VOL: IV. | Botanical Nomenclature. 183 
the interest felt in the science by the large body of botanists, 
who not being in command of extensive libraries find themselves 
unable to judge between the conflicting claims of the various 
new names, with which those familiar to them are to be sup- 
planted. 
The rigid law of priority, judging by what its attempted 
enforcement has produced, is not competent to give usa stable 
nomenclature. There are too many cases which under such a 
rule must always remain in doubt, and it is further complicated 
by questions of sufficiency of publication, and the right to 
amend names which open vistas of perpetual argument. It 
must be apparent too that the claim of strict justice which is 
supposed to underlie the law of priority is a delusion. It puts 
the work of the most ignorant and incompetent on a level with 
that of the greatest scientest, offering a direct premium for 
hasty and inconsiderate work, and yet no permanent advantage 
can accrue to the vain glory of anyone, for it is only a question 
of time and settled nomenclature when author-citation will be 
discontinued in systematic, as it now is in popular and semi- 
scientific work. 
It would seem that there should be some limit to the raking 
up of obscure and forgotten species and genera, especially as they 
were in the great majority of cases neglected for good reason, 
and have in many instances become recognizable only by the 
advance of knowledge or by a process of exclusion. A law of 
limitation has been found necessary in the property affairs of 
mankind, and such a law with a period of—say fifty years— 
might give us relief from that class of “scientists” whose 
researches into the mysteries of nature consist in trying to find 
out what our predecessors knew, instead of doing their little best 
to add to the world’s knowledge. : 
A tendency to legislate for one’s neighbors is usually found 
in indirect ratio to fitness for such an office. No code of laws 
_ yet exists which is able to provide for all occasions, and the more 
minutely rules are drawn, the greater is the list of exceptions. 
The citing of publications, for instance, may safely be left to the 
example of those who remember in their works, that the saving 
of labor to others is the object of citation, and the question of the 
