DE. KUNTZE AND HIS REYIEWEES. 277 



lie has not said; and there is no plea that can excuse it. De 

 Candolle in 1824 proposed no geuus Sphmroma^ nor had he 

 any such intention, and there is not the. shadow of warrant 

 or any one's saying that he did. The first man to call this 

 group a genus appears to have been St. Hilaire; and he who 

 gives his genus to another is chargeable with double injustice. 

 He injures both De Candolle and St. Hilaire. He deprives 

 both of them of certain rights, the latter of his genus and its 

 name, the former of his right io^ call them, what he did call 

 thera, only so many species of Malva. 1 know it is assumed 

 that this compelling a man to say ''a genus '' where he did not 

 think there was more than a section is presumed to be a 

 rewarding of his modesty. But it may be with modesty, as 

 with other virtues, that it is its own reward. However tliat 

 may be, the principle of representing an author as saying 

 what he never did say is one of the most odious of literary 

 Vices. The plea of convenience is not often appealed to by 

 nae — the fundamental principles of justice and right always 

 m the long run making for convenience in every way most 

 thoroughly— but this work of deposing v\alid generic names in 

 favor of the spurious priority of sectional ones, will create 

 another upheaval in nomenclature scarcely second to this 

 which Dr. Kuntze's principles have brought to pass; and w^e 

 smcerely hope that Dr. Britton may reconsider this momen- 

 tous question. 



The long review with which Dr. Karl Schumann has hon- 

 ored his countryman's labor is considerate, and richly sug- 

 gestive. He criticizes, first of all, Dr. Kuntze's strongly 

 juristical basis of operation, deplores his having assailed some 

 authors as bold appropriators of the results of others' labors, 

 and adds that it is often very difficult to judge concerning an 

 author's motives, and that in such matters it becomes one to 

 proceed with the greatest carefulness and with the utmost 

 reserve: all of which is well said. But still it remains, that 

 flagrant injustices done by contemporary authors, one to 



