Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/80

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much of what Aubrey has left on record about him, feeling more and more strongly as I grew better acquainted with Harvey that―

Was no'These were slanders: never yet
Was noble man but made ignoble talk.'

I will speak first of his scientific character, though it may seem strange to speak of scientific character, as character implies, perhaps, a moral element; and science, so far as it is really science, and based exclusively upon sound reasoning, has no moral element in it; reasoning, so long as it is sound, being of one kind always, and devoid therefore of all distinctive or personal factors. It is necessary for me to say that I do not forget that Harvey was but eighteen years junior to Bacon,

'Whom a wise king and Nature chose
Lord Chancellor of both their laws.'

But neither do I forget that the Novum Organon was published in 1620, subsequently to the discovery and actual demonstration of the circulation (see Dedicatio to the treatise De Motu Cordis), if not to the publication of the treatise on the Motion of

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