564 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 
can all unite in praising the perseverance of our Sydney friends and 
the bold conception of Commander Sturdee, and in congratulating 
them on their truly remarkable success. — 
THE BABEL OF TERMINOLOGY 
“THe Witness of Science to Linguistic Anarchy” is the startling 
title of a sixty-four page pamphlet compiled by Lady Welby and 
printed for private circulation. By collecting from different scien- 
tific writings a number of passages in which technical terms are 
used in different senses, or in which such varying use is criticised, 
she aims at showing: first, that the language employed by scientific 
authors lacks that very consistency and precision which we have a 
right to expect; secondly, that concerted action ought to be taken 
with the view of securing a general consensus in usage. The 
extracts, chiefly from Nature, Science, and Natural Science, are 
sorted under the headings: General, Physics, Biology, and [Taxo- 
nomic | Nomenclature. These quotations, she believes, to constitute 
“evidence of an almost incredible state of things in the scientific 
world.” 
Incredible though it may appear to “a humble layman,” as 
Lady Welby terms herself, the situation is painfully familiar to 
every worker in science; and there must be many who agree with 
us that it is like to go on to the end of the chapter, despite every 
well-meant effort towards reform. For, what are the causes of this 
lawlessness? They are mainly two, and those two are very distinct 
in kind. The first, in the words of a great master of language, is 
“pure ignorance, madam!” Setting aside the half-educated 
dabblers in science, how many of us there are who are sometimes 
impelled just a little out of our depth. Ne sutor ultra crepidam, is 
admirable advice more easily given than followed. This cause is 
one for which remedies are conceivable. We might, for instance, 
make publication a penal offence, only permissible to those who 
had passed the severest examination, and we might burn in the 
market-place all writings unlicensed by an international censorship 
which should have absolute control over every new term proposed. 
We do not say that these remedies are practicable, and we fancy 
that even Lady Welby will not admit them to be desirable; but 
the facts of history permit us to imagine them. ‘The second cause 
is one that lies at the heart of the whole matter, and must persist 
so long as scientific investigation continues; it is, in fact, the 
advance of science itself, and for it the only conceivable cure is 
absolute stagnation, which is no cure at all. The widening of 
knowledge renders it impossible for a term or a name to have 
precisely the same connotation to-day as it had twenty years ago. 
A new species may involve the rediagnosis of its genus; a fresh 
