XIII.] THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND MEDICINE. 335 



who was bold enough to enunciate the proposition 

 that vital phenomena, like all the other phenomena of 

 the physical world, are, in ultimate analysis, resolvable 

 into matter and motion, was Eene Descartes. 



The fifty-four years of life of this most original 

 and powerful thinker are widely overlapped, on both 

 sides, by the eighty of Harvey, who survived his 

 younger contemporary by seven years, and takes 

 pleasure in acknowledging the French philosopher's 

 appreciation of his great discovery. 



In fact, Descartes accepted the doctrine of the 

 circulation as propounded by "Harvaeus medecin 

 d'Angleterre," and gave a full account of it in his first 

 work, the famous " Discours de la Methode," which was 

 published in 1637, only nine years after the exercita- 

 tion " De motu cordis ; " and, though differing from 

 Harvey on some important points (in which it may be 

 noted, in passing, Descartes was wrong and Harvey 

 right), he always speaks of him with great respect. 

 And so important does the subject seem to Descartes, 

 that he returns to it in the " Traite des Passions," and 

 in the "Traite de I'Homme." 



It is easy to see that Harvey's work must have 

 had a peculiar significance for the subtle thinker, to 

 whom we owe both the spiritualistic and the material- 

 istic philosophies of modern times. It was in the 

 very year of its publication, 1628, that Descartes 

 withdrew into that life of solitary investigation and 

 meditation of which his philosophy was the fruit. 

 And, as the course of his speculations led him to 

 establish an absolute distinction of nature between 



