MONSTROSITIES 289 



saurus} It is evident that if the animal lived, it would be forced 

 to walk mainly on its hind-legs, and balance itself by its huge tail. 

 It is also evident that the continual use of the hind-legs alone would 

 strengthen them, and at the same time weaken the fore-legs ; and 

 this might go on till the fore-limbs became suppressed altogether, 

 as in Hesperornis regalis ; and as the hind-limbs have been sup- 

 pressed in the Round-headed Dolphin and in other Cetacea. If 

 the fore-limbs can be suppressed altogether at once, as in some 

 cases of human monstrosities, they certainly can be dwarfed all 

 of a sudden. 



Abnormalities are revelations that cannot be ignored. They 

 indicate to us one possible method, by which important large and 

 sudden variations may have been effected. 



Then, when a large and sudden variation occurs in the brain 

 itself, we call the possessor of it either an imbecile, or a lunatic, 

 or a genius. If the latter, he may be a prophet, a philosopher, 

 a poet, a scientist, a mechanician, an inventor, a saint, etc. 



As long ago as 1829, Isidore Geoffrey St. Hilaire 2 mentioned 

 the artificial production of monstrous birds by acting in various 

 ways on the eggs, and he said that artificial incubation gives rise 

 to more monstrosities than natural incubation. And at p. 71 he 

 stated that the history of human monstrosities has frequently been 

 traced to blows on the abdomen during gestation. 



Some better and more accurate idea may be formed of the 

 possible origin of variations, anomalies, and monstrosities all 

 indicating different degrees of disturbance during embryonic life 

 from the recent experiments of Roux, Dareste, Windle, Hertwig, 

 Driesch, Chabry, and others. 3 



1 Shown on p. 125 of Creatures of Other Days. 



2 Propositions sur la monstrttosite, p. 70 (Theses de la Faciilte de Medecine, No. 185). 



3 ' Experimental Embryology,' by Mr. J. A. Thomson, Natural Science ', April 

 1893, p. 294. 



