y ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 201 



Harvey's junior, died before him ; and yet in his 

 short span of fifty-four years, took an undisputed 

 place, not only among the chiefs of philosophy, 

 but amongst the greatest and most original of 

 mathematicians ; while, in my belief, he is no less 

 certainly entitled to the rank of a great and 

 original physiologist ; inasmuch as he did for the 

 physiology of motion and sensation that which 

 Harvey had done for the circulation of the blood, 

 and opened up that road to the mechanical theory 

 of these processes, which has been followed by all 

 his successors. 



Descartes was no mere speculator, as some 

 would have us believe : but a man who knew of his 

 own knowledge what was to be known of the 

 facts of anatomy and physiology in his day. He 

 was an unwearied dissector and observer ; and it 

 is said, that, on a visitor once asking to see his 

 library, Descartes led him into a room set 

 aside for dissections, and full of specimens 

 under examination. "There," said he, "is my 

 library." 



I anticipate a smile of incredulity when I thus 

 champion Descartes' claim to be considered a 

 physiologist of the first rank. I expect to be told 

 that I have read into his works what I find there, 

 and to be asked, Why is it that we are left to dis- 

 cover Descartes' deserts at this time of day, more 

 than two centuries after his death ? How is it 

 that Descartes is utterly ignored in some of 



