge ; but how came Harvey to be at Padua ? 

 how did science spring up in North Italy ? did science 

 arise out of the womb of medicine, or contrariwise ? why 



1 To bring the oration within the time allotted, this portion, 

 and the paragraphs on astrology added as an appendix, were 

 omitted. For the same reason the paragraphs on scepticism 

 (p. 82) were also omitted but by inadvertence have held their 

 continuity in the text. It is customary to print the text as 

 delivered ; and this must be my excuse for the cumbrous apparatus 

 of notes, much of which might have been taken into an enlarged 

 text. The notes are necessary to fortify statements which orally 

 may pass, but do not satisfy a reader. 



