It is sometimes said, and not wholly without truth, that teratology, as it stands at present, is little more than a record of facts, but in proportion as the laws that regulate normal growth are better understood, so will the knowledge of those that govern the so-called monstrous formations increase. Sufficient has been already said to prove that there is no intrinsic difference between the laws of growth in the two cases. As our knowledge increases we shall be enabled to ascertain approximately of what extent of variation a given form is capable, under given conditions, and to refer all formations now considered anomalous to a few well-defined forms. Already teratology has done much towards showing the erroneous nature of many morphological statements that still pass current in our text-books, though their fallacy has been demonstrated again and again. Thus organs are said to be fused which were never separate, disjunctions and separations are assigned to parts that were never joined, adhesions and cohesions are spoken of in cases where, from the nature of things, neither adhesion nor cohesion could have existed. Some organs are said to be atrophied which were never larger and more fully developed than they now are, and so on. So long as these expressions are used in a merely conventional sense and for purposes of artificial classification or convenience, well and good, but let us not delude ourselves that we are thus contributing to the philosophical study either of the conformation of plants or of the affinities existing between them. What hope is there that we shall ever gain clear conceptions as to the former, as long as we tie ourselves down to formulas which are the expressions of facts as they appear to be, rather than as they really are? What chance is there of our attaining to comprehensive and accurate views of the genealogy and affinities of plants as long as we are restricted by false notions as to the conformation and mutual relation of their parts?[8] That teratology may serve the purposes of systematic botany to a greater extent than might at first be supposed becomes obvious from a consideration of such facts as are mentioned under the head of Peloria, while the presence of rudimentary organs, or the occasional appearance of additional parts, or other changes, may, and often do, afford a clue to the relationship existing between plants--a relationship that might otherwise be unsuspected. So, too, some of the alterations met with appear susceptible of no other explanations than that they are reversions to some pre-existing form, or, at any rate, that they are manifestations of a phase of the plant affected different from that which is habitual, and due, as it were, to a sort of allotropism.