THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 397 



or disposition no one can have the slightest doubt, and he will 

 find the coincidence, within the limitations which I mentioned, 

 astonishing and invariable. 



I then mentioned the fate of Harvey (v. supra, p. 194. sq.)*, and the original 

 rejection of the discovery of the lacteals (v. supra, p. 140. sqq.), and con- 

 tinued : 



"Let us remember that Sydenham, whose memory we also honour, was, by 

 many of his contemporaries, whose names, whatever bustle they made during 

 their existence, have never once been mentioned since their death, called a quack 

 and a murderer, f 



" Let us remember, that, if the illustrious father of modern philosophy was not 

 vilified and imprisoned, like Galileo, for announcing truth, he was represented by 

 Cecil to Elizabeth, when she thought of making him her solicitor-general, ' as a 

 man of mere speculation, as one wholly given up to philosophical inquiries, 

 neiv indeed and amusing, but fanciful and unsound, and therefore more likely to 

 distract her affairs, than to serve her carefully and with proper judgment. ' 



" In ancient times, Horace saw his odes despised because they were new. The 

 public, he said, 



' Nisi quse terris seniota, suisque 



Temporibus defuncta videt, fastidit et odit ; 

 Est vetus atque probus centum qui perficit annos.' 

 But, like the illustrious Gall, Laennec is no more. 

 ' Extinctus amabitur idem.' 



" In the words of Professor Playfair, notwithstanding the splendour of New- 

 ton's discoveries ; the beauty, the simplicity, the grandeur of the system they un- 

 folded, and the demonstrative evidence by which that system was supported ; " 

 " the Cartesian system of vortices kept its ground for more than thirty years after 

 the publication of these discoveries," " and actually the Newtonian philosophy 

 first entered the University of Cambridge under the protection of the Cartesian," 

 by a stratagem of Dr. Samuel Clark, who quietly explained the views of New- 

 ton, without any appearance of argument or controversy, in the form of notes 

 to a new translation which he published of the French Cartesian work, long 

 established as the text-book by the tutors of the University. 



" Dr. Chalmers, speaking of the first reception of the Newtonian philosophy, 

 says, ' Authority scowled upon it, and taste was disgusted by it, and fashion was 



* I might have added the words of the Edinburgh Review, No. xciv. : The 

 discoverer of the circulation of the blood suffers no diminution of his reputation 

 in our day, from the incredulity with which his doctrine was received by some 

 the effrontery with which it was claimed by others, or the knavery with which it 

 was ascribed to former physiologists." 



| Here I might have added that, though Sydenham resided in Pall Mall, he 

 was never employed by the Court ; yet the names of the Court physicians of his 

 day are now no more known than the names of the Court footmen. 



