Jani-'Auy G, 10j5.] 



SCIENCE. 



29 



on the sins of terminology ? Is it not possible 

 by discussion to discover or develop principles 

 of scientific nomenclature the establishment 

 of which may make the canons of good taste 

 general instead of personal? I have a sus- 

 picion that there are heavy battalions of 

 argument back of Dr. Eastman's skirmish 

 line of assertion; and so venture a few sug- 

 gestions in the hope of drawing them to the 

 front. 



One suggestion is that utility may have 

 an important bearing on our sense of fitness, 

 or even elegance; that there may be a deep 

 philosophic basis for the maxim ' handsome is 

 that handsome does.' Is there not a tendency 

 gradually to adjust esthetic judgments into 

 conformity with rational judgments? Is not 

 expressiveness, after all, the most admirable 

 and the most admired quality of literary com- 

 position? And will not the system of tech- 

 nical nomenclature best adapted to practical 

 needs become in the end most grateful to the 

 esthetic sense? 



In deprecating the belief of physiographers 

 ' in the penury of the English language, and 

 unsuitability of Saxon epithets,' and in stig- 

 matizing the introduction of ' alien ' words, 

 Dr. Eastman seems to oppose the introduc- 

 tion of foreign words for the purposes of 

 scientific terminology. As a large majority 

 of new terms in science are either direct im- 

 portations or else rearrangements of foreign 

 material, and as the somatic growth of all 

 languages is largely from alien sources, this 

 view is, to say the least, radical, and should 

 not be accepted without good reason. Have 

 I possibly misunderstood him? Or is there 

 a substantial basis for such an opinion ? 



lie objects vigorously to the use of the hu- 

 manistic analogy, and here I follow him so 

 far as to admit that it has sometimes been 

 carried too far. That is a danger to which all 

 figurative language is exposed, but it is the 

 ordinary danger from excess, and I would not 

 therefore condemn the use of figures. Purely 

 as a matter of literary taste I like the human- 

 istic analogy in Eastman's ' rabble of words 

 recruited from the uttermost parts ' ; and from 

 the same point of view I like also Davis's char- 

 acterization of the stages of the topographic 



cycle in terms of the cycle of human life- 

 Eastman says the physiographic figure is 

 founded on a ' false analogy,' but this I do 

 not admit. The rhetorical quality of good 

 analogy is close resemblance in some striking 

 particular, coupled with difference in other 

 respects; and that is precisely the relation be- 

 tween the topographic and human cycles. The 

 stream valley resembles the human being in 

 that from an early stage it evolves normally 

 through a definite sequence of stages ; and in 

 most other respects the two differ. 



But the characterization of topographic 

 stages as ' youthful,' ' mature ' and ' senile ' is 

 not a mere literary flower, the transitory dec- 

 oration of a sentence ; it is a part of technical 

 terminology in continuous employment; and 

 in that capacity its utility is of primary im- 

 portance. In my judgment there are few 

 groups of terms which serve better than does 

 this group the purpose of concisely expressing^ 

 an idea. Its strength inheres, first, in the apt- 

 ness and completeness of the analogy, and, 

 second, in the perfect familiarity of the group 

 of facts to which the unfamiliar facts are 

 likened. The physiographic stages have nO' 

 precise limits, but grade one into another as 

 parts of a continuous development ; each one 

 is so complex in its phenomena and so variable 

 from individual to individual that sharp-cut 

 definition is impossible; and in these respects 

 they are strictly paralleled by the life stages. 

 The aptness and the familiarity make the 

 terms permanently mnemonic, so that the use 

 of any one of them brings to mind not only the 

 sequence, but relative position within the 

 sequence. Davis's generalization had such 

 merit that it would probably have found 

 eventual appreciation, whatever its mode of 

 expression, but I think that the promptness 

 and universality of its acceptance and as- 

 similation were in large measure due to the 

 felicity of the associated terminology. 



G. K. Gilbert. 



Washington, D. C. 



l'annee biologique. 

 To THE Editor of Science : We learn that 

 the annual L'Annee biologique is in danger of 

 being discontinued unless it receives addi- 



