Januaby 3, 1896.] 



SGIENGE. 



15 



for genera, a work in wMcli no genus is de- 

 fined by description, and in whicli few or 

 none but the monotypical ones are defined 

 even implicitly by the mention of type 

 species ; a book in which the generic names 

 are, therefore, as a rule, noinina niida. It 

 is the unphilosophic handling of certain 

 simple and universal principles, finding ex- 

 pression in logical absurdities, which most 

 impresses the careful reader of the article 

 above quoted. It is manifestly impossible 

 that anything should be made to begin in 

 time that is already past. Whatever affairs 

 are to begin must begin either at once or in 

 the future. Nothing ' is to begin,' or can 

 be made to begin, last year or yesterday 

 any more than in the year 1753. Doubt- 

 less the legislators at Rochester would have 

 been glad had they dared to say that botan- 

 ical nomenclature had its beginning in the 

 year 1753. But they could not have said 

 that. It would not have been true. They 

 might, however, have offered an article 

 which should have read somewhat after 

 this fashion: "It is expedient that, in 

 botanical nomenclature no priorities earlier 

 than the year 1853 be recognized by us 

 henceforward." I have little doubt that 

 this is about what, from their point of view, 

 they must have wished to say. But the 

 situation, thus frankly expressed, would 

 have been too manifestly an embarrassed 

 one. Any number of persons might at once 

 have asked : Why name as an initial date 

 for genera and species a date which is 

 not initial? Or, what expediency can 

 there be in attempting to confine the ac- 

 tion of the principle of priority — a principle 

 whose sole force is retroactive — within such 

 narrow limits ? It would have been placing 

 priority, previously agreed upon as at least 

 hypothetically fundamental, under great re- 

 strictions such as utterly contradict the no- 

 tion of its fundamentality. Priority is, 

 above all other qualities in a name, the 

 most absolute one, as absolute as the con- 



dition of time itself. Its only criteria are 

 dates. If priority be fundamental in no- 

 menclature, then there can be no such thing . 

 as an initial date later than the very first 

 beginnings of botanical writing, or publica- 

 tion of names. But, of course, there must 

 be an initial date, a date back of which 

 priorities are to be disregarded ; but if this 

 be true, priority is not fundamental, at 

 least not more fundamental than some 

 other principles ; very possibly less so. 

 But, having resolved, as our code-makers 

 did, to treat it as being the one ground- 

 principle of the scientific naming of things, 

 they are in a dilemma from the moment 

 of having passed a regulatioh limiting 

 its action to within what is really a very 

 recent date in the history of nomenclature. 

 The second article of our code, in its real 

 meaning, if it have any, is an almost em- 

 phatic contradiction of the first article. It 

 is practically little less than a nullifying of 

 that declaration about the fundamentality 

 of priority, for it excludes, according to 

 credits as given by most learned and emi- 

 nent botanists of all eras, more than two 

 thousand years of indubitable name priori- 

 ties, and admits no names as having a his- 

 tory of quite a hundred and fifty years. 



The proposition, in itself so perfectly and 

 so evidently true, that priority is determined 

 simply by historic dates — a circumstance 

 which no legislation can alter — brings us 

 back to our initial suggestion, that we can 

 never be prepared to discuss thoroughly 

 the important question of nomenclature, 

 much less be ready to legislate upon this 

 matter rationally and effectually, until we 

 have studied, historically, the evolution of 

 our system of naming plants and animals. 



Such historical inquiry would, I think, 

 bring us quickly to the point of acknowl- 

 edging the principle of convenience — of 

 mere utility — to be the one fundamental 

 thing, which, not only lies at the bottom, 

 but also has chiefly ruled the development 



