THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. XLVI 



longer living, regard their science as a live one and are 

 consequently strongly unwilling to shroud its doings in 

 the pall of a dead language, perhaps not the less because 

 the mandate to do so comes as the result of a Eussian 

 ukase. The present world congresses of botanists seem 

 to present certain ominous resemblances to the world 

 councils of the church about the time of the Eeformation 

 in Europe. The so-called ecumenical councils of Chris- 

 tianity were unfortunately characterized at that time by 

 reactionary tendencies, including among others a prefer- 

 ence for the Holy Writ in the Latin rendering of the 

 Vulgate. Unless there is some relaxation of the mediae- 

 val attitude upon the part of the majority of systematic 

 botanists, there is reason to fear a reformation in botany, 

 as uncontrollable as that led by Martin Luther and John 

 Knox in religion. It is sometimes said in favor of Latin 

 diagnoses of plants, that the older literature of system- 

 atic botany is in the Latin tongue. The same is true of 

 the equally venerable sciences of chemistry and astron- 

 omy, yet for that reason the chemists and astronomers 

 of to-day do not think it necessary to perpetuate the writ- 

 ten language of the alchemists and astrologers. Botany 

 has likewise, let up hope, passed through what corre- 

 sponds to the alchemistical and astrological phase of 

 development and need not conceal its doings in the 

 dog Latin of a Paracelsus or an Albertus Magnus. Con- 

 ditions in this country are hopeful in this respect, for 

 although we are not wholly free from the pedantry that 

 maketh and loveth a Latin diagnosis, the large majority 

 of American systematists are entirely progressive in 

 their point of view. May they prevail and in the course 

 of time, with all modesty, impress their attitude on the 

 European cultivators of this important field of botanical 

 activity. 



