Harvey'sDe Generatione: Its Origins and Relevance to the Theory of Circulation

Abstract

De generationewas the last of the three works published by William Harvey during his lifetime. Although this work on generation was most ambitious, being the product of prolonged and detailed researches, it has received relatively little attention from modern writers. It is generally felt that this work, like William Gilbert'sDe mundo, departs significantly from the more pronounced empirical approach to science which characterized Harvey's first publication,De motu cordis. De generationeshows that Harvey regarded reference to teleological and vitalistic principles as necessary for the solution of crucial problems in biology. In this respect he differed from his contemporaries, the iatrochemical and iatromechanical physiologists, whose non-teleological approach seems, at least superficially, to be in sympathy with the modern biological tradition. The structure and content ofDe generationeare so evidently determined by Aristotle's biological writings, that the work is used to illustrate Harvey's failure to emancipate himself from the philosophical encumbrances of antiquity.

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