844 . REPORT— 1895. 



H. Spencer's writings' (iii. 168). The intellectual indolence of the student 

 inclines him only too gladly to explain phenomena by referring them to ' isms,' 

 instead of making them tell their own stoiy, 



Oeganisatiox of Section. 



I am afraid I have detained you too long over these matters, on which I must 

 admit I have spoken with some frankness. But I take it that one of the objects 

 of our Section is to deliver our minds of any perilous stufl'that is fermenting in it. 

 But now, having taken leave of the past, let us turn to the future. 



We start at least with a clean slate. We cannot bind our successors, it is true, 

 at other meetings. But I cannot doubt that it will be in our power to materially 

 shape our future, notwithstanding. When we were only a department 1 think we 

 all felt the advantage of these annual meetings, of the profitable discussion for- 

 mal and informal, and of the privilege of meeting so many of our foreign brethren 

 who have so generously supported us by their presence and sympathy. 



I am anxious, then, to suggest that we should conduct our proceedings on as 

 broad lines as possible. I do not think we should be too ready to encourage papers 

 which may well be communicated to societies, either local or central. 



The field is large ; the labourers as they advance in life can hardly expect to 

 keep pace with all that is going on in it. We must look to individual members 

 of our number to help us by informing and stimulating addresses on subjects they 

 have made peculiarly their own, or on important researches on which they have 

 been especially engaged. 



NOMENCLATirRE. 



There Is one subject upon which, from my official position elsewhere, I desire 

 to take the opportunity of saying a few words. It is that of Nomenclature. It 

 is not on its technical side, I am afraid, of sufficient general interest to justify my 

 devoting to it the space which its importance would otherwise deserve. But I 

 hope to be able to enlist your support for the broad common- sense principles on 

 which our practice should rest. 



As I suppose, everyone knows we owe our present method of nomenclature in 

 natural history to Linnseus. He devised the binominal, or, as it is often absurdly 

 called, the binomial system. That we must have a technical system of nomencla- 

 ture I suppose no one here will dispute. It is not, however, always admitted by 

 popular writers who have not appreciated the difficulty of the matter, and who- 

 think all names should be in the vernacular. There is the obvious difficulty that 

 the vast majority of plants do not possess any names at all, and the attempts to 

 manufacture them in a popular shape have met with but little success. Then, 

 from lack of discriminating power on the part of those who use them, vernacular 

 names are often ambiguous ; thus Bullrush is applied equally to Typha and to 

 Scirpus, plants extremely dilferent. Vernacular names, again, are only of local 

 utility, while the Linneau system is Intelligible throughout the world. 



A technical name, then, for a plant or animal is a necessltj', as without it we 

 cannot fix the object of our investigations into its affinity, structure, or properties."^ 

 ' Nomina si nescis perit et cognitlo rerum.' 



In order to get clear ideas on the matter let us look at the logical principles on 

 which such names are based. It is fortunate for us that these are stated by Mill, 

 who, besides being an authority on logic, was also an accomplished botanist. He 

 tells us : ^ 'A naturalist, for purposes connected with his particular science, sees 

 reason to distribute the animal or vegetable creation into certain groups rather 

 than into any others, and he requires a name to bind, as it were, each of his groups 

 together.' He further explains that such names, whether of species, genera, or 

 orders, are what logicians call connotative : they denote the members of each group, 

 and comiote the distinctive characters by which it is defined. A species, then, con- 

 notes the common characters of the individuals belonging to it ; a genus, those of 

 the species ; an order, those of the genera. 



' Linn. Phil., 210. ^ Si/stem of Logic, i. 132. 



