HARVEY. 51 publicly offered to the world, till after many years* probation among his colleagues at home ; and the labours of all the latter part of his life would scarcely have appeared till after his death, had not the importunities of a friend extorted them from him. The work obtained by Dr. Ent consists chiefly of a detail of facts and observations, which will not easily admit of an analysis ; but the general infer- ence to be drawn from the whole of these Eocerci- tations, seventy in number, is in favour of the universal prevalence of oval generation. His chief example is the hen and chick ; he was the first who pointed out the origin of the latter from the cicatricula of the ovum^ and who perceived the pmictmn saliens to be the heart. He accurately displays, as far as the eye could inform him, the successive formation of the several parts ; and herein corrects many ancient errors. He main- tains that the formation of viviparous animals is not different from that of birds. In perusing this curious treatise, abounding as it does with anato- mical observations, which are valuable from the great attention and accuracy with which they were made, the reader may perhaps be surprised to find the theory of Harvey, on this obscure and myste- rious function, so full of metaphysical arguments, and resting at last upon an hypothesis incapable of proof. But there is a limit to all human knowledge. Harvey was now in his 7 1st year, and the remain- der of his life seems to have been spent in acts of generosity and munificence, which exhibit, in the strongest point of view, the love he bore his pro- E 2
