1S99] THE CASE OF DOCTOR OTTO KUNTZE 303 



ci-apres (I, II, III) x et s'engagent, dans les questions de nomenclature 

 qu'ils auront a traiter, a mettre en pratique les principes qui y sont 

 formules." 



These three resolutions annihilate almost all the innovations 

 and all the nobis of Kuntze, since they repudiate his starting-point of 

 1735, his nomina semi-nuda and the greater part of his rules for ortho- 

 graphic licence. All the end of the report says regarding custom, 

 stability of names, etc. is borrowed from Articles 3 and 4 of the 

 Paris Code that was not invented by Kuntze, and does not pay any 

 compliment to his skill. Dare I say more Kuntzeano, that the gloomy 

 doctor possesses " un veritable genie pour tordre et defigurer les choses 

 les plus simples " ? God forbid ! I confine myself to noting the 

 black ingratitude shown toward M. Ascherson, who, before the 

 congressionists of Genoa, wished to draw a veil over the disastrous 

 appreciation of the Bevisio by the Viennese botanists, and relieved me 

 from making any translation. But M. Kuntze dotes on eulogies and 

 treats as compares Jilous (sic) those who hide them from the world. 

 He finds eulogies in the Viennese reports as he finds them in M. 

 Poirault's bibliographies. It is a little weakness that one must 

 allow to great men. 



And, a projpos of great men, granted the prodigious, the phenomenal 

 aptitude for work of which Otto Kuntze has given us such startling 

 proof, is it not a pity that this force should expend itself on barren 

 argument over words and names ? Who can M. Kuntze hope to con- 

 vince with his intemperate language ? Is it not better to persuade 

 than to abuse ? Once more, it is a disease, and M. Kuntze gives 

 fair game to his contradictors (pardon ! to his persecutors), by light- 

 heartedly "suiciding" his Bevisio, which contains passim some excellent 

 things. He must take care of his temper, improve his naughty 

 humour. 



The atrabiliar temperament, complicated with ideas of persecution, 

 only demands attentive hygiene, exercise, fresh air, a cold bath on 

 rising, not massage but gentle aperients, very little spice and nomen- 

 clature, much bicycle, a bit of fishing with a worm, walks (vasculum 

 on back) through fields and woods. Twenty- five thousand hours' 

 sedentary hard work, for seven years, to make columns and columns, 

 with the aid of dictionaries, of names, nuda and semi-nuda, and 

 accepted, and to blow a gigantic soap-bubble which the first critical 

 pin-prick bursts piteously — what health could resist it ? And this, 

 properly speaking, is not botany. 



" Botany," says a worthy American colleague, " has for its aims the 

 study of plants, and not that of their labels." Botany is a healthy 

 and delightful occupation — it softens manners. Nomenclature, in the 

 method of Kuntze, reduces them to savagery. This parasitic science, 



1 And not sous reserve des principes (unter principiellem Vorbehalt) as Kuntze falsely 

 quoted in Rev. g. pi. iii. (2), p. 67. 



