country is loath to have its legislators write up laws to tell a citizen 
when to get up in the morning. Taxonomist* John Doe may happen to believe 
as Gospel’s truth that the trinomial typicul is rank poppycock and that 
those who use it are guilty of a gross betrayal of " good ft botany^ but 
botanist John Smith may believe even as firmly that such a trinomial is 
/o 
pure gold. The Rules,as between the two,know better than^take sides > real¬ 
ising that both may be right today and wrong tomorrow. Mean¬ 
while, John Smith 
John Doe may reduce them ail 
as he likes, and 
ie telling the other Alow' 
hopelessly mistaken lie is in his ” biological concepts ",in his believing 
the species to be a ft collection of individuals Tl instead 
something 
else,and the like. The Rules stand by silently. All they are interested 
in is to arbitrate the game^and to see to it that the player|//&bid e by 
a certain code of practice which prevents the discussion from becoming a 
brawl. Rules are needed, and must be closely followed , if John Doe is 
to relegate to proper synonymy everything which John Smith does and the 
other way around.Obviously,the Rules step in when John Doe in the heat 
of the argument violates priority, uses a nomen confusum ,publishes a 
nomen alternativum and the like. The names are labels^ and the labels 
&/ 
that read tf Vinum annorum C can not be put on a flaskr filled with 
” Aqua pumpae w . That is all: let everybody think what he wishes ,but 
l et all deal their cards out according to the rules of the house . 
It may be objected that the Rules are hopelessly 
wrong in taking such an ft artificial tT view of nomenclature. 
&et those who believe that the Rules are wrong write up a new set of 
Articles to make them right* Since, as Cook points out,it is unberable 
to kw as A sclepias syriaca a weed that hails from New Ehgiand,and as 
P'P 1-e 
Sirnmondsia chinensis a shrub '■'fa^aa*a"Southern California, let us see what 
