114 GENERAL SYSTEMATIC BACTERIOLOGY 



Comment. It may be emphasized that the International Botanical 

 Congresses which have formulated and revised the International Code 

 have no power to enforce these rules. Stiles (1905, p. 9) states the 

 matter succinctly in his discussion of the zoologist's code. He says: 



Every person is still in a position to follow any code he desires, or to prepare 

 one of his own, but, considering the responsibilities involved, there is undoubtedly 

 a growing tendency to adopt the International Code. Further, it is considered 

 ethical to ignore names used contrary to this and to other standard codes. While 

 not attempting to dictate to men of science what they shall or shall not do, the 

 commission submits the rules to the serious consideration of all workers in the 

 spirit advanced by Strickland (1842), namely, "we offer them to the candid con- 

 sideration of zoologists in the hope that they may lead to sufficient uniformity of 

 method in future to rescue science from becoming a mere chaos of words." 



Article 4. The essential points in nomenclature are: (1) to aim at fixity of 

 names; (2) to avoid or to reject the use of forms and names which may cause 

 error or ambiguity or throw science into confusion. 



Next in importance is the avoidance of all useless creation of names. 



Other considerations, such as absolute grammatical correctness, regularity or 

 euphony of names, more or less prevailing custom, respect for persons, etc., not- 

 withstanding their undeniable importance are relatively accessory. 



Article 5. No custom contrary to rule can be upheld if it leads to confusion or 

 error. When a custom offers no serious inconvenience of this kind, it may be a 

 ground for exceptions which we must, however, abstain from extending or copy- 

 ing. Finally in the absence of rule, or where the consequences of rules are doubt- 

 ful, established custom becomes law. 



Comment. This general principle is a useful guide in certain puz- 

 zling situations, and is a distinct help toward stability. For example. 

 Article 21 of the code specifies that families are to be designated by the 

 name of one of their genera or ancient generic name, with the ending 

 -aceae. The family name Coccaceae has been quite generally used in 

 bacteriology during the past two decades. There is, however, no 

 valid, or strictly speaking, any ancient, bacterial genus Coccus in bac- 

 teriology. Nevertheless it is probably advisable to make this family 

 name the basis of an exception, as such exception would quite certainly 

 cause less confusion than the adoption of an entirely new designation. 



Article 6. The principles and forms of nomenclature should be as similar as 

 possible in botany and in zoology; but botanical nomenclature is entirely inde- 

 pendent of zoological nomenclature. 



Comment. The zoological code is somewhat more specific than is 

 the botanical code in dealing with this problem. The corresponding 

 article in the zoological rules reads as follows : 



