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nus, and with him only at a late period of his life, begins 
the binomial* method of nomenclature which we employ ; and 
assuredly I have no desire to set aside, or even to impugn, that 
system of terminology which naturalists have for more than 
a century found so useful and have so generally adopted. But 
it must not be forgotten that great men lived before Linneus ; 
and every one who wishes to interpret him must study the 
works by which he was so much guided. I have heard it 
rumoured that the principle I am now advocating is of a 
most revolutionary tendency, and that its effect will be 
to upset the foundations of the so-styled “science” of no- 
menclature. I would therefore beg a little space to see if this 
be so or not. I have tried to find how that principle, if ac- 
cepted, would work ; and here is the result. 
According to this view, I take it that the type species of 
* It surprises me to find that there are still some who write and speak 
of the “binominal” method of nomenclature. A “binomial” method 
signifies a method involving the use of two terms—that is, in biological 
nomenclature, a generic and a specific term which, together, make up 
the name of the object. A “binominal” method, as almost any dic- 
tionary would tell us, would mean a method in which each object should 
have two names. Unfortunately far too many species are in the strict sense 
“binominal,” or even ‘multinominal ;” for there are comparatively few 
which have not a synonym, or synonyms, as wellasaname. The hero 
who was indifferently known as Ascanius or Iulus, the river called by 
some Eridanus and by others Padus, may be each properly spoken of as 
being “ binominis,” ¢. e. “binominal ;” but that appellation could not be 
applied to Numa Pompilius or Aigos Potamos. Consider, too, the awk- 
wardness of the work “‘ binominal” in the sense that some would use it. 
We should have a “‘ binominal”’ name—a name, that is, having two names! 
Now a “binomial name” is an expression grammatically and logically 
correct, a name composed of two terms, just such a name as botanists and 
zoologists use for the creatures they study and speak of. , But then it may 
be objected that “binomial” is a hybrid word, and, accordingly, not to 
be used by any writer who cares for the purity of his style. Such an ob- 
jector, if he exists, ought in consistency to eschew such words as “ nomen- 
clature” and “ terminology,” and certainly ought not to use such a bar- 
barism as “polynominalism”! Sufficient to say that nomos had been 
engrafted in Pliny’s time on the Latin tongue to render its composition 
with 6:- classical or semiclassical; but even if this were not the case, who 
could justly object to a word which has been in universal use since the 
greatest of mathematicians bestowed it on the Binomial Theorem ? 





