Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/17

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are still the best-known, records of Harvey's work and labour upon the circulation of the

preceding it, received three letters from Harvey. By consulting Horstius' work referred to by Dr. Akenside, l. c, I found at pp. 61-65 the letter, which appears in our edition as ' Epistola Tertia responsoria Morisono,' published by Horstius in 1656 with the omission of the first six and a half, and also of the last three and a half lines. These lines Harvey had doubtless ordered his amanuensis—a functionary of great importance to one who wrote so bad a hand (see p. 165, ed. 1766, or Harvey's own autograph MS. No. 486, Sloane Coll. British Museum)—to omit when he bade him copy and send to Horstius, 'eadem quae antea medico cuidam Parisiensi (sc. Morisono responderat.' Horstius does not publish Harvey's letter (the 'Epistola Quinta' of our edition) of date Feb. 1, 1654-5, but appends the last letter of the three (the 'Epistola Sexta' of our edition) to his own answer to Harvey's earlier communication. I shall henceforward refer to the College of Physicians' edition of Harvey's works as 'ed. 1766,' and to Dr. Willis' most valuable translation of them, published by the Sydenham Society in 1847, as 'ed. "Willis.' I throw out as a topic for future discussion the question whether Dr. "Willis is right in following the editions of Harvey's writings of an earlier date than 1766, in retaining the negative in the sentence (at p. 131 in both his edition and in that of 1766) in the second epistle to Biolanus which refers to the Critias of Plato. I think Dr. Willis is right, and that Dr. Lawrence was wrong; but to do this it is necessary to sacrifice Hai-vey's credit for knowledge of Plato whilst vindicating the consecutiveness of his reasoning. Harvey himself