16 LAWS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



especially of ill-made species^ whicli subsequently fall to the 

 ground. 



The time must, however, come when, actually existing ve- 

 getable forms having all been described, herbaria containing 

 undoubted types of them, — botanists having made, unmade, 

 or oftentimes remade, elevated or lowered, and, above all, 

 modified somie hundred thousand groups, from Orders. down- 

 wards to simple varieties of species, — ^the number of syno- 

 nyms having become infinitely greater than that of admitted 

 groups, — it wiU become necessary to effect some great re- 

 volution in the formulae of science. This nomenclature that 

 we are striving to improve will then have the appearance of 

 an old scafi'olding, made up of parts laboriously renewed 

 one by one, and surrounded by a heap of more or less em- 

 barrassing rubbish, arising from the accumulation of pieces 

 successively rejected. The edifice of Science will have been 

 constructed, but it will not be sufficiently clear -of all that 

 has served to raise it. Perhaps there will then come to light 

 something very difierent from the Liunaean nomenclature, — 

 something will have been devised for giving definite names 

 to definite groups. 



This is the secret of futurity, of a yet very distant period. 



In the meanwhile, let us improve the system of binominal 

 nomenclature iutroduced by Linnreus. Let us endeavour 

 to accommodate it to the continual and necessary altera- 

 tions that take place in science, and, for this purpose, let 

 us diffuse, as well as we can, the principles of the method ; 

 let us attack slight abuses, slight negligence, and let us 

 come, if possible, to an understanding on debated points. 

 We shall thus have prepared, for some years to come, the 

 way for better carrying out works on systematic botany. 



