132 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



nut international! The argument appears to take the follow- 

 ing syllogistic form : 



An}- code whose formation is ckiminated !)}• sci- 

 entists of one nationality is not \'alicl ; 



The X'ienna Code was dominated l)y the Ger- 

 mans and Austrians; 



Therefore a code devised by a minority of 

 Americans is valid ! 



The charge of "autocracy" laid against the X'ienna Code 

 — which might carr\- more weight if it emanated from some 

 other source than the highly centralized administration that 

 flom"ishes in Ih-onx Park — amounts to this: that whatever 

 the otlier fellow controls is autocracw but wliat a'r control is 

 liberty. All the changes on this argument were rung by the 

 Peerless Leader some years ago, when it was propised that 

 these United States defy the world in the matter of a monetary 

 standard; but a tolerablv convincing verdict was rendered at 

 the polls. 



The point which is too often lost sight of is this: N(^ 

 matter what defects a code may ha\ e. the fact of its universal 

 acceptance will outweigh them ; con\ersel\-. no matter what are 

 the excellencies of any local code, they are wholly overbalanced 

 by the fact of its provinciality. When we are called upon to 

 judge between the claims of two conflicting codes, the ([uestion 

 is not at all which is the more "logical." but which was adopted 

 b\- more general consent. Just as in taxonomy the fancied 

 beauty or appro|)riateness of a name \\n\A )ield to the law of 

 prioritv. so in the matter of choosing l)etween the codes the 

 only valid argument must be based on general acceptance. It 

 we throw out a code because its authors were Germans, we 

 ought to throw out a very large number of generic and spe- 

 cific names for the same reason! 



