QUESTION OF NOMENCLATURE 259 
not given in the Species Plantarum, these are to be considered, 
as exception to the rule, to be published in conjunction with 
and in:reference to the Genera Plantarum of 1754, where alone 
generic diagnoses are found. Of course this arbitrary arrangement 
was evolved to make the code rule worth while, and at the same 
time have some show of consistency, not to say reason, for throwing 
out many valid generic publications of Adanson and other authors. 
No thinking person will question the right of code makers to make 
arbitrary rules, even though they emphatically declare that they 
do not, because in the very nature of things, when reason and 
absolute historical priority, which alone deserve consideration, 
are put aside, we really could not have such a diversion as a code 
without empirical rulings and arbitrary decisions. If reason be 
rejected as a guide in nomenclature, then we can have no guide 
at all unless an arbitrary date or an arbitrary author or set of 
arbitrary agreements be put up as fetiches to decide validity of 
biological names. 
Granting for the sake of argument, and admitting even that 
Linnaeus’ own trivial binary terminations in the Species Planta- 
rum of 1753 are made valid because published in reference to the 
generic diagnoses in another work, (Gen. Pl. 1754) then we still 
have another great difficulty, if we are expected to live up to 
the rule that trivial binaries must accompany generic publications. 
There are several generic names of the Genera Platarum of 1754 
which are monotypic according to the 1753 edition of the Species 
Plantarum, and in fact were not, as the rule requires, accompanied 
even wn the latter work by a binary trivial name. Vi therefore it be 
made necessary for the validity of publication of a genus name, 
that it be made in connection with a reference to a binary trivial 
then we are forced to the conclusion that the Linnaean genera 
Erythronium, Mussaenda Hydrocharis, and Hemerocallis were not 
published in 1753 or 1754, and not for a long time after in one 
or other case at that. These generic names were not published 
an reference to a binary, because we will look in vain for such in 
the Species Plantarum. In fact the names under the genus captions 
are Erythronium Dens cams, Mussaenda fructu frondoso, Hydro- 
charts Morsus ranae, and Hemerocallis Liho Asphodelus, and 
these names reprinted as found in the Species Plantarum can not 
by any juggling of hyphens be forged into real binaries without 
the perpetration of the most disgraceful thing a scientist can 
