Page:The Works of William Harvey (part 1 of 2).djvu/252

 refutation necessary where the truth can be seen with one's proper eyes; where the inquirer by simple inspection finds everything in conformity with reason; and where at the same time he is made to understand how unsafe, how base a thing it is to receive instruction from others' comments without examination of the objects themselves, the rather as the book of Nature lies so open and is so easy of consultation.

What I shall deliver in these my Exercises on Animal Generation I am anxious to make publicly known, not merely that posterity may there perceive the sure and obvious truth, but farther, and especially, that by exhibiting the method of investigation which I have followed, I may propose to the studious a new and, unless I mistake, a safer way to the attainment of knowledge.

For although it is a new and difficult road in studying nature, rather to question things themselves than, by turning over books, to discover the opinions of philosophers regarding them, still it must be acknowledged that it is the more open path to the secrets of natural philosophy, and that which is less likely to lead into error.

Nor is there any just cause wherefore the labour should deter any one, if he will but think that he himself only lives through the ceaseless working of his heart. Neither, indeed, would the way I propose be felt as so barren and lonely, but for the custom, or vice rather, of the age we live in, when men, inclined to idleness, prefer going wrong with the many, to becoming wise with the few through dint of toil and outlay of money. The ancient philosophers, whose industry even we admire, went a different way to work, and by their unwearied labour and variety of experiments, searching into the nature of things, have left us no doubtful light to guide us in our studies. In this way it is that almost everything we yet possess of note or credit in philosophy, has been transmitted to us through the industry of ancient Greece. But when we acquiesce in the