Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/14

 scintillula forsan") may have had much to do with the careful keeping of the ashes, in the past; but that is not all. Even if Science could quite put out this faint "scintilla," the human Instinct would remain; and would show itself beside almost every open grave, and sometimes display itself in suchi solemn and remarkable event as that which took place last year at the tomb of Harvey.

It was a graceful and an honourable act of this College to take upon itself the work of "Old Mortality;" and to travel away from its ordinary home that it might chisel afresh the marbles that held the remains of its greatest son; -but, much more than this was accomplished at that time, for therein was shown a profound and still living affection, reverence, and gratitude for Harvey's life.

B. We, again to-day, would do homage to the life of Harvey; looking at it in its threefold aspect of moral, mental, and active energy. We commemorate his character; his rare combination of faculties; and his work achieved. In him there was that due proportion between all his powers which a great thinker of this generation has regarded as the root-fact of what we call " genius."

i. We like to picture to ourselves what lie, now dead in body, resembled when he lived; how he thought; and about what he thought; how and what he did; in what light he regarded his own work; its relation to the work of others; to his ancestors in science, to his immediate predecessors, his associates, his antagonists; and to those who must come after him.

This is as natural as is the regard for the bodily remains; but it is on a higher level. Ancient "songs" handed down, in earlier days, the noble deeds, thoughts, words, and characters, of those whom it was a religion to venerate, and whose Our short memory it was a bounden duty to prolong.