448 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



annoying to such scientists as are disinclined to give more 

 than a minimum of thought to the medium of communication^ 

 It is obvious of course that no new exceptional forms would be 

 introduced, although it seems likely that the old would have 

 to be retained in the case of words in constant use, such as 

 the verb " sum," the noun " vis," or the pronoun " hie." 

 This seems necessary in order to preserve the continuity of 

 Latin and its similarity to tke language of the medieval scien- 

 tists. But all rarer exceptions might either retain these forms 

 or be inflected according to a standard type, at the option of 

 the writer. In the case of new nouns, the number of declen- 

 sions might easily be reduced to three, as in the scheme described 

 below ; and the conjugations might also be reduced to two, as 

 in the case of new French verbs. 



Some of the new words already coined could no doubt be 

 made more self-explanatory by a free use of the facilities of 

 Latin. For example " atomplexitas " instead of " atomicitas." 

 A new word is wanted for " molecule " which shall not be too 

 long to be introduced into compound words. 



The allocation of Latin words to express such ideas as 

 " potential " in its various senses would require of course the 

 most careful consideration by experts familiar both with the 

 scientific ideas involved and with Latin philology. The forms 

 and idioms of pharmaceutical chemistry would furnish many 

 useful precedents for chemistry. The question of the nomen- 

 clature of salts suggests itself— should the basic and the acidic 

 part be related as noun and adjective, as bismuthum nitra- 

 tum, or as bismuthi nitratum " the nitrate " ? To oxides the 

 termination " a " might uniformly be added ; thus not only 

 " strontia, thoria," but also " calcia." The word " calx " 

 itself might have the more general meaning which is already 

 familiar in historical chemistry. The termination would, how 

 ever, have to be retained with a different meaning in " am- 

 monia " unless this were changed to " amine." On looking 

 through the names of the elements it seems that a thorough 

 latinisation might lead to a greater consistency. The ter- 

 mination " um " would of course be retained for the " metallic " 

 elements natrium, stibium, as well as hydrogenium. The 

 elements of intermediate character, boron, silicon, would remain 

 as at present, and, with arsenicon, selenion, would be third- 

 declension nouns on the model of carbo-onis. It is not 



