Page:The Harveian Oration1876.djvu/14

 of close observation and appreciation of natural phenomena. Here, again, it is power possessed by all men, but in them carried to an extreme. When, as in Newton, this observing or experimental power is combined with mathematical insight, we get a philosopher of the highest class, who writes his name indelibly on the record of Science.

Now, I claim for Harvey a position among the men exceptionally gifted with these powers of observation. There is in his works on Circulation and on Generation quite sufficient proof of this, and I shall give some evidence as I proceed. Men possessed of this power seem to be unable to avoid exercising it. They must observe, must try experiments, must, to use Bacon’s phrase, be always asking questions of Nature. In the Middle Ages, to “put a man to the question” was to torture him into an avowal of the truth, and in this sense Harvey may literally be said to have tortured Nature. He was a thorough vivisectionist, and animals of all kinds ministered to his insatiable curiosity. He owns to