COMMENTARY. 61 



greater services, then the name of the genus or species 

 wotddhave to be transferred to another claimant. Intermin- 

 able and contestable inquiries, impracticable for any one who 

 has not given himself up specially to the history of science ! 

 The partisans of the new method cannot but be thoroughly 

 averse to quoting the first author of a species when he has 

 misunderstood it and described it wrong, as it irequently 

 occurs. The fact is, that neither the new nor the old method 

 are equal to do sufficient justice in the quotation of authors. 

 But the old method is at least exact ; aU that is expected 

 from the quotation of authors' names, it gives with preci- 

 sion. On this account we give it the preference. 



Some persons are grieved to see the masters of science — 

 Linnaeus, for example — ^less often quoted, since certain ge- 

 nera established by them have been divided. "Think," 

 says a Bblgian botanist, " of the great name of Linn^us dis- 

 appearing from our lists of species ! Think of our no 

 longer seeing the name of any plant followed by that fa- 

 mous L., that venerated sign," etc' Our opinion is that 

 Linnseus's ideas of species and genera were generally so just, 

 that, after many divisions and subdivisions, we are obliged 

 to return to them. Besides this, the reputation of a man 

 does not depend upon the number of citations that are made 

 of him. Theophrastus, Aristotle, Caesalpinius, are rarely 

 quoted, but are not the less considered very great natu- 

 ralists. Among modern authors, some could be mentioned 

 who are perhaps cited more often than Linnaeus, but com- 

 monly for their blunders. Great botanists will always main- 

 tain their place in lists of synonyms, and especially in the 

 history of science. The same may be said of great chemists, 

 of great astronomers, though their names are not put after 

 every terrestrial or celestial body that they have discovered. 



It may be asserted that the method in common use en- 

 courages amateurs of glorification, such as are pleased to see 

 their name in print. This is but a low view of the question. 

 We have only to say that the very character of these ama- 



' Cr6pin in Bull. Soc. Bot. de Belgique, iii. p. 223. 



