Harvey's own words in the foregoing two passages effectively sum up both the nature of his doctrine that the blood is the first part of the body to live, and the nature of his evidence. But the words of the second passage foreshadow a closely related doctrine, advanced and held by him on the evidence of observation, viz.: that the blood, being the first part to live, is also the last part of the body to die. That the first part to live is always the last to die, is a doctrine set forth by Aristotle. This, Harvey seems to accept without question and to apply upon proper evidence to the blood; as he accepts and warmly upholds the ancient master's doctrine that there is a primacy of the body. The results of observation have forced Harvey to transfer this primacy from the heart to the blood, but it is the Aristotelian primacy still. Presently he shall show us that the blood is not only the first part to live, but the last to die. Before he does so, however, let Aristotle speak for himself, saying briefly:-- "The point[193] of origin [of the rest of the body] is the first thing generated. The point of origin in the animals which possess blood is the heart; in the rest, the analogue thereof, as I have often said. Moreover, the fact that the heart is the first thing generated is evident, not only to the senses, but from its death.[194] For therein life ceases the last; and in all cases the last generated is the first to make an end, the first generated, the last to make an end; nature, as it were, doubling back and returning upon her point of origin whence she came.[195] For generation is the change from not being to being; destruction is the reverse change, from being to not being."[196] Aristotle does not tell us why "in all cases ... the first generated" is "the last to make an end," and _vice versa_. Let it suffice that Harvey accepts this sweeping doctrine. Now let him complete his evidence in favor of the primacy of the blood by showing that the blood is not only the first part to live and to live tenaciously, but the last part to die. In a passage of the treatise On the Motion of the Heart and Blood, we have already read Harvey's promise to publish observations