Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/90

 84 been doubly necessary in days when, in the absence of the steamship and the railway, an insular position must have kept its in- habitants very nearly as inaccessible to ' the thoughts that move mankind,' as it had hap- pily kept them to the Armada. Sir George Ent's interesting and entirely trustworthy account of the interview with Harvey which resulted in the publication of the treatise De Generatione, will show any one who will consult it that Harvey had drawn from his opportunities an insight into what might be expected, and what since his time to some extent has been realised, from enlarged opportunities of observing not only 'men, manners, cities, climates, governments,' but also the wonderful facts of the unequal allot- ment, in the various parts of the earth, of useful inorganic products, and of that mys- tery of mysteries, the distribution of organic life. (See Works, ed. 1766, p. 162 ; ed. Dr. Willis, p. 146.) Having been thus fortunate in securing for himself all the advantages which the various educational agencies of his age would furnish, he added on to all that they