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XVI. On the Latin Terms ufed in Natural Htjiory. By the Rev. John 



Brand, A. M. A. L. S. 



Read January 6, 1795. 



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THE Latin has been adopted as the language of natural hiftory ; 

 but the latinity of the natural hiftorians has undergone no 

 fmall cenfure. 



By the adoption of the Latin as the common language of the 

 fcience, in the degree in which it obtains, new difcoveries in 

 it are propagated with great facility. Other branches of philo- 

 fophy have not had the fame good fortune ; and every European 

 nation is become philofophical : and thus, as Monf. D'Alembert 

 has obferved, he who devotes himfelf to the cultivation of any one 

 of them, if he would keep his knowledge up to the level of its 

 ftat'e, is reduced to the neceflity of flinging away a very valuable 

 part of his life, in acquiring feven or eight languages. 



But the latinity of the terms in which natural hiftory is written, 

 has been cenfured : upon this charge the following remarks may be 

 made. 



Such terms muft be either primitives or derivatives ; now either 

 of thefe may be barbarifms, when not found in any good Latin 

 author; or improprieties (verba impropria, ^tint.), when, although 

 fo found, they are not to be found ufed in the fame fenfe. This 



muft 



