THE MAIN LINES OF THE NATURAL BACTERIAL 



SYSTEM 



S. ORLA-JENSEN 



Den polytekiiiskc Laereanstalts bioteknisk-kemiske Labor atoriuvi, Copenhagen 



Received for publication September 3, 1920 



I am happy to see how very intelHgently and thoroughly my 

 proposition for a natural bacterial system has been discussed by 

 the Committee appointed by the Society of American Bac- 

 teriologists (1917). This warrants the hope that some day, when 

 the single groups of bacteria have been sufficiently studied, the 

 bacteriologists of the different countries may fortunately come 

 to an agreement about a fully satisfactory bacterial classifica- 

 tion. On the other hand, the Committee does not let me hope 

 that we might agree also upon a more practical system of nomen- 

 clature than that employed at present in bacteriology, and I 

 therefore feel impelled to object against the rather severe criti- 

 cism that the Committee has passed on my efforts in this direction. 



The basis of every science is, next to exact investigations, to 

 throw the greatest possible clearness in the terms to be used. 

 But science does not consist in pedantically following old-estab- 

 lished rules. On the contrary, hardly any important progress is 

 ever accompUshed without disregarding some of them. Let us 

 therefore, as we are now building up a new science, try to avoid 

 the monstrous mistake committed by zoologists and botanists in 

 coining rather unmeaning terms which are apt to cause the 

 greatest difficulties for the memory. Out of regard for posterity, 

 who probably will find themselves confronted by thousands of 

 bacterial species, we have to provide for a certain intrinsic logic 

 in the nomenclature. No himian being would now-a-days be 

 able to recollect chemistry, were it not that in due time there 

 had been prepared such an excellent nomenclature that the 



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