Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/56

 50 if it be of striking interest and importance ; it is a hard thing for any man to do more than keep pace with his own generation ; and those who have spent any time in read- ing the works of Harvey's contemporaries, will best appreciate the difficulty he must have had in setting himself free from the influence of the idola theatri referred to. I pass from this reflection to an exposi- tion of the claims which have been put forward on behalf of Walter Warner, the editor in 1631 of Harriott's Algebra, to the discovery of the circulation of the blood ; and I do this by a natural transition, Walter Warner having been a man in whose mind, all his mathematics notwithstanding, the idola in question greatly abounded. War- ner's claims are alluded to by Dr. Willis in a note to his excellent Life of Harvey (see p. lxiv). They are put forward by Anthony Wood, upon the authority of Dr. Pell, a man distinguished as one of Oliver Cromwell's diplomatists, and afterwards as an assiduous supporter of the then young Royal Society ; and upon that of Dr. Morley, some time Dean of Christ Church, and afterwards Bishop of