THE HAEVEIAN ORATION. 757 



I do not wish to assert that Harvey was wholly independent of 



fthe works of his predecessors ; he himself would, as his repeated 

 references to them show, have heen the very last man to make any 

 such claim for himself; nor would I say that he owed nothing to 



the times — 



*The spacious times of great Elizabeth' — 



in which he lived. It is true, I think, in science, as it is also true 

 in morals and politics, that the times make great men as much as 

 great men make the times. Many metaphors have been used to 

 express this latter half-truth. Such is the metaphor, an acquaint- 

 ance with which I owe to Mr. Pic ton's new and striking work, 

 ' The Mystery of Matter,' p. 265, used by St. Augustine, in which 

 great men are compared to great mountains, dwelling apart in 

 loneliness, and sending floods of blessings down upon the little 

 hills and plains at their feet. Such, again, is the metaphor used 

 by Wordsworth in apostrophising Milton : 



'Thy soul was like a star,, and dwelt apart.' 



Such is the metaphor used by Sir Coutts Lindsay, in his poem on 

 the Black Prince, where a hero 



'Stands like a beacon, throwing light far out 

 Over the rippling tides of centuries.' 



Now all these metaphors strive, and profess, to express but half a 

 truth, and they are imperfect even for this imperfect purpose, as 

 they are borrowed from inorganic nature and the arts, and are 

 unfit to be used as illustrations of the complexities of life and 

 thought. I would venture to suggest a metaphor which has 

 struck me, during this investigation, as being more appropriate 

 and close-fitting, even if less beautiful, than those which I have 

 quoted. A group of horsemen are attempting to cross an arm of 

 the sea, up which the tide has been running, and obscuring the 

 ridge, or spit of sand, by which it is fordable. They form them- 

 selves into a line, and advance slowly : rider after rider flounders off 

 into deep water, and, if wise, retires towards the rear of the caval- 

 cade of his companions, who still feel and advance upon the 

 bottom beneath them. The line by degrees narrows into a column, 

 and the column, after a longer interval, narrows into a single file. 

 To the foremost horseman courage is necessary, as imagination is 

 to the discoverer, and, impelled by this feeling, he may put a wide 



