Page:The Harveian oration, 1873.djvu/92

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cessfully and during his own lifetime his own irrefragable claims. And I can believe that, answering to the character of the dignified, stately, and high-minded man so well drawn by the author whom he often quotes (Aristotle, Eth. Nic. iv. 3(7)), and considering himself worthy of great respect, being worthy of it, he would not have looked disapprovingly upon our attempt to show him respect by the Tercentenary Memorial to which you, Sir, have lent the sanction of your name. I can further conceive of Harvey as entirely sympathising with the men who have now in their hands the torch of knowledge which once passed through his, of applauding without any shadow of jealousy the work of the many workers who in these days are going over the ground trodden by him under far less favourable circumstances and with far less assistance from ancillary[1]

  1. Such an experiment, for example, as that put on record by Professor Haughton (Principles of Animal Mechanics, 1873, p. 151), as performed by Professor Macnamara with his assistance, and as showing that the time occupied by absorption, circulation, and secretion occupies less than four minutes, requires the employment of iodine; and iodine has been discovered and isolated but some sixty-two years.