NATURAL BACTERIAL SYSTEM 265 



of Zopf, Spirohaderiaceae) . The reason why I have made an 

 exception from this rule with the family Actinomycetes is because 

 by the suffix -mycetes I wish to indicate that we have here the 

 transition to the Eumycetes; but, in deference to the proposal of 

 the Committee, I am wiUing to change the name to Mycohac- 

 teriaceae. On the other hand, I cannot agree with the Committee 

 in following the old rule, that "a, family name must be formed 

 from one of its component genera with the suffix aceae;" for, if 

 so, there would most frequently be no sense in the family name 

 except in regard to this single genus. There cannot be any 

 doubt but that we ought to form the family name in such a way 

 that it denotes a property — and preferably the most character- 

 istic one — common to all the bacteria which belong to the family 

 in question. Accordingly, it is no improvement on the name, 

 when for the family of oxidizing bacteria set up by me, the 

 Oxydobacteriaceae, the Committee proposes the name Nitro- 

 bacteriaceae, which is quite misleading in respect to its first four 

 genera. 



The main objection of the Committee to my system is, that I 

 do not pay due regard to priority. But what does that really 

 mean? In old sciences such as zoology and botany we meet with 

 really time-honored names, the legitimacy of which is quite 

 indisputable; but in a new science hke bacteriology we cannot 

 consider the older names as anything more than provisional 

 labels. Indeed, we have not advanced farther than to find a 

 number of species, wherever we make a thorough-going study 

 of a so-called bacterial species, and in by far the largest number 

 of cases it is quite impossible to guess which of the new species 

 is meant by the original author. 



The Committee itself holds that we ought not to take into 

 consideration the names dating from the time when micro- 

 organisms were not yet studied in pure culture — or rather the 

 names proposed prior to 1885, when the system of Zopf appeared, 

 the system which has formed the basis of the morphological 

 classifications hitherto used. The Committee does not wish, 

 however, to build up once more an exclusively morphological 

 system, but a system based essentially on the far more important 



