CHAPTER X 

 1878 



THE year 1878 was the tercentenary of Harvey's 

 birth, and Huxley was very busy with the life and 

 work of that great physician. He spoke at the 

 memorial meeting at the College of Physicians (July 

 1 8), he gave a lecture on Harvey at the Royal Insti- 

 tution on January 25, afterwards published in Nature 

 and the Fortnightly Review, and intended to write a 

 book on him in a projected English Men of Science 

 series (see p. 255 sq. infra). 



I am very glad you like " Harvey" (he writes to Prof. 

 Baynes on Feb. 11). He is one of the biggest scientific 

 minds we have had. I expect to get well vilipended not 

 only by the anti-vivisection folk, for the most of whom 

 I have a hearty contempt, but apropos of Bacon. I have 

 been oppressed by the humbug of the "Baconian In- 

 duction" all my life, and at last the worm has turned. 



Now in this lecture he showed that Harvey 



employed vivisection to establish the doctrine of the 



circulation of the blood, and furthermore, that he 



taught this doctrine before the Novum Organum was 



236 



