Page:The Harveian oration for 1874.djvu/56

 In this utilitarian age the question may well be asked, no unreasonable one indeed in any age, What was the practical outcome of it all; what was the use, the good of the discovery of the Circulation of the Blood? First, I may perhaps be allowed to say, though the remark is trite enough, that the mere finding out of any truth, be that truth what it may, is clear gain. So long as we do not deify human intellect, every triumph that it achieves enriches all; and it is as proud a thing for us to be able to claim citizenship with Newton or with Bacon as with Wellington or with Nelson. Nor is this all, but in Harvey’s time the manner in which he conducted his enquiries was in its teachings of value little less than was the result at which he arrived. Four years before the ‘Novum Organon’ appeared, he had anticipated its famous lesson, ‘Non fingendum aut excogitandum quid natura faciat aut fiat,’ and had proved beyond the possibility of refutation, what years