292 RIGHT OF OCCASIONALLY 



by general use, should be sacred ; and the study of 

 natural history is, from the multitude of objects with 

 which it is conversant, necessarily so encumbered with 

 names, that students require every possible assistance 

 to facilitate the attainment of those names, and have a 

 just right to complain of every needless impediment. 

 The grateful Hollanders named the island of Mauritius 

 after the hero who had established their liberty and 

 prosperity ; and it ill became the French, at that pe- 

 riod dead to such feelings, to chan<2;e it, when in their 

 power, to Isle de France, by which we have in some 

 late botanical worxks the barbarous Latin of Insula 

 Francice. Nor is it allowable to alter such names, 

 even for the better. Americo Vespucci had no very 

 great pretensions to give his own name to a quarter of 

 the world, yet it is scarcely probable that Columbia 

 , will ever supersede America. In our science the names 

 established throughout the works of Linnaeus are be- 

 come current coin, nor can they be altered without 

 great inconvenience. Perhaps^ if he had foreseen the 

 future authority and popularity of his writings, he 

 might himself have improved upon many which he 

 adopted out of deference to his predecessors, and it is 

 in some cases to be regretted that he has not sufficiently 

 done so. In like manner, the few great leaders in 

 natural knowledge must and will be allowed to ward 

 off and to correct, from time to time, all that may de- 

 form or enfeeble the prevailing system. They must 

 choose between names nearly of the same date, and 



