SOME QUESTIONS OF NOMENCLATURE. 461 



able to confirm either statement, and therefore have to side with the 

 great majority who accord to Linnseus the credit of that achievement. 



Almost all the naturalists of the United States accept 1758 as the 

 starting time for nomenclature, and now most of the naturalists of 

 Europe take the same view. But the English generally accept 170G 

 for the commencement of their orismology. It was " after much delibera 

 tion" that the committee of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science determined on the edition of 176G. It was only because 

 that edition was "the last and most complete edition of Linne's works, 

 and containing many species that the tenth did not," that it was so 

 selected — surely an insufficient reason. A principle was subordinated 

 to an individual. 



Logically, the actual period for the commencement of the binomial 

 nomenclature should be when the rules for that nomenclature were dis- 

 tinctly formulated ; and that was 1751, when the " Philosophia Botanica" 

 was first published. Practically, however, it makes little difference for 

 most classes, 1 whether we take that date or 1758, when the next suc- 

 ceeding edition of the "Systema" was published. But it does make 

 much difference whether we take the tenth or twelfth edition. There 

 is really no good reason for keeping Linnaeus on that lofty pedestal on 

 which he was enthroned by his disciples of a past century. His work 

 does not justify such an elevation. In every department of zoology 

 contemporaries excelled him in knowledge and in judgment. May we 

 not hope that, ultimately, this truth will be recognized, and the tenth 

 edition universally accepted for the first work of the new era? 



TRIVIAL NAMES. 



The binomial system has come into prominence through a sort of 

 developmental process. Although now generally regarded as the chief 

 benefaction conferred by Linnaeus 2 on biology, it was evidently consid 

 ered by him to be of quite secondary importance. 



The first extensive use of it occurs in the Pan Suecicus, published 

 in 1749, where the author mentions that to facilitate the recording of 

 his observations he had used an "epithet" in place of the differential 

 character/ It was thus a mere economical device for the time being. 



1 Arachuology would be most affected, for Clerck's Arork was published in 1757. 



2 Linnaus himself did not claim this as an improvement in his account of the 

 advancement ho had effected in science. 



3 Possumus nunc ultra duo millia experimenta certissima exhibere, quae ssepe 

 decies, imiiio snepe bis decies sunt iterata. Si auteni sumamus Floram Suecicam 

 Hohnin', 1745, & ad quanilibet herbam, ut chartai parcatur, nomen adponimus gene- 

 ricum, uumerum Florae Suecicse & epitheton quoddam loco differentiae, negotium in 

 compendium facile mittitnr. — Pan Suecicus, pp. 228, 229. 



This thesis is attributed to Nicolaus L. Hesselgren in some bibliographies, and 

 naturally so, as it bears his name in the title; but Linnaus probably did not claim 

 more than his own in claiming the authorship, although Hesselgren apparently 

 wrote part of it himself. It is sometimes difficult exactly to tix the authorship in 

 the case of some of the old theses. 



