98 Frof. Newton on the Assignation 



nseus, and with him only at a late period of his life, begins 

 the binomial"^ method of nomenclature which we employ ; and 

 assuredly I have no desire to set aside, or even to impugn, that 

 system of terminology which naturalists have for more than 

 a century found so useful and have so generally adopted. But 

 it must not be forgotten that great men lived before Linnaeus ; 

 and every one who wishes to interpret him must study the 

 works by which he was so much guided. I have heard it 

 rumoured that the principle I am now advocating is of a 

 most revolutionary tendency, and that its effect will be 

 to upset the foundations of the so-styled " science " of no- 

 menclature. I would therefore beg a little space to see if this 

 be so or not. I have tried to find how that principle, if ac- 

 cepted, would work ; and here is the result. 



According to this view, I take it that the type species of 



* It surprises me to find that tliere are still some who wi-ite and speak 

 of the ''binominal" method of uomenclatm-e. A "binomial" method 

 signifies a method involving the use of tivo terms — that is, in biological 

 nomenclature, a generic and a specific term which, together, make up 

 the name of the object. A "binominal" method, as almost any dic- 

 tionary would tell us, would mean a method in which each object should 

 have two names. Unfortunately far too many species are in the strict sense 

 " binominal," or even " multinominal ;" for there are comparatively few 

 which have not a synonym, or synonyms, as well as a name. The hero 

 who was indifferently known as Ascanius or lulus, the river called by 

 some Eridauus and by others Padus, may be each properly spoken of as 

 being " binominis" i. e. " binominal ;" but that appellation could not be 

 applied to Numa Pompilius or ^gos Potamos. Consider, too, the awk- 

 wardness of the work " binominal " in the sense that some would use it. 

 We should have a " binominal " name — a name, that is, having two names ! 

 Now a "binomial name" is an expression grammatically and logically 

 correct, a name composed of two terms, just such a name as botanists and 

 zoologists use for the creatures they study and speak of. But then it may 

 be objected that "binomial" is a hybrid woid, and, accordingly, not to 

 be used by any writer who cares for the purity of his style. Such an ob- 

 jector, if he exists, ought in consistency to eschew such words as " nomen- 

 clature " and " terminology," and certainly ought not to use such a bar- 

 barism as " polynominalism " ! Sufficient to say that nomos had been 

 engrafted in Pliny's time on the Latin tongue to render its composition 

 with bi- classical or semiclassical ; but even if this were not the case, who 

 could justly object to a word which has been in universal use since the 

 greates^t of mathematicians bestowed it on the Binomial Theorem ? 



