William Harvey's Weak Experiment: The Archaeology of an Anecdote
Author(s): Cathy Gere
Source: History Workshop Journal, No. 51 (Spring, 2001), pp. 19-36
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4289719
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-S
A witch and a wizard sit smoldng by the hearth; a toad is by their feet. Woodcut, c. 1663.
William Harvey's Weak Experiment:
the Archaeology of an Anecdote
by Cathy Gere
The story goes that some time in the 1630s or thereabouts Dr William
Harvey,discovererof the circulationof the blood, disguisedhimself as a
wizard,gainedentryto a witch'sdwelling,askedto see her 'familiar',a tame
toad, then sent her off to buy some ale so that he could open up the belly
of the toad with his dissectingknife to prove that it was not a 'familiar'but
just 'an arrantnaturalltoad'. Historianshave fashioned Harvey'sexperiment into a parable of the seventeenth-centurytriumphof science over
superstition.This essay will reappraisetheir verdict.
The sourcefor this anecdoteis a long documentthatwas publishedin two
partsin the MayandJuneeditionsof the Gentleman'sMagazineof 1832.The
text appearsin the antiquariansection of the magazine,accompaniedby a
coveringletter,signed,accordingto the magazine'susualprotocol,only with
the initials B.C.T.: 'I send you a copy of a manuscriptcontainingsome
curiousparticularson the subjectof Demonology'.1The manuscriptitself
seems to have consistedof three sectionsof text and an unsignedletter.One
of the sections of text carriesthe date 16 January1685/6and the letter is
datedAsh Wednesday1685/6.The storyaboutHarveyappearsat the end of
the letter. My reappraisalof Harvey's experiment takes the form of an
archaeologyof this text - I examinethe rhetoricaluses to whichit has been
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put, discusssome of the politicaland culturalcontextsurroundingits publication in 1832 and attempta horizontalexcavationof the circumstancesin
whichit was originallywrittenin the 1680s.
Let us begin, as archaeologistsmust,with the top layer.The most recent
publisheduse of this text that I could find was in a 1997 articlein TheProceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Reminding the
readerthat the physicianwho discoveredthe circulationof the blood lived
in a pre-industrial'worldof fear and uncertainty... governed not by the
laws of nature but by irrationalforces', the authors of this essay suggest
that 'in the short course of that dissection it can seem that magic had
yielded to science'.2This extravagantclaim originateswith Keith Thomas,
who made use of the anecdote in his grippingReligionand the Decline of
Magic:
The new science also carried with it an insistence that all truths be
demonstrated,an emphasison the need for directexperienceand a disinclinationto accept inheriteddogmaswithoutputtingthem to the test
... the implicationsof this new attitudecan be seen in the story of how
the physician,WilliamHarvey,carefullydissecteda toad alleged to be a
witch'sfamiliar.. 3
Thomas'ssourcefor the text was WallaceNotestein,whose 1911Historyof
Witchcraftin England also makes strong claims for Harvey'sexperiment:
'. . here was a man who had a scientificway of looking at superstition.The
advent of such a man was most significantin the history of witchcraft,
perhapsthe most significantfact of its kind in the reignof CharlesI'.4Also
indebted to Notestein for this tale was Geoffrey Keynes, whose 1966 Life
of WilliamHarveycites this story along with Harvey'sbetter-documented
and more famous interventionin the case of the Lancashirewitches as
furtherproof of his heroic, demonology-bustingobjectivity.5Notestein got
wind of this story via FrederickAndrew Inderwick's1888 Sidelightson the
Stuarts,in which, in an interestingtwist, the heroic significanceof the dissection is credited not to the good doctor, but to the monarchwho supposedly put him up to it, Charles1.6
There are variationsof emphasisamongthese tellings,but in each case
the story of Harvey'sexperimentserves to supporta model of the philosophical convulsionsof the seventeenth centuryin which Science, armed
only with the truth, did battle with the powerfully-entrenchedprejudices
of the age and won. I wantto arguethat this antiquarianfragmentcan only
be mobilizedto supportsuch an accountby virtue of a readingthat leaves
almost everything out. As soon as we turn to the 1832 volume of the
Gentleman'sMagazine we discover the anecdote embedded in a much
longer and richer text which already promises to disrupt the reassuring
asymmetryset up in these interpretationsbetween modern reason and
ancient nonsense.
WilliamHarvey'sWeakExperiment
21
The first, undated, section of text consists of a descriptionof the civic
structureof the boroughof Malmesbury,in which the authormakes clear
his politicalleanings:
Being to mention Malmesburyoften in the ensuing narration,I have
thoughtit not unfit, to say somethingof the policy of that auntientCorporation, which by the justice and clemency and liberality of former
Kings, hath not only retained its auntient forme of Government,but
hath been inriched with great quantitys of land, which are disposed
amongst the Freemen and Guildeners, by very just and prudent
methods.
There follows a shamelesspiece of royalistpropagandadescribinga serene
hierarchyunbrokensince the grantingof rightof commonby King Athelstan 'whose monumentis yet extant in Malmesbury'.The readeris invited
to admirea paradeof civic virtuesconsequentupon the wise dispositionof
the land by 'that magnanimousKing', includingthe fact that 'upon a diligent inquirymade about 4 years since, there was found in North Wiltshire
very few Papists.. .'
The second sectionof text tells of a cabalof Malmesburywitchesandthe
sufferingsof their victims.It names 'JohnBarloweswife, convictedof and
executedfor Whitchcraftabout55 yearssince'andthen recountsthe suicide
of one Alice Elger who had the misfortuneto be suspected of witchcraft
when Malmesburywas 'in the handsof the Armysrangedagainstthe King;
that the Soldiers and some of the lowest of the people did in the mercat
place use her very roughly.. .' Therefollows a long accountof the hexingof
a Mr Bartholomewand the bewitchingof a gardener'sdaughterby one
Goody Orchard,'beleevedto be a Witchuniversally'.The sectionends with
Goody Orchard'sconvictionand execution.
The last part of the manuscript,dated 16 January1685/6,narratesthe
examination of fourteen people - twelve women and two men - accused
of bewitching young Master Thomas Webb (grandson of the aforementioned Mr Bartholomew). The author tells how 'Ann Tilling,
widdowe', had broken down and confessed to the boy's mother that she
and two other women had bewitched Thomas. The unfortunate Ann
Tilling had been recruitedby the others to make up the threesome necessaryfor their spells, 'Goody Clarkbeing bedrid'.Since her recruitmentshe
had met with other witches and 'did eate and drinkall together, and consulted of their business, which was the avenging themselves uppon theyr
enimys'. The confession snowballed and 'Besides the three first uppon
Tilling'sconfession, eleven persons, 2 men and nine women, were apprehended and examined...'
The accountof the arrestof the fourteensuspectsand their preliminary
examinationby the Aldermanand threejusticesis rapidlydisposedof, but
the pace slows when a fourth justice turns up, 'not being perhaps very
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credulous in matters of Witchcraft, at least thinking that at Malmesbury
they were rarerthanthey were thoughtto be . . .' This section culminatesin
a long speech in whichthe fourthjustice distinguishesbetween four different uses of the word 'witch',urgescautionin the reviewof the evidenceand
persuades his colleagues to drop the charges against all the defendants
except Ann Tillingand her two initialconfederates.
The fourthjusticeis the hero of the piece and,of course,the manuscript's
author.Ratheroddlyinsertedbetweensectionsone andtwo of the text is his
unsignedcoveringletterto someonein Cambridgein whichhe apologizesfor
the manuscript'sshortcomingsandgivesa piousexplanationof whyhe refers
to himselfin the thirdperson.The authorcomplainsthat he has
had people with me (and have some yet) uppon Justice business,ever
since I did rise in the morning,which hindersme from giving you the
accomptof manyoccurrencesvery extraordinary.Amongstwhichis the
Relation of a Rat which followed and would ever be with that worthy
GentlemanSr EdwardNorris, then residingin Ireland;an aparitionto
Mr. WilliamHoward... and severalrelationsof that kind...
The letter concludeswith the story about Harvey,which the authorintroduces thus:
I acknowledgewith wondersufficientI have heardseverallpersons,very
learnedotherwyse,affirmetherewere not, neythercouldbe, anywitches;
amongstothers,Doctor Harveywas inducedby a veryweake experiment
to be of that mind;I was very familiarlyacquaintedwith him, and was
often abroadwith him,and had severalldiscourseswithhim aboutthings
in his faculty,but principallyabout naturalphilosophy,I agreeingwith
him for muchthe more part.I once asked him whathis opinionwas concerningWhitchcraft;whetherthere was any suchthing?Hee told mee he
believed there was not. I asked him what induced him to be of that
opinion?
Upon readingthe full text a pictureemergesof its author- a royalistjustice
of the peace, a pious Anglican,friendlywith WilliamHarvey,familiarwith
contemporarynatural-philosophicalcontroversy, and curious about all
mannerof naturaland supernaturalphenomena.His actionsin the examination of the Malmesburywitches are presented to his Cambridgecorrespondentas those of a compassionateand sophisticatedman:
I know you will approvethe methodesI persuadedthe other Justicesto
use, whichwere not to persuadeanyone of the accusedto confesse,much
lesse to menaceany of them,to take nothingfor evidencewhichwas sayd
by a boy of 12 years old, in his fitts of being possessed ... I also advised
to procure two of the ablest Ministers... to speak generallywith the
WilliamHarvey'sWeakExperiment
Women, and to discover, if they could, whether there was ...
23
any
madness,deep melancholly,or hatredof life in Tilling,who confessed.
In a passageaboutfamiliarsKeithThomasassuresthe readerthat 'Thetoad
familiarexperimentallydissectedby WilliamHarveyon a famousoccasion
clearly had an objective existence'.7 Toft and Mackenney, the authors of the
1997articleaboutHarvey,take the oppositestance,characterizingthe story
as 'a piece of folklore ... in the same categoryas St Francis'sconversations
with birds'.8But the story is neither fact nor folklore:it enjoys a material
existencewithincopies of the 1832 Gentleman'sMagazine,from whichcan
be conjectureda series of events that become increasinglyremote - the
compositionof a text in 1686,a conversationbetween the authorof the text
and Harveysometimebefore the doctor'sdeath in 1657,and, at the end of
the series,the actualevents recountedin that conversation,a confrontation
between a witch and the discovererof the circulationof the blood.
In this section I reconstructthe circumstancesof the text's composition
by identifyingits authorand its intendedaudience.I hope to demonstrate
that in the context of post-revolutionaryEnglish naturalphilosophy the
witchcraftbeliefs of the narratorof Harvey'sexperimentwouldhave had as
great a claim to modernity as Harvey's witchcraft scepticism. Having
restored the relative credibilityof the author of the text I then take the
liberty of using certain features of his account to advance a revisionist
readingof the encounterbetweenthe King'sphysicianandthe witch'stoad.
It wasthe antiquarianandbiographerJohnAubrey,one of Malmesbury's
famoussons, who led me to the obscurefigurewho wrote the manuscripta close friendof Aubrey,knownto posterityonly for that friendshipandfor
an incompetentmilitarymanoeuvre during the Civil War denounced by
Clarendon in his History. In A Natural History of Wiltshire Aubrey says:
About 167_there was a Cabalof witchesdetected at Malmesbury.They
were examinedby Sir JamesLong of Draycot-Cerne,and by him committedto SalisburyGaol. I thinktherewere 7 or 8 womenhanged.There
were odd thingsswornagainstthem, as the strangemannerof dyeingof
H Dennys horse, and of flyingin the air on a staffe.These examinations
SirJameshath fairlywrittenin a book, whichhe promisedto give to the
Royall Societie.9
Among Aubrey'slettersat the Bodleianis an undatedletterfromSirJames
Long detailinghis intentions to write the piece. Long thanks Aubrey for
sending'My Lord Hale's book', (a 1682pamphletreportinga witchtrialin
Bury St Edmundspresidedover by Hale),10and then exclaims:
Good god How far as thes cases differentfrom our Malmesburymatters
- I assureyou that I was so farr concerneduppon the considerationof
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thos tryallslatelyprintedthat I resolvedand doe resolveto publish- notwithstandingthe more than ordinaryshareI had in them - all thos transactions- and addressethem to our Presidentand Fellowship... *11
The rest of the letter outlines the structurethat Long intended to employ
in his narrative,beginning with his resolution to 'set forth the policy of
Malmesburyand how the Aldermanto whose assistancewee were calledis
qualifiedthere...' and ending with his (unrealized)ambition to 'adde a
Briefe discourseconiecturalindeed of naturallMagiqueand close all with
the naturall history of certayne animals' including a 'coniecture of unicornes'whichwould 'detect the errorsof antiquity. . .'
Aubrey could only date the events recountedin the manuscriptto the
nearestdecade- '167_'- andwhatsurvivesof Long'stext mentionsno date,
but we can do better:the namesof the three womenwho end up being sent
to Salisbury - Tilling, Peacock, and Witchall - appear in the Gaol Books for
1672 along with the name of their alleged victim - Thomas Webb.12The
Gaol Books state that only Tilling and Witchallwere found guilty which
tallies with the manuscript:'. ..I broughtit to pass, that but three of those
were committed, of which two were convict and executed'. There were
other accusationsmade againstthe women whichdid not featurein Long's
account, includingthe 'killingof 8 gueldingsand 7 mares, value ?150, of
goods of Henry Dennynge, by witchcraft'.But Henry Dennynge'shorses
were mentionedby John Aubreyin the quote given above, suggestingthat
Aubrey'sknowledgeof the case exceeded what survivesof Long'saccount
- either from conversationswith his friend,from sections of Long'smanuscriptor letters whichare no longer extant, or from independentsources.
JohnAubreynever mentionedJamesLong withoutextollinghis charms;
this mightexplainwhy such an obscurefiguremeritedan entryin the 1895
edition of the Dictionary of National Biography. According to this account
Long was born in 1613, educated in England and France, and joined the
royal armysome time after the outbreakof the Civil War.In 1645 he was
returning from escorting the Prince of Wales to Bristol when he was
ambushedby parliamentariansat Devizes. Long was capturedand of his
four-hundredhorsesonly some thirty-oddsucceededin gettingaway.Long
was soon exchangedfor a parliamentarianprisonercapturedby the other
side, and by 1649 he was able to reclaimhis estate from the Protectorate.
Accordingto Aubrey he wrote a book on the 'Historyand Causes of the
CivillWar'whichis not extant.In 1673,at the death of his uncle, Long succeeded to the baronetcyand estates of Wraxhalland Draycot. He died in
1692.
Aubrey's praises were liberally quoted in the DNB article. Long is
describedby him as: 'greatmemorie;great historianand romanceer;great
falconerandfor horsemanship;for insects;exceedingcuriousandsearching
long since in naturall things'.13Long assisted Aubrey with The Natural
History of Wiltshireand his letters to Aubrey on fishes, birds, reptiles,
William Harvey's Weak Experiment
25
insectsandmineralswere insertedin the originalmanuscript.WhenAubrey
was broke and embroiledin legal troublesof variouskindshe often stayed
with Sir James:
My honoured and faithfull friend Colonell James Long, of Draycott,
since Baronet, was wont to spend a week or two every autumne at
Aubrury [Avebury]in hawking, where severall times I have had the
happinessto accompanyhim... The flightof the falconswas but a parenthesis to the Colonell'sfacetiousdiscourse... and the Musesdid accompany him with his hawkesand spaniels.14
Suchwas his charmthat even Cromwellwas won over:
Oliver, Protector,hawkingat Hounslowe Heath, discoursingwith him,
fell in love with his company,and commandedhim to weare his sword,
and to meete him a hawkeing,which made the strict cavalierslook on
him with an evil eye.15
The author of the DNB entry was Thomas Seccombewhose TwelveBad
Men of 1885 included a charactersketch of the witch-finderMatthew
Hopkins.Unable to reconcilehis portraitof a charmingcavalierwith such
activities,he madeno mentionthatSirJameshadbeen mixedup in the prosecution of the Malmesburywitches. Long's letters to Aubrey in the
BodleianLibraryalso suggesta rathermorecomplicatedcharacter.Written
in a breathlessstyle almostdevoid of punctuation,16
they chronicle,among
other misadventures,a punch-up in a coffee shop with someone who
asserted that the execution of Charles I was lawful, and a 'distemper'
brought on by an attempt to poison him by 'a Barbarousand revengfull
woman'.17
Long was evidentlyproud of his membershipof the Royal Society and
sent soil samplesto Aubreyfor chemicaltesting as well as descriptionsof
the wild animalsand birdsfound on his estate. He extendedhis hospitality
to one Doctor Grew 'untillhee bee satisfyedin his experiments. ..18 and
nagged Aubrey to get on with the natural history of Wiltshire.19As a
landowner he seems to have participatedin various land-improvement
schemes,returninga numberof times to a discussionof a proposalto join
the rivers Avon and Isis, and at one point inviting the surveyor of the
scheme to stay at Draycot Cerne.20Long's aristocraticcharm,his ardent
Royalism, and his enthusiasticparticipationin the intellectuallife of his
time mightwell have broughthiminto contactwithWilliamHarvey,despite
the thirty-fiveyear differencein their ages. We know that Harveyand King
Charleswere in Newmarketin 1636,so perhapsthatwas the occasionof the
doctor'sencounterwith the witch who lived on the bordersof Newmarket
Heath.21Long'sdescriptionof his friendshipwith Harveyseems to evoke a
happytime- ridingaroundwiththe King'sphysician,discoursingon natural
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philosophy- so let us conjecturethat the conversationin which Harvey
recounted his experimentoccurredbefore the Civil War had broken out.
Assuming both these things, the conversation would have taken place
between 1636and 1640,when JamesLong was an amusingyoung aristocrat
in his twenties and Harvey the venerable but still vigorous doctor in his
sixties.
But in the twentieth-centuryreadings of Harvey's experiment James
Long disappears.Our impulsive,charming,slightly-paranoidFellow of the
Royal Societybecomesnothingbut the carrierof the storyaboutthe heroic
doctor.22Notestein goes so far as to invertthe rhetoricof the whole passage
by implyingthatthe shadowynarratorapprovesof Harvey'sconclusions:he
paraphrasesthe tale, leaving out the preamble in which Long calls it a
'weake experiment'and then says 'The narratoradds:"I am certaynethis
for an argumentagainst spiritsor witchcraftis the best and most experimentall I ever heard".'23Notestein thereby recruits the narrator as a
'modern'like himself,bowled over by the Doctor's rationalism.
A close readingof the text, equippedwith the identitiesof its authorand
intended audience,yields a very differentpicture.Long's narrationof the
experimentwas actuallyhighlycritical.A tone of gentle mockeryis often
detectable:
[Harvey]told me that when he was at Newmercatwith the King,he had
heard there was a woman who dwelt at a lone house on the bordersof
the Heath, who was reputed a Witch;that he went alone to her, and
found her alone at home, alighted,and went into the house to her. Hee
said shee was very distrustfulat first;but when hee told her he was a
vizard,and came purposelyto conversewith her in their commontrade,
then shee easily believed him;for, say'dhee to mee, 'You know I have a
very magicallface', and looking upon mee, and gatheringupp his face, I
indeed thoughthee had.
After Harveygained the trustof the witch,he asked to see her familiar.
Shee immediatelyfetched a little milk, and put it in a flat dish, and went
to a chest and chuckedwith her mouth, as toads doe when they call one
another;and immediatelya toad came from underthe chest, and drunk
some of the milke.
Harveystoppedthe toad fromfinishingits snack,then sent awayits mistress
with a shilling to get some ale 'for they, beinge Brother and Sister, must
drinktogether'.Whenshe waswell on herwayhe fetchedthe saucerof milk,
went to the chest where the toad had its hiding place, readied his scalpel
and tongs, and made the same little chuckingnoise. The toad hopped out.
'His tongues were readyin his hand,he catchedup the toad in them;his disectingknife was readyalsoe, he opened the toadesbelly,out came the milk.'
William Harvey's Weak Experiment
27
After recountingHarvey's anecdote, Long gives a brutal summaryof
Harvey'sreasoning:
... he concludesthere are no witches very logistically;his argumentin
effect is this:- A woman had a tame toade, which she believed to bee a
spiritand her familiar;the toad upon disectionprovedan arrantnaturall
toad, and had really eaten milk, and not in appearanceonely, therefore
there are no witches.
For Long, questions about witchcraftwere simply not susceptibleto the
techniquesof the anatomytheatre.By the crudityof his logic Harveyplaced
himself so far outside Long's boundaryof reason that Sir Jamesattempts
only the most gentle of rebuttals:
I did know the Doctor's temper well, and that it did not much concern
me what opinion he was of in that poynt. I onely say'd, 'I think I have
heard their Spiritshave recourseto toades or other animalls(whichthe
witcheskeep and feed) at set times, or whereforeSpiritsare called upon
extraordinaryoccasions,but doe not exert them constantly,for then the
poor divellswould have a very bad time of it'.
From his brutal reduction of the argument - 'the toad ... had really eaten
milk and not in appearanceonly, thereforethere are no witches'- and the
contentof his counter-argument- 'Spiritshave recourseto toades ... at set
times ... but doe not exert them constantly. . .' - it wouldappearthat Long
objectedto Harveygeneralizinga universalfalsificationby extensionfrom
a singularnegative instance. Conclusionsabout the invisible workingsof
spiritsand demonscould not be so easily drawn.By declaringthat 'this for
an argumentagainstspiritsor witchcraftis the best and most experimentall
I ever heard', Long was not giving Harvey's activities the stamp of his
approval;he was assertingthat this 'weake experiment'was the best that
anyone could hope for in the doomed attemptto prove the non-existence
of the realmof the spiritsfromsingularoccasionswhenspiritsfailedto show
up.
Longmightwell have expectedthe Royal Societyrecipientsof his manuscriptto be sympatheticto his criticismof Harvey'sreasoning.The understanding,production and control of non-observables,includingdemons,
was centralto the experimentalprogrammeof the Royal Society.Long did
not confrontHarvey's'science'with his 'superstition':the conflicthere was
between two naturalphilosophies,with Longstandingas the representative
of a highly-successfuland progressive experimentalprogrammewhose
fruitshave been claimedfor modernityat least as often and as assiduously
as the discoveryof the circulationof the blood.
Royal Society researchinto the realmof the spiritscould be said to find
its warrantin the prescriptionsof Harvey'spatient FrancisBacon, whose
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books laid out the experimentalprogrammefor his Great Instauration.24
His last book, the posthumouslypublished Sylva Sylvarum(1627), has
sometimesreceived rough treatmentat the hands of historiansof science,
who regardit as an aberrantproductof Bacon'sdecline,but in his own time
the book was the most successfulof his works.The final chapteris called
'Experimentsin consort touching transmissionand influx of immateriate
virtues,and the force of the imagination',and outlinesvariousexperiments
designedto ascertainthe means of operationof incorporealforces, including the power of demons and witches.Other naturalevents which fall into
the category of the transmissionof immateriatevirtues include the transmission of disease and odour, the movements of the tides, the drawing
power of amber,jet andmagnets,the influenceof the planets,operationsof
sympathyand antipathyand the invisiblepower of the mind.Bacon asserts
that: 'All operationsby transmissionof spiritsand imaginationhave this;
that they work at a distance,and not at touch ... *'25
andwitchcraftwasno less
Bacon'streatmentof telepathy,wart-charming
naturalisticthanhis discussionsof magnetismand tides. He was engagedin
an attemptto understandthe operationof demons,spiritsand the imagination as behavingaccordingto the laws that govern corporealthings.His
favouritemodel for the effects of the imaginationwas that of physicalcontagion. He proposes,for example,that
if a witch by imaginationshould hurt any far off, it cannot be naturally,
but by workingupon the spirit of some that cometh to the witch;and
from that partyupon the imaginationof another;and so upon another;
till it come to one that hath resort to the partyintended;and so by him
to the partyintendedhimself.26
This naturalisticdemonology played an importantrole in seventeenthcentury thought: it enabled natural philosophersto speculate as to the
boundariesof variousinvisiblephenomena.As StuartClarkpoints out in
his ThinkingWithDemons (1997):'Whateverelse writerson demonismand
witchcraftwere doing, then, they were also engaged in a task of scientific
demystification.. .'27
Royal Society experimentershitched these Baconianprescriptionsto a
mechanicalphilosophythat, far from excludingspirit,actuallygenerateda
host of subtle fluids, aethereal substances and divine interventions.By
assigninga completely passive role to matter,the mechanicalphilosophy
needed recourse to a panoply of spiritualagents both in order to explain
such obvious phenomenaas firstmotion and mind and in order to protect
the Society againstimputationsof atheism.In an essay writtenin the 1670s,
for example,RobertBoyle wrotethatthe mostimportantfunctionsin medicine and naturalphilosophywere performedby 'a very agile and invisible
sort of fluidscalled spirits,vital and animal...'28
Restorationexperimentsin pneumaticsand optics that were concerned
WilliamHarvey'sWeakExperiment
29
with producingvital spiritsin the controlledspace of the laboratorywere
complementedby the demonologicalprogrammeof Royal Society fellows
Joseph Glanvill and Henry More, concerned with experimentalconfirmation of spiritualagents in the outside world. In his Hydrostaticks, published in 1672, Scottish mathematicianGeorge Sinclair illustrated the
continuityof these two strategiesby combiningthem both in a single text.
The first section of the book was a descriptionof his hydrostaticalexperiments, the second section describedhis replicationof Boyle's experiments
with the air pump, and the third part consisted of miscellaneousobservations,one of whichwas an accountof the hauntingof the Campbellfamily
by a devil.He justifiedthe inclusionof this narrativeby claimingthathe was
thus 'advancingthe Historicalpart of Learningin orderto [sic:relatingto]
Spirits,upon whichthe Scientificalpart doth so muchdepend . . . 29
Sinclairused a frog in one of his pneumaticalexperiments,dumpingher
into the receiver of his beloved air pump: '... when the receiver was
exhausted,I perceivedher sides to swell very big, and when the stop-cock
was turned to let in the Air again, her sides clapped close together...'30
From a modernistperspectivethe experimentally-inducedsuffocationof
Sinclair'sfrog belongs with Harvey's vivisection of the witch's toad. In
seventeenth-centuryterms,however,the witch'stoad was a closercousinof
the 'spiritfamiliar'perceivedby JamesLong, a toad that is intermittently
used as a conduitfor diabolicinfluence.
Sinclair'saccountof the Campbellfamily'smisfortunesfoundits wayinto
the culminationof their
More and Glanvill's1681SaducismusTriumphatus,
work of collecting,organizingand publishingspirittestimony,wearing,as
More put it in the preface to an earlier work Antidote Against Atheism
(1653), 'the Garb of the Naturalist'.After Glanvill'sdeath in 1680, More
collected together his colleague'swritingson witchcraftand startedto add
to them. As well as Sinclair'sdemon narrativehe added a series of further
testimonialsfrom physicians,clerics,justices and aristocratswhose social
and professionalstandingconferredcredibilityon their stories.31
Long enjoyedsportingthe garbof the naturalist,as is shownby his contributions to Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire, and he continued to
wear it in his capacity as examiner of the Malmesburywitches. His
demonology,as revealedby the long speech at the end of the text wherehe
distinguishesbetween four uses of the word 'witch',is thoroughlynaturalistic - the first kind of witch is merely melancholyin the humoralsense
('corruptedby atrabilis',or full of bile) such that 'theyrlooks, when fixed
upon a livingobjectmanytimes,destroyesit by a certaynpoyson,very contraryto the purposeof those miserablepeople, so that it sometimesaffects
their beloved children'.The close fit between More'smaterialand the contents of Long's manuscriptsuggests that the Cambridgedivine to whom
Long'sletter was addressedmight actuallyhave been Henry More.
Whether or not it was More to whom he was writing,Long's politics,
theology and naturalisticdemonologyplaced him firmlywithin the Royal
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Society tradition.The successof the Royal Society version of the mechanical philosophywas in part due to its usefulnessto the Anglicanestablishment in the aftermathof the Civil War.32Glanvill,More and Boyle sought
to develop a naturalphilosophythat wouldprotectorthodoxAnglicantheology againstits numerousenemies - atheists,enthusiasts,papists and so
on.33Long'stext, with its pious referenceto the fact that he was fastingon
Ash Wednesday,was absolutely continuous with these concerns. At the
time of writinghe was on the front line of defence of Anglicanism:when
JamesII sent out his notoriousletter of 1687askingMembersof Parliament
andJusticeswho wouldsupporthis repealof anti-Catholiclegislation,Long,
like More and the CambridgePlatonists,repliedthat he would supportthe
King'sDeclarationof Indulgencebut he had to drawthe line at the repeal
of the Penal and Test Acts in the name of protecting the Church of
England.34
Anglicans also viewed with concern the vast repertoire of what they
regarded as vulgar techniques for healing, divination, protection and
decision-makingthat constituted the practical aspect of early modern
popularculture.As well as being naturalistic,Long'staxonomyof witches
stressedthe inefficacyof the ritualsof witchcraft.The firstkindof witchwas
merelyill, the second and thirdwere inadvertentservantsof the devil, and
only the fourthkind- the witchwho enteredinto an 'explicittcontractwith
some uncleanespirits'- was responsiblefor her actions,and even then only
derivativelybecause in each of the last three cases it was demons that did
the actualwork, not peasants.Every section of Long's manuscriptreveals
an intertwiningof Anglicanpiety,royalism,and elite demonologytypicalof
Royal Society naturalphilosophersof the late seventeenthcentury.
'I did know the Doctor's temper well', Long says, 'and that it did not
concernme what opinionhe was of in that poynt . . .' Long'sgentlysatirical
representationof Harvey,nearlythirtyyears after the doctor'sdeath, portrayed Harvey'sthought as out of step with the subtleties of Restoration
natural philosophy. Given Harvey's role as a patron of experimental
pneumaticsin Oxfordin the 1650s,how is it that Long was able to hint to
his Royal Society interlocutorsthat on some mattersHarvey'sopinionwas
so easily disregarded?We know that Harvey was an Aristotelianwhose
loyaltieslay with the conservativeresearchprogramof his Paduanteacher
Fabricius.The goal of his experimentalprogrammewas the Aristotelianone
of establishinguniversalprinciplesapplicableto all animals,and his focus
on the anatomyof the heartsprungfroman Aristotelianconvictionthat the
heart was the seat of the animal's'vegetativesoul' and a microcosmof the
sun.35AlthoughHarvey'sAristotelianismwas thoroughlyexperimentaland
anti-scholastic,could it have been this conservatismthat provided Long
with the resourcesto portrayHarvey as old-fashioned?The idea that the
spiritualor occultstatusof the toad couldbe ascertainedby an examination
of its anatomymight have smackedof Papistsuperstitionto a progressive
memberof the 1680sRoyal Society.It is the ironyof his portrayalof Harvey
WilliamHarvey'sWeakExperiment
31
that Long ended up reviled in the nineteenth centuryfor his superstition
and then completely erased in the twentieth as an irrelevancethat could
only standin the way of the pure light of Harvey'sheroic modernity.
Long also lets his readersknow that Harvey'sexperimentwas not politically innocent- his narrationof the events directlyfollowingthe dissection
show the doctor wieldingsome heavierguns thanjust the naked truth:
The good Doctor, upon the woman'sreturne,who found him busy in
observingwhat the toad would do in the pickle hee had put him in, was
in danger to have a more magicalface than hee had before, and habit
too; the woman let or ratherthrew downe the pitcherof ale, flew like a
tigris at his face ... The Doctor intreetedfayrly,offered money, would
have persuaded'twas not a Divell but a meer toad. That way not prevayling,hee turnedhis tale, saydhee was the King'sPhisitian,sent by the
King to discoverwhetherindeed shee was a witch;if a witchto have her
apprehended;if not, to undeceave her, if hee could. The name of the
King and the word apprehending,broughther into a better temper ...
the Doctor got away;tolde the Kinge,whose leave he had to go upon the
expedition,the whole story,whichwas pleasantentertaynmentfor that
good King at his dinner.
Here Long provides the anxiouspost-modernreader with materialsfor a
revisionistinterpretationof Harvey'sexperimentin whichhis scalpelis not
the bearerof truthbut the cuttingedge of a set of powerrelationships.The
witch's utter disregardof Harvey's argumentthat her toad 'twas not a
Divell' indicatesthatwhatevervalueshe placedon the relationshipbetween
herselfandher familiar,it withstoodthe knowledgethatthe toad 'hadreally
eaten milk and not in appearanceonely'. The doctor's experimentnow
reads as a confrontationbetween cultureswhose differentbelief systems
slide off each other:his anatomicalgesture cannotprove anythingin that
'lone house on the bordersof the Heath'. Failingto impressher with his
argumentsand unable to buy her off, Harvey changedhis story,switched
his pose from wizardto witchfinder,and in so doing displayedparticularly
nakedlythe power relationshipbetween his cultureof the dissectingknife
and her peasantmagic:'The name of the King and the word apprehending
broughther into a better temper...'
The twentieth-centuryauthorswith whom I began this essay interpreted
Harvey'sexperimentas usheringin modernity.In the seventeenthcentury,
however,there was little to choose in termsof progressivethoughtbetween
William Harvey and James Long, the narratorof the story. In this concludingsection I returnbrieflyto 1832,to one aspect of the politicalbackdrop againstwhichHarvey'sexperimentbecame once againvisible via the
Gentleman'sMagazine,in order to argue that the modernityof Harvey's
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scalpelwas the outcome of a reorganizationof the categoriesof reasonand
unreasonthat has its originsin the 1830s.
The coveringletterwhich'B.C.T.'sent to the Gentleman'sMagazinewith
his copy of Long'smanuscriptwas headed 'Malmesbury,May 5'. Two days
later,on 7 May 1832,the reportof the committeethatdrewup the Anatomy
Act, a medicalcounterpartto the GreatReformAct, had its secondreading
in the House of Commons.In this section I examinethe changingrelationshipbetween anatomyandstate power,especiallyits abruptreformin 1832,
in an attemptto expose some of the conditionsthat producedthe various
interpretationsof Harvey's'weak experiment'.
Anatomy had long been entangledwith state power:dissectionwas an
early modern form of punishment.Some of the corpses anatomizedby
WilliamHarvey were availableto him via Henry VIII's allowanceto the
English companiesof Barbersand Surgeonsof four hanged felons every
year;he received his educationat Caius College which had the distinction
of the use of two criminalcadavers.In the sixteenthand seventeenthcenturies anatomicaldemonstrationswere public spectacles, highly orchestrated,in which the felon, the executioner,and the anatomisteach played
a role in repairingthe fabricof sovereignpower momentarilydamagedby
an act of lawlessness.Against this backgroundHarvey's toad dissection
would have had all the punitiveovertonesthat are suggestedby Long.
The relationshipbetween the medicalprofession,the rulingelite and the
judiciarycontinuedunabatedthroughthe eighteenthcentury.The participationof the anatomistin the ritualsof judicialpunishmentintensifiedwith
the passing of the 'MurderAct' of 1752 in which judges were given discretionto includedissectionin sentencingfor murder.The Act was explicit
in the use that was to be made of the spectacleof dissection:it was designed
so that 'some furtherterrorand peculiarmark of infamybe added to the
punishmentof death' and 'to impress a just horror in the mind of the
offenderand on the mindsof suchas shallbe present'.36Despite an increase
in the numberof availablebodies as a result of this legislation,at the turn
of the nineteenth century supply still lagged far behind demand;by the
1820sthe anatomyschoolswere principallysuppliedby body snatcherswho
plundered the graves of the newly-dead. In 1828 a commission was
appointed to look into this problem: its recommendation was that
anatomistsbe allowedto use the bodies of people too poor to pay for their
funerals.
Ruth Richardson's luminously angry book Death, Dissection and the Des-
titute (1987) reveals the harsh consequences of this rationalizingmove.
Rather than removing the punitive stigma of dissection, she argues, the
Anatomy Act merelydisplacedit from the bodies of murderersto those of
the poor. The reformersput a gloss of utilitarianrationalityon this manoeuvre by means of an assault on popular beliefs about the sanctity of
humanremains.37
The AnatomyAct heraldeda shiftin Harvey'sreputation.In 1830he was
WilliamHarvey'sWeakExperiment
33
the Tory hero of Lives of BritishPhysicians,his achievementscreditedto
'the rankin society occupiedby physiciansin this country. .'38 By 1832he
could become a heroic figure to those who sought to legitimize the principles that underlaythe AnatomyAct. Dr SouthwoodSmith,the authorof
'Use of the Dead to the Living',first publishedas an article in the Benthamite WestminsterReviewin 1829 and reprintedas a pamphletin 1832,
pointed out to his readersthat 'The circulationof the blood, for example,
never could have been discoveredwithout dissection'.39SouthwoodSmith
went on to try anddisabusehis audienceof that 'formidableobstacleopposing the prosecutionof anatomicalinvestigations',an irrationalattachment
to the corporealremainsof those we love.40
As part of the same programmeof medicalreform,vivisectionwas also
subjected to the rationalizingscrutiny of the utilitarians.Bentham, an
animallover, had famouslyincludedanimalsin his utilitarianschema,and
throughoutthe 1830svariousreformswere suggestedin the medicaljournals of the day, includinga proposalto restrictanimalexperimentationto
cold-bloodedcreaturessuch as frogs and toads.41In 1832 Harvey'sassault
on peasant beliefs by means of a toad vivisectionwould have come across
as a supremelyWhig gesture, a microcosmof the Anatomy Act, with the
'anatomyriots' of the period after the Act was passed as the witch'shelpless retaliationagainstHarveywrit large.
It is strikingthat B.C.T.'scoveringletter to the Gentleman'sMagazine
never mentionsWilliamHarvey.B.C.T.offers his own horrifieddenunciation of witchcraftbeliefs without referringto the doctor's part in underminingthem:
Experienceor the evidenceof their own senses, appearto have no influence on the judgement of witnesses, judges, or juries. They saw the
accusedstandingat the bar,completelyin theirpower,offeringno resistance, and incapableof escapingfrom theirinjustice;yet notwithstanding
this, consideredthe mutteringsof a waywardsullen boy, and the ravings
of delirium, sufficient evidences of the wretched victim's guilt, and
withoutthe slightestremorseconsignedher to an ignominiousdeath.
According to the Nichols File of the Gentleman's Magazine, B.C.T. is one
Mr B.C. Taylorof Malmesbury,authorof the reviewin a previousissue of
the magazineof an exhibitionof paintingsat the Galleryof BritishArtists
in Pall Mall.42This review reveals Taylor's position on the political
upheavalsof the time. After enumeratingthe royal and aristocraticpurchasersof paintingsfromthe exhibition,he arguesthathis exaltedlist shows
that Whigreformswould endangerTorypatronageof the arts:
... confidenceis revivingin that class of society from which those arts
derive their greatest encouragement.One fact in corroborationof our
view of the question,is very remarkable,and no less honourableto the
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party concerned in it. Lord Monson, who purchasedGatton [country
estate] for 70,0001,the whole of whichsumhe is likelyto lose by 'the Bill',
[the 1832ReformBill] has come forward,andgivenone hundredguineas
for two smallpictures!43
The amateurantiquarianB.C. Taylorwas then a Tory to whom Harvey's
experiment had no significanceas part of a story of scientific progress.
Taylor's successor was F.A. Inderwick whose 1888 interpretationalso
erasedHarvey,this time in favourof King CharlesI. But the Whighero of
1832 returnedwhen the anecdote fell into the hands of twentieth-century
historians.It was in the context of the Whig reforms of the 1830s that
materialismand the erasure of superstitionbecame yoked together in a
respectableform, untaintedby the ferocity of the French Revolution. In
1686 Long'srationalAnglicandemonologywas part of the solution to the
problemof civildisorderin the aftermathof the CivilWar;by 1832Harvey's
anatomicalgesturecould be read as confidentmaterialismand assimilated
into the most successfuldeflectionof civil strifeimplementedin nineteenthcentury Europe. The stage was thus set for the modernist retelling of
Harvey'sexperimentwhichcelebratedit as nothingmore than a procedure
for the strippingawayof illusion.
Taylorlamentedthat 'Experienceor the evidence of theirsenses appear
to have no influenceon the judgementof witnesses,judges or juries',but a
close readingof Dr Harvey's'weak experiment'and the interpretationsof
it advancedin 1686,1832,1888,1911and todaycan expose the processesby
which the validity of sensory evidence is negotiated by political power.
Royal Society membersJames Long, Joseph Glanvill, Henry More and,
indeed, Robert Boyle could freely ignore negative evidence for the nonexistence of spirits; positive spirit testimony by reliable witnesses was
experientialevidence. It was Harvey's'experiment'that would have contravenedtheir notions of rigorousempiricalprocedure.
From the 'pleasantentertainment'that it providedfor King Charles,to
Long's fastidious Anglican rejection of its logic, to B.C.T.'sfurious Tory
repudiationof the errorsof the past, to the Whig modernistreadingsthat
upheldthe practicesof science as nothingmore than access to the truth,to
my own anxious,post-colonialchampioningof the irrational,retellingsof
Harvey's micro-anatomydraw and redraw the boundaryof reason by a
process of exclusion.Modernityis the outcome of this process of reinterpretation,not the cause of the actionsof those who end up as the heroes of
modernity'sparables.
NOTESAND REFERENCES
I am very gratefulto SimonSchafferand Jim Secordfor theircommentson earlierdrafts
of this paper.
WilliamHarvey'sWeakExperiment
35
1 Gentleman'sMagazine,1832,vol. 1, pp. 405-10, 489-92.
2 A. D. Toft and R. Mackenney,'OccultResemblances:Magicand Medicinein the Age
of William Harvey', Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh 27: 1, Jan.
1997,pp. 89-104.
3 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London,
1971,p. 644.
4 Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraftin England 1588-1718, Russell and Russell,
New York,1911,p. 162.
5 Geoffrey Keynes, The Life of WilliamHarvey,ClarendonPress, Oxford, 1966, pp.
206-16.
6 FrederickAndrewInderwick,Sidelightson theStuarts,SampsonLow,Marston,Searle
and Rivington,London,1888,p. 160.
7 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 524.
8 Toft and Mackenney,'OccultResemblances',pp. 96-7.
9 JohnAubrey,TheNaturalHistoryof Wiltshire,ed. JohnBritton,WiltshireTopographical Society,London,1847,pp. 121-2.
10 See Gilbert Geis and Ivan Bunn, A Trial of Witches: a seventeenth-century witchcraft
prosecution,Routledge,Londonand New York,1997.This accountof the BurySt Edmunds
case includesa full reprintof the pamphletthat inspiredLong to write his own accountof
the Malmesburywitches and some interesting discussion of the use of experimental
proceduresin the trial presidedover by Hale. Long evidentlythoughtthat Hale's handling
of the prosecutionwas more 'credulousin mattersof Witchcraft'than his own intervention
in the case of the Malmesburywitches,sayingthathe saw 'smalecauseto condemnthospoore
women...'
11 JamesLong to JohnAubrey(n.d.),BodleianLibrary,AubreyMs 12, p. 290.
12 Inderwick,Sidelights,p. 191.
13 John Aubrey, Brief Lives, Chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey between
theyears1669and 1696,ed. AndrewClark,ClarendonPress,Oxford,1898,vol. 2, p. 36.
14 John Aubrey, Wiltshire,the Topographical Collections of John Aubrey, ed. John Jackson,
Longman,London,1862,p. 315.
15 Aubrey,BriefLives,vol. 2, pp. 36-7.
16 The dramaticimprovementin Long's style in his apologiafor the treatmentof the
Malmesburywitchescan be explainedby his commentat the end of the letter detailinghow
he was goingto writethe piece thatit will 'bee the easierfor mee to doe becauseI have a very
able emanuensis.. .'
17 Long to Aubrey,16 July 1676,AubreyMs 12, p. 267.
18 Long to Aubrey,3 June 1682,AubreyMs 12, p. 275.
19 For Long'spridein his membershipof the Royal Societyand some negotiationsabout
'BlewMarle',see Longto Aubrey,16 July1676,AubreyMs 12 p. 267;for a modestdisclaimer
abouthis contributionto one meetingof the Royal Societysee the undatedletter to Aubrey
beginningon p. 290;for a discussionof the chemicalcompositionof anothersoil samplesee
Long to Aubrey5 March1682/3,p. 279;for his contributionsto Aubrey'sNaturalHistoryof
Wiltshiresee Longto Aubrey30 Jan.1686/7.The best discussionof JohnAubrey'sactivitiesas
a member of the Royal Society, and an excellent backgroundto Long's enthusiasticparticipation, is Michael Hunter's John Aubrey and the Realm of Learning, Duckworth, London,
1975.
20 AubreyMs 12, p. 290.
21 See Keynes,Harvey,p. 213.
22 Notestein does examinethe rest of the manuscriptfor insightsinto witchcraftbeliefs
but this is in anotherchapter,kept entirelyseparatefromthe storyaboutHarvey.Inderwick,
Notestein'ssource,does the same.
23 Notestein, Witchcraft,p. 162.
24 See Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon, From Magic to Science, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
London1968.
25 FrancisBacon, Works,ed. JamesSpedding,1858,vol. 2, p. 643.
26 Bacon, Works,vol. 2, p. 657.
27 Stuart Clark, Thinking with Demons: the Idea of Witchcraftin Early Modern Europe,
ClarendonPress, Oxford 1997, p. 165. See also his 'The RationalWitchfinder:conscience,
demonological naturalism and popular superstitions', in Science, Culture and Popular Belief in
RenaissanceEurope,ed. StephenPumfrey,Paolo Rossi and MauriceSlawinski,Manchester
36
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UniversityPress,1991.The sectionon witchcraftandnaturalphilosophyin Clark'sbook is the
best of the recentliteratureon magicand earlymodem science.
28 Cited in SimonSchaffer,'GodlyMen and MechanicalPhilosophers:Souls and Spirits
in RestorationNaturalPhilosophy',Sciencein Context1: 1, 1987,pp. 55-85, p. 64.
29 George Sinclair, The Hydrostaticks; The Weight, Force and Pressure of Fluid Bodies,
made evident by Physical and Sensible Experiments, 1672, p. 238.
30 Sinclair, Hydrostaticks, p. 223.
31 See T. H. Jobe, 'The Devil in RestorationScience:the Glanvill-Webster
Debate', Isis
72, 1981, pp. 343-56.
32 See S. ShapinandS. Schaffer,Leviathanand theAir Pump,PrincetonUniversityPress,
1985,andM. C. JacobandJ. R. Jacob'TheAnglicanOriginsof Modem Science',Isis 71, 1980;
pp. 251-67.
33 So numerouswere the enemies of the faith that the title of a lecture translatedby
GeorgeSinclairin 1684listed- in alphabeticalorder- no fewerthantwenty-twoheresiesthat
the contentsof the lecturewere designedto refute.
34 S.T. Bindoff, 'Parliamentary
History,1529-1688',in A Historyof Wiltshire,ed. R. B.
Pugh,VictoriaHistoryof the Countiesof England,LondonInstituteof HistoricalResearch,
OxfordUniversityPress,Londonand Oxford,1957,p. 167-8.
35 William Harvey, Lectures on the Whole of Anatomy: an annotated translation of
PrelectionesAnatomiaeUniversalis,ed. C. D. O'Malley,F. Poynter,K. Russell,Universityof
CaliforniaPress, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961;and The Movementof the Heartand the
Blood in Living Creatures(Latinoriginal1628;Englishtranslation1653),transl.Gwenneth
Whitteridge,BlackwellScientificPublications,Oxford, 1976. For a discussionof Harvey's
Aristotelianismsee AndrewCunningham,'WilliamHarvey:the Discoveryof the Circulation
of the Blood', in ManMastersNature,ed. Roy Porter,BBC Books, London,1987.
36 Cited in Johnathon Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body
in Renaissance Culture, Routledge, London, 1995, p. 54.
37 Ruth Richardson, Death, Dissection and the Destitute, Routledge, Kegan and Paul,
London,1987.
38 'WilliamHarvey'in Anon., Lives of BritishPhysicians,John Murray,London, 1830,
p. 31.
39 SouthwoodSmith,'Use of the Dead to the Living',3rd edn, London,1832,p. 5. The
copy I used was boundinto a singlevolumewith some other materialsfromthe 1830sat the
Wellcome Library in London. See Richardson, Death Dissection and the Destitute, for a
discussionof this pamphlet.
40 Neither SouthwoodSmithnor WilliamHarveycould be accusedof hypocrisyin this
regard,both of themhavingperformedautopsieson theirown fathers!
41 See Diana Manuel,'MarshallHall (1790-1857):Vivisectionand the Developmentof
Experimental Physiology', in Nicolas Rupke (ed.), Vivisection in Historical Perspective, Croom
Helm, Londonand New York,1987,pp. 92-5.
42 Apart from this tiny scrapof evidence,B.C.T.seems to have left no papertrailwhatsoever.He does not appearin anyrecordsfor Malmesburyor in the 1841censusfor Wiltshire.
It is possible,of course,that B. C. Taylorwas a pseudonym.
43 Gentleman's Magazine, Feb. 1832, p. 153.