THE PRODROMUS 207 



plexing is a matter which is involved in a series of experiments. 

 But the fact that, after a large part of the task assayed had been 

 completed, I should drop everything and ask your leave to re- 

 turn to my native land to pursue anatomical investigation — 

 this indeed would demand an excuse did I not know that this 

 obedience on the part of a subject of another prince would not 

 be displeasing to you, which in a similar circumstance would 

 please you on the part of your own subjects. And this hope of 

 mine concerning your kindness is made surer by that exceptional 

 goodwill, whereby, through devoting generous assistance^ to the 

 advancement of my studies, you wished that unrestricted oppor- 

 tunity for learning should be left to me whenever occasion might 

 arise. Therefore, since I no longer dare to hope for the time neces- 

 p. 4. sary for finishing the tasks which I have begun, I shall do in the 

 payment of my promises what has been conceded by common 

 custom to debtors ; when they have not the means to pay in full, 

 they pay what they have, in order that they may not be forced 

 to withdraw from business. Since, then, I am unable to complete 

 all the things which were to be shown to you, I shall offer the 

 chief of what I have found, in order that I may not appear to 

 have deceived you. 



I should gladly have postponed everything until it had been 

 possible for me, on my return to my native land, to perfect the 

 details, were I not awaiting the same fortune there which I have 

 hitherto experienced everywhere, in that new tasks have con- 

 stantly stood in the way of finishing those first undertaken. 

 While I was intent upon counting the glands of the entire body,^ 

 the wonderful structure of the heart ^ carried me away into an 

 examination of it; and the deaths of my kin* interrupted the 

 studies I had begun on the heart. Your seas furnished us a 

 shark ^ of marvellous size to keep me from applying myself to 



igee p. 179. ^For Steno's work on the glands, see pp. 176, 188 f. 



8 Steno first mentions his study of the heart in a letter to Thomas Bartholin dated '• the 

 last of April," 1663, Leyden. See Maar, Opera Philosophica, Vol. I, p. 155. In 1667 Steno 

 published his Elementorum Myologiae Specimen, Sen Musculi Descriptio Geometrica. Cf. 



p. 190. 



< While studying in Leyden, 1664, Steno learned of the death of his step-father, Johannes 

 Stichman. The death of Steno's mother occurred soon after his arrival in Copenhagen. See 



p. 178. 



iiFor the treatise Canis Carchariae Caput, see p. 206, note i. Compare also Historia 

 Dissecti Piscis Ex Camtm Genere, Maar, op. cit.. Vol. II, pp. 147-155. 



