But, as you
know, evil times came on; and Harvey, after the fortunes of his royal
master were broken, being then a man of somewhat advanced years--over
60 years of age, in fact--retired to the society of his brothers in and
near London, and among them pursued his studies until the day of his
death. Harvey's career is a life which offers no salient points of
interest to the biographer. It was a life devoted to study and
investigation; and it was a life the devotion of which was amply
rewarded, as I shall have occasion to point out to you, by its results.
Harvey, by the diversity, the variety, and the thoroughness of his
investigations, was enabled to give an entirely new direction to at
least two branches--and two of the most important branches--of what
now-a-days we call Biological Science. On the one hand, he founded all
our modern physiology by the discovery of the exact nature of the
motions of the heart, and of the course in which the blood is propelled
through the body; and, on the other, he laid the foundation of that
study of development which has been so much advanced of late years, and
which constitutes one of the great pillars of the doctrine of evolution.
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