Inexpediency of altering established Terms. 129 



science is cultivated, to take the subject of nomenclature into 

 consideration. The number of persons selected from each 

 country should be proportionate to the degree in which it 

 encourages science, in such ratio as the following: — Ger- 

 many, including Austria, 6; France, 5; Prussia, 4; England, 

 4 ; Holland, Switzerland, and Italy, 3 each ; America and 

 Russia, 2 each ; Sweden, Denmark, and Spain, 1 each ; to- 

 tal, 35. Let a list be prepared of such names of classes, 

 orders, families, genera, and species as are considered ob- 

 jectionable, and let the committee have full power to retain 

 or condemn as they should think best. By this means, 

 whatever changes were once made would be unalterably esta- 

 blished, and uniformly adopted, in all parts of the world. 

 Such a plan might not gratify the vanity of those individuals 

 who, by altering names, "aim at consequence which they 

 cannot otherwise attain ; " but it would be the most beneficial 

 method of reforming the language of science, if reformed it 

 must be. 



In my former paper of Vol. VIII. p. 36., I showed that it is 

 of much more importance that a name should be universally 

 adopted, than that its meaning should exclusively apply to the 

 object. This, indeed, it very rarely can do ; for nothing short 

 of a whole sentence will, in general, express that aggregate of 

 characters which distinguishes a species or group from its con- 

 geners.* Nay, a name will even answer its purpose if it has 

 no meaning at all ; a doctrine admitted by some of my op- 

 ponents with respect to genera, though, for some inexplicable 

 reason, they deny it in the case of species. The meaning of a 

 name is, therefore, a point of less importance than its univer- 

 sality ; and, when the latter object has been once gained, I 

 would never sacrifice it to the former. Yet it must not be 

 supposed that I consider the meaning of a name a point of no 

 importance. As a general principle, the meaning of an epithet 

 may be made of great use in recalling to the mind many facts 

 connected with the object which it represents ; and, therefore, 

 in bestowing names upon species discovered, or groups de- 

 fined, for thefrst time, it is desirable to make those names as 

 expressive as possible. I therefore fully approve of many of 

 the rules laid down by my opponent Mr. Wood in Vol. IX. 

 p. 341.; and by Mr. Swainson, in his Birds, part ii. ch. 2., 

 to which I gladly refer for support to my own views. I 

 would not, however, go so far as Mr. Swainson in erasing 



* Mr. Wood denies that any one maintains this. Then why, let me 

 ask, do the innovators continually change names which are already appro- 

 priate, in the vain hope of finding others which shall be exclusively so ? 

 (See the Analyst, passim.) 



Vol. I.— No. 3. n. s. l 



