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for Systematic Biology. 
used, a definitive natural classification, which we know to be 
unattainable at the present stage of our knowledge. Hence as 
long as this is the only available formula, the advice not to put 
our very first attempts into final form must be endorsed by every 
thinking man. This is just the point where my proposition comes 
to the rescue. I shall try to show that it is possible to have 
a formula which shall not mean definitive classification but shall 
classify only so far as the facts allow and no further. With such 
a formula we can both name, and at the same time lay a solid 
foundation which time will complete into a natural classification, 
no matter whether the groups are as stable as the Mammals or as 
unstable as the stony Corals. 
Now, on the face of it. one would think that if only we know 
what our aims are it cannot be impossible to begin our work with 
those aims in view, in such a way that all good work should help 
towards their attainment. What then is the ultimate aim of 
classification ? Surely it is to arrange the organic kingdom in 
the order of its evolution. This has long been accepted as the 
ultimate aim of our attempts at classification, and the wiser of our 
systematic workers acknowledge that their work is at its best but 
a stumbling along in what appears to them to be the right 
direction. But the question then is, Why do we continue to work 
blindly, laying all sorts of fanciful foundations, which the next 
worker roots up for another almost equally fanciful, burdening 
himself at the same time by having to keep a faithful record of 
all former attempts, however worthless they have been ? There 
seems to me to be only one explanation, viz., that the old formula 
of classification maintains too strong a mechanical hold over us, 
and we have never seen our way to remodel it. This is hardly 
to be wondered at when we think of the length of time the 
Linnean method has been in use, of the indispensable services 
it has rendered to science, and also of the fact that its in- 
adequacy to meet the needs of the new evolutionary philosophy 
is felt chiefly in work with very inconstant groups and, even when 
felt most acutely, and understood most clearly, does not immedi- 
ately suggest any remedy. It is further to be noted that the 
whole formula as an ideal terminology for classification appears to 
be quite adequate to the demands of the evolutionist, it being 
doubtful whether we shall ever want other divisions than the 
tribes, orders, families, genera, species and varieties. These 
are all powerful reasons for retaining the Linnean formula for 
naming the divisions of the organic kingdom. But that of course 
is not the question under discussion, which is, How shall we 
discover the divisions which we want to name ? It is quite 
possible that when we have done the necessary preliminary sorting 
out of the forms of life the divisions supplied by a Linnean 
