518 



Bicknell : Further Notes on the Agrimonies 



recognition, involves a disregard of the simplest principles of 



justice that, in the nature of the case, can never receive any right 

 following. That a moral principle should fall because of incon- 

 venience in applying it, is a proposition hopelessly shut out from 

 any justification. The moral flaw would instantly appear if in 

 to-day's practice a plant described by one author as a variety 

 should be by a promptly succeeding author claimed as a species 

 under a different name. Even on the most irresponsible utili- 

 tarian grounds it may be seriously doubted whether the ad- 

 vantages claimed for the practice advocated would not be far 

 outweighed by its subversion of much accepted nomenclature. 



In conclusion it may be reiterated that, in the course of this 

 discussion, nothing has been brought forward which at all justifies 

 the displacement of any of the names adopted in my review of the 

 American species of this troublesome genus. 



