Page:The Harveian oration 1903.djvu/13

Rh, as well as of those who by precept and example have added to the lustre of our College and have benefited mankind by their pursuance of Harvey's exhortation "to search out the secrets of nature." Not a few of my predecessors in this honourable office have with much learning and in graceful diction fulfilled their task thus, as others have preferred to consider some aspect of Harvey's work in the light of more modern knowledge, or to show how fruitful have been the methods inculcated by Bacon, which Harvey was one of the first to apply, in extending the domain of science in those branches more closely associated with our own. Others again have pictured for us in eloquent phrase the times in which Harvey lived, and have called up to our appreciation his companions and contemporaries and the influence they exerted on the thought and progress of his age. And in this brief survey of how the theme has been treated it would ill become me to omit a reference to the masterly oration of our learned Harveian librarian who sought to show in true light the relation of Harvey to his great predecessor Galen, and how mistaken some of the notions concerning that relation have been. Further, too, he has pointed out that notwithstanding a large amount of very faulty anatomical knowledge that was