n the right, so these
two organs (the liver and spleen) must themselves correspond to each
other, and as such, express their respective significations. Under the
belief that every exception (even though it be normal) to a general law
or rule, is, like the anomaly itself, alone explicable according to such
law, and expressing a fact not more singular or isolated from other
parallel facts than is one form from another, or from all others
constituting the graduated scale of being, I would, according to the
light of this evidence alone, have no hesitation in stating that the
liver and spleen, as opposites, represent corresponding organs, even
though they appeared at first view more dissimilar than they really are.
In support of this analogy of both organs, which is here, so far as I am
aware, originally enunciated for anatomical science, I record the
following observations:--1st. Between the opposite parts of the same
organic entity (between the opposite leaves of the same plant, for
example), nature manifests no such absolute difference in any case as
exists between the leaf of a plant and of a book. 2ndly. When between
two opposite parts of the same organic form there appears any
differential character, this is simply the result of a modification or
metamorphosis of one of the two perfectly similar originals or
archetypes, but never carried out to such an extreme degree as to
annihilate all trace of their analogy. 3rdly. The liver and the spleen
are opposite parts; and as such, they are associated by arteries which
arise by a single trunk (coeliac axis) from the aorta, and branch right
and left, like indices pointing to the relationship between both these
organs, in the same manner as the two emulgent arteries point to the
opposite renal organs. 4thly. The liver is divided into two lobes, right
and left; the left is less than the right; that quantity which is
wanting to the left lobe is equal to the quantity of a spleen; and if in
idea we add the spleen to the left lobe of the liver, both lobes of this
organ become quantitatively equal, and the whole liver symmetrical;
hence, as the liver plus the spleen represents the whole structural
quantity, so the liver minus the spleen signifies that the two organs
now dissevered still relate to each other as parts of the same whole.
5thly. The liver, as being three-fourths of the whole, possesses the
duct which emanates at the centre of all glandular bodies. The spleen,
as being one