April 30, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



427 



obtrude mandatory regulations in any present 

 system for coping with tliem. Under it the 

 relation between the inventor in the govern- 

 ment service to the government itself is 

 clearly established, and the inventor will be 

 encouraged by the knowledge that he will not 

 be deprived of credit for the work of his 

 genius, and, in the event of his invention 

 proving of actual public service, he will re- 

 ceive some material return therefrom. 'No 

 question of ethics can arise to embarrass him 

 and he will be relieved of all care and expense 

 in the administration and disposal of his 

 patents. 



The government derives its advantage 

 under this measure in the stimulation of 

 inventive productiveness among its workers, 

 in the control it obtains thereof, and in the 

 valuable expterience it gains in this field of 

 practical economics, which will very probably 

 be reflected in improvements in patent law. 



The public reaps its benefit by having 

 cleared away the obstacle heretofore existing 

 between the inventor's genius and the full 

 and proper industrial application thereof, 

 thus liberating and giving impetus to in- 

 vention, with consequent increase of produc- 

 tiveness, tending toward improvement of 

 working conditions and general prosperity. 



Andrew Stewart 

 Bureau or Mines 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE GENUS 



I SHOULD hesitate to burden the readers of 

 Science with another technical discussion on 

 nomenclature but the question which I wisli 

 to bring to the consideration of systematists is 

 not a technical one and has nothing to do with 

 Codes noT wiith priority. 



We are all painfully familiar with the 

 changes that are comtimaally taking place in 

 generic names, hoth of animals and plants. 

 Such changes fall, roughly speaking, into two 

 categories : 



(1) Cases where an older name for the same 

 group is discovered in some overlooked work 

 and is substituted for the one in geiieral use. 



(2) Cases where a. generic group is subdi- 



vided, the old name being restricted to one of 

 the subdivisions and new names given to all 

 the others. 



The first sort of cliange is necessary and is 

 governed by a d-efinite code of rules which is 

 rapidly effecting international imiformity, so 

 far as such cases are concerned. The second 

 set of changes, however, is enltirely dependent 

 upon personal opinion, with no hope of uni- 

 formity or finality. Generic groups are seipa- 

 rated from one another by all degrees of dif- 

 ference and there is no standard by which the 

 amount of difference may be consistently meas- 

 ured. Consequently no two systematists will 

 be in agreement as to how many groups may 

 be recognized in any given family. 



Ever isince the time of Linnseus generic 

 groups have been undergoing disintegration 

 until in some families the ultimate condition 

 has 'been reached of a generic group for every 

 species. When this stage has been attained we 

 have lost all trace, in the scientific names of 

 any relationship whatever between the species. 

 The binomial name in other words has become 

 useless and we might just as well have a mo- 

 nonomial. The very object for which the 

 generic name was proposed has been lost. 



To illustrate the point further, suppose that 

 we subdivide an old genus into three, and use 

 three generic names where previously we used 

 but one, we emphasize, it is true, that there are 

 differences between these three groups, but by 

 the very same act we obliterate the fact, for- 

 merly indicated by the sing'le generic name, 

 that there are resemblances which join these 

 three groups together as compared with other 

 groups in the same family. One of these facts 

 would seem to be of quite as much importance 

 as 'the other and 'by tihe creation of the new 

 genera we lose quite as much as we gain. We 

 should carefully guard against allowing our 

 enthusiasm for the discovery of differences, to 

 blind us to the fact that the real object of 

 systematic research is the discovery of true 

 relationship. 



IsTow the whole trouble in this matter — and 

 a vital flaw, to my mind, in our system of 

 nomenclature — is that we try to make a double 

 use of our system -with the result that it is 



