198 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 
lived, Malpighi could so successfully curb the tendency to 
indulge in wordy disquisitions, and that he was satisfied to 
observe carefully, and tell his story in a simple way. This 
quality of mind is rare. As Emerson has said: “I am im- 
pressed with the fact that the greatest thing a human soul 
ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it 
saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one 
who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. 
To sce clearly is poetry, philosophy, and religion all in one.” 
But ‘to see”? here means, of course, to interpret as well as 
to observe. 
Although there were observers in the field of embryology 
before Harvey, little of substantial value had been produced. 
The earliest attempts were vague and uncritical, embracing 
only fragmentary views of the more obvious features of body- 
formation. Nor, indeed, should we look for much advance 
in the field of embryology even in Harvey’s time. The reason 
for this will become obvious when we remember that the 
renewal of independent observation had just been brought 
about in the preceding century by Vesalius, and that Harvey 
himself was one of the pioneers in the intellectual awakening. 
Studies on the development of the body are specialized, 
involving observations on minute structures and recondite 
processes, and must, therefore, wait upon considerable ad- 
vances in anatomy and physiology. Accordingly, the science 
of embryology was of late development. 
Harvey.—Harvey’s was the first attempt to make a criti- 
cal analysis of the process of development, and that he did not 
attain more was not owing to limitations of his powers of dis- 
cernment, but to the necessity of building on the general level 
of the science of his time, and, further, to his lack of instru- 
ments of observation and technique. Nevertheless, Harvey 
may be considered as having made the first independent 
advance in embryology. 
