324 JOHN MAYOW : CHEMIST AND PHYSICIAN. 



urged that he carried the truth so far beyond the point at which 

 Hooke left it, that he might fairly have looked on it as his own. 

 We have contemporary opinion on this point Dr. Plot* published 

 in 1677 a Natural History of Oxfordshire, in which he attributed 

 the credit not to Hooke, the leader of English science, but to 

 Mayow the comparatively obscure physician. 



Finally it must be conceded that Mayow shared in many of 

 the errors of his time, and made errors of his own : but greatness 

 is won not by avoiding so much as by achieving, and he achieved 

 much. 



My thanks are due to Mr. H. M. Jeflery, P.E.S. (at whose 

 suggestion this essay was prepared), for references and advice; 

 and I am similarly indebted to Mr. Howard Fox, F.Gr.S. 



* Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, Secretary to the Eoyal Society (1682). 



