Page:The Harveian oration, 1893.djvu/36

12 has an answer, we must again and again fall back on the faith of Harvey and of Newton, of Boyle and of Linnaeus. The great doctrine of natural selection has thrown wonderful light upon the methods by which the results that we see have been reached, but has not impaired the excellence of those results nor their evidence of beneficent design. The application of scientific methods to the study, not only of man as an individual, but to the human race in its social aspects—the science of civilization in its ethical and political development—this nova scientia which was foreseen by Harvey’s contemporary, Vico—has so enlarged our conceptions that we may invert the argument of the Roman Orator when he inferred Providence in human affairs from design in human structures:—

“Est, est profecto ilia Vis; neque in his corporibus atque in hac imbecillitate nostra inest quiddam quod vigeat et sentiat, et non inest in hoc tanto naturae tam praeclaro motu." (Cicero pro Milone.)