,
Harvey became one of the king's physicians; and it is much to the credit
of the unfortunate monarch--who, whatever his faults may have been,
was one of the few English monarchs who have shown a taste for art and
science--that Harvey became his attached and devoted friend as well
as servant; and that the king, on the other hand, did all he could to
advance Harvey's investigations. But, as you know, evil times came on;
and Harvey, after the fortunes of his royal master were broken,
being then a man of somewhat advanced years--over 60 years of age, in
fact--retired to the society of his brothers in and near London, and
among them pursued his studies until the day of his death. Harvey's
career is a life which offers no salient points of interest to the
biographer. It was a life devoted to study and investigation; and it
was a life the devotion of which was amply rewarded, as I shall have
occasion to point out to you, by its results.

Harvey, by the diversity, the variety, and the thoroughness of his
investigations, was enabled to give an entirely new direction to at
least two branches--and two of the most important branches--of what
now-a-days we call Biological Science. On the one hand, he founded
all our modern physiology by the discovery of the exact nature of the
motions of the heart, and of the course in which the blood is propelled
through the body; and, on the other, he laid the foundation of that
study of development which has been so much advanced of late years, and
which constitutes one of the great pillars of the doctrine of evolution.
This doctrine, I need hardly tell you, is now tending to revolutionise
our conceptions of the origin of living things, exactly in the same
way as Harvey's discovery of the circulation in the seventeeth century
revolutionised the conceptions which men had previously entertained with
regard to physiological processes.

It would, I regret, be quite impossible for me to attempt, in the course
of the time I can presume to hold you here, to unfold the history of
more than one of these great investigations of Harvey. I call them
"great investigations," as distinguished from "large publications." I
have in my hand a little book, which those of you who are at a great
distance may have some difficulty in seeing, and which I value very
much. It is, I am afraid, sadly thumbed and scratched with annotations
by a very humble successor and follower of Harvey. This little book is
the edition o