28 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 836 



the conclusion that this system is insufficient 

 for the needs of a science which seeks to 

 eliminate error and to establish truth. 



4. Multiplication of Complications. — No 

 one can doubt that the complexity of zoolog- 

 ical nomenclature has increased enormously 

 within very recent years. Furthermore, no 

 one will deny that much of this increase is 

 due to the expansion in our knowledge of the 

 biological world and its interrelations. This 

 natural growth in complexity is as welcome 

 as it is inevitable, but if real progress is to be 

 achieved it must be accompanied by a perfec- 

 tion and simplification of the machinery of 

 control and of investigation in which a prom- 

 inent element is the systematic nomenclature 

 of the subject. Now there is reason to believe 

 that the system in use has become unneces- 

 sarily intricate, that its parts are involved by 

 the nature of the case in ways such as to 

 create grave difficulties for the ordinary 

 worker. These difficulties are certainly 

 greater to-day than they were twenty years 

 ago and this result has been produced by the 

 changes and complications incident to the 

 new legislation in the subject during very 

 recent years. Such changes may have been 

 wise and necessary from the legal standpoint, 

 they may be perfectly in line with the nat- 

 ural development of the present system. But 

 that only strengthens my contention that 

 zoology must look for a better system, must 

 seek a way of escape along an entirely new 

 line. I am aware also that these changes 

 meet the approval of those who have devoted 

 much time to the study of taxonomy and that 

 they do not regard the complications as 

 hindrances to progress. No doubt from their 

 point of view this is true, but there is another 

 aspect of the question which deserves careful 

 examination. 



To the skilled systematist, thoroughly ac- 

 quainted with his own groups, confident, ac- 

 curate, critical, these difficulties constitute 

 intellectual stimuli rather than stumbling 

 blocks. He follows the changes in names with 

 delight in the history of the science that they 

 portray. Outside his owa corner of the field 

 he often does not care to go, or if he wanders 



it is not so far afield that he is at a loss to find 

 the necessary help to keep him in the path. 

 But to the general worker this constant shift- 

 ing constitutes a real burden that retards his 

 progress and reduces the efficiency of his work. 

 This is, however, not the most serious feature 

 of the case. 



To the general public even in the educated 

 world scientific names will perhaps remain 

 as they unfortunately now are regarded, "be- 

 yond the powers of ordinary mortals," and 

 birds and beasts, insects and shells, will con- 

 tinue to be called by their popular names be- 

 cause the latter are not only simpler, but also 

 do not change from day to day. But to the 

 neophyte who hesitates on the threshold of the 

 science, uncertain whether he shall enter or 

 who later pauses before he essays to mount to 

 higher levels in the fields of our elysium, the 

 difficulties which our present nomenclature 

 sets in his path are at best disheartening. 

 He would read of the great work of the past 

 and know its relation with that of the present. 

 But you must tell him that Amphioxus is not 

 such but Branchiostoma, that Holothuria is 

 not an echinoderm, that even Amwba to-day 

 is Chaos! — and a multitude more changes 

 which confuse his mind and dull his enthusi- 

 asm. He wants to study life, not letters. But 

 at the very start of his work he is forced to 

 violate that canon of accuracy which is the 

 foundation of science or to assume a burden 

 that wastes his energy in a vain effort to keep 

 up with the latest revisions of nomenclature. 

 Like Sindbad the Sailor, he struggles along 

 with this Old Man of the Sea on his back 

 until he decides to be quit of his burden, and 

 without openly indicating his purpose, con- 

 trives to wander off with the morphologists 

 or biologists, leaving nomenclature behind. 



Now these multifarious complications are 

 the necessary and logical consequences of the 

 system of laws which zoologists themselves 

 have adopted and as such are amavoidable in 

 the opinion of the expert legalist. The nat- 

 ural reply to such a dictum is then let us 

 follow the promptings of our scientific con- 

 sciences and devise some better system. Why 

 should we not find a simpler and effective 



