of Human Monstrosity. 253 



gible mass between it and the spleen was once intended tor duo- 

 denum, though never matured into that viseus. 



I admit that there are difficulties in the explanation which I 

 have thus given ; but I advance it because it is only by a careful 

 consideration of individual cases that the mystery of these unusual 

 productions can be unravelled : and what is yet obscure in organic 

 development be satisfactorily explained. Such productions as that 

 which I have described were formerly kept in museums as objects 

 of idle wonder. They are now closely investigated as particular 

 cases of a general problem : cases in which some of the conditions 

 are modified or suppressed, and of which the value and force are 

 therefore rendered apparent. And thus do they present ready to 

 our hand, means for the solution of what is most difficult — devices 

 which no human ingenuity could have contrived. 



