THE LOGIC. 15 



century, assured him that, at a public celebration of the centenary 

 of Linnaeus, there was displayed, writ in large letters, this motto : 

 "God Created; Linnaeus Named." With admirable terseness 

 did this express what a century ago was the general opinion, 

 that Linnaeus had been the wonderful man with whom had orig- 

 inated both genus names and species names for animals and 

 plants. Is there, then, after the lapse of yet another century, 

 here and there a man in Italy, and here and there a man in New 

 York, who would keep alive this antiquated cult ? 



As regards duplicate binary names, they are naturally offen- 

 sive to every man of common sense, not to say of literary or 

 scientific good taste ; and I have no doubt there are botanists, 

 if not zoologists, who while they openly employ them yet secretly 

 abhor them. 



But it is not so much the names themselves, their absurdity 

 and senselessness to which we object, as it is the groundless as- 

 sumption on which they are based, namely, that Linnaeus is the 

 father of nomenclature and that the names duplicated do in 

 their singleness belong to him by right of priority ; the truth 

 being that all of them are genus-names, and were all current, 

 some of them for centuries, before Linnaeus. 



As regards the measure of success attending recent efforts to 

 establish duplicate binaries, I do not see what influence this can 

 have upon the thought and action of the scientific and scholarly ; 

 for these as a class, unless they have resigned individual free- 

 dom of thought and action, are governed by principle and 

 guided by reason. As an argument, the fact that a multitude 

 follows a certain course, is more in use with politicians than 

 with botanists and zoologists. It is true that both the contend- 

 ing parties as to nomenclature in this country have used this 

 argument ; but neither has thereby added strength to a cause, 

 or dignity to a position. 



But now, had I been in the critic's place, advocating duplicate 

 binaries, felicitating my party on the growing popularity of 

 these nomenclatorial deformities, and citing the most significant 

 instances of their use with authors, I do not think I could have 

 failed to see in this much berated Italian malacologist about the 

 most notable example of them all; for he alone among them — 



