LETTERS. 611
ever name you call it, from which an animal is not only produced, but by which it is afterwards governed, and to the end of its life preserved. As all this, I say, is not readily accounted for, so do I hold it scarcely less difficult to conceive how pestilence or leprosy should be communicated to a distance by contagion, by a zymotic element contained in woollen or linen things, household furniture, even the walls of a house, cement, rub- bish, &c., as we find it stated in the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus. How, I ask, can contagion, long lurking in such things, leave them in fine, and after a long lapse of time pro- duce its like in another body? Nor in one or two only, but in many, without respect of strength, sex, age, tempera- ment, or mode of life, and with such violence that the evil can by no art be stayed or mitigated. Truly it does not seem less likely that form, or soul, or idea, whether this be held substantive or accidental, should be transferred to something else, whence an animal at length emerges, all as if it had been produced on purpose, and to a certain end, with foresight, intelligence, and divine art.
These are among the number of more abstruse matters, and demand your ingenuity, most learned Nardi. Nor need you plead in excuse your advanced life ; I myself, although verging on my eightieth year, and sorely failed in bodily strength, nevertheless feel my mind still vigorous, so that I continue to give myself up with the greatest pleasure to studies of this kind. I send you along with these, three books upon the subject you name. 1 If you will mention my name to his Serene High- ness the Duke of Tuscany, with thankfulness for the distin- guished honour he did me when I was formerly in Florence, and add my wishes for his safety and prosperity, you will do a very kind thing to
Your devoted and very attached friend,
WILLIAM HARVEY.
30th Nov. 1653.
1 [Nardi had written to Harvey requesting him to select a few of the publications which should give a faithful narrative of the distractions that had but lately agitated England. ED.]
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