Page:The Harveian oration delivered at the Royal College of Physicians June 26, 1872 - being an analysis of Harvey's Exercises on Generation (IA b2231295x).pdf/11

2 expressed wish, that annually an oration should be delivered, no difficulty need be felt on the part of him who is appointed to that duty in finding a subject suitable to the purpose. And although, in accordance with custom, such address need have no reference to the founder further than with a view of recalling his desire to mind, that the orator should exhort the members of the College to study and search out the secrets of Nature by way of experiment,' yet, should the speaker find in Harvey's works matter which may have been selected by himself for particular study and investigation, he would naturally take that subject as furnishing him with the best material. It is on this ground, therefore, that I have taken the subject of Generation, as exemplified in the celebrated Exercises of Harvey, which, although constituting by no means the more important of his two great works, yet forms the larger one, and that which, at the same time, is perhaps the least generally read (d). It does not appear, moreover, from an examination of former orations, that this subject has been selected before; so that here I have the advantage-if, indeed, it be an advan- tage of occupying untrodden ground.