Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 (IA b22315263).pdf/14

 therefore, as I have alluded to some of Harvey's predecessors, I shall leave to future orators the ever-grateful theme of praise of those who followed him and imitated his generosity; whilst the present moment may be devoted to a short review of the existing state of science as it bears on our profession.

If we cast our thoughts back to the times of Harvey, we perceive that the study of medicine had already freed itself from a large portion of the ignorance and from nearly all the superstitious folly of the dark ages. The old cabalistic mysteries had disappeared; and astrology was beginning, but only beginning, to follow them as a delusion of the past. Frivolous tradition had altogether ceased to influence opinion as to the value of remedies and their proper mode of application; and, with the revival of letters, through which the system of Aristotle succeeded to the logic of the schoolmen, a legitimate course of philosophical study had decidedly set in. Natural facts were being sought out and accumulated; and rational deduction from these was opening out the way to a true, though, as yet,