Page:The Harveian oration, 1893.djvu/37

13 Belief then that the body and all its parts is a machine constructed for certain uses, that everything in Nature has a reason and an end—this was Harvey’s postulate when he argued out the functions of the heart and vessels from their anatomical construction.

Harvey’s second method was that of actual experiment. On this point he leaves us in no doubt. His second chapter is headed, “ Ex vivorum dissectione qualis sit cordis motus,” and in the introductory chapter which precedes this, he says:—

“Tandem majori indies et disquisitione et diligentia usus, multa frequenter et varia animalia viva introspiciendo, multis observationibus collatis, et rem attigisse et ex hoc labyrintho me extricatum evasisse, simulque motum et usum cordis et arteriarum quae desiderabam comperta habuere me existimabam.”

Many of his vivisections were not strictly speaking experiments, but observations—inspection