XXXll INTRODUCTION. 



of malformation can tlius be considered as so innTiv 

 reversions to tlie ancestral form. 



Thus, teratology often serves as an aid in the study 

 of morphology in general, and also in that of special 

 groups of plants, and hence may even be of assistance 

 in the determination of affinities. In any case the data 

 supplied by teratology require to be used with caution 

 and in conjunction with those derived from the 

 study of development and from analogy. It is even 

 possible that some malformations, especially when they 

 acquire a permanent nature and become capable of re- 

 producing themselves by seed, may be the starting- 

 point of new species, as they assuredly are of new races, 

 and between a race and a species he would be a bold 

 man who would undertake to draw a hard and ftist 

 line.^ 



Discredit has been cast on teratology because it has 

 been incautiously used. At one time it was made to 

 prove almost everything ; what wonder that by some, 

 now-a-days, it is held to prove nothing. True the 

 evidence it affords is sometimes negative, often con- 

 flicting, but it is so rather from imperfect interpretation 

 than from any intrinsic worthlessness. If misused 

 the fault lies with the disciple, not with Nature. 



Teratology as a guide to the solution of morpho- 

 logical problems has been especially disparaged in 

 contrast with organogeny, but unfairly so. There is 

 no reason to exalt or to disparage cither at the expense 

 of the other. Both should receive the attention they 

 demand. The study of development shows the primi- 

 tive condition and gradual evolution of parts in any 



' On this subject see a paper of M. Nandin in the ' Comptea Rondus,' 

 1867, t. 64, pp. 929933. 



