Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, on October 18, 1884 (IA b21778929).pdf/41

 He acquired Fame, which certainly was not to him "the spur" that might his clear spirit raise

To scorn delights and live laborious days."

It may be, as was said of others in his day, that it was "the last infirmity of noble minds," but it was not so with our illustrious Harvey. "Think me not eager," he says, in one of his Introductory Letters, (On Gen. p. 166,) "for vainglorious fame rather than anxious to lay before you observations that are true, and that are derived immediately from the nature of things." Truth was what he sought, and what he found; and if Fame went with him, and followed him to his grave, and waits upon him now, there was no seeking for it on his part; nor could he well have imagined, with all his force of fancy, such a tribute to his memory as that, of last year, in the churchyard at Hempstead.

10. Harvey's great achievements were the result of his method viz., that of observation and experiment. Nature "displays " much; "the Heavens declare the glory of God," and she is always "revealing" as she moves, and she is never still; but Nature is ever moving "onwards" to some unknown goal; and at each onward step she, while revealing, "hides;" leaves behind her in her wake something of the past, which now we cannot see, and presents new facts and new combinations for man,-one of her factors,— to interpret. 24

Harvey was one of her keenest, and most devout interpeters. To him, as he stood by and listened, the Nature- spirit sang, and with profoundest meaning,

"So work I at Time's rushing loom, And weave the living robe of God."