Page:The Harveian oration, 1875 (IA b22314611).pdf/11

wealthy family, and had independent means of his own, so that he could command the very best education England or Italy could give, and either purchase, or secure through royal favour, whatever he needed for purposes of experiment and illustration. And these his easy circumstances took from him all motive and temptation to a hasty or premature announcement of his views; and though (as his writings attest) he had good opportunities of experience as physician, surgeon, and accoucheur (for in Harvey's day the three faculties were united) and turned them to excellent account, he was not overwhelmed by the cares and incessant demands of practice, and was even withdrawn more than once by command of the Court from the usual duties of his profession.

Harvey in being spared the drawbacks of poverty must have lost with them the proverbial stimulus of necessity. But happily he found, in the stirring circumstances of his times, and the example of great thinkers and discoverers (his contemporaries or immediate predecessors), that spur to exertion to which generous minds yield so ready a response. For Harvey lived in an age of excitement, political and theological, breathing an atmo-