on Rules for Nomenclature. 281 



the old name of Metaphysics, which had done very well for 

 two thousand years, has been lately found unsuited to this"po- 

 luphlosboiophanous" age; the science of mind is now Psy- 

 chology, Ideology, Phrenology, or Pneumatology, just as it 

 happens to suit the taste of the legislator, and I live in daily 

 hope of the advent of some adventurous Shiloe, who will ex- 

 tend the fashionable principle to History and Biography, to the 

 great advantage and improvement of these branches of know- 

 ledge. It is a sign of the times ; the unknown tongues have 

 not died with Mr. Irving, though I fear the power of inter- 

 preting them has, and if not soon stopped, we may look out for 

 nothing less than a second dispersion of mankind from this 

 universal babylonic confusion. 



Rule 7 is equally objectionable, though for a different rea- 

 son, but as its scope is comparatively limited, I shall pass on 

 to Rule 14, which is one of those cited in Mr. Strickland's 

 " Reply." " The meaning of names should be founded on 

 absolute characters, not on relative or comparative ones." To 

 my simple apprehension, this rule involves a metaphysical 

 impossibility. What are absolute characters or qualities ? 

 I know of none such in nature, and if the author of the rule 

 does, I can only say that he beats John Locke and Dugald 

 Stewart hollow, and should forthwith communicate so rare 

 and important a discovery to the rest of the world. At all 

 events, having much the advantage of his readers, he should 

 have taken pity on our ignorance, and denned what he meant 

 by absolute characters, or at least drawn some line of distinc- 

 tion between them and relative ; a task, however, which might, 

 perhaps, bother a whole jury of legislators, with Mr. West- 

 wood for foreman. But let me not be accused of hypercriti- 

 cism ; perhaps by absolute, the author may mean differential 

 characters, and by relative, mere modifications ; if so, the 

 rule is less objectionable ; but I have been induced to notice 

 it because it affords a glaring example of the carelessness with 

 which I formerly accused such rules of being drawn up. 



Let us now glance at Rule 18, another of those cited in 

 Mr. Strickland's "Reply;" "names of families and sub-fami- 

 lies should be derived from the most typical genus in them." 

 It is under the authority of this rule that I am so severely re- 

 primanded for not calling the anthropomorphous Pedimana, 

 CebidcF, because the group includes the genus Cebus, which 

 the legislators are pleased to call its typical genus, though for 

 what reason, or what right it has to that distinction more 

 than the genus Mycetes, or Lagothryx, I am utterly at a loss 

 to imagine. But let us see with what justice I am accused. 

 We hear continually of the type of such or such a genus, and of 



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