REFORM OF LINN^US. 347 



The precepts which he gives for the matter 

 of the "descriptive phrase," or, as it is termed 

 in the language of the Aristotelian logicians, "the 

 "differentia," are, for the most part, results of 

 the general rule, that the most fixed characters 

 which can be found are to be used; this rule 

 being interpreted according to all the knowledge 

 of plants which had then been acquired. The 

 language of the rules was, of course, to be re- 

 gulated by the terminology, of which we have 

 already spoken. 



Thus, in the Critica Botanica, the name of a 

 plant is considered as consisting of a generic word 

 and a specific phrase ; and these are, he says 8 , the 

 right and left hands of the plant. But he then 

 speaks of another kind of name ; the trivial name, 

 which is opposed to the scientific. Such names 

 were, he says 9 , those of his predecessors, and espe- 

 cially of the most ancient of them. Hitherto 10 no 

 rules had been given for their use. He manifestly, 

 at this period, has small regard for them. "Yet," 

 he says, "trivial names may, perhaps, be used on 

 this account, that the differentia often turns out 

 too long to be convenient in common use, and may 

 require change as new species are discovered. 

 However," he continues, " in this work we set such 

 names aside altogether, and attend only to the 

 differentia?" 



Even in the Species Plantarum, the work which 



8 Phil. Bat. 266. Ib. 261. lo Ib. 260. 



