Novum organon renovatum / Being the second part of the philosophy of the inductive sciences

by William Whewell

BOOK IV.

of the language of science.

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Introduction.

IT has been shown in the History of the Sciences, and has further appeared in the course of the History of Ideas, that almost every step in the progress of science is marked by the formation or appropriation of a technical term. Common language has, in most cases, a certain degree of looseness and ambiguity; as common knowledge has usually something of vagueness and indistinctness. In common cases too, knowledge usually does not occupy the intellect alone, but more or less interests some affection, or puts in action the fancy; and common language, accommodating itself to the office of expressing such knowledge, contains, in every sentence, a tinge of emotion or of imagination. But when our knowledge becomes perfectly exact and purely intellectual, we require a language which shall also be exact and intellectual;—which shall exclude alike vagueness and fancy, imperfection and superfluity;—in which each term shall convey a meaning steadily fixed and rigorously limited. Such a language that of science becomes, through the use of Technical Terms. And we must now endeavour to lay down some maxims and suggestions, by attention to which Technical Terms may be better fitted to answer their purpose. In order to do this, we shall in 258 the first place take a rapid survey of the manner in which Technical Terms have been employed from the earliest periods of scientific history.

The progress of the use of technical scientific language offers to our notice two different and successive periods; in the first of which, technical terms were formed casually, as convenience in each case prompted; while in the second period, technical language was constructed intentionally, with set purpose, with a regard to its connexion, and with a view of constructing a system. Though the casual and the systematic formation of technical terms cannot be separated by any precise date of time, (for at all periods some terms in some sciences have been framed unsystematically,) we may, as a general description, call the former the Ancient and the latter the Modern Period. In illustrating the two following Aphorisms, I will give examples of the course followed in each of these periods.

Aphorism I.

In the Ancient Period of Sciences, Technical Terms were formed in three different ways:—by appropriating common words and fixing their meaning;—by constructing terms containing a description;—by constructing terms containing reference to a theory.

The earliest sciences offer the earliest examples of technical terms. These are Geometry, Arithmetic, and Astronomy; to which we have soon after to add Harmonics, Mechanics, and Optics. In these sciences, we may notice the above-mentioned three different modes in which technical terms were formed.

I. The simplest and first mode of acquiring technical terms, is to take words current in common usage, and by rigorously defining or otherwise fixing their meaning, to fit them for the expression of scientific truths. In this manner almost all the fundamental technical terms of Geometry were formed. A sphere, a cone, a cylinder, had among the Greeks, at first, 259 meanings less precise than those which geometers gave to these words, and besides the mere designation of form, implied some use or application. A sphere (σφαῖρα) was a hand-ball used in games; a cone (κῶνος) was a boy’s spinning-top, or the crest of a helmet; a cylinder (κύλινδρος) was a roller; a cube (κύβος) was a die: till these words were adopted by the geometers, and made to signify among them pure modifications of space. So an angle (γωνία) was only a corner; a point (σημεῖον) was a signal; a line (γραμμὴ) was a mark; a straight line (εὐθεῖα) was marked by an adjective which at first meant only direct. A plane (ἐπίπεδον) is the neuter form of an adjective, which by its derivation means on the ground, and hence flat. In all these cases, the word adopted as a term of science has its sense rigorously fixed; and where the common use of the term is in any degree vague, its meaning may be modified at the same time that it is thus limited. Thus a rhombus (ῥόμβος) by its derivation, might mean any figure which is twisted out of a regular form; but it is confined by geometers to that figure which has four equal sides, its angles being oblique. In like manner, a trapezium (τραπέζιον) originally signifies a table, and thus might denote any form; but as the tables of the Greeks had one side shorter than the opposite one, such a figure was at first called a trapezium. Afterwards the term was made to signify any figure with four unequal sides; a name being more needful in geometry for this kind of figure than for the original form.

This class of technical terms, namely, words adopted from common language, but rendered precise and determinate for purposes of science, may also be exemplified in other sciences. Thus, as was observed in the early portion of the history of astronomy[1], a day, a month, a year, described at first portions of time marked by familiar changes, but afterwards portions determined by rigorous mathematical definitions. The conception of the heavens as a revolving sphere, is so obvious, 260 that we may consider the terms which involve this conception as parts of common language; as the pole (πόλος); the arctic circle, which includes the stars that never set[2]; the horizon (ὁρίζων) a boundary, applied technically to the circle bounding the visible earth and sky. The turnings of the sun (τροπαὶ ἠελίοιο), which are mentioned by Hesiod, gave occasion to the term tropics, the circles at which the sun in his annual motion turns back from his northward or southward advance. The zones of the earth, (the torrid, temperate, and frigid;) the gnomon of a dial; the limb (or border) of the moon, or of a circular instrument, are terms of the same class. An eclipse (ἔκλειψις) is originally a deficiency or disappearance, and joined with the name of the luminary, an eclipse of the sun or of the moon, described the phenomenon; but when the term became technical, it sufficed, without addition, to designate the phenomenon.

[1] Hist. Ind. Sci. b. iii. c. i.

[2] Hist. Ast. b. iii. c. i. sect. 8.

In Mechanics, the Greeks gave a scientific precision to very few words: we may mention weights (βάρεα), the arms of a lever (μήχεα), its fulcrum (ὑπομόχλιον), and the verb to balance (ἰσσοῤῥοπεῖν). Other terms which they used, as momentum (ῥοπὴ) and force (δύναμις), did not acquire a distinct and definite meaning till the time of Galileo, or later. We may observe that all abstract terms, though in their scientific application expressing mere conceptions, were probably at first derived from some word describing external objects. Thus the Latin word for force, vis, seems to be connected with a Greek word, ἲς, or ϝὶς, which often has nearly the same meaning; but originally, as it would seem, signified a sinew or muscle, the obvious seat of animal strength.

In later times, the limitation imposed upon a word by its appropriation to scientific purposes, is often more marked than in the cases above described. Thus the variation is made to mean, in astronomy, the second inequality of the moon’s motion; in magnetism, the variation signifies the angular deviation of the 261 compass-needle from the north; in pure mathematics, the variation of a quantity is the formula which expresses the result of any small change of the most general kind. In like manner, parallax (παράλλαξις) denotes a change in general, but is used by astronomers to signify the change produced by the spectator’s being removed from the center of the earth, his theoretical place, to the surface. Alkali at first denoted the ashes of a particular plant, but afterwards, all bodies having a certain class of chemical properties; and, in like manner, acid, the class opposed to alkali, was modified in signification by chemists, so as to refer no longer to the taste.

Words thus borrowed from common language, and converted by scientific writers into technical terms, have some advantages and some disadvantages. They possess this great convenience, that they are understood after a very short explanation, and retained in the memory without effort. On the other hand, they lead to some inconvenience; for since they have a meaning in common language, a careless reader is prone to disregard the technical limitation of this meaning, and to attempt to collect their import in scientific books, in the same vague and conjectural manner in which he collects the purpose of words in common cases. Hence the language of science, when thus resembling common language, is liable to be employed with an absence of that scientific precision which alone gives it value. Popular writers and talkers, when they speak of force, momentum, action and reaction, and the like, often afford examples of the inaccuracy thus arising from the scientific appropriation of common terms.

II. Another class of technical terms, which we find occurring as soon as speculative science assumes a distinct shape, consists of those which are intentionally constructed by speculators, and which contain some description or indication distinctive of the conception to which they are applied. Such are a parallelogram (παραλληλόγραμμον), which denotes a plane figure bounded by two pairs of parallel lines; a parallelopiped 262 (παραλληλοπίπεδον), which signifies a solid figure bounded by three pairs of parallel planes. A triangle (τρίγωνος, trigon) and a quadrangle (τετράγωνος, tetragon) were perhaps words invented independently of the mathematicians: but such words extended to other cases, pentagon, decagon, heccædecagon, polygon, are inventions of scientific men. Such also are tetrahedron, hexahedron, dodecahedron, tesseracontaoctohedron, polyhedron, and the like. These words being constructed by speculative writers, explain themselves, or at least require only some conventional limitation, easily adopted. Thus parallelogram, might mean a figure bounded by any number of sets of parallel lines, but it is conventionally restricted to a figure of four sides. So a great circle in a sphere means one which passes through the center of the sphere; and a small circle is any other. So in trigonometry, we have the hypotenuse (ὑποτενοῦσα), or subtending line, to designate the line subtending an angle, and especially a right angle. In this branch of mathematics we have many invented technical terms; as complement, supplement, cosine, cotangent, a spherical angle, the pole of a circle, or of a sphere. The word sine itself appears to belong to the class of terms already described as scientific appropriations of common terms, although its origin is somewhat obscure.

Mathematicians were naturally led to construct these and many other terms by the progress of their speculations. In like manner, when astronomy took the form of a speculative science, words were invented to denote distinctly the conceptions thus introduced. Thus the sun’s annual path among the stars, in which not only solar, but also all lunar eclipses occur, was termed the ecliptic. The circle which the sun describes in his diurnal motion, when the days and nights are equal, the Greeks called the equidiurnal (ἰσημερινὸς,) the Latin astronomers the equinoctial, and the corresponding circle on the earth was the equator. The ecliptic intersected the equinoctial in the equinoctial points. The solstices (in Greek, τροπαὶ) were the times when the sun arrested his motion northwards or 263 southwards; and the solstitial points (τὰ τροπικὰ σημεῖα) were the places, in the ecliptic where he then was. The name of meridians was given to circles passing through the poles of the equator; the solstitial colure (κόλουρος, curtailed), was one of these circles, which passes through the solstitial points, and is intercepted by the horizon.

We have borrowed from the Arabians various astronomical terms, as Zenith, Nadir, Azimuth, Almacantar. And these words, which among the Arabians probably belonged to the first class, of appropriated scientific terms, are for us examples of the second class, invented scientific terms; although they differ from most that we have mentioned, in not containing an etymology corresponding to their meaning in any language with which European cultivators of science are generally familiar. Indeed, the distinction of our two classes, though convenient, is in a great measure, casual. Thus most of the words we formerly mentioned, as parallax, horizon, eclipse, though appropriated technical terms among the Greeks, are to us invented technical terms.

In the construction of such terms as we are now considering, those languages have a great advantage which possess a power of forming words by composition. This was eminently the case with the Greek language; and hence most of the ancient terms of science in that language, when their origin is once explained, are clearly understood and easily retained. Of modern European languages, the German possesses the greatest facility of composition; and hence scientific authors in that language are able to invent terms which it is impossible to imitate in the other languages of Europe. Thus Weiss distinguishes his various systems of crystals as zwei-und-zwei-gliedrig, ein-und-zwei-gliedrig, drey-und-drey-gliedrig, &c., (two-and-two-membered, one-and-two-membered, &c.) And Hessel, also a writer on crystallography, speaks of doubly-one-membered edges, four-and-three spaced rays, and the like.

How far the composition of words, in such cases, may be practised in the English language, and the general question, what are the best rules and artifices 264 in such cases, I shall afterwards consider. In the mean time, I may observe that this list of invented technical terms might easily be much enlarged. Thus in harmonics we have the various intervals, as a Fourth, a Fifth, an Octave, (Diatessaron, Diapente, Diapason,) a Comma, which is the difference of a Major and Minor Tone; we have the various Moods or Keys, and the notes of various lengths, as Minims, Breves, Semibreves, Quavers. In chemistry, Gas was at first a technical term invented by Van Helmont, though it has now been almost adopted into common language. I omit many words which will perhaps suggest themselves to the reader, because they belong rather to the next class, which I now proceed to notice.

III. The third class of technical terms consists of such as are constructed by men of science, and involve some theoretical idea in the meaning which their derivation implies. They do not merely describe, like the class last spoken of, but describe with reference to some doctrine or hypothesis which is accepted as a portion of science. Thus latitude and longitude, according to their origin, signify breadth and length; they are used, however, to denote measures of the distance of a place on the earth’s surface from the equator, and from the first meridian, of which distances, one cannot be called length more properly than the other. But this appropriation of these words may be explained by recollecting that the earth, as known to the ancient geographers, was much further extended from east to west than from north to south. The Precession of the equinoxes is a term which implies that the stars are fixed, while the point which is the origin of the measure of celestial longitude moves backward. The Right Ascension of a star is a measure of its position corresponding to terrestrial longitude; this quantity is identical with the angular ascent of the equinoctial point, when the star is in the horizon in a right sphere; that is, a sphere which supposes the spectator to be at the equator. The Oblique Ascension (a term now little used), is derived in like manner from an oblique sphere. The motion of a planet is direct or retrograde, in 265 consequentia (signa), or in antecedentia, in reference to a certain assumed standard direction for celestial motions, namely, the direction opposite to that of the sun’s daily motion, and agreeing with his annual motion among the stars; or with what is much more evident, the moon’s monthly motion. The equation of time is the quantity which must be added to or subtracted from the time marked by the sun, in order to reduce it to a theoretical condition of equable progress. In like manner the equation of the center of the sun or of the moon is the angle which must be added to, or subtracted from, the actual advance of the luminary in the heavens, in order to make its motion equable. Besides the equation of the center of the moon, which represents the first and greatest of her deviations from equable motion, there are many other equations, by the application of which her motion is brought nearer and nearer to perfect uniformity. The second of these equations is called the evection, the third the variation, the fourth the annual equation, The motion of the sun as affected by its inequalities is called his anomaly, which term denotes inequality. In the History of Astronomy, we find that the inequable motions of the sun, moon, and planets were, in a great measure, reduced to rule and system by the Greeks, by the aid of an hypothesis of circles, revolving, and carrying in their motion other circles which also revolved. This hypothesis introduced many technical terms, as deferent, epicycle, eccentric. In like manner, the theories which have more recently taken the place of the theory of epicycles have introduced other technical terms, as the elliptical orbit, the radius vector, and the equable description of areas by this radius, which phrases express the true laws of the planetary motions.

There is no subject on which theoretical views have been so long and so extensively prevalent as astronomy, and therefore no other science in which there are so many technical terms of the kind we are now considering. But in other subjects also, so far as theories have been established, they have been accompanied by the introduction or fixation of technical terms. Thus, as 266 we have seen in the examination of the foundations of mechanics, the terms force and inertia derive their precise meaning from a recognition of the first law of motion; accelerating force and composition of motion involve the second law; moving force, momentum, action and reaction, are expressions which imply the third law. The term vis viva was introduced to express a general property of moving bodies; and other terms have been introduced for like purposes, as impetus by Smeaton, and work done, by other engineers. In the recent writings of several French engineers, the term travail is much employed, to express the work done and the force which does it: this term has been rendered by labouring force. The proposition which was termed the hydrostatic paradox had this name in reference to its violating a supposed law of the action of forces. The verb to gravitate, and the abstract term gravitation, sealed the establishment of Newton’s theory of the solar system.

In some of the sciences, opinions, either false, or disguised in very fantastical imagery, have prevailed; and the terms which have been introduced during the reign of such opinions, bear the impress of the time. Thus in the days of alchemy, the substances with which the operator dealt were personified; and a metal when exhibited pure and free from all admixture was considered as a little king, and was hence called a regulus, a term not yet quite obsolete. In like manner, a substance from which nothing more of any value could be extracted, was dead, and was called a caput mortuum. Quick silver, that is, live silver (argentum vivum), was killed by certain admixtures, and was revived when restored to its pure state.

We find a great number of medical terms which bear the mark of opinions formerly prevalent among physicians; and though these opinions hardly form a part of the progress of science, and were not presented in our History, we may notice some of these terms as examples of the mode in which words involve in their derivation obsolete opinions. Such words as hysterics, hypochondriac, melancholy, cholera, colic, quinsey 267 (squinantia, συνάγχη, a suffocation), megrim, migrane (hemicranium, the middle of the skull), rickets, (rachitis, from ῥάχις, the backbone), palsy, (paralysis, παράλυσις,) apoplexy (ἀποπληξία, a stroke), emrods, (αἱμοῤῥοΐδες, hemorrhoids, a flux of blood), imposthume, (corrupted from aposteme, ἀπόστημα, an abscess), phthisis (φθίσις, consumption), tympanum (τυμπανία, swelling), dropsy (hydropsy, ὕδρωψ,) sciatica, isciatica (ἰσκιαδικὴ, from ἰσκίον, the hip), catarrh (κατάῤῥους, a flowing down), diarrhœa (διαῤῥοία, a flowing through), diabetes (διαβήτης, a passing through), dysentery (δυσεντερία, a disorder of the entrails), arthritic pains (from ἄρθρα, the joints), are names derived from the supposed or real seat and circumstances of the diseases. The word from which the first of the above names is derived (ὑστέρα, the last place,) signifies the womb, according to its order in a certain systematic enumeration of parts. The second word, hypochondriac, means something affecting the viscera below the cartilage of the breastbone, which cartilage is called χόνδρος; melancholy and cholera derive their names from supposed affections of χολὴ, the bile. Colic is that which affects the colon (κῶλον), the largest member of the bowels. A disorder of the eye is called gutta serena (the ‘drop serene’ of Milton), in contradistinction to gutta turbida, in which the impediment to vision is perceptibly opake. Other terms also record the opinions of the ancient anatomists, as duodenum, a certain portion of the intestines, which they estimated as twelve inches long. We might add other allusions, as the tendon of Achilles.

Astrology also supplied a number of words founded upon fanciful opinions; but this study having been expelled from the list of sciences, such words now survive, only so far as they have found a place in common language. Thus men were termed mercurial, martial, jovial, or saturnine, accordingly as their characters were supposed to be determined by the influence of the planets, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn. Other expressions, such as disastrous, ill-starred, exorbitant, lord of the ascendant, and hence ascendancy, influence, 268 a sphere of action, and the like, may serve to show how extensively astrological opinions have affected language, though the doctrine is no longer a recognized science.

The preceding examples will make it manifest that opinions, even of a recondite and complex kind, are often implied in the derivation of words; and thus will show how scientific terms, framed by the cultivators of science, may involve received hypotheses and theories. When terms are thus constructed, they serve not only to convey with ease, but to preserve steadily and to diffuse widely, the opinions which they thus assume. Moreover, they enable the speculator to employ these complex conceptions, the creations of science, and the results of much labour and thought, as readily and familiarly as if they were convictions borrowed at once from the senses. They are thus powerful instruments in enabling philosophers to ascend from one step of induction and generalization to another; and hereby contribute powerfully to the advance of knowledge and truth.

It should be noticed, before we proceed, that the names of natural objects, when they come to be considered as the objects of a science, are selected according to the processes already enumerated. For the most part, the natural historian adopts the common names of animals, plants, minerals, gems, and the like, and only endeavours to secure their steady and consistent application. But many of these names imply some peculiar, often fanciful, belief respecting the object.

Various plants derive their names from their supposed virtues, as herniaria, rupture-wort; or from legends, as herba Sancti Johannis, St. John’s wort. The same is the case with minerals: thus the topaz was asserted to come from an island so shrouded in mists that navigators could only conjecture (τοπάζειν) where it was. In these latter cases, however, the legend is often not the true origin of the name, but is suggested by it.

The privilege of constructing names where they are wanted, belongs to natural historians no less than to 269 the cultivators of physical science; yet in the ancient world, writers of the former class appear rarely to have exercised this privilege, even when they felt the imperfections of the current language. Thus Aristotle repeatedly mentions classes of animals which have no name, as co-ordinate with classes that have names; but he hardly ventures to propose names which may supply these defects[3]. The vast importance of nomenclature in natural history was not recognized till the modern period.

[3] In his History of Animals, (b. i. c. vi.), he says, that the great classes of animals are Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Whales (Cetaceans), Oysters (Testaceans), animals like crabs which have no general name (Crustaceans), soft animals (Mollusks and Insects). He does, however, call the Crustaces by a name (Malacostraca, soft-shelled) which has since been adopted by Naturalists.

We have, however, hitherto considered only the formation or appropriation of single terms in science; except so far as several terms may in some instances be connected by reference to a common theory. But when the value of technical terms began to be fully appreciated, philosophers proceeded to introduce them into their sciences more copiously and in a more systematic manner. In this way, the modern history of technical language has some features of a different aspect from the ancient; and must give rise to a separate Aphorism.

Aphorism II.

In the Modern Period of Science, besides the three processes anciently employed in the formation of technical terms, there have been introduced Systematic Nomenclature, Systematic Terminology, and the Systematic Modification of Terms to express theoretical relations[4].

[4] On the subject of Terminology and Nomenclature, see also Aphorisms [LXXXVIII] and [XCVIII] concerning Ideas, and b. viii. c. ii. of the History of Scientific Ideas. In those places I have spoken of the distinction of Terminology and Nomenclature.

Writers upon science have gone on up to modern times forming such technical terms as they had occasion for, by the three processes above 270 described;—namely, appropriating and limiting words in common use;—constructing for themselves words descriptive of the conception which they wished to convey;—or framing terms which by their signification imply the adoption of a theory. Thus among the terms introduced by the study of the connexion between magnetism and electricity, the word pole is an example of the first kind; the name of the subject, electro-magnetism, of the second; and the term current, involving an hypothesis of the motion of a fluid, is an instance of the third class. In chemistry, the term salt was adopted from common language, and its meaning extended to denote any compound of a certain kind; the term neutral salt implied the notion of a balanced opposition in the two elements of the compound; and such words as subacid and superacid, invented on purpose, were introduced to indicate the cases in which this balance was not attained. Again, when the phlogistic theory of chemistry was established, the term phlogiston was introduced to express the theory, and from this such terms as phlogisticated and dephlogisticated were derived, exclusively words of science. But in such instances as have just been given, we approach towards a systematic modification of terms, which is a peculiar process of modern times. Of this, modern chemistry forms a prominent example, which we shall soon consider, but we shall first notice the other processes mentioned in the Aphorism.

I. In ancient times, no attempt was made to invent or select a Nomenclature of the objects of Natural History which should be precise and permanent. The omission of this step by the ancient naturalists gave rise to enormous difficulty and loss of time when the sciences resumed their activity. We have seen in the history of the sciences of classification, and of botany in especial[5], that the early cultivators of that study in modern times endeavoured to identify all the plants described by Greek and Roman writers with those which grow in the north of Europe; and were involved 271 in endless confusion[6], by the multiplication of names of plants, at the same time superfluous and ambiguous. The Synonymies which botanists (Bauhin and others) found it necessary to publish, were the evidences of these inconveniences. In consequence of the defectiveness of the ancient botanical nomenclature, we are even yet uncertain with respect to the identification of some of the most common trees mentioned by classical writers[7]. The ignorance of botanists respecting the importance of nomenclature operated in another manner to impede the progress of science. As a good nomenclature presupposes a good system of classification, so, on the other hand, a system of classification cannot become permanent without a corresponding nomenclature. Cæsalpinus, in the sixteenth century[8], published an excellent system of arrangement for plants; but this, not being connected with any system of names, was never extensively accepted, and soon fell into oblivion. The business of framing a scientific botanical classification was in this way delayed for about a century. In the same manner, Willoughby’s classification of fishes, though, as Cuvier says, far better than any which preceded it, was never extensively adopted, in consequence of having no nomenclature connected with it.

[5] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xvi. c. ii.

[6] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xvi. c. iii. sect. 3.

[7] For instance, whether the fagus of the Latins be the beech or the chestnut.

[8] Ib. b. xvi. c. iii. sect. 2.

II. Probably one main cause which so long retarded the work of fixing at the same time the arrangement and the names of plants, was the great number of minute and diversified particulars in the structure of each plant which such a process implied. The stalks, leaves, flowers, and fruits of vegetables, with their appendages, may vary in so many ways, that common language is quite insufficient to express clearly and precisely their resemblances and differences. Hence botany required not only a fixed system of names of plants, but also an artificial system of phrases fitted to describe their parts: not only a Nomenclature, but also 272 a Terminology. The Terminology was, in fact, an instrument indispensably requisite in giving fixity to the Nomenclature. The recognition of the kinds of plants must depend upon the exact comparison of their resemblances and differences; and to become a part of permanent science, this comparison must be recorded in words.

The formation of an exact descriptive language for botany was thus the first step in that systematic construction of the technical language of science, which is one of the main features in the intellectual history of modern times. The ancient botanists, as De Candolle[9] says, did not make any attempt to select terms of which the sense was rigorously determined; and each of them employed in his descriptions the words, metaphors, or periphrases which his own genius suggested. In the History of Botany[10], I have noticed some of the persons who contributed to this improvement. ‘Clusius,’ it is there stated, ‘first taught botanists to describe well. He introduced exactitude, precision, neatness, elegance, method: he says nothing superfluous; he omits nothing necessary.’ This task was further carried on by Jung and Ray[11]. In these authors we see the importance which began to be attached to the exact definition of descriptive terms; for example, Ray quotes Jung’s definition of Caulis, a stalk.

[9] Theor. Elem. de Bot. p. 327.

[10] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xvi. c. iii. sect. 3.

[11] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xvi. c. iii. sect. 3 (about a.d. 1660).

The improvement of descriptive language, and the formation of schemes of classification of plants, went on gradually for some time, and was much advanced by Tournefort. But at last Linnæus embodied and followed out the convictions which had gradually been accumulating in the breasts of botanists; and by remodelling throughout both the terminology and the nomenclature of botany, produced one of the greatest reforms which ever took place in any science. He thus supplied a conspicuous example of such a reform, and a most admirable model of a language, from which 273 other sciences may gather great instruction. I shall not here give any account of the terms and words introduced by Linnæus. They have been exemplified in the History of Science[12]; and the principles which they involve I shall consider separately hereafter. I will only remind the reader that the great simplification in nomenclature which was the result of his labours, consisted in designating each kind of plant by a binary term consisting of the name of the genus combined with that of the species: an artifice seemingly obvious, but more convenient in its results than could possibly have been anticipated.

[12] Ib. c. iv. sect. 1–3.

Since Linnæus, the progress of Botanical Anatomy and of Descriptive Botany have led to the rejection of several inexact expressions, and to the adoption of several new terms, especially in describing the structure of the fruit and the parts of cryptogamous plants. Hedwig, Medikus, Necker, Desvaux, Mirbel, and especially Gærtner, Link, and Richard, have proposed several useful innovations, in these as in other parts of the subject; but the general mass of the words now current consists still, and will probably continue to consist, of the terms established by the Swedish Botanist[13].

[13] De Candolle, Th. Elem. p. 307.

When it was seen that botany derived so great advantages from a systematic improvement of its language, it was natural that other sciences, and especially classificatory sciences, should endeavour to follow its example. This attempt was made in Mineralogy by Werner, and afterwards further pursued by Mohs. Werner’s innovations in the descriptive language of Mineralogy were the result of great acuteness, an intimate acquaintance with minerals, and a most methodical spirit: and were in most respects great improvements upon previous practices. Yet the introduction of them into Mineralogy was far from regenerating that science, as Botany had been regenerated by the Linnæan reform. It would seem that the perpetual 274 scrupulous attention to most minute differences, (as of lustre, colour, fracture,) the greater part of which are not really important, fetters the mind, rather than disciplines it or arms it for generalization. Cuvier has remarked[14] that Werner, after his first Essay on the Characters of Minerals, wrote little; as if he had been afraid of using the system which he had created, and desirous of escaping from the chains which he had imposed upon others. And he justly adds, that Werner dwelt least, in his descriptions, upon that which is really the most important feature of all, the crystalline structure. This, which is truly a definite character, like those of Botany, does, when it can be clearly discerned, determine the place of the mineral in a system. This, therefore, is the character which, of all others, ought to be most carefully expressed by an appropriate language. This task, hardly begun by Werner, has since been fully executed by others, especially by Romé de l’Isle, Haüy, and Mohs. All the forms of crystals can be described in the most precise manner by the aid of the labours of these writers and their successors. But there is one circumstance well worthy our notice in these descriptions. It is found that the language in which they can best be conveyed is not that of words, but of symbols. The relations of space which are involved in the forms of crystalline bodies, though perfectly definite, are so complex and numerous, that they cannot be expressed, except in the language of mathematics: and thus we have an extensive and recondite branch of mathematical science, which is, in fact, only a part of the Terminology of the mineralogist.

[14] Éloges, ii. 134.

The Terminology of Mineralogy being thus reformed, an attempt was made to improve its Nomenclature also, by following the example of Botany. Professor Mohs was the proposer of this innovation. The names framed by him were, however, not composed of two but of three elements, designating respectively the Species, the Genus, and the Order[15]: thus he has such species as 275 Rhombohedral Lime Haloide, Octahedral Fluor Haloide, Prismatic Hal Baryte. These names have not been generally adopted; nor is it likely that any names constructed on such a scheme will find acceptance among mineralogists, till the higher divisions of the system are found to have some definite character. We see no real mineralogical significance in Mohs’s Genera and Orders, and hence we do not expect them to retain a permanent place in the science.

[15] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xv. c. ix.

The only systematic names which have hitherto been generally admitted in Mineralogy, are those expressing the chemical constitution of the substance; and these belong to a system of technical terms different from any we have yet spoken of, namely to terms formed by systematic modification.

III. The language of Chemistry was already, as we have seen, tending to assume a systematic character, even under the reign of the phlogiston theory. But when oxygen succeeded to the throne, it very fortunately happened that its supporters had the courage and the foresight to undertake a completely new and systematic recoinage of the terms belonging to the science. The new nomenclature was constructed upon a principle hitherto hardly applied in science, but eminently commodious and fertile; namely, the principle of indicating a modification of relations of elements, by a change in the termination of the word. Thus the new chemical school spoke of sulphuric and sulphurous acids; of sulphates and sulphites of bases; and of sulphurets of metals; and in like manner, of phosphoric and phosphorous acids, of phosphates, phosphites, phosphurets. In this manner a nomenclature was produced, in which the very name of a substance indicated at once its constitution and place in the system.

The introduction of this chemical language can never cease to be considered one of the most important steps ever made in the improvement of technical terms; and as a signal instance of the advantages which may result from artifices apparently trivial, if employed in a manner conformable to the laws of phenomena, and systematically pursued. It was, however, proved that 276 this language, with all its merits, had some defects. The relations of elements in composition were discovered to be more numerous than the modes of expression which the terminations supplied. Besides the sulphurous and sulphuric acids, it appeared there were others; these were called the hyposulphurous and hyposulphuric: but these names, though convenient, no longer implied, by their form, any definite relation. The compounds of Nitrogen and Oxygen are, in order, the Protoxide, the Deutoxide or Binoxide; Hyponitrous Acid, Nitrous Acid, and Nitric Acid. The nomenclature here ceases to be systematic. We have three oxides of Iron, of which we may call the first the Protoxide, but we cannot call the others the Deutoxide and Trioxide, for by doing so we should convey a perfectly erroneous notion of the proportions of the elements. They are called the Protoxide, the Black Oxide, and the Peroxide. We are here thrown back upon terms quite unconnected with the system.

Other defects in the nomenclature arose from errours in the theory; as for example the names of the muriatic, oxymuriatic, and hyperoxymuriatic acids; which, after the establishment of the new theory of chlorine, were changed to hydrochloric acid, chlorine, and chloric acid.

Thus the chemical system of nomenclature, founded upon the oxygen theory, while it shows how much may be effected by a good and consistent scheme of terms, framed according to the real relations of objects, proves also that such a scheme can hardly be permanent in its original form, but will almost inevitably become imperfect and anomalous, in consequence of the accumulation of new facts, and the introduction of new generalizations. Still, we may venture to say that such a scheme does not, on this account, become worthless; for it not only answers its purpose in the stage of scientific progress to which it belongs:—so far as it is not erroneous, or merely conventional, but really systematic and significant of truth, its terms can be translated at once into the language of any higher generalization which is afterwards arrived at. If terms express 277 relations really ascertained to be true, they can never lose their value by any change of the received theory. They are like coins of pure metal, which, even when carried into a country which does not recognize the sovereign whose impress they bear, are still gladly received, and may, by the addition of an explanatory mark, continue part of the common currency of the country.

These two great instances of the reform of scientific language, in Botany and in Chemistry, are much the most important and instructive events of this kind which the history of science offers. It is not necessary to pursue our historical survey further. Our remaining Aphorisms respecting the Language of Science will be collected and illustrated indiscriminately, from the precepts and the examples of preceding philosophers of all periods[16].

[16] See at the [end] of these Aphorisms, further illustrations of them from the recent history of Comparative Anatomy and Chemistry.

We may, however, remark that Aphorisms III., IV., V., VI., VII., respect peculiarly the Formation of Technical Terms by the Appropriation of Common Words, while the remaining ones apply to the Formation of New Terms.

It does not appear possible to lay down a system of rules which may determine and regulate the construction of all technical terms, on all the occasions on which the progress of science makes them necessary or convenient. But if we can collect a few maxims such as have already offered themselves to the minds of philosophers, or such as may be justified by the instances by which we shall illustrate them, these maxims may avail to guide us in doubtful cases, and to prevent our aiming at advantages which are unattainable, or being disturbed by seeming imperfections which are really no evils. I shall therefore state such maxims of this kind as seem most sound and useful. 278

Aphorism III.

In framing scientific terms, the appropriation of old words is preferable to the invention of new ones.

This maxim is stated by Bacon in his usual striking manner. After mentioning Metaphysic, as one of the divisions of Natural Philosophy, he adds[17]: ‘Wherein I desire it may be conceived that I use the word metaphysic in a different sense from that that is received: and in like manner I doubt not but it will easily appear to men of judgment that in this and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms. For, hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking by the order and perspicuous expressing of that I do propound; I am otherwise zealous and affectionate to recede as little from antiquity, either in terms or opinions, as may stand with truth, and the proficience of knowledge, . . . To me, that do desire, as much as lieth in my pen, to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and proficience, it seemeth best to keep a way with antiquity usque ad aras; and therefore to retain the ancient terms, though I sometimes alter the uses and definitions; according to the moderate proceeding in civil governments, when, although there be some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus wisely noteth, eadem magistratuum vocabula.’

[17] De Augm. lib. iii. c. iv.

We have had before us a sufficient number of examples of scientific terms thus framed; for they formed the first of three classes which we described in the First Aphorism. And we may again remark, that science, when she thus adopts terms which are in common use, always limits and fixes their meaning in a technical manner. We may also repeat here the warning already given respecting terms of this kind, that they are peculiarly liable to mislead readers who 279 do not take care to understand them in their technical instead of their common signification. Force, momentum, inertia, impetus, vis viva, are terms which are very useful, if we rigorously bear in mind the import which belongs to each of them in the best treatises on Mechanics; but if the reader content himself with conjecturing their meaning from the context, his knowledge will be confused and worthless.

In the application of this Third Aphorism, other rules are to be attended to, which I add.

Aphorism IV.

When common words are appropriated as technical terms, their meaning and relations in common use should be retained as far as can conveniently be done.

I will state an example in which this rule seems to be applicable. Mr Davies Gilbert[18] has recently proposed the term efficiency to designate the work which a machine, according to the force exerted upon it, is capable of doing; the work being measured by the weight raised, and the space through which it is raised, jointly. The usual term employed among engineers for the work which a machine actually does, measured in the way just stated, is duty. But as there appears to be a little incongruity in calling that work efficiency which the machine ought to do, when we call that work duty which it really does, I have proposed to term these two quantities theoretical efficiency and practical efficiency, or theoretical duty and practical duty[19].

[18] Phil. Trans. 1827, p. 25.

[19] The term travail is used by French engineers, to express efficiency or theoretical duty. This term has been rendered in English by labouring force.

Since common words are often vague in their meaning, I add as a necessary accompaniment to the Third Aphorism the following:— 280

Aphorism V.

When common words are appropriated as technical terms, their meaning may be modified, and must be rigorously fixed.

This is stated by Bacon in the above extract: ‘to retain the ancient terms, though I sometimes alter the uses and definitions.’ The scientific use of the term is in all cases much more precise than the common use. The loose notions of velocity and force for instance, which are sufficient for the usual purposes of language, require to be fixed by exact measures when these are made terms in the science of Mechanics.

This scientific fixation of the meaning of words is to be looked upon as a matter of convention, although it is in reality often an inevitable result of the progress of science. Momentum is conventionally defined to be the product of the numbers expressing the weight and the velocity; but then, it could be of no use in expressing the laws of motion if it were defined otherwise.

Hence it is no valid objection to a scientific term that the word in common language does not mean exactly the same as in its common use. It is no sufficient reason against the use of the term acid for a class of bodies, that all the substances belonging to this class are not sour. We have seen that a trapezium is used in geometry for any four-sided figure, though originally it meant a figure with two opposite sides parallel and the two others equal. A certain stratum which lies below the chalk is termed by English geologists the green sand. It has sometimes been objected to this denomination that the stratum has very frequently no tinge of green, and that it is often composed of lime with little or no sand. Yet the term is a good technical term in spite of these apparent improprieties; so long as it is carefully applied to that stratum which is geologically equivalent to the greenish sandy bed to which the appellation was originally applied.

When it appeared that geometry would have to be employed as much at least about the heavens as the earth, Plato exclaimed against the folly of calling the 281 science by such a name; since the word signifies ‘earth-measuring;’ yet the word geometry has retained its place and answered its purpose perfectly well up to the present day.

But though the meaning of the term may be modified or extended, it must be rigorously fixed when it is appropriated to science. This process is most abundantly exemplified by the terminology of Natural History, and especially of Botany, in which each term has a most precise meaning assigned to it. Thus Linnæus established exact distinctions between fasciculus, capitulum, racemus, thyrsus, paniculus, spica, amentum, corymbus, umbella, cyma, verticillus; or, in the language of English Botanists, a tuft, a head, a cluster, a bunch, a panicle, a spike, a catkin, a corymb, an umbel, a cyme, a whorl. And it has since been laid down as a rule[20], that each organ ought to have a separate and appropriate name; so that the term leaf, for instance, shall never be applied to a leaflet, a bractea, or a sepal of the calyx.

[20] De Candolle, Theor. El. 328.

Botanists have not been content with fixing the meaning of their terms by verbal definition, but have also illustrated them by figures, which address the eye. Of these, as excellent modern examples, may be mentioned those which occur in the works of Mirbel[21], and Lindley[22].

[21] Élémens de Botanique.

[22] Elements of Botany.

Aphorism VI.

When common words are appropriated as technical terms, this must be done so that they are not ambiguous in their application.

An example will explain this maxim. The conditions of a body, as a solid, a liquid, and an air, have been distinguished as different forms of the body. But the word form, as applied to bodies, has other meanings; so that if we were to inquire in what form water exists in a snow-cloud, it might be doubted whether the forms of crystallization were meant, or 282 the different forms of ice, water, and vapour. Hence I have proposed[23] to reject the term form in such cases, and to speak of the different consistence of a body in these conditions. The term consistence is usually applied to conditions between solid and fluid; and may without effort be extended to those limiting conditions. And though it may appear more harsh to extend the term consistence to the state of air, it may be justified by what has been said in speaking of Aphorism V.

[23] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. x. c. ii. sect. 2.

I may notice another example of the necessity of avoiding ambiguous words. A philosopher who makes method his study, would naturally be termed a methodist; but unluckily this word is already appropriated to a religious sect: and hence we could hardly venture to speak of Cæsalpinus, Ray, Morison, Rivinus, Tournefort, Linnæus, and their successors, as botanical methodists. Again, by this maxim, we are almost debarred from using the term physician for a cultivator of the science of physics, because it already signifies a practiser of physic. We might, perhaps, still use physician as the equivalent of the French physicien, in virtue of Aphorism V.; but probably it would be better to form a new word. Thus we may say, that while the Naturalist employs principally the ideas of resemblance and life, the Physicist proceeds upon the ideas of force, matter, and the properties of matter.

Whatever may be thought of this proposal, the maxim which it implies is frequently useful. It is this.

Aphorism VII.

It is better to form new words as technical terms, than to employ old ones in which the last three Aphorisms cannot be complied with.

The principal inconvenience attending the employment of new words constructed expressly for the use of science, is the difficulty of effectually introducing them. Readers will not readily take the trouble to learn the meaning of a word, in which the memory is 283 not assisted by some obvious suggestion connected with the common use of language. When this difficulty is overcome, the new word is better than one merely appropriated; since it is more secure from vagueness and confusion. And in cases where the inconveniences belonging to a scientific use of common words become great and inevitable, a new word must be framed and introduced.

The Maxims which belong to the construction of such words will be stated hereafter; but I may notice an instance or two tending to show the necessity of the Maxim now before us.

The word Force has been appropriated in the science of Mechanics in two senses: as indicating the cause of motion; and again, as expressing certain measures of the effects of this cause, in the phrases accelerating force and moving force. Hence we might have occasion to speak of the accelerating or moving force of a certain force; for instance, if we were to say that the force which governs the motions of the planets resides in the sun; and that the accelerating force of this force varies only with the distance, but its moving force varies as the product of the mass of the sun and the planet. This is a harsh and incongruous mode of expression; and might have been avoided, if, instead of accelerating force and moving force, single abstract terms had been introduced by Newton: if, for instance, he had said that the velocity generated in a second measures the accelerativity of the force which produces it, and the momentum produced in a second measures the motivity of the force.

The science which treats of heat has hitherto had no special designation: treatises upon it have generally been termed treatises On Heat. But this practice of employing the same term to denote the property and the science which treats of it, is awkward, and often ambiguous. And it is further attended with this inconvenience, that we have no adjective derived from the name of the science, as we have in other cases, when we speak of acoustical experiments and optical theories. This inconvenience has led various persons to suggest names for the Science of Heat. M. Comte 284 terms it Thermology. In the History of the Sciences, I have named it Thermotics, which appears to me to agree better with the analogy of the names of other corresponding sciences, Acoustics and Optics. Electricity is in the same condition as Heat; having only one word to express the property and the science. M. Le Comte proposes Electrology: for the same reason as before, I should conceive Electrics more agreeable to analogy. The coincidence of the word with the plural of Electric would not give rise to ambiguity; for Electrics, taken as the name of a science, would be singular, like Optics and Mechanics. But a term offers itself to express common or machine Electrics, which appears worthy of admission, though involving a theoretical view. The received doctrine of the difference between Voltaic and Common Electricity is, that in the former case the fluid must be considered as in motion, in the latter as at rest. The science which treats of the former class of subjects is commonly termed Electrodynamics, which obviously suggests the name Electrostatics for the latter.

The subject of the Tides is, in like manner, destitute of any name which designates the science concerned about it. I have ventured to employ the term Tidology, having been much engaged in tidological researches.

Many persons possess a peculiarity of vision, which disables them from distinguishing certain colours. On examining many such cases, we find that in all such persons the peculiarities are the same; all of them confounding scarlet with green, and pink with blue. Hence they form a class, which, for the convenience of physiologists and others, ought to have a fixed designation. Instead of calling them, as has usually been done, ‘persons having a peculiarity of vision,’ we might take a Greek term implying this meaning, and term them Idiopts.

But my business at present is not to speak of the selection of new terms when they are introduced, but to illustrate the maxim that the necessity for their introduction often arises. The construction of new terms will be treated of subsequently. 285

Aphorism VIII.

Terms must be constructed and appropriated so as to be fitted to enunciate simply and clearly true general propositions.

This Aphorism may be considered as the fundamental principle and supreme rule of all scientific terminology. It is asserted by Cuvier, speaking of a particular case. Thus he says[24] of Gmelin, that by placing the lamantin in the genus of morses, and the siren in the genus of eels, he had rendered every general proposition respecting the organization of those genera impossible.

[24] Règne Animal, Introd. viii.

The maxim is true of words appropriated as well as invented, and applies equally to the mathematical, chemical, and classificatory sciences. With regard to most of these, and especially the two former classes, it has been abundantly exemplified already, in what has previously been said, and in the History of the Sciences. For we have there had to notice many technical terms, with the occasions of their introduction; and all these occasions have involved the intention of expressing in a convenient manner some truth or supposed truth. The terms of Astronomy were adopted for the purpose of stating and reasoning upon the relations of the celestial motions, according to the doctrine of the sphere, and the other laws which were discovered by astronomers. The few technical terms which belong to Mechanics, force, velocity, momentum, inertia, &c., were employed from the first with a view to the expression of the laws of motion and of rest; and were, in the end, limited so as truly and simply to express those laws when they were fully ascertained. In Chemistry, the term phlogiston was useful, as has been shown in the History, in classing together processes which really are of the same nature; and the nomenclature of the oxygen theory was still preferable, because it enabled the chemist to express a still greater number of general truths. 286

To the connexion here asserted, of theory and nomenclature, we have the testimony of the author of the oxygen theory. In the Preface to his Chemistry, Lavoisier says:—‘Thus while I thought myself employed only in forming a Nomenclature, and while I proposed to myself nothing more than to improve the chemical language, my work transformed itself by degrees, without my being able to prevent it, into a Treatise on the Elements of Chemistry.’ And he then proceeds to show how this happened.

It is, however, mainly through the progress of Natural History in modern times, that philosophers have been led to see the importance and necessity of new terms in expressing new truths. Thus Harvey, in the Preface to his work on Generation, says:—‘Be not offended if in setting out the History of the Egg I make use of a new method, and sometimes of unusual terms. For as they which find out a new plantation and new shores call them by names of their own coining, which posterity afterwards accepts and receives, so those that find out new secrets have good title to their compellation. And here, methinks, I hear Galen advising: If we consent in the things, contend not about the words.’

The Nomenclature which answers the purposes of Natural History is a Systematic Nomenclature, and will be further considered under the next Aphorism. But we may remark, that the Aphorism now before us governs the use of words, not in science only, but in common language also. Are we to apply the name fish to animals of the whale kind? The answer is determined by our present rule: we are to do so, or not, accordingly as we can best express true propositions. If we are speaking of the internal structure and physiology of the animal, we must not call them fish; for in these respects they deviate widely from fishes: they have warm blood, and produce and suckle their young as land quadrupeds do. But this would not prevent our speaking of the whale-fishery, and calling such animals fish on all occasions connected with this employment; for the relations thus arising depend upon the animal’s living in the water, and being caught in a 287 manner similar to other fishes. A plea that human laws which mention fish do not apply to whales, would be rejected at once by an intelligent judge.

[A bituminiferous deposit which occurs amongst the coal measures in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh was used as coal, and called ‘Boghead Cannel Coal.’ But a lawsuit arose upon the question whether this, which geologically was not the coal, should be regarded in law as coal. The opinions of chemists and geologists, as well as of lawyers, were discrepant, and a direct decision of the case was evaded.[25]]

[25] Miller’s Chemistry, iii. 98.

Aphorism IX.

In the Classificatory Sciences, a Systematic Nomenclature is necessary; and the System and the Nomenclature are each essential to the utility of the other.

The inconveniences arising from the want of a good Nomenclature were long felt in Botany, and are still felt in Mineralogy. The attempts to remedy them by Synonymies are very ineffective, for such comparisons of synonyms do not supply a systematic nomenclature; and such a one alone can enable us to state general truths respecting the objects of which the classificatory sciences treat. The System and the Names ought to be introduced together; for the former is a collection of asserted analogies and resemblances, for which the latter provide simple and permanent expressions. Hence it has repeatedly occurred in the progress of Natural History, that good Systems did not take root, or produce any lasting effect among naturalists, because they were not accompanied by a corresponding Nomenclature. In this way, as we have already noticed, the excellent botanical System of Cæsalpinus was without immediate effect upon the science. The work of Willoughby, as Cuvier says[26], forms an epoch, and 288 a happy epoch in Ichthyology; yet because Willoughby had no Nomenclature of his own, and no fixed names for his genera, his immediate influence was not great. Again, in speaking of Schlotheim’s work containing representations of fossil vegetables, M. Adolphe Brongniart observes[27] that the figures and descriptions are so good, that if the author had established a nomenclature for the objects he describes, his work would have become the basis of all succeeding labours on the subject.

[26] Hist. des Poissons, Pref.

[27] Prodrom. Veg. Foss. p. 3.

As additional examples of cases in which the improvement of classification, in recent times, has led philosophers to propose new names, I may mention the term Pœcilite, proposed by Mr. Conybeare to designate the group of strata which lies below the oolites and lias, including the new red or variegated sandstone, with the keuper above, and the magnesian limestone below it. Again, the transition districts of our island have recently been reduced to system by Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Murchison; and this step has been marked by the terms Cambrian system, and Silurian system, applied to the two great groups of formations which they have respectively examined, and by several other names of the subordinate members of these formations.

Thus System and Nomenclature are each essential to the other. Without Nomenclature, the system is not permanently incorporated into the general body of knowledge, and made an instrument of future progress. Without System, the names cannot express general truths, and contain no reason why they should be employed in preference to any other names.

This has been generally acknowledged by the most philosophical naturalists of modern times. Thus Linnæus begins that part of his Botanical Philosophy in which names are treated of, by stating that the foundation of botany is twofold, Disposition and Denomination; and he adds this Latin line,

Nomina si nescis perit et cognitio rerum. 289

And Cuvier, in the Preface to his Animal Kingdom, explains, in a very striking manner, how the attempt to connect zoology with anatomy led him, at the same time, to reform the classifications, and to correct the nomenclature of preceding zoologists.

I have stated that in Mineralogy we are still destitute of a good nomenclature generally current. From what has now been said, it will be seen that it may be very far from easy to supply this defect, since we have, as yet, no generally received system of mineralogical classification. Till we know what are really different species of minerals, and in what larger groups these species can be arranged, so as to have common properties, we shall never obtain a permanent mineralogical nomenclature. Thus Leucocyclite and Tesselite are minerals previously confounded with Apophyllite, which Sir John Herschel and Sir David Brewster distinguished by those names, in consequence of certain optical properties which they exhibit. But are these properties definite distinctions? and are there any external differences corresponding to them? If not, can we consider them as separate species? and if not separate species, ought they to have separate names? In like manner, we might ask if Augite and Hornblende are really the same species, as Gustavus Rose has maintained? if Diallage and Hypersthene are not definitely distinguished, which has been asserted by Kobell? Till such questions are settled, we cannot have a fixed nomenclature in mineralogy. What appears the best course to follow in the present state of the science, I shall consider when we come to speak of the form of technical terms.

I may, however, notice here that the main Forms of systematic nomenclature are two:—terms which are produced by combining words of higher and lower generality, as the binary names, consisting of the name of the genus and the species, generally employed by natural historians since the time of Linnæus;—and terms in which some relation of things is indicated by a change in the form of the word, for example, an alteration of its termination, of which kind of 290 nomenclature we have a conspicuous example in the modern chemistry.

Aphorism X.

New terms and changes of terms, which are not needed in order to express truth, are to be avoided.

As the Seventh Aphorism asserted that novelties in language may be and ought to be introduced, when they aid the enunciation of truths, we now declare that they are not admissible in any other case. New terms and new systems of terms are not to be introduced, for example, in virtue of their own neatness or symmetry, or other merits, if there is no occasion for their use.

I may mention, as an old example of a superfluous attempt of this kind, an occurrence in the history of Astronomy. In 1628 John Bayer and Julius Schiller devised a Cœlum Christianum, in which the common names of the planets, &c., were replaced by those of Adam, Moses, and the Patriarchs. The twelve Signs became the twelve Apostles, and the constellations became sacred places and things. Peireskius, who had to pronounce upon the value of this proposal, praised the piety of the inventors, but did not approve, he said[28], the design of perverting and confounding whatever of celestial information from the period of the earliest memory is found in books.

[28] Gassendi, Vita Peireskii, 300.

Nor are slight anomalies in the existing language of science sufficient ground for a change, if they do not seriously interfere with the expression of our knowledge. Thus Linnæus says[29] that a fair generic name is not to be exchanged for another though apter one: and[30] if we separate an old genus into several, we must try to find names for them among the synonyms which describe the old genus. This maxim excludes the restoration of ancient names long disused, no less than the needless invention of new ones. Linnæus 291 lays down this rule[31]; and adds, that the botanists of the sixteenth century well nigh ruined botany by their anxiety to recover the ancient names of plants. In like manner Cuvier[32] laments it as a misfortune, that he has had to introduce many new names; and declares earnestly that he has taken great pains to preserve those of his predecessors.

[29] Phil. Bot. 246.

[30] Ib. 247.

[31] Phil. Bot. 248.

[32] Règne Anim. Pref. xvi.

The great bulk which the Synonymy of botany and of mineralogy have attained, shows us that this maxim has not been universally attended to. In these cases, however, the multiplication of different names for the same kind of object has arisen in general from ignorance of the identity of it under different circumstances, or from the want of a system which might assign to it its proper place. But there are other instances, in which the multiplication of names has arisen not from defect, but from excess, of the spirit of system. The love which speculative men bear towards symmetry and completeness is constantly at work, to make them create systems of classification more regular and more perfect than can be verified by the facts: and as good systems are closely connected with a good nomenclature, systems thus erroneous and superfluous lead to a nomenclature which is prejudicial to science. For although such a nomenclature is finally expelled, when it is found not to aid us in expressing the true laws of nature, it may obtain some temporary sway, during which, and even afterwards, it may be a source of much confusion.

We have a conspicuous example of such a result in the geological nomenclature of Werner and his school. Thus it was assumed, in Werner’s system, that his First, Second, and Third Flötz Limestone, his Old and New Red Sandstone, were universal formations; and geologists looked upon it as their business to detect these strata in other countries. Names were thus assigned to the rocks of various parts of Europe, which created immense perplexity before they were again ejected. The geological terms which now prevail, for 292 instance, those of Smith, are for the most part not systematic, but are borrowed from accidents, as localities, or popular names; as Oxford Clay and Cornbrash; and hence they are not liable to be thrust out on a change of system. On the other hand we do not find sufficient reason to accept the system of names of strata proposed by Mr. Conybeare in the Introduction to the Geology of England and Wales, according to which the Carboniferous Rocks are the Medial Order,—having above them the Supermedial Order (New Red Sand, Oolites and Chalk), and above these the Superior Order (Tertiary Rocks); and again,—having below, the Submedial Order (the Transition Rocks), and the Inferior Order (Mica Slate, Gneiss, Granite). For though these names have long been proposed, it does not appear that they are useful in enunciating geological truths. We may, it would seem, pronounce the same judgment respecting the system of geological names proposed by M. Alexander Brongniart, in his Tableau des Terrains qui composent l’écorce du Globe. He divides these strata into nine classes, which he terms Terrains Alluviens, Lysiens, Pyrogenes, Clysmiens, Yzemiens, Hemilysiens, Agalysiens, Plutoniques, Vulcaniques. These classes are again variously subdivided: thus the Terrains Yzemiens are Thalassiques, Pelagiques, and Abyssiques; and the Abyssiques are subdivided into Lias, Keuper, Conchiliens, Pœciliens, Peneens, Rudimentaires, Entritiques, Houillers, Carbonifers and Gres Rouge Ancien. Scarcely any amount of new truths would induce geologists to burthen themselves at once with this enormous system of new names: but in fact, it is evident that any portion of truth, which any author can have brought to light, may be conveyed by means of a much simpler apparatus. Such a nomenclature carries its condemnation on its own face.

Nearly the same may be said of the systematic nomenclature proposed for mineralogy by Professor Mohs. Even if all his Genera be really natural groups, (a doctrine which we can have no confidence in till they are confirmed by the evidence of chemistry,) there is no 293 necessity to make so great a change in the received names of minerals. His proceeding in this respect, so different from the temperance of Linnæus and Cuvier, has probably ensured a speedy oblivion to this part of his system. In crystallography, on the other hand, in which Mohs’s improvements have been very valuable, there are several terms introduced by him, as rhombohedron, scalenohedron, hemihedral, systems of crystallization, which will probably be a permanent portion of the language of science.

I may remark, in general, that the only persons who succeed in making great alterations in the language of science, are not those who make names arbitrarily and as an exercise of ingenuity, but those who have much new knowledge to communicate; so that the vehicle is commended to general reception by the value of what it contains. It is only eminent discoverers to whom the authority is conceded of introducing a new system of names; just as it is only the highest authority in the state which has the power of putting a new coinage in circulation.

I will here quote some judicious remarks of Mr. Howard, which fall partly under this Aphorism, and partly under some which follow. He had proposed, as names for the kinds of clouds, the following: Cirrus, Cirrocumulus, Cirrostratus, Cumulostratus, Cumulus, Nimbus, Stratus. In an abridgment of his views, given in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, English names were proposed as the equivalents of these; Curlcloud, Sondercloud, Wanecloud, Twaincloud, Stackencloud, Raincloud, Fallcloud. Upon these Mr. Howard observes: ‘I mention these, in order to have the opportunity of saying that I do not adopt them. The names for the clouds which I deduced from the Latin, are but seven in number, and very easy to remember. They were intended as arbitrary terms for the structure of clouds, and the meaning of them was carefully fixed by a definition. The observer having once made himself master of this, was able to apply the term with correctness, after a little experience, to the subject under all its varieties of form, colour, or position. The 294 new names, if meant to be another set of arbitrary terms, are superfluous; if intended to convey in themselves an explanation in English, they fail in this, by applying to some part or circumstance only of the definition; the whole of which must be kept in view to study the subject with success. To take for an example the first of the modifications. The term cirrus very readily takes an abstract meaning, equally applicable to the rectilinear as to the flexuous forms of the subject. But the name of curl-cloud will not, without some violence to its obvious sense, acquire this more extensive one: and will therefore be apt to mislead the reader rather than further his progress. Others of these names are as devoid of a meaning obvious to the English reader, as the Latin terms themselves. But the principal objection to English or any other local terms, remains to be stated. They take away from the nomenclature its general advantage of constituting, as far as it goes, an universal language, by means of which the intelligent of every country may convey to each other their ideas without the necessity of translation.’

I here adduce these as examples of the arguments against changing an established nomenclature. As grounds of selecting a new one, they may be taken into account hereafter.

Aphorism XI.

Terms which imply theoretical views are admissible, as far as the theory is proved.

It is not unfrequently stated that the circumstances from which the names employed in science borrow their meaning, ought to be facts and not theories. But such a recommendation implies a belief that facts are rigorously distinguished from theories and directly opposed to them; which belief, we have repeatedly seen, is unfounded. When theories are firmly established, they become facts; and names founded on such theoretical views are unexceptionable. If we speak of the minor 295 axis of Jupiter’s orbit, or of his density, or of the angle of refraction, or the length of an undulation of red light, we assume certain theories; but inasmuch as the theories are now the inevitable interpretation of ascertained facts, we can have no better terms to designate the conceptions thus referred to. And hence the rule which we must follow is, not that our terms must involve no theory, but that they imply the theory only in that sense in which it is the interpretation of the facts.

For example, the term polarization of light was objected to, as involving a theory. Perhaps the term was at first suggested by conceiving light to consist of particles having poles turned in a particular manner. But among intelligent speculators, the notion of polarization soon reduced itself to the simple conception of opposite properties in opposite positions, which is a bare statement of the fact: and the term being understood to have this meaning, is a perfectly good term, and indeed the best which we can imagine for designating what is intended.

I need hardly add the caution, that names involving theoretical views not in accordance with facts are to be rejected. The following instances exemplify both the positive and the negative application of this maxim.

The distinction of primary and secondary rocks in geology was founded upon a theory; namely, that those which do not contain any organic remains were first deposited, and afterwards, those which contain plants and animals. But this theory was insecure from the first. The difficulty of making the separation which it implied, led to the introduction of a class of transition rocks. And the recent researches of geologists lead them to the conclusion, that those rocks which are termed primary, may be the newest, not the oldest, productions of nature.

In order to avoid this incongruity, other terms have been proposed as substitutes for these. Sir C. Lyell remarks[33], that granite, gneiss, and the like, form a class 296 which should be designated by a common name; which name should not be of chronological import. He proposes hypogene, signifying ‘nether-formed;’ and thus he adopts the theory that they have not assumed their present form and structure at the surface, but determines nothing of the period when they were produced.

[33] Princ. Geol. iv. 386.

These hypogene rocks, again, he divides into unstratified or plutonic, and altered stratified, or metamorphic; the latter term implying the hypothesis that the stratified rocks to which it is applied have been altered, by the effect of fire or otherwise, since they were deposited. That fossiliferous strata, in some cases at least, have undergone such a change, is demonstrable from facts[34].

[34] Elem. Geol. p. 17.

The modern nomenclature of chemistry implies the oxygen theory of chemistry. Hence it has sometimes been objected to. Thus Davy, in speaking of the Lavoisierian nomenclature, makes the following remarks, which, however plausible they may sound, will be found to be utterly erroneous[35]. ‘Simplicity and precision ought to be the characteristics of a scientific nomenclature: words should signify things, or the analogies of things, and not opinions.... A substance in one age supposed to be simple, in another is proved to be compound, and vice versâ. A theoretical nomenclature is liable to continual alterations: oxygenated muriatic acid is as improper a term as dephlogisticated marine acid. Every school believes itself to be in the right: and if every school assumes to itself the liberty of altering the names of chemical substances in consequence of new ideas of their composition, there can be no permanency in the language of the science; it must always be confused and uncertain. Bodies which are similar to each other should always be classed together; and there is a presumption that their composition is analogous. Metals, earths, alkalis, are appropriate names for the bodies they represent, and independent of all speculation: whereas oxides, sulphurets, and muriates are terms founded upon opinions of the composition of bodies, some of which have been already found erroneous. 297 The least dangerous mode of giving a systematic form to a language seems to be to signify the analogies of substances by some common sign affixed to the beginning or the termination of the word. Thus as the metals have been distinguished by a termination in um, as aurum, so their calciform or oxidated state might have been denoted by a termination in a, as aura: and no progress, however great, in the science could render it necessary that such a mode of appellation should be changed.’

[35] Elements of Chem. Phil. p. 46.

These remarks are founded upon distinctions which have no real existence. We cannot separate things from their properties, nor can we consider their properties and analogies in any other way than by having opinions about them. By contrasting analogies with opinions, it might appear as if the author maintained that there were certain analogies about which there was no room for erroneous opinions. Yet the analogies of chemical compounds, are, in fact, those points which have been most the subject of difference of opinion, and on which the revolutions of theories have most changed men’s views. As an example of analogies which are still recognized under alterations of theory, the writer gives the relation of a metal to its oxide or calciform state. But this analogy of metallic oxides, as Red Copper or Iron Ore, to Calx, or burnt lime, is very far from being self-evident;—so far indeed, that the recognition of the analogy was a great step in chemical theory. The terms which he quotes, oxygenated muriatic acid (and the same may be said of dephlogisticated marine acid,) if improper, are so not because they involve theory, but because they involve false theory;—not because those who framed them did not endeavour to express analogies, but because they expressed analogies about which they were mistaken. Unconnected names, as metals, earths, alkalis, are good as the basis of a systematic nomenclature, but they are not substitutes for such a nomenclature. A systematic nomenclature is an instrument of great utility and power, as the modern history of chemistry has shown. It would be highly unphilosophical to reject 298 the use of such an instrument, because, in the course of the revolutions of science, we may have to modify, or even to remodel it altogether. Its utility is not by that means destroyed. It has retained, transmitted, and enabled us to reason upon, the doctrines of the earlier theory, so far as they are true; and when this theory is absorbed into a more comprehensive one, (for this, and not its refutation, is the end of a theory so far as it is true,) the nomenclature is easily translated into that which the new theory introduces. We have seen, in the history of astronomy, how valuable the theory of epicycles was, in its time: the nomenclature of the relations of a planet’s orbit, which that theory introduced, was one of Kepler’s resources in discovering the elliptical theory; and, though now superseded, is still readily intelligible to astronomers.

This is not the place to discuss the reasons for the form of scientific terms; otherwise we might ask, in reference to the objections to the Lavoisierian nomenclature, if such forms as aurum and aura are good to represent the absence or presence of oxygen, why such forms as sulphite and sulphate are not equally good to represent the presence of what we may call a smaller or larger dose of oxygen, so long as the oxygen theory is admitted in its present form; and to indicate still the difference of the same substances, if under any change of theory it should come to be interpreted in a new manner.

But I do not now dwell upon such arguments, my object in this place being to show that terms involving theory are not only allowable, if understood so far as the theory is proved, but of great value, and indeed of indispensable use, in science. The objection to them is inconsistent with the objects of science. If, after all that has been done in chemistry or any other science, we have arrived at no solid knowledge, no permanent truth;—if all that we believe now may be proved to be false to-morrow;—then indeed our opinions and theories are corruptible elements, on which it would be unwise to rest any thing important, and which we might wish to exclude, even from our names. But if 299 our knowledge has no more security than this, we can find no reason why we should wish at all to have names of things, since the names are needed mainly that we may reason upon and increase our knowledge such as it is. If we are condemned to endless alternations of varying opinions, then, no doubt, our theoretical terms may be a source of confusion; but then, where would be the advantage of their being otherwise? what would be the value of words which should express in a more precise manner opinions equally fleeting? It will perhaps be said, our terms must express facts, not theories: but of this distinction so applied we have repeatedly shown the futility. Theories firmly established are facts. Is it not a fact that the rusting of iron arises from the metal combining with the oxygen of the atmosphere? Is it not a fact that a combination of oxygen and hydrogen produces water? That our terms should express such facts, is precisely what we are here inculcating.

Our examination of the history of science has led us to a view very different from that which represents it as consisting in the succession of hostile opinions. It is, on the contrary, a progress, in which each step is recognized and employed in the succeeding one. Every theory, so far as it is true, (and all that have prevailed extensively and long, contain a large portion of truth,) is taken up into the theory which succeeds and seems to expel it. All the narrower inductions of the first are included in the more comprehensive generalizations of the second. And this is performed mainly by means of such terms as we are now considering;—terms involving the previous theory. It is by means of such terms, that the truths at first ascertained become so familiar and manageable, that they can be employed as elementary facts in the formation of higher inductions.

These principles must be applied also, though with great caution, and in a temperate manner, even to descriptive language. Thus the mode of describing the forms of crystals adopted by Werner and Romé de l’Isle was to consider an original form, from which other forms are derived by truncations of the edges and the 300 angles. Haüy’s method of describing the same forms, was to consider them as built up of rows of small solids, the angles being determined by the decrements of these rows. Both these methods of description involve hypothetical views; and the last was intended to rest on a true physical theory of the constitution of crystals. Both hypotheses are doubtful or false: yet both these methods are good as modes of description: nor is Haüy’s terminology vitiated, if we suppose (as in fact we must suppose in many instances,) that crystalline bodies are not really made up of such small solids. The mode of describing an octahedron of fluor spar, as derived from the cube, by decrements of one row on all the edges, would still be proper and useful as a description, whatever judgment we should form of the material structure of the body. But then, we must consider the solids which are thus introduced into the description as merely hypothetical geometrical forms, serving to determine the angles of the faces. It is in this way alone that Haüy’s nomenclature can now be retained.

In like manner we may admit theoretical views into the descriptive phraseology of other parts of Natural History: and the theoretical terms will replace the obvious images, in proportion as the theory is generally accepted and familiarly applied. For example, in speaking of the Honeysuckle, we may say that the upper leaves are perfoliate, meaning that a single round leaf is perforated by the stalk, or threaded upon it. Here is an image which sufficiently conveys the notion of the form. But it is now generally recognized that this apparent single leaf is, in fact, two opposite leaves joined together at their bases. If this were doubted, it may be proved by comparing the upper leaves with the lower, which are really separate and opposite. Hence the term connate is applied to these conjoined opposite leaves, implying that they grow together; or they are called connato-perfoliate. Again; formerly the corolla was called monopetalous or polypetalous, as it consisted of one part or of several: but it is now agreed among botanists that those corollas which 301 appear to consist of a single part, are, in fact, composed of several soldered together; hence the term gamopetalous is now employed (by De Candolle and his followers) instead of monopetalous[36].

[36] On this subject, see Illiger, Versuch einer Systematischen Vollständigen Terminologie für das Thierreich und Pflanzenreich (1810). De Candolle, Théorie Élémentaire de la Botanique.

In this way the language of Natural History not only expresses, but inevitably implies, general laws of nature; and words are thus fitted to aid the progress of knowledge in this, as in other provinces of science.

Aphorism XII.

If terms are systematically good, they are not to be rejected because they are etymologically inaccurate.

Terms belonging to a system are defined, not by the meaning of their radical words, but by their place in the system. That they should be appropriate in their signification, aids the processes of introducing and remembering them, and should therefore be carefully attended to by those who invent and establish them; but this once done, no objections founded upon their etymological import are of any material weight. We find no inconvenience in the circumstance that geometry means the measuring of the earth, that the name porphyry is applied to many rocks which have no fiery spots, as the word implies, and oolite to strata which have no roelike structure. In like manner, if the term pœcilite were already generally received, as the name of a certain group of strata, it would be no valid ground for quarrelling with it, that this group was not always variegated in colour, or that other groups were equally variegated: although undoubtedly in introducing such a term, care should be taken to make it as distinctive as possible. It often happens, as we have seen, that by the natural progress of changes in language, a word is steadily confirmed in a sense quite different from its etymological import. But though 302 we may accept such instances, we must not wantonly attempt to imitate them. I say, not wantonly: for if the progress of scientific identification compel us to follow any class of objects into circumstances where the derivation of the term is inapplicable, we may still consider the term as an unmeaning sound, or rather an historical symbol, expressing a certain member of our system. Thus if, in following the course of the mountain or carboniferous limestone, we find that in Ireland it does not form mountains nor contain coal, we should act unwisely in breaking down the nomenclature in which our systematic relations are already expressed, in order to gain, in a particular case, a propriety of language which has no scientific value.

All attempts to act upon the maxim opposite to this, and to make our scientific names properly descriptive of the objects, have failed and must fail. For the marks which really distinguish the natural classes of objects, are by no means obvious. The discovery of them is one of the most important steps in science; and when they are discovered, they are constantly liable to exceptions, because they do not contain the essential differences of the classes. The natural order Umbellatæ, in order to be a natural order, must contain some plants which have not umbels, as Eryngium[37]. ‘In such cases,’ said Linnæus, ‘it is of small import what you call the order, if you take a proper series of plants, and give it some name which is clearly understood to apply to the plants you have associated.’ ‘I have,’ he adds, ‘followed the rule of borrowing the name à fortiori, from the principal feature.’

[37] See Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xvi. c. iv. sect. 5.

The distinction of crystals into systems according to the degree of symmetry which obtains in them, has been explained elsewhere. Two of these systems, of which the relation as to symmetry might be expressed by saying that one is square pyramidal and the other oblong pyramidal, or the first square prismatic and the second oblong prismatic, are termed by Mohs, the first, Pyramidal, and the second Prismatic. And it may 303 be doubted whether it is worth while to invent other terms, though these are thus defective in characteristic significance. As an example of a needless rejection of old terms in virtue of a supposed impropriety in their meaning, I may mention the attempt made in the last edition of Haüy’s Mineralogy, to substitute autopside and heteropside for metallic and unmetallic. It was supposed to be proved that all bodies have a metal for their basis; and hence it was wished to avoid the term unmetallic. But the words metallic and unmetallic may mean that minerals seem metallic and unmetallic, just as well as if they contained the element opside to imply this seeming. The old names express all that the new express, and with more simplicity, and therefore should not be disturbed.

The maxim on which we are now insisting, that we are not to be too scrupulous about the etymology of scientific terms, may, at first sight, appear to be at variance with our [Fourth] Aphorism, that words used technically are to retain their common meaning as far as possible. But it must be recollected, that in the Fourth Aphorism we spoke of common words appropriated as technical terms; we here speak of words constructed for scientific purposes. And although it is, perhaps, impossible to draw a broad line between these two classes of terms, still the rule of propriety may be stated thus: In technical terms, deviations from the usual meaning of words are bad in proportion as the words are more familiar in our own language. Thus we may apply the term Cirrus to a cloud composed of filaments, even if these filaments are straight; but to call such a cloud a Curl cloud would be much more harsh.

Since the names of things, and of classes of things, when constructed so as to involve a description, are constantly liable to become bad, the natural classes shifting away from the descriptive marks thus prematurely and casually adopted, I venture to lay down the following maxim. 304

Aphorism XIII.

The fundamental terms of a system of Nomenclature may be conveniently borrowed from casual or arbitrary circumstances.

For instance, the names of plants, of minerals, and of geological strata, may be taken from the places where they occur conspicuously or in a distinct form; as Parietaria, Parnassia, Chalcedony, Arragonite, Silurian system, Purbeck limestone. These names may be considered as at first supplying standards of reference; for in order to ascertain whether any rock be Purbeck limestone, we might compare it with the rocks in the Isle of Purbeck. But this reference to a local standard is of authority only till the place of the object in the system, and its distinctive marks, are ascertained. It would not vitiate the above names, if it were found that the Parnassia does not grow on Parnassus; that Chalcedony is not found in Chalcedon; or even that Arragonite no longer occurs in Arragon; for it is now firmly established as a mineral species. Even in geology such a reference is arbitrary, and may be superseded, or at least modified, by a more systematic determination. Alpine limestone is no longer accepted as a satisfactory designation of a rock, now that we know the limestone of the Alps to be of various ages.

Again, names of persons, either casually connected with the object, or arbitrarily applied to it, may be employed as designations. This has been done most copiously in botany, as for example, Nicotiana, Dahlia, Fuchsia, Jungermannia, Lonicera. And Linnæus has laid down rules for restricting this mode of perpetuating the memory of men, in the names of plants. Those generic names, he says[38], which have been constructed to preserve the memory of persons who have deserved well of botany, are to be religiously retained. This, he adds, is the sole and supreme reward of the botanist’s labours, and must be carefully guarded and 305 scrupulously bestowed, as an encouragement and an honour. Still more arbitrary are the terms borrowed from the names of the gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines of antiquity, to designate new genera in those departments of natural history in which so many have been discovered in recent times as to weary out all attempts at descriptive nomenclature. Cuvier has countenanced this method. ‘I have had to frame many new names of genera and sub-genera,’ he says[39], ‘for the sub-genera which I have established were so numerous and various, that the memory is not satisfied with numerical indications. These I have chosen either so as to indicate some character, or among the usual denominations, which I have latinized, or finally, after the example of Linnæus, among the names of mythology, which are in general agreeable to the ear, and which are far from being exhausted.’

[38] Phil. Bot. 241.

[39] Règne An. p. 16.

This mode of framing names from the names of persons to whom it was intended to do honour, has been employed also in the mathematical and chemical sciences; but such names have rarely obtained any permanence, except when they recorded an inventor or discoverer. Some of the constellations, indeed, have retained such appellations, as Berenice’s Hair; and the new star which shone out in the time of Cæsar, would probably have retained the name given to it, of the Julian Star, if it had not disappeared again soon after. In the map of the Moon, almost all the parts have had such names imposed upon them by those who have constructed such maps, and these names have very properly been retained. But the names of new planets and satellites thus suggested have not been generally accepted; as the Medicean stars, the name employed by Galileo for the satellites of Jupiter; the Georgium Sidus, the appellation proposed by Herschel for Uranus when first discovered[40]; Ceres Ferdinandea, 306 the name which Piazzi wished to impose on the small planet Ceres. The names given to astronomical Tables by the astronomers who constructed them have been most steadily adhered to, being indeed names of books, and not of natural objects. Thus there were the Ilchanic, the Alphonsine, the Rudolphine, the Carolinian Tables. Comets which have been ascertained to be periodical, have very properly had assigned to them the name of the person who established this point; and of these we have thus, Halley’s, Encke’s Comet, and Biela’s or Gambart’s Comet.

[40] In this case, the name Uranus, selected with a view to symmetry according to the mythological order of descent of the persons (Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars) was adopted by astronomers in general, though not proposed or sanctioned by the discoverer of the new planet. In the cases of the smaller planets, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta, the names were given either by the discoverer, or with his sanction. Following this rule, Bessel gave the name of Astræa to a new planet discovered in the same region by Mr. Hencke, as mentioned in the additions to book vii. of the History (2nd Ed.). Following the same rule, and adhering as much as possible to mythological connexion, the astronomers of Europe have with the sanction of M. Le Verrier, given the name of Neptune to the planet revolving beyond Uranus, and discovered in consequence of his announcement of its probable existence, which had been inferred by Mr. Adams and him (calculating in ignorance of each other’s purpose) from the perturbations of Uranus; as I have stated in the Additions to the Third Edition of the History.

In the case of discoveries in science or inventions of apparatus, the name of the inventor is very properly employed as the designation. Thus we have the Torricellian Vacuum, the Voltaic Pile, Fahrenheit’s Thermometer. And in the same manner with regard to laws of nature, we have Kepler’s Laws, Boyle or Mariotte’s law of the elasticity of air, Huyghens’s law of double refraction, Newton’s scale of colours. Descartes’ law of refraction is an unjust appellation; for the discovery of the law of sines was made by Snell. In deductive mathematics, where the invention of a theorem is generally a more definite step than an induction, this mode of designation is more common, as Demoivre’s Theorem, Maclaurin’s Theorem, Lagrange’s Theorem, Eulerian Integrals.

In the History of Science[41] I have remarked that in the discovery of what is termed galvanism, Volta’s 307 office was of a higher and more philosophical kind than that of Galvani; and I have, on this account, urged the propriety of employing the term voltaic, rather than galvanic electricity. I may add that the electricity of the common machine is often placed in contrast with this, and appears to require an express name. Mr. Faraday calls it common or machine electricity; but I think that franklinic electricity would form a more natural correspondence with voltaic, and would be well justified by Franklin’s place in the history of that part of the subject.

[41] b. xiii. c. 1.

Aphorism XIV.

The Binary Method of Nomenclature (Names by Genus and Species) is the most convenient hitherto employed in Classification.

The number of species in every province of Natural History is so vast that we cannot distinguish them and record the distinctions without some artifice. The known species of plants, for instance, were 10,000 in the time of Linnæus, and are now probably 60,000. It would be useless to endeavour to frame and employ separate names for each of these species.

The division of the objects into a subordinated system of classification enables us to introduce a Nomenclature which does not require this enormous number of names. The artifice employed is, to name a specimen by means of two (or it might be more) steps of the successive division. Thus in Botany, each of the Genera has its name, and the species are marked by the addition of some epithet to the name of the genus. In this manner about 1,700 Generic Names, with a moderate number of Specific Names, were found by Linnæus sufficient to designate with precision all the species of vegetables known at his time. And this Binary Method of Nomenclature has been found so convenient, that it has been universally adopted in every other department of the Natural History of organized beings. 308

Many other modes of Nomenclature have been tried, but no other has at all taken root. Linnæus himself appears at first to have intended marking each species by the Generic Name, accompanied by a characteristic Descriptive Phrase; and to have proposed the employment of a Trivial Specific Name, as he termed it, only as a method of occasional convenience. The use of these trivial names, however, has become universal, as we have said; and is by many persons considered the greatest improvement introduced at the Linnæan reform.

Aphorism XV.

The Maxims of Linnæus concerning the Names to be used in Botany, (Philosophia Botanica, Nomina. Sections 210 to 255) are good examples of Aphorisms on this subject.

Both Linnæus and other writers (as Adanson) have given many maxims with a view of regulating the selection of generic and specific names. The maxims of Linnæus were intended as much as possible to exclude barbarism and confusion, and have, upon the whole, been generally adopted.

These canons, and the sagacious modesty of great botanists, like Robert Brown, in conforming to them, have kept the majority of good botanists within salutary limits; though many of these canons were objected to by the contemporaries of Linnæus (Adanson and others[42]) as capricious and unnecessary restrictions.

[42] Pref. cxxix. clxxii.

Many of the names introduced by Linnæus certainly appear fanciful enough. Thus he gives the name Bauhinia to a plant which has leaves in pairs, because the Bauhins were a pair of brothers. Banisteria is the name of a climbing plant in honour of Banister, who travelled among mountains. But such names once established by adequate authority lose all their inconvenience and easily become permanent, and hence the reasonableness of one of the Linnæan rules[43]:—
That as such a perpetuation of the names of persons 309 by the names of plants is the only honour that botanists have to bestow, it ought to be used with care and caution, and religiously respected.

[43] Phil. Bot. s. 239.

[3rd ed. It may serve to show how sensitive botanists are to the allusions contained in such names, that it has been charged against Linnæus, as a proof of malignity towards Buffon, that he changed the name of the genus Buffonia, established by Sauvages, into Bufonia, which suggested a derivation from Bufo, a toad. It appears to be proved that the spelling was not Linnæus’s doing.]

Another Linnæan maxim is (Art. 219), that the generic name must be fixed before we attempt to form a specific name; ‘the latter without the former is like the clapper without the bell.’

The name of the genus being fixed, the species may be marked (Art. 257) by adding to it ‘a single word taken at will from any quarter;’ that is, it need not involve a description or any essential property of the plant, but may be a casual or arbitrary appellation. Thus the various species of Hieracium[44] are Hieracium Alpinum, H. Halleri, H. Pilosella, H. dubium, H. murorum, &c., where we see how different may be the kind of origin of the words.

[44] Hooker, Fl. Scot. 228.

Attempts have been made at various times to form the names of species from those of genera in some more symmetrical manner. But these have not been successful, nor are they likely to be so; and we shall venture to propound an axiom in condemnation of such names.

Aphorism XVI.

Numerical names in Classification are bad; and the same may be said of other names of kinds, depending upon any fixed series of notes of order.

With regard to numerical names of kinds, of species for instance, the objections are of this nature. Besides that such names offer nothing for the imagination to take hold of, new discoveries will probably alter the 310 numeration, and make the names erroneous. Thus, if we call the species of a genus 1, 2, 3, a new species intermediate between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, &c. cannot be put in its place without damaging the numbers.

The geological term Trias, lately introduced to designate the group consisting of the three members (Bunter Sandstein, Muschelkalk, and Keuper) becomes improper if, as some geologists hold, two of these members cannot be separated.

Objections resembling those which apply to numerical designations of species, apply to other cases of fixed series: for instance, when it has been proposed to mark the species by altering the termination of the genus. Thus Adanson[45], denoting a genus by the name Fonna (Lychnidea), conceived he might mark five of its species by altering the last syllable, Fonna, Fonna-e, Fonna-i, Fonna-o, Fonna-u; then others by Fonna-ba, Fonna-ka, and so on. This would be liable to the same evils which have been noticed as belonging to the numerical method[46].

[45] Pref. clxxvi.

[46] In like manner the names assigned by Mr. Rickman to the successive of styles of Gothic architecture in England,—Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular,—cannot be replaced by numerical designations, First Pointed, Second Pointed, Third Pointed. For—besides that he who first distinctly establishes classes has the right of naming them, and that Mr. Rickman’s names are really appropriate and significant—these new names would confound all meaning of language. We should not be able to divide Early English, or Decorated, or Perpendicular into sub-styles;—for who could talk of First Second Pointed and Second Second Pointed; and what should we call that pointed style—the Transition from the Norman—which precedes the First Pointed?

Aphorism XVII.

In any classificatory science names including more than two steps of the classification may be employed if it be found convenient.

Linnæus, in his canons for botanical nomenclature (Art. 212), says that the names of the class and the order are to be mute, while the names of the Genus and Species are sonorous. And accordingly the names 311 of plants (and the same is true of animals) have in common practice been binary only, consisting of a generic and a specific name. The class and the order have not been admitted to form part of the appellation of the species. Indeed it is easy to see that a name, which must be identical in so many instances as that of an Order would be, would be felt as superfluous and burthensome. Accordingly, Linnæus makes it one of his maxims[47], that the name of the Class and Order must not be expressed but understood, and hence, he says, Royen, who took Lilium for the name of a Class, rightly rejected this word as a generic name, and substituted Lirium with the Greek termination.

[47] Phil. Bot. s. 215.

Yet we must not too peremptorily assume such maxims as these to be universal for all classificatory sciences. It is very possible that it may be found advisable to use three terms, that of Order, Genus, and Species in designating minerals, as is done in Mohs’s nomenclature, for example, Rhombohedral Calc Haloide, Paratomous Hal Baryte.

It is possible also that it may be found useful in the same science (Mineralogy) to mark some of the steps of classification by the termination. Thus it has been proposed to confine the termination ite to the Order Silicides of Naumann, as Apophyllite, Stilbite, Leucite, &c., and to use names of different form in other orders, as Talc Spar for Brennerite, Pyramidal Titanium Oxide for Octahedrite. Some such method appears to be the most likely to give us a tolerable mineralogical nomenclature.

Aphorism XVIII.

In forming a Terminology, words may be invented when necessary, but they cannot be conveniently borrowed from casual or arbitrary circumstances[48].

[48] I may also refer to Hist. Sc. Id. b. viii. c. ii. sec. 2, for some remarks on Terminology.

It will be recollected that Terminology is a language employed for describing objects, Nomenclature, a body 312 of names of the objects themselves. The names, as was stated in the last maxim, may be arbitrary; but the descriptive terms must be borrowed from words of suitable meaning in the modern or the classical languages. Thus the whole terminology which Linnæus introduced into botany, is founded upon the received use of Latin words, although he defined their meaning so as to make it precise when it was not so, according to Aphorism [V.] But many of the terms were invented by him and other botanists, as Perianth, Nectary, Pericarp; so many, indeed, as to form, along with the others, a considerable language. Many of the terms which are now become familiar were originally invented by writers on botany. Thus the word Petal, for one division of the corolla, was introduced by Fabius Columna. The term Sepal was devised by Necker to express each of the divisions of the calyx. And up to the most recent times, new denominations of parts and conditions of parts have been devised by botanists, when they found them necessary, in order to mark important differences or resemblances. Thus the general Receptacle of the flower, as it is termed by Linnæus, or Torus by Salisbury, is continued into organs which carry the stamina and pistil, or the pistil alone, or the whole flower; this organ has hence been termed[49] Gonophore, Carpophore, and Anthophore, in these cases.

[49] De Candolle’s Th. El. 405.

In like manner when Cuvier had ascertained that the lower jaws of Saurians consisted always of six pieces having definite relations of form and position, he gave names to them, and termed them respectively the Dental, the Angular, the Coronoid, the Articular, the Complementary, and the Opercular Bones.

In all these cases, the descriptive terms thus introduced have been significant in their derivation. An attempt to circulate a perfectly arbitrary word as a means of description would probably be unsuccessful. We have, indeed, some examples approaching to arbitrary designations, in the Wernerian names of colours, 313 which are a part of the terminology of Natural History. Many of these names are borrowed from natural resemblances, as Auricula purple, Apple green, Straw yellow; but the names of others are taken from casual occurrences, mostly, however, such as were already recognized in common language, as Prussian blue, Dutch orange, King’s yellow.

The extension of arbitrary names in scientific terminology is by no means to be encouraged. I may mention a case in which it was very properly avoided. When Mr. Faraday’s researches on Voltaic electricity had led him to perceive the great impropriety of the term poles, as applied to the apparatus, since the processes have not reference to any opposed points, but to two opposite directions of a path, he very suitably wished to substitute for the phrases positive pole and negative pole, two words ending in ode, from ὅδος, a way. A person who did not see the value of our present maxim, that descriptive terms should be descriptive in their origin, might have proposed words perfectly arbitrary, as Alphode, and Betode: or, if he wished to pay a tribute of respect to the discoverers in this department of science, Galvanode and Voltaode, But such words would very justly have been rejected by Mr. Faraday, and would hardly have obtained any general currency among men of science. Zincode and Platinode, terms derived from the metal which, in one modification of the apparatus, forms what was previously termed the pole, are to be avoided, because in their origin too much is casual; and they are not a good basis for derivative terms. The pole at which the zinc is, is the Anode or Cathode, according as it is associated with different metals. Either the Zincode must sometimes mean the pole at which the Zinc is, and at other times that at which the Zinc is not, or else we must have as many names for poles as there are metals. Anode and Cathode, the terms which Mr. Faraday adopted, were free from these objections; for they refer to a natural standard of the direction of the voltaic current, in a manner which, though perhaps not obvious at first sight, is easily understood and 314 retained. Anode and Cathode, the rising and the setting way, are the directions which correspond to east and west in that voltaic current to which we must ascribe terrestrial magnetism. And with these words it was easy to connect Anïon and Cathïon, to designate the opposite elements which are separated and liberated at the two Electrodes.

Aphorism XIX.

The meaning of Technical Terms must be fixed by convention, not by casual reference to the ordinary meaning of words.

In fixing the meaning of the Technical Terms which form the Terminology of any science, at least of the descriptive Terms, we necessarily fix, at the same time, the perceptions and notions which the Terms are to convey to a hearer. What do we mean by apple-green or French grey? It might, perhaps, be supposed that, in the first example, the term apple, referring to so familiar an object, sufficiently suggests the colour intended. But it may easily be seen that this is not true; for apples are of many different hues of green, and it is only by a conventional selection that we can appropriate the term to one special shade. When this appropriation is once made, the term refers to the sensation, and not to the parts of this term; for these enter into the compound merely as a help to the memory, whether the suggestion be a natural connexion as in ‘apple-green,’ or a casual one as in ‘French grey.’ In order to derive due advantage from technical terms of this kind, they must be associated immediately with the perception to which they belong; and not connected with it through the vague usages of common language. The memory must retain the sensation; and the technical word must be understood as directly as the most familiar word, and more distinctly. When we find such terms as tin-white or pinchbeck-brown, the metallic colour so denoted ought to start up in our memory without delay or search. 315

This, which it is most important to recollect with respect to the simpler properties of bodies, as colour and form, is no less true with respect to more compound notions. In all cases the term is fixed to a peculiar meaning by convention; and the student, in order to use the word, must be completely familiar with the convention, so that he has no need to frame conjectures from the word itself. Such conjectures would always be insecure, and often erroneous. Thus the term papilionaceous, applied to a flower, is employed to indicate, not only a resemblance to a butterfly, but a resemblance arising from five petals of a certain peculiar shape and arrangement; and even if the resemblance to a butterfly were much stronger than it is in such cases, yet if it were produced in a different way, as, for example, by one petal, or two only, instead of a ‘standard,’ two ‘wings,’ and a ‘keel’ consisting of two parts more or less united into one, we should no longer be justified in speaking of it as a ‘papilionaceous’ flower.

The formation of an exact and extensive descriptive language for botany has been executed with a degree of skill and felicity, which, before it was attained, could hardly have been dreamt of as attainable. Every part of a plant has been named; and the form of every part, even the most minute, has had a large assemblage of descriptive terms appropriated to it, by means of which the botanist can convey and receive knowledge of form and structure, as exactly as if each minute part were presented to him vastly magnified. This acquisition was part of the Linnæan Reform, of which we have spoken in the History. ‘Tournefort,’ says De Candolle[50], ‘appears to have been the first who really perceived the utility of fixing the sense of terms in such a way as always to employ the same word in the same sense, and always to express the same idea by the same word; but it was Linnæus who really created and fixed this botanical language, and this is his fairest claim to glory, for by this fixation of language he has shed clearness and precision over all parts of the science.’

[50] Théor. Élém. p. 327. 316

It is not necessary here to give any detailed account of the terms of botany. The fundamental ones have been gradually introduced, as the parts of plants were more carefully and minutely examined. Thus the flower was successively distinguished into the calyx, the corolla, the stamens, and the pistils: the sections of the corolla were termed petals by Columna; those of the calyx were called sepals by Necker[51]. Sometimes terms of greater generality were devised; as perianth to include the calyx and corolla, whether one or both of these were present[52]; pericarp for the part inclosing the grain, of whatever kind it be, fruit, nut, pod, &c. And it may easily be imagined that descriptive terms may, by definition and combination, become very numerous and distinct. Thus leaves may be called pinnatifid[53], pinnnatipartite, pinnatisect, pinnatilobate, palmatifid, palmatipartite, &c., and each of these words designates different combinations of the modes and extent of the divisions of the leaf with the divisions of its outline. In some cases arbitrary numerical relations are introduced into the definition: thus a leaf is called bilobate[54] when it is divided into two parts by a notch; but if the notch go to the middle of its length, it is bifid; if it go near the base of the leaf, it is bipartite; if to the base, it is bisect. Thus, too, a pod of a cruciferous plant is a silica[55] if it be four times as long as it is broad, but if it be shorter than this it is a silicula. Such terms being established, the form of the very complex leaf or frond of a fern is exactly conveyed, for example, by the following phrase: ‘fronds rigid pinnate, pinnæ recurved subunilateral pinnatifid, the segments linear undivided or bifid spinuloso-serrate[56].’

[51] De Candolle, 329.

[52] For this Erhart and De Candolle use Perigone.

[53] De Candolle, 318.

[54] Ibid. 493.

[55] Ibid. 422.

[56] Hooker, Brit. Flo. p. 450. Hymenophyllum Wilsoni, Scottish filmy fern, abundant in the highlands of Scotland and about Killarney.

Other characters, as well as form, are conveyed with the like precision: Colour by means of a classified scale of colours, as we have seen in speaking of the [Measures] 317 of Secondary Qualities; to which, however, we must add, that the naturalist employs arbitrary names, (such as we have already quoted,) and not mere numerical exponents, to indicate a certain number of selected colours. This was done with most precision by Werner, and his scale of colours is still the most usual standard of naturalists. Werner also introduced a more exact terminology with regard to other characters which are important in mineralogy, as lustre, hardness. But Mohs improved upon this step by giving a numerical scale of hardness, in which talc is 1, gypsum, 2, calc spar 3, and so on, as we have already explained in the History of Mineralogy. Some properties, as specific gravity, by their definition give at once a numerical measure; and others, as crystalline form, require a very considerable array of mathematical calculation and reasoning, to point out their relations and gradations. In all cases the features of likeness in the objects must be rightly apprehended, in order to their being expressed by a distinct terminology. Thus no terms could describe crystals for any purpose of natural history, till it was discovered that in a class of minerals the proportion of the faces might vary, while the angle remained the same. Nor could crystals be described so as to distinguish species, till it was found that the derived and primitive forms are connected by very simple relations of space and number. The discovery of the mode in which characters must be apprehended so that they may be considered as fixed for a class, is an important step in the progress of each branch of Natural History; and hence we have had, in the History of Mineralogy and Botany, to distinguish as important and eminent persons those who made such discoveries, Romé de Lisle and Haüy, Cæsalpinus and Gesner.

By the continued progress of that knowledge of minerals, plants, and other natural objects, in which such persons made the most distinct and marked steps, but which has been constantly advancing in a more gradual and imperceptible manner, the most important and essential features of similarity and dissimilarity in such objects have been selected, arranged, and fitted with 318 names; and we have thus in such departments, systems of Terminology which fix our attention upon the resemblances which it is proper to consider, and enable us to convey them in words.

The following Aphorisms respect the Form of Technical Terms.

By the Form of terms, I mean their philological conditions; as, for example, from what languages they may be borrowed, by what modes of inflexion they must be compounded, how their derivatives are to be formed, and the like. In this, as in other parts of the subject, I shall not lay down a system of rules, but shall propose a few maxims.

Aphorism XX.

The two main conditions of the Form of technical terms are, that they must be generally intelligible, and susceptible of such grammatical relations as their scientific use requires.

These conditions may at first appear somewhat vague, but it will be found that they are as definite as we could make them, without injuriously restricting ourselves. It will appear, moreover, that they have an important bearing upon most of the questions respecting the form of the words which come before us; and that if we can succeed in any case in reconciling the two conditions, we obtain terms which are practically good, whatever objections may be urged against them from other considerations.

1. The former condition, for instance, bears upon the question whether scientific terms are to be taken from the learned languages, Greek and Latin, or from our own. And the latter condition very materially affects the same question, since in English we have scarcely any power of inflecting our words; and therefore must have recourse to Greek or Latin in order to obtain terms which admit of grammatical modification. If we were content with the term Heat, to express the science of heat, still it would be a bad technical term, for we cannot derive from it an adjective like 319 thermotical. If bed or layer were an equally good term with stratum, we must still retain the latter, in order that we may use the derivative Stratification, for which the English words cannot produce an equivalent substitute. We may retain the words lime and flint, but their adjectives for scientific purposes are not limy and flinty, but calcareous and siliceous; and hence we are able to form a compound, as calcareo-siliceous, which we could not do with indigenous words. We might fix the phrases bent back and broken to mean (of optical rays) that they are reflected and refracted; but then we should have no means of speaking of the angles of Reflection and Refraction, of the Refractive Indices, and the like.

In like manner, so long as anatomists described certain parts of a vertebra as vertebral laminæ, or vertebral plates, they had no adjective whereby to signify the properties of these parts; the term Neurapophysis, given to them by Mr. Owen, supplies the corresponding expression neurapophysial. So again, the term Basisphenoid, employed by the same anatomist, is better than basilar or basial process of the sphenoid, because it gives us the adjective basisphenoidal. And the like remark applies to other changes recently proposed in the names of portions of the skeleton.

Thus one of the advantages of going to the Greek and Latin languages for the origin of our scientific terms is, that in this way we obtain words which admit of the formation of adjectives and abstract terms, and of composition, and of other inflexions. Another advantage of such an origin is, that such terms, if well selected, are readily understood over the whole lettered world. For this reason, the descriptive language of science, of botany for instance, has been, for the most part, taken from the Latin; many of the terms of the mathematical and chemical sciences have been derived from the Greek; and when occasion occurs to construct a new term, it is generally to that language that recourse is had. The advantage of such terms is, as has already been intimated, that they constitute an universal language, by means of which 320 cultivated persons in every country may convey to each other their ideas without the need of translation.

On the other hand, the advantage of indigenous terms is, that so far as the language extends, they are intelligible much more clearly and vividly than those borrowed from any other source, as well as more easily manageable in the construction of sentences. In the descriptive language of botany, for example, in an English work, the terms drooping, nodding, one-sided, twining, straggling, appear better than cernuous, nutant, secund, volubile, divaricate. For though the latter terms may by habit become as intelligible as the former, they cannot become more so to any readers; and to most English readers they will give a far less distinct impression.

2. Since the advantage of indigenous over learned terms, or the contrary, depends upon the balance of the capacity of inflexion and composition on the one hand, against a ready and clear significance on the other, it is evident that the employment of scientific terms of the one class or of the other may very properly be extremely different in different languages. The German possesses in a very eminent degree that power of composition and derivation, which in English can hardly be exercised at all, in a formal manner. Hence German scientific writers use native terms to a far greater extent than do our own authors. The descriptive terminology of botany, and even the systematic nomenclature of chemistry, are represented by the Germans by means of German roots and inflexions. Thus the description of Potentilla anserina, in English botanists, is that it has Leaves interruptedly pinnate, serrate, silky, stem creeping, stalks axilllar, one-flowered. Here we have words of Saxon and Latin origin mingled pretty equally. But the German description is entirely Teutonic. Die Blume in Achsel; die Blätter unterbrochen gefiedert, die Blättchen scharf gesagt, die Stämme kriechend, die Bluthenstiele einblumig. We could imitate this in our own language, by saying brokenly-feathered, sharp-sawed; by using threed for ternate, as the Germans employ gedreit; by saying 321 fingered-feathered for digitato-pinnate, and the like. But the habit which we have, in common as well as scientific language, of borrowing words from the Latin for new cases, would make such usages seem very harsh and pedantic.

We may add that, in consequence of these different practices in the two languages, it is a common habit of the German reader to impose a scientific definiteness upon a common word, such as our [Fifth] Aphorism requires; whereas the English reader expects rather that a word which is to have a technical sense shall be derived from the learned languages. Die Kelch and die Blume (the cup and the flower) easily assume the technical meaning of calyx and corolla; die Griffel (the pencil) becomes the pistil; and a name is easily found for the pollen, the anthers, and the stamens, by calling them the dust, the dust-cases, and the dust-threads (der Staub, die Staub-beutel, or Staub-fächer, and die Staub-fäden), This was formerly done in English to a greater extent than is now possible without confusion and pedantry. Thus, in Grew’s book on the Anatomy of Plants, the calyx is called the impalement, and the sepals the impalers; the petals are called the leaves of the flower; the stamens with their anthers are the seminiform attire. But the English language, as to such matters, is now less flexible than it was; partly in consequence of its having adopted the Linnæan terminology almost entire, without any endeavour to naturalize it. Any attempt at idiomatic description would interfere with the scientific language now generally received in this country. In Germany, on the other hand, those who first wrote upon science in their own language imitated the Latin words which they found in foreign writers, instead of transferring new roots into their own language. Thus the Numerator and Denominator of a fraction they call the Namer and the Counter (Nenner and Zähler). This course they pursued even where the expression was erroneous. Thus that portion of the intestines which ancient anatomists called Duodenum, because they falsely estimated its length at twelve inches, the 322 Germans also term Zwölffingerdarm (twelve-inch-gut), though this intestine in a whale is twenty feet long, and in a frog not above twenty lines. As another example of this process in German, we may take the word Muttersackbauchblatte, the uterine peritonæum.

It is a remarkable evidence of this formative power of the German language, that it should have been able to produce an imitation of the systematic chemical nomenclature of the French school, so complete, that it is used in Germany as familiarly as the original system is in France and England. Thus Oxygen and Hydrogen are Sauerstoff and Wasserstoff; Azote is Stickstoff (suffocating matter); Sulphuric and Sulphurous Acid are Schwefel-säure and Schwefelichte-säure. The Sulphate and Sulphite of Baryta, and Sulphuret of Baryum, are Schwefel-säure Baryterde, Schwefelichte-säure Baryterde, and Schwefel-baryum. Carbonate of Iron is Kohlen-säures Eisenoxydul; and we may observe that, in such cases, the German name is much more agreeable to analogy than the English one; for the Protoxide of Iron, (Eisenoxydul,) and not the Iron itself, is the base of the salt. And the German language has not only thus imitated the established nomenclature of chemistry, but has shown itself capable of supplying new forms to meet the demands which the progress of theory occasions. Thus the Hydracids are Wasserstoff-säuren; and of these, the Hydriodic Acid is Iodwasserstoff-säure, and so of the rest. In like manner, the translator of Berzelius has found German names for the sulpho-salts of that chemist; thus he has Wasserstoffschwefliges Schewefellithium, which would be (if we were to adopt his theoretical view) hydro-sulphuret of sulphuret of lithium: and a like nomenclature for all other similar cases.

3. In English we have no power of imitating this process, and must take our technical phrases from some more flexible language, and generally from the Latin or Greek. We are indeed so much accustomed to do this, that except a word has its origin in one of these languages, it hardly seems to us a technical 323 term; and thus by employing indigenous terms, even descriptive ones, we may, perhaps, lose in precision more than we gain in the vividness of the impression. Perhaps it may be better to say cuneate, lunate, hastate, sagittate, reniform, than wedge-shaped, crescent-shaped, halbert-headed, arrow-headed, kidney-shaped. Ringent and personate are better than any English words which we could substitute for them; labiate is more precise than lipped would readily become. Urceolate, trochlear, are more compact than pitcher-shaped, pulley-shaped; and infundibuliform, hypocrateriform, though long words, are not more inconvenient than funnel-shaped and salver-shaped. In the same way it is better to speak (with Dr. Prichard[57],) of repent and progressive animals, than of creeping and progressive: the two Latin terms make a better pair of correlatives.

[57] Researches, p. 69.

4. But wherever we may draw the line between the proper use of English and Latin terms in descriptive phraseology, we shall find it advisable to borrow almost all other technical terms from the learned languages. We have seen this in considering the new terms introduced into various sciences in virtue of our [Ninth] Maxim. We may add, as further examples, the names of the various animals of which a knowledge has been acquired from the remains of them which exist in various strata, and which have been reconstructed by Cuvier and his successors. Such are the Palæotherium, the Anoplotherium, the Megatherium, the Dinotherium, the Chirotherium, the Megalichthys, the Mastodon, the Ichthyosaurus, the Plesiosaurus, the Pterodactylus. To these others are every year added; as, for instance, very recently, the Toxodon, Zeuglodon, and Phascolotherium of Mr. Owen, and the Thylacotherium of M. Valenciennes. Still more recently the terms Glyptodon, Mylodon, Dicynodon, Paloplotherium, Rhynchosaurus, have been added by Mr. Owen to designate fossil animals newly determined by him. 324

The names of species, as well as of genera, are thus formed from the Greek: as the Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus (long-necked), Ichthyosaurus platyodon (broad-toothed), the Irish elk, termed Cervus megaceros (large-horned). But the descriptive specific names are also taken from the Latin, as Plesiosaurus brevirostris, longirostris, crassirostris; besides which there are arbitrary specific names, which we do not here consider.

These names being all constructed at a period when naturalists were familiar with an artificial system, the standard language of which is Latin, have not been taken from modern language. But the names of living animals, and even of their classes, long ago formed in the common language of men, have been in part adopted in the systems of naturalists, agreeably to Aphorism [Third]. Hence the language of systems in natural history is mixed of ancient and modern languages. Thus Cuvier’s divisions of the vertebrated animals are Mammifères (Latin), Oiseaux, Reptiles, Poissons; Bimanes, Quadrumanes, Carnassières, Rongeurs, Pachydermes (Greek), Ruminans (Latin), Cétacés (Latin). In the subordinate divisions the distribution being more novel, the names are less idiomatic: thus the kinds of Reptiles are Cheloniens, Sauriens, Ophidiens, Batraciens, all which are of Greek origin. In like manner. Fish are divided into Chondropterygiens, Malacopterygiens, Acanthopterygiens. The unvertebrated animals are Mollusques, Animaux articulés, and Animaux rayonnés; and the Mollusques are divided into six classes, chiefly according to the position or form of their foot; namely, Cephalopodes, Pteropodes, Gasteropodes, Acephales, Brachiopodes, Cirrhopodes.

In transferring these terms into English, when the term is new in French as well as English, we have little difficulty; for we may take nearly the same liberties in English which are taken in French; and hence we may say mammifers (rather mammals), cetaceans or cetaces, batracians (rather batrachians), using the words as substantives. But in other cases we must go back to the Latin: thus we say radiate 325 animals, or radiata (rather radials), for rayonnés. These changes, however, rather refer to another Aphorism.

(Mr. Kirby has proposed radiary, radiaries, for radiata.)

5. When new Mineral Species have been established in recent times, they have generally had arbitrary names assigned to them, derived from some person or places. In some instances, however, descriptive names have been selected; and then these have been generally taken from the Greek, as Augite, Stilbite, Diaspore, Dichroite, Dioptase. Several of these Greek names imposed by Haüy, refer to some circumstances, often fancifully selected, in his view of the crystallization of the substance, as Epidote, Peridote, Pleonast. Similar terms of Greek origin have been introduced by others, as Orthite, Anorthite, Periklin. Greek names founded on casual circumstances are less to be commended. Berzelius has termed a mineral Eschynite from αἰσχυνὴ, shame, because it is, he conceives, a shame for chemists not to have separated its elements more distinctly than they did at first.

6. In Botany, the old names of genera of Greek origin are very numerous, and many of them are descriptive, as Glycyrhiza (γλυκὺς and ῥιζα, sweet root) liquorice, Rhododendron (rose-tree), Hæmatoxylon (bloody wood), Chrysocoma (golden hair), Alopecurus (fox-tail), and many more. In like manner there are names which derive a descriptive significance from the Latin, either adjectives, as Impatiens, Gloriosa, Sagittaria, or substantives irregularly formed, as Tussilago (à tussis domatione), Urtica (ab urendo tactu), Salsola (à salsedine). But these, though good names when they are established by tradition, are hardly to be imitated in naming new plants. In most instances, when this is to be done, arbitrary or local names have been selected, as Strelitzia.

7. In Chemistry, new substances have of late had names assigned them from Greek roots, as Iodine, from its violet colour, Chlorine from its green colour. In like manner fluorine has by the French chemists been called Phthor, from its destructive properties. So the 326 new metals, Chrome, Rhodium, Iridium, Osmium, had names of Greek derivation descriptive of their properties. Some such terms, however, were borrowed from localities, as Strontia, Yttria, the names of new earths. Others have a mixed origin, as Pyrogallic, Pyroacetic, and Pyroligneous Spirit. In some cases the derivation has been extravagantly capricious. Thus in the process for making Pyrogallic Acid, a certain substance is left behind, from which M. Braconnot extracted an acid which he called Ellagic Acid, framing the root of the name by reading the word Galle backwards.

The new laws which the study of Electro-chemistry brought into view, required a new terminology to express their conditions: and in this case, as we have observed in speaking of the [Twelfth] Maxim, arbitrary words are less suitable. Mr. Faraday very properly borrowed from the Greek his terms Electrolyte, Electrode, Anode, Cathode, Anïon, Cathïon, Dielectric. In the mechanico-chemical and mechanical sciences, however, new terms are less copiously required than in the sciences of classification, and when they are needed, they are generally determined by analogy from existing terms. Thermo-electricity and Electro-dynamics were terms which very naturally offered themselves; Nobili’s thermo-multiplier, Snow Harris’s unit-jar, were almost equally obvious names. In such cases, it is generally possible to construct terms both compendious and descriptive, without introducing any new radical words.

8. The subject of Crystallography has inevitably given rise to many new terms, since it brings under our notice a great number of new relations of a very definite but very complex form. Haüy attempted to find names for all the leading varieties of crystals, and for this purpose introduced a great number of new terms, founded on various analogies and allusions. Thus the forms of calc-spar are termed by him primitive, equiaxe, inverse, metastatique, contrastante, imitable, birhomboidale, prismatique, apophane, uniternaire, bisunitaire, dodécaèdre, contractée, dilatée, sexduodecimale, bisalterne, binoternaire, and many others. The 327 want of uniformity in the origin and scheme of these denominations would be no valid objection to them, if any general truth could be expressed by means of them: but the fact is, that there is no definite distinction of these forms. They pass into each other by insensible gradations, and the optical and physical properties which they possess are common to all of them. And as a mere enunciation of laws of form, this terminology is insufficient. Thus it does not at all convey the relation between the bisalterne and the binoternaire, the former being a combination of the metastatique with the prismatique, the latter, of the metastatique with the contrastante: again, the contrastante, the mixte, the cuboide, the contractée, the dilatée, all contain faces generated by a common law, the index being respectively altered so as to be in these cases, 3, ³⁄₂, ⁴⁄₅, ⁹⁄₄, ⁵⁄₉; and this, which is the most important geometrical relation of these forms, is not at all recorded or indicated by the nomenclature. The fact is, that it is probably impossible, the subject of crystallography having become so complex as it now is, to devise a system of names which shall express the relations of form. Numerical symbols, such as those of Weiss or Naumann, or Professor Miller, are the proper ways of expressing these relations, and are the only good crystallographic terminology for cases in detail.

The terms used in expressing crystallographic laws have been for the most part taken from the Greek by all writers except some of the Germans. These, we have already stated, have constructed terms in their own language, as zwei-und-ein gliedrig, and the like.

In Optics we have some new terms connected with crystalline laws, as uniaxal and biaxal crystals, optical axes, which offered themselves without any effort on the part of the discoverers. In the whole history of the undulatory theory, very few innovations in language were found necessary, except to fix the sense of a few phrases, as plane-polarized light in opposition to circularly-polarized, and the like.

This is still more the case in Mechanics, Astronomy, 328 and pure mathematics. In these sciences, several of the primary stages of generalization being already passed over, when any new steps are made, we have before us some analogy by which we may frame our new terms. Thus when the plane of maximum areas was discovered, it had not some new arbitrary denomination assigned it, but the name which obviously described it was fixed as a technical name.

The result of this survey of the scientific terms of recent formation seems to be this;—that indigenous terms may be employed in the descriptions of facts and phenomena as they at first present themselves; and in the first induction from these; but that when we come to generalize and theorize, terms borrowed from the learned languages are more readily fixed and made definite, and are also more easily connected with derivatives. Our native terms are more impressive, and at first more intelligible; but they may wander from their scientific meaning, and are capable of little inflexion. Words of classical origin are precise to the careful student, and capable of expressing, by their inflexions, the relations of general ideas; but they are unintelligible, even to the learned man, without express definition, and convey instruction only through an artificial and rare habit of thought.

Since in the balance between words of domestic and of foreign origin so much depends upon the possibility of inflexion and derivation, I shall consider a little more closely what are the limits and considerations which we have to take into account in reference to that subject.

Aphorism XXI.

In the composition and inflexion of technical terms, philological analogies are to be preserved if possible, but modified according to scientific convenience.

In the language employed or proposed by writers upon subjects of science, many combinations and forms of derivation occur, which would be rejected and condemned by those who are careful of the purity and 329 correctness of language. Such anomalies are to be avoided as much as possible; but it is impossible to escape them altogether, if we are to have a scientific language which has any chance of being received into general use. It is better to admit compounds which are not philologically correct, than to invent many new words, all strange to the readers for whom they are intended: and in writing on science in our own language, it is not possible to avoid making additions to the vocabulary of common life; since science requires exact names for many things which common language has not named. And although these new names should, as much as possible, be constructed in conformity with the analogies of the language, such extensions of analogy can hardly sound, to the grammarian’s ear, otherwise than as solecisms. But, as our maxim indicates, the analogy of science is of more weight with us than the analogy of language: and although anomalies in our phraseology should be avoided as much as possible, innovations must be permitted wherever a scientific language, easy to acquire, and convenient to use, is unattainable without them.

I shall proceed to mention some of the transgressions of strict philological rules, and some of the extensions of grammatical forms, which the above conditions appear to render necessary.

1. The combination of different languages in the derivation of words, though to be avoided in general, is in some cases admissible.

Such words are condemned by Quintilian and other grammarians, under the name of hybrids, or things of a mixed race; as biclinium from bis and κλίνη; epitogium, from ἐπὶ and toga. Nor are such terms to be unnecessarily introduced in science. Whenever a homogeneous word can be formed and adopted with the same ease and convenience as a hybrid, it is to be preferred. Hence we must have ichthyology, not piscology, entomology, not insectology, insectivorous, not insectophagous. In like manner, it would be better to say unoculus than monoculus, though the latter has the sanction of Linnæus, who was a purist in such matters. 330 Dr. Turner, in his Chemistry, speaks of protoxides and binoxides, which combination violates the rule for making the materials of our terms as homogeneous as possible; protoxide and deutoxide would be preferable, both on this and on other accounts.

Yet this rule admits of exceptions. Mineralogy, with its Greek termination, has for its root minera, a medieval Latin word of Teutonic origin, and is preferable to Oryctology. Terminology appears to be better than Glossology: which according to its derivation would be rather the science of language in general than of technical terms; and Horology, from ὅρος, a term, would not be immediately intelligible, even to Greek scholars; and is already employed to indicate the science which treats of horologes, or time-pieces.

Indeed, the English reader is become quite familiar with the termination ology, the names of a large number of branches of science and learning having that form. This termination is at present rather apprehended as a formative affix in our own language, indicating a science, than as an element borrowed from foreign language. Hence, when it is difficult or impossible to find a Greek term which clearly designates the subject of a science, it is allowable to employ some other, as in Tidology, the doctrine of the Tides.

The same remark applies to some other Greek elements of scientific words: they are so familiar to us that in composition they are almost used as part of our own language. This naturalization has taken place very decidedly in the element arch, (ἀρχὸς a leader,) as we see in archbishop, archduke. It is effected in a great degree for the preposition anti: thus we speak of anti-slavery societies, anti-reformers, anti-bilious, or anti-acid medicines, without being conscious of any anomaly. The same is the case with the Latin preposition præ or pre, as appears from such words as pre-engage, pre-arrange, pre-judge, pre-paid; and in some measure with pro, for in colloquial language we speak of pro-catholics and anti-catholics. Also the preposition ante is similarly used, as ante-nicene fathers. The preposition co, abbreviated from con, and 331 implying things to be simultaneous or connected, is firmly established as part of the language, as we see in coexist, coheir, coordinate; hence I have called those lines cotidal lines which pass through places where the high water of the tide occurs simultaneously.

2. As in the course of the mixture by which our language has been formed, we have thus lost all habitual consciousness of the difference of its ingredients, (Greek, Latin, Norman-French, and Anglo-Saxon): we have also ceased to confine to each ingredient the mode of grammatical inflexion which originally belonged to it. Thus the termination ive belongs peculiarly to Latin adjectives, yet we say sportive, talkative. In like manner, able is added to words which are not Latin, as eatable, drinkable, pitiable, enviable. Also the termination al and ical are used with various roots, as loyal, royal, farcical, whimsical; hence we may make the adjective tidal from tide. This ending, al, is also added to abstract terms in ion, as occasional, provisional, intentional, national; hence we may, if necessary, use such words as educational, terminational. The ending ic appears to be suited to proper names, as Pindaric, Socratic, Platonic; hence it may be used when scientific words are derived from proper names, as Voltaic or Galvanic electricity: to which I have proposed to add Franklinic.

In adopting scientific adjectives from the Latin, we have not much room for hesitation; for, in such cases, the habits of derivation from that language into our own are very constant; ivus becomes ive, as decursive; inus becomes ine, as in ferine; atus becomes ate, as hastate; and us often becomes ous, as rufous; aris becomes ary, as axillary; ens becomes ent, as ringent. And in adopting into our language, as scientific terms, words which in another language, the French for instance, have a Latin origin familiar to us, we cannot do better than form them as if they were derived directly from the Latin. Hence the French adjectives cétacé, crustacé, testacé, may become either cetaceous, crustaceous, testaceous, according to the analogy of farinaceous, predaceous, or else cetacean, crustacean, 332 testacean, imitating the form of patrician. Since, as I shall soon have to notice, we require substantives as well as adjectives from these words, we must, at least for that use, take the forms last suggested.

In pursuance of the same remark, rongeur becomes rodent; and edenté would become edentate, but that this word is rejected on another account: the adjectives bimane and quadrumane are bimanous and quadrumanous.

3. There is not much difficulty in thus forming adjectives: but the purposes of Natural History require that we should have substantives corresponding to these adjectives; and these cannot be obtained without some extension of the analogies of our language. We cannot in general use adjectives or participles as singular substantives. The happy or the doomed would, according to good English usage, signify those who are happy and those who are doomed in the plural. Hence we could not speak of a particular scaled animal as the squamate, and still less could we call any such animal a squamate, or speak of squamates in the plural. Some of the forms of our adjectives, however, do admit of this substantive use. Thus we talk of Europeans, plebeians, republicans; of divines and masculines; of the ultramontanes; of mordants and brilliants; of abstergents and emollients; of mercenaries and tributaries; of animals, mammals, and officials; of dissuasives and motives. We cannot generally use in this way adjectives in ous, nor in ate (though reprobates is an exception), nor English participles, nor adjectives in which there is no termination imitating the Latin, as happy, good. Hence, if we have, for purposes of science, to convert adjectives into substantives, we ought to follow the form of examples like these, in which it has already appeared in fact, that such usage, though an innovation at first, may ultimately become a received part of the language.

By attention to this rule we may judge what expressions to select in cases where substantives are needed. I will take as an example the division of the mammalian animals into Orders. These Orders, 333 according to Cuvier, are Bimanes, Quadrumanes, Carnassiers, Rongeurs, Edentés, Ruminants, Pachydermes, Cétacés; and of these, Bimanes, Quadrumanes, Rodents, Ruminants, Pachyderms are admissible as English substantives on the grounds just stated. Cetaceous could not be used substantively; but Cetacean in such a usage is sufficiently countenanced by such cases as we have mentioned, patrician, &c.; hence we adopt this form. We have no English word equivalent to the French Carnassiers: the English translator of Cuvier has not provided English words for his technical terms; but has formed a Latin word, Carnaria, to represent the French terms. From this we might readily form Carnaries; but it appears much better to take the Linnæan name Feræ as our root, from which we may take Ferine, substantive as well as adjective; and hence we call this order Ferines. The word for which it is most difficult to provide a proper representation is Edenté, Edentata: for, as we have said, it would be very harsh to speak of the order as the Edentates; and if we were to abbreviate the word into edent, we should suggest a false analogy with rodent, for as rodent is quod rodit, that which gnaws, edent would be quod edit, that which eats. And even if we were to take edent as a substantive, we could hardly use it as an adjective: we should still have to say, for example, the edentate form of head. For these reasons it appears best to alter the form of the word, and to call the Order the Edentals, which is quite allowable, both as adjective and substantive.

[An objection might be made to this term, both in its Latin, French and English form: namely, that the natural group to which it is applied includes many species, both existing and extinct, well provided with teeth. Thus the armadillo is remarkable for the number of its teeth; the megatherium, for their complex structure. But the analogy of scientific language readily permits us to fix, upon the word edentata, a special meaning, implying the absence of one particular kind of teeth, namely, incisive teeth. Linnæus called the equivalent order Bruta. We could not 334 apply in this case the term Brutes; for common language has already attached to the word a wider meaning, too fixedly for scientific use to trifle with it.]

There are several other words in ate about which there is the same difficulty in providing substantive forms. Are we to speak of Vertebrates? or would it not be better, in agreement with what has been said above, to call these Vertebrals, and the opposite class Invertebrals?

There are similar difficulties with regard to the names of subordinate portions of zoological classification; thus the Ferines are divided by Cuvier into Cheiroptéres, Insectivores, Carnivores; and these latter into Plantigrades, Digitigrades, Amphibies, Marsupiaux. There is not any great harshness in naturalizing these substantives as Chiropters, Insectivores, Carnivores, Plantigrades, Digitigrades, Amphibians, and Marsupials. These words Carnivores and Insectivores are better, because of more familiar origin, than Greek terms; otherwise we might, if necessary, speak of Zoophagans and Entomophagans.

It is only with certain familiar adjectival terminations, as ous and ate, that there is a difficulty in using the word as substantive. When this can be avoided, we readily accept the new word, as Pachyderms, and in like manner Mollusks.

If we examine the names of the Orders of Birds, we find that they are in Latin, Predatores or Accipitres, Passeres, Scansores, Rasores or Gallinæ, Grallatores, Palmipedes and Anseres: Cuvier’s Orders are, Oiseaux de Proie, Passereaux, Grimpeurs, Gallinacés, Échassiers, Palmipedes. These may be englished conveniently as Predators, Passerines, Scansors, Gallinaceans, (rather than Rasors,) Grallators, Palmipedans, [or rather Palmipeds, like Bipeds]. Scansors, Grallators, and Rasors, are better, as technical terms, than Climbers, Waders, and Scratchers. We might venture to anglicize the terminations of the names which Cuvier gives to the divisions of these Orders: thus the Predators are the Diurnals and the Nocturnals; the Passerines are the Dentirostres, the Fissirostres, the 335 Conirostres, the Tenuirostres, and the Syndactyls: the word lustre showing that the former termination is allowable. The Scansors are not sub-divided, nor are the Gallinaceans. The Grallators are Pressirostres, Cultrirostres, Macrodactyls. The Palmipeds are the Plungers, the Longipens, the Totipalmes and the Lamellirostres.

The next class of Vertebrals is the Reptiles, and these are either Chelonians, Saurians, Ophidians, or Batrachians. Cuvier writes Batraciens, but we prefer the spelling to which the Greek word directs us.

The last or lowest class is the Fishes, in which province Cuvier has himself been the great systematist, and has therefore had to devise many new terms. Many of these are of Greek or Latin origin, and can be anglicized by the analogies already pointed out, as Chondropterygians, Malacopterygians, Lophobranchs, Plectognaths, Gymnodonts, Scleroderms. Discoboles and Apodes may be English as well as French. There are other cases in which the author has formed the names of Families, either by forming a word in ides from the name of a genus, as Gadoides, Gobiöides, or by gallicizing the Latin name of the genus, as Salmones from Salmo, Clupes from Clupea, Ésoces from Esox, Cyprins from Cyprinus. In these cases Agassiz’s favourite form of names for families of fishes has led English writers to use the words Gadoids, Gobioids, Salmonoids, Clupeoids, Lucioids (for Ésoces), Cyprinoids, &c. There is a taint of hybridism in this termination, but it is attended with this advantage, that it has begun to be characteristic of the nomenclature of family groups in the class Pisces. One of the orders of fishes, co-ordinate with the Chondropterygians and the Lophobranchs, is termed Osseux by Cuvier. It appears hardly worth while to invent a substantive word for this, when Bony Fishes is so simple a phrase, and may readily be understood as a technical name of a systematic order.

The Mollusks are the next Class; and these are divided into Cephallopods, Gasteropods, and the like. The Gasteropods are Nudibranchs, Inferobranchs, 336 Tectibranchs, Pectinibranchs, Scutibranchs, and Cyclobranchs. In framing most of these terms Cuvier has made hybrids by a combination of a Latin word with branchiæ which is the Greek name for the gills of a fish; and has thus avoided loading the memory with words of an origin not obvious to most naturalists, as terms derived from the Greek would have been. Another division of the Gasteropods is Pulmonés, which we must make Pulmonians. In like manner the subdivisions of the Pectinibranchs are the Trochoidans and Buccinoidans, (Trochoïdes, Buccinoïdes). The Acéphales, another order of Mollusks, may be Acephals in English.

After these comes the third grand division, Articulated Animals, and these are Annelidans, Crustaceans, Arachnidans, and Insects. I shall not dwell upon the names of these, as the form of English words which is to be selected must be sufficiently obvious from the preceding examples.

Finally, we have the fourth grand division of animals, the Rayonnés, or Radiata; which, for reasons already given, we may call Radials, or Radiaries. These are Echinoderms, Intestinals, (or rather Entozoans,) Acalephes, and Polyps. The Polyps, which are composite animals in which many gelatinous individuals are connected so as to have a common life, have, in many cases, a more solid framework belonging to the common part of the animal. This framework, of which coral is a special example, is termed in French Polypier; the word has been anglicized by the word polypary, after the analogy of aviary and apiary. Thus Polyps are either Polyps with Polyparies or Naked Polyps.

Any common kind of Polyps has usually in the English language been called Polypus, the Greek termination being retained. This termination in us, however, whether Latin or Greek, is to be excluded from the English as much as possible, on account of the embarrassment which it occasions in the formation of the plural. For if we say Polypi the word ceases to be English, while Polypuses is harsh: and there is the additional inconvenience, that both these forms would indicate the plural of individuals rather than of classes. 337 If we were to say, ‘The Corallines are a Family of the Polypuses with Polyparies,’ it would not at once occur to the reader that the last three words formed a technical phrase.

This termination us which must thus be excluded from the names of families, may be admitted in the designation of genera; of animals, as Nautilus, Echinus, Hippopotamus; and of plants, as Crocus, Asparagus, Narcissus, Acanthus, Ranunculus, Fungus. The same form occurs in other technical words, as Fucus, Mucus, Œsophagus, Hydrocephalus, Callus, Calculus, Uterus, Fœtus, Radius, Focus, Apparatus. It is, however, advisable to retain this form only in cases where it is already firmly established in the language; for a more genuine English form is preferable. Hence we say, with Mr. Lyell, Ichthyosaur, Plesiosaur, Pterodactyl. In like manner Mr. Owen anglicizes the termination erium, and speaks of the Anoplothere and Paleothere.

Since the wants of science thus demand adjectives which can be used also as substantive names of classes, this consideration may sometimes serve to determine our selection of new terms. Thus Mr. Lyell’s names for the subdivisions of the tertiary strata, Miocene, Pliocene, can be used as substantives; but if such words as Mioneous, Plioneous, had suggested themselves, they must have been rejected, though of equivalent signification, as not fulfilling this condition.

4. (a.) Abstract substantives can easily be formed from adjectives: from electric we have electricity; from galvanic, galvanism; from organic, organization; velocity, levity, gravity, are borrowed from Latin adjectives. Caloric is familiarly used for the matter of heat, though the form of the word is not supported by any obvious analogy.

(b.) It is intolerable to have words regularly formed, in opposition to the analogy which their meaning offers; as when bodies are said to have conductibility or conducibility with regard to heat. The bodies are conductive, and their property is conductivity.

(c.) The terminations ize (rather than ise), ism, and ist, are applied to words of all origins: thus we have to 338 pulverize, to colonize, Witticism, Heathenism, Journalist, Tobacconist. Hence we may make such words when they are wanted. As we cannot use physician for a cultivator of physics, I have called him a Physicist. We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist. Thus we might say, that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, a Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.

(d.) Connected with verbs in ize, we have abstract nouns in ization, as polarization, crystallization. These it appears proper to spell in English with z rather than s; governing our practice by the Greek verbal termination ίζω which we imitate. But we must observe that verbs and substantives in yse, (analyse), belong to a different analogy, giving an abstract noun in ysis and an adjective ytic or ytical; (analysis, analytic, analytical). Hence electrolyse is more proper than electrolyze.

(e.) The names of many sciences end in ics after the analogy of Mathematics, Metaphysics; as Optics, Mechanics. But these, in most other languages, as in our own formerly, have the singular form Optice, l’Optique, Optik, Optick: and though we now write Optics, we make such words of the singular number: ‘Newton’s Opticks is an example.’ As, however, this connexion in new words is startling, as when we say ‘Thermo-electrics is now much cultivated,’ it appears better to employ the singular form, after the analogy of Logic and Rhetoric, when we have words to construct. Hence we may call the science of languages Linguistic, as it is called by the best German writers, for instance, William Von Humboldt.

5. In the derivation of English from Latin or Greek words, the changes of letters are to be governed by the rules which have generally prevailed in such cases. The Greek οι and αι, the Latin oe and ae, are all converted into a simple e, as in Economy, Geodesy, penal, Cesar. Hence, according to common usage, we should write phenomena, not phænomena, paleontology, not palæontology, miocene not miocæne, pekilite not 339 pœkilite. But in order to keep more clearly in view the origin of our terms, it may be allowable to deviate from these rules of change, especially so long as the words are new and unfamiliar. Dr. Buckland speaks of the poikilitic, not pecilitic, group of strata: palæontology is the spelling commonly adopted; and in imitation of this I have written palætiology. The diphthong ει was by the Latins changed into i, as in Aristides; and hence this has been the usual form in English. Some recent authors indeed (Mr. Mitford for instance) write Aristeides; but the former appears to be the more legitimate. Hence we write miocene, pliocene, not meiocene, pleiocene. The Greek υ becomes y, and ου becomes u, in English as in Latin, as crystal, colure. The consonants κ and χ become c and ch according to common usage. Hence we write crystal, not chrystal, batrachian, not batracian, cryolite, not chryolite. As, however, the letter c before e and i differs from k, which is the sound we assign to the Greek κ, it may be allowable to use k in order to avoid this confusion. Thus, as we have seen, poikilite has been used, as well as pecilite. Even in common language some authors write skeptic, which appears to be better than sceptic with our pronunciation, and is preferred by Dr. Johnson. For the same reason, namely, to avoid confusion in the pronunciation, and also, in order to keep in view the connexion with cathode, the elements of an electrolyte which go to the anode and cathode respectively may be termed the anion and cathion; although the Greek would suggest catïon, (κατίον).

6. The example of chemistry has shown that we have in the terminations of words a resource of which great use may be made in indicating the relations of certain classes of objects: as sulphurous and sulphuric acids; sulphates, sulphites, and sulphurets. Since the introduction of the artifice by the Lavoisierian school, it has been extended to some new cases. The Chlorine, Fluorine, Bromine, Iodine, had their names put into that shape in consequence of their supposed analogy: and for the same reason have been termed Chlore, 340 Phlore, Brome, Iode, by French chemists. In like manner, the names of metals in their Latin form have been made to end in um, as Osmium, Palladium; and hence it is better to say Platinum, Molybdenum, than Platina, Molybdena. It has been proposed to term the basis of Boracic acid Boron; and those who conceive that the basis of Silica has an analogy with Boron have proposed to term it Silicon, while those who look upon it as a metal would name it Silicium. Selenium was so named when it was supposed to be a metal: as its analogies are now acknowledged to be of another kind, it would be desirable, if the change were not too startling, to term it Selen, as it is in German. Phosphorus in like manner might be Phosphur, which would indicate its analogy with Sulphur.

The resource which terminations offer has been applied in other cases. The names of many species of minerals end in lite, or ite, as Staurolite, Augite. Hence Adolphe Brongniart, in order to form a name for a genus of fossil plants, has given this termination to the name of the recent genus which they nearly resemble, as Zamites, from Zamia, Lycopodites from Lycopodium.

Names of different genera which differ in termination only are properly condemned by Linnæus[58]; as Alsine, Alsinoides, Alsinella, Alsinastrum; for there is no definite relation marked by those terminations. Linnæus gives to such genera distinct names, Alsine, Bufonia, Sagina, Elatine.

[58] Phil. Bot. 231.

Terminations are well adapted to express definite systematic relations, such as those of chemistry, but they must be employed with a due regard to all the bearings of the system. Davy proposed to denote the combinations of other substances with chlorine by peculiar terminations; using ane for the smallest proportion of Chlorine, and anea for the larger, as Cuprane, Cupranea. In this nomenclature, common salt would be Sodane, and Chloride of Nitrogen would be Azotane. This suggestion never found favour. It was 341 objected that it was contrary to the Linnæan precept, that a specific name must not be united to a generic termination. But this was not putting the matter exactly on its right ground; for the rules of nomenclature of natural history do not apply to chemistry; and the Linnæan rule might with equal propriety have been adduced as a condemnation of such terms as Sulphurous, Sulphuric. But Davy’s terms were bad; for it does not appear that Chlorine enters, as Oxygen does, into so large a portion of chemical compounds, that its relations afford a key to their nature, and may properly be made an element in their names.

This resource, of terminations, has been abused, wherever it has been used wantonly, or without a definite significance in the variety. This is the case in M. Beudant’s Mineralogy. Among the names which he has given to new species, we find the following (besides many in ite), Scolexerose, Opsimose, Exanthelose, &c.; Diacrase, Panabase, Neoplase; Neoclese; Rhodoise, Stibiconise, &c.; Marceline, Wilhelmine, &c.; Exitele, and many others. In addition to other objections which might be made to these names, their variety is a material defect: for to make this variety depend on caprice alone, as in those cases it does, is to throw away a resource of which chemical nomenclature may teach us the value.

Aphorism XXII.

When alterations in technical terms become necessary, it is desirable that the new term should contain in its form some memorial of the old one.

We have excellent examples of the advantageous use of this maxim in Linnæus’s reform of botanical nomenclature. His innovations were very extensive, but they were still moderated as much as possible, and connected in many ways with the names of plants then in use. He has himself given several rules of nomenclature, which tend to establish this connexion of the 342 old and new in a reform. Thus he says, ‘Generic names which are current, and are not accompanied with harm to botany, should be tolerated[59].’ ‘A passable generic name is not to be changed for another, though more apt[60]’. ‘New generic names are not to be framed so long as passable synonyms are at hand[61].’ ‘A generic name of one genus, except it be superfluous, is not to be transferred to another genus, though it suit the other better[62].’ ‘If a received genus requires to be divided into several, the name which before included the whole, shall be applied to the most common and familiar kind[63].’ And though he rejects all generic names which have not a Greek or Latin root[64], he is willing to make an exception in favour of those which from their form might be supposed to have such a root, though they are really borrowed from other languages, as Thea, which is the Greek for goddess; Coffea, which might seem to come from a Greek word denoting silence (κωφός); Cheiranthus, which appears to mean hand-flower, but is really derived from the Arabic Keiri: and many others.

[59] Philosophia Botanica, Art. 242.

[60] Art. 246.

[61] Art. 247.

[62] Art. 249.

[63] Art. 249.

[64] Art. 232.

As we have already said, the attempt at a reformation of the nomenclature of Mineralogy made by Professor Mohs will probably not produce any permanent effect, on this account amongst others, that it has not been conducted in this temperate mode; the innovations bear too large a proportion to the whole of the names, and contain too little to remind us of the known appellations. Yet in some respects Professor Mohs has acted upon this maxim. Thus he has called one of his classes Spar, because Felspar belongs to it. I shall venture to offer a few suggestions on this subject of Mineralogical Nomenclature.

It has already been remarked that the confusion and complexity which prevail in this subject render a reform very desirable. But it will be seen, from the reasons assigned under the [Ninth] Aphorism, that no permanent system of names can be looked for, till a 343 sound system of classification be established. The best mineralogical systems recently published, however, appear to converge to a common point; and certain classes have been formed which have both a natural-historical and a chemical significance. These Classes, according to Naumann, whose arrangement appears the best, are Hydrolytes, Haloids, Silicides, Oxides of Metals, Metals, Sulphurides (Pyrites, Glances, and Blendes), and Anthracides. Now we find;—that the Hydrolytes are all compounds, such as are commonly termed Salts;—that the Haloids are, many of them, already called Spars, as Calc Spar, Heavy Spar, Iron Spar, Zinc Spar;—that the Silicides, the most numerous and difficult class, are denoted for the most part, by single words, many of which end in ite;—that the other classes, or subclasses, Oxides, Pyrites, Glances, and Blendes, have commonly been so termed; as Red Iron Oxide, Iron Pyrites, Zinc Blende;—while pure metals have usually had the adjective native prefixed, as Native Gold, Native Copper. These obvious features of the current names appear to afford us a basis for a systematic nomenclature. The Salts and Spars might all have the word salt or spar included in their name, as Natron Salt, Glauber Salt, Mock Salt; Calc Spar, Bitter Spar, (Carbonate of Lime and Magnesia), Fluor Spar, Phosphor Spar (Phosphate of Lime), Heavy Spar, Celestine Spar (Sulphate of Strontian), Chromic Lead Spar (Chromate of Lead); the Silicides might all have the name constructed so as to be a single word ending in ite, as Chabasite (Chabasie), Natrolite (Mesotype), Sommite (Nepheline), Pistacite (Epidote); from this rule might be excepted the Gems, as Topaz, Emerald, Corundum, which might retain their old names. The Oxides, Pyrites, Glances, and Blendes, might be so termed; thus we should have Tungstic Iron Oxide (usually called Tungstate of Iron), Arsenical Iron Pyrites (Mispickel), Tetrahedral Copper Glance (Fahlerz), Quicksilver Blende (Cinnabar), and the metals might be termed native, as Native Copper, Native Silver.

Such a nomenclature would take in a very large 344 proportion of commonly received appellations, especially if we were to select among the synonyms, as is proposed above in the case of Glauber Salt, Bitter Spar, Sommite, Pistacite, Natrolite. Hence it might be adopted without serious inconvenience. It would make the name convey information respecting the place of the mineral in the system; and by imposing this condition, would limit the extreme caprice, both as to origin and form, which has hitherto been indulged in imposing mineralogical names.

The principle of a mineralogical nomenclature determined by the place of the species in the system, has been recognized by Mr. Beudant as well as Mr. Mohs. The former writer has proposed that we should say Carbonate Calcaire, Carbonate Witherite, Sulphate Couperose, Silicate Stilbite, Silicate Chabasie, and so on. But these are names in which the part added for the sake of the system, is not incorporated with the common name, and would hardly make its way into common use.

We have already noticed Mr. Mohs’s designations for two of the Systems of Crystallization, the Pyramidal and the Prismatic, as not characteristic. If it were thought advisable to reform such a defect, this might be done by calling them the Square Pyramidal and the Oblong Prismatic, which terms, while they expressed the real distinction of the systems, would be intelligible at once to those acquainted with the Mohsian terminology.

I will mention another suggestion respecting the introduction of an improvement in scientific language. The term Depolarization was introduced, because it was believed that the effect of certain crystals, when polarized light was incident upon them in certain positions, was to destroy the peculiarity which polarization had produced. But it is now well known, that the effect of the second crystal in general is to divide the polarized ray of light into two rays, polarized in different planes. Still this effect is often spoken of as Depolarization, no better term having been yet devised. I have proposed and used the term Dipolarization, 345 which well expresses what takes place, and so nearly resembles the elder word, that it must sound familiar to those already acquainted with writings on this subject.

I may mention one term in another department of literature which it appears desirable to reform in the same manner. The theory of the Fine Arts, or the philosophy which speculates concerning what is beautiful in painting, sculpture or architecture, and other arts, often requires to be spoken of in a single word. Baumgarten and other German writers have termed this province of speculation Æsthetics; αἰσθάνεσθαι, to perceive, being a word which appeared to them fit to designate the perception of beauty in particular. Since, however, æsthetics would naturally denote the Doctrine of Perception in general; since this Doctrine requires a name; since the term æsthetics has actually been applied to it by other German writers (as Kant); and since the essential point in the philosophy now spoken of is that it attends to Beauty;—it appears desirable to change this name. In pursuance of the maxim now before us, I should propose the term Callæsthetics, or rather (in agreement with what was said in [page] 338) Callæsthetic, the science of the perception of beauty.

FURTHER ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE APHORISMS
ON SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGE, FROM THE
RECENT COURSE OF SCIENCES.

---

1. Botany.

The nomenclature of Botany as rescued from confusion by Linnæus, has in modern times been in some danger of relapsing into disorder or becoming intolerably extensive, in consequence of the multiplication of genera by the separation of one old genus into several new ones, and the like subdivisions of the higher groups, as subclasses and classes. This inconvenience, and the origin of it, have been so well pointed out by Mr. G. Bentham[65], that I shall venture to adopt his judgment as an Aphorism, and give his reasons for it.

[65] Linnæan Society’s Proceedings, vol. ii. p. 30 (June, 1857).

Aphorism XXIII.

It is of the greatest importance that the Groups which give their substantive names to every included species should remain large.

It will be recollected that according to the Linnæan nomenclature, the genus is marked by a substantive, (as Rosa), and the species designated by an adjective added to this substantive, (as Rosa Alpina); while the natural orders are described by adjectives taken substantively, (as Rosaceæ), But this rule, though it has been universally assented to in theory, has often been deviated from in practice. The number of known species having much increased, and the language of Linnæus and the principles of Jussieu having much augmented the facilities for the study of affinities, botanists have become aware that the species of a genus and the genera of an order can be collected into intermediate groups 347 as natural and as well defined as the genera and orders themselves, and names are required for these subordinate groups as much as for the genera and orders.

Now two courses have been followed in providing names for these subordinate groups.

1. The original genera (considering the case of genera in the first place) have been preserved, (if well founded); and the lower groups have been called subgenera, sections, subsections, divisions, &c.: and the original names of the genera have been maintained for the purpose of nomenclature, in order to retain a convenient and stable language. But when these subordinate groups are so well defined and so natural, that except for the convenience of language, they might be made good genera, there are given also to these subordinate groups, substantive or substantively-taken adjective names. When these subordinate groups are less defined or less natural, either no names at all are given, and they are distinguished by figures or signs such as *, **, or § 1, § 2, &c. or there are given them mere adjective names.

Or, 2, To regard these intermediate groups between species and the original genera, as so many independent genera; and to give them substantive names, to be used in ordinary botanical nomenclature.

Now the second course is that which has produced the intolerable multiplication of genera in modern times; and the first course is the only one which can save botanical nomenclature from replunging into the chaos in which Linnæus found it. It was strongly advocated by the elder De Candolle; although in the latter years of his life, seeing how general was the disposition to convert his subgenera and sections into genera, he himself more or less gave in to the general practice. The same principle was adopted by Endlichen, but he again was disposed to go far in giving substantive names to purely technical or ill-defined subsections of genera.

The multiplication of genera has been much too common. Botanists have a natural pride in establishing new genera (or orders); and besides this, it is felt how useful it is, in the study of affinities, to define and 348 name all natural groups in every grade, however numerous they may be: and in the immense variety of language it is found easy to coin names indefinitely.

But the arguments on the other side much preponderate. In attempting to introduce all these new names into ordinary botanical language, the memory is taxed beyond the capabilities of any mind, and the original and legitimate object of the Linnæan nomenclature is wholly lost sight of. In a purely scientific view it matters little if the Orders are converted into Classes or Alliances, the Genera into Orders, and the Sections or Subsections into Genera: their relative importance does not depend on the names given to them, but on their height in the scale of comprehensiveness. But for language, the great implement without which science cannot work, it is of the greatest importance, as our Aphorism declares, That the groups which give their substantive names to every species which they include, should remain large. If, independently of the inevitable increase of Genera by new discoveries, such old ones as Ficus, Begonia, Arum, Erica, &c. are divided into 10, 20, 30, or 40 independent Genera, with names and characters which are to be recollected before any one species can be spoken of;—if Genera are to be reckoned by tens of thousands instead of by thousands;—the range of any individual botanist will be limited to a small portion of the whole field of the sciences.

And in like manner with regard to Orders, so long as the number of Orders can be kept within, or not much beyond a couple of hundred, it may reasonably be expected that a botanist of ordinary capacity shall obtain a sufficient general idea of their nature and characters to call them at any time individually to his mind for the purpose of comparison: but if we double the number of Orders, all is confusion.

The inevitable confusion and the necessity of maintaining in some way the larger groups, have been perceived by those even who have gone the furthest in lowering the scale of Orders and Genera. As a remedy for this confusion, they propose to erect the old genera into independent orders, and the old orders into classes 349 or divisions. But this is but an incomplete resumption of the old principles, without the advantage of the old nomenclature.

And it will not be asserted, with regard to these new genera, formed by cutting up the old ones, that the new group is better defined than the group above it: on the contrary, it is frequently less so. It is not pretended that Urostigma or Phannacosyce, new genera formed out of the old genus Ficus, are better defined than the genus Ficus: or that the new genera which have lately been cut out of the old genus Begonia, form more natural groups than Begonia itself does. The principle which seems to be adopted in such subdivisions of old genera is this: that the lowest definable group above a species is a genus. If we were to go a step further, every species becomes a genus with a substantive name.

It ought always to be recollected that though the analytical process carried to the uttermost, and separating groups by observation of differences, is necessary for the purpose of ascertaining the facts upon which botany or any other classificatory science is based, it is a judicious synthesis alone, associating individuals by the ties of language, which can enable the human mind to take a comprehensive view of these facts, to deduce from them the principles of the science, or to communicate to others either facts or principles.

2. Comparative Anatomy.

The Language of Botany, as framed by Linnæus, and regulated by his Canons, is still the most notable and successful example of scientific terminology which has obtained general reception among naturalists. But the Language of Anatomy, and especially of the Comparative Anatomy of the skeleton, has of late been an object of great attention to physiologists; and especially to Mr. Owen; and the collection of terms which he has proposed are selected with so much thought and care, that they may minister valuable lessons to us in this part of our subject.

There is, at first sight, this broad difference between the descriptive language of Botany and of Comparative 350 Anatomy; that in the former science, we have comparatively few parts to describe, (calyx, corolla, stamen, pistil, pericarp, seed, &c.): while each of these parts is susceptible of many forms, for describing which with precision many terms must be provided: in Comparative Anatomy, on the other hand, the skeletons of many animals are to be regarded as modifications of a common type, and the terms by which their parts are described are to mark this community of type. The terminology of Botany has for its object description; the language of Comparative Anatomy must have for its basis morphology. Accordingly, Mr. Owen’s terms are selected so as to express the analogies, or, as he calls them, the homologies of the skeleton; those parts of the skeleton being termed homologues, which have the same place in the general type, and therefore ought to have the same name.

Yet this distinction of the basis of botanical and anatomical terminology is not to be pushed too far. The primary definitions in botany, as given by Linnæus, are founded on morphological views; and imply a general type of the structure of plants. These are his definitions (Phil. Bot. Art. 86).
Calyx, Cortex plantæ in Fructificatione præsens.
Corolla, Liber plantæ in Flora præsens.
Stamen, Viscus pro Pollinis præparatione.
Pistillum, Viscus fructui adherens pro Pollinis receptione.
Pericarpium, Viscus gravidum seminibus, quæ matura dimittit.

But in what follows these leading definitions, the terms are descriptive merely. Now in Comparative Anatomy, an important object of terms is, to express what part of the type each bone represents—to answer the question, what is it? before we proceed, assuming that we know what it is, to describe its shape. The difficulty of this previous question is very great when we come to the bones of the head; and when we assume, as morphology leads us to do, that the heads of all vertebrated animals, including even fishes, are composed of homologous bones. And, as I have already 351 said in the History (b. xvii. c. 7), speaking of Animal Morphology, the best physiologists are now agreed that the heads of vertebrates may be resolved into a series of vertebræ, homologically repeated and modified in different animals. This doctrine has been gradually making its way among anatomists, through a great variety of views respecting details; and hence, with great discrepancies in the language by which it has been expressed. Mr. Owen has proposed a complete series of terms for the bones of the head of all vertebrates; and these names are supported by reasons which are full of interest and instruction to the physiologist, on account of the comprehensive and precise knowledge of comparative osteology which they involve; but they are also, as I have said, interesting and instructive to us, as exemplifying the reasons which may be given for the adoption of words in scientific language. The reasons thus given agree with several of the aphorisms which I have laid down, and may perhaps suggest a few others. Mr. Owen has done me the great honour to quote with approval some of these aphorisms. The terms which he has proposed belong, as I have already said, to the Terminology, not to the Nomenclature of Zoology. In the latter subject, the Nomenclature (the names of species) the binary nomenclature established by Linnæus remains, in its principle, unshaken, simple and sufficient.

I shall best derive from Mr. Owen’s labours and reflexions some of the instruction which they supply with reference to the Language of Science, by making remarks on his terminology with reference to such aphorisms as I have propounded on the subject, and others of a like kind.

Mr. Owen, in his Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton, has given in a Tabular Form his views of the homology of the bones of the head of vertebrates, and the names which he consequently proposes for each bone, with the synonyms as they occur in the writings of some of the most celebrated anatomical philosophers, Cuvier, Geoffroy, Hallmann, Meckel and Wagner, Agassiz and Soemmering. And he has added to this Table his reasons for dissenting from his predecessors 352 to the extent to which he has done so. He has done this, he says, only where nature seemed clearly to refuse her sanction to them; acting upon the maxim (our [Aphorism X].) that new terms and changes of terms which are not needed in order to express truth, are to be avoided. The illustrations which I have there given, however, of this maxim, apply rather to the changes in nomenclature than in terminology; and though many considerations apply equally to these two subjects, there are some points in which the reasons differ in the two cases: especially in this point:—the names, both of genera and of species, in a system of nomenclature, may be derived from casual or arbitrary circumstances, as I have said in [Aphorism XIII]. But the terms of a scientific terminology ought to cohere as a system, and therefore should not commonly be derived from anything casual or arbitrary, but from some analogy or connexion. Hence it seems unadvisable to apply to bones terms derived from the names of persons, as ossa wormiana; or even from an accident in anatomical history, as os innominatum.

It is further desirable that in establishing such a terminology, each bone should be designated by a single word, and not by a descriptive phrase, consisting of substantive and adjective. On this ground Mr. Owen proposes presphenoid for sphenöide anterieur. So also prefrontal is preferred to anterior frontal, and postfrontal to posterior frontal. And the reason which he gives for this is worthy of being stated as an Aphorism, among those which should regulate this subject. I shall therefore state it thus:

Aphorism XXIV.

It is advisable to substitute definite single names for descriptive phrases as better instruments of thought.

It will be recollected by the reader that in the case of the Linnæan reform of the botanical nomenclature of species, this was one of the great improvements which was introduced.

Again: some of the first of the terms which Mr. Owen proposes illustrate, and confirm by their manifest claim 353 to acceptance, a maxim which we stated as [Aphorism XXII.]: namely, When alterations in technical terms become necessary, it is desirable that the new term should contain in its form some memorial of the old one.

Thus for ‘basilaire,’ which Cuvier exclusively applies to the ‘pars basilaris’ of the occiput, and which Geoffroy as exclusively applies (in birds) to the ‘pars basilaris’ of the sphenoid, Mr. Owen substitutes the term basioccipital.

Again: for the term ‘suroccipital’ of Geoffroy, Mr. Owen proposes paroccipital, to avoid confusion and false suggestion: and with reference to this word, he makes a remark in agreement with what we have said in the discussion of [Aphorism XXI.]: namely, that the combination of different languages in the derivation of words, though to be avoided in general, is in some cases admissible. He says, ‘If the purists who are distressed by such harmless hybrids as “mineralogy,” “terminology,” and “mammalogy,” should protest against the combination of the Greek prefix to the Latin noun, I can only plead that servility to a particular source of the fluctuating sounds of vocal language is a matter of taste: and that it seems no unreasonable privilege to use such elements as the servants of thought; and in the interests of science to combine them, even though they come from different countries, when the required duty is best and most expeditiously performed by their combination.’

So again we have illustrations of our [Aphorism XII.], that if terms are systematically good they are not to be rejected because they are etymologically inaccurate. In reference to that bone of the skull which has commonly been called vomer, the ploughshare: a term which Geoffroy rejected, but which Mr. Owen retains, he says, ‘When Geoffrey was induced to reject the term vomer as being applicable only to the peculiar form of the bone in a small portion of the vertebrata, he appears not to have considered that the old term, in its wider application, would be used without reference to its primary allusion to the ploughshare, and that becoming, as it 354 has, a purely arbitrary term, it is superior and preferable to any partially descriptive one.’

Another condition which I have mentioned in [Aphorism XX.], as valuable in technical terms is, that they should be susceptible of such grammatical relations as their scientific use requires.

This is, in fact, one of the grounds of the Aphorism which we have already borrowed from Mr. Owen, that we are to prefer single substantives to descriptive phrases. For from such substantives we can derive adjectives, and other forms; and thus the term becomes, as Mr. Owen says, a better instrument of thought. Hence, he most consistently mentions it as a recommendation of his system of names, that by them the results of a long series of investigations into the special homologies of the bones of the head are expressed in simple and definite terms, capable of every requisite inflection to express the proportion of the parts.

I may also, in reference to this same passage in Mr. Owen’s appeal in behalf of his terminology, repeat what I have said under [Aphorism X.]: that the persons who may most properly propose new scientific terms, are those who have much new knowledge to communicate: so that the vehicle is commended to general reception by the value of what it contains. It is only to eminent discoverers and profound philosophers that the authority is conceded of introducing a new system of terms; just as it is only the highest authority in the state which has the power of putting a new coinage into circulation. The long series of investigations of which the results are contained in Mr. Owen’s table of synonyms, and the philosophical spirit of his generalizations, entitles him to a most respectful hearing when he appeals to the Professors and Demonstrators of Human Anatomy for an unbiassed consideration of the advantages of the terms proposed by him, as likely to remedy the conflicting and unsettled synonymy which has hitherto pervaded the subject.

There is another remark which is suggested by the works on Comparative Anatomy, which I am now considering. I have said in various places that Technical 355 Terms are a necessary condition of the progress of a science. But we may say much more than this: and the remark is so important, that it deserves to be stated as one of our Aphorisms, as follows:

Aphorism XXV.

In an advanced Science, the history of the Language of the Science is the history of the Science itself.

I have already stated in previous Aphorisms ([VIII.] and [XI.]) that Terms must be constructed so as to be fitted to enunciate general propositions, and that Terms which imply theoretical views are admissible for this purpose. And hence it happens that the history of Terms in any science which has gone through several speculative stages, is really the history of the generalizations and theories which have had currency among the cultivators of the science.

This appears in Comparative Anatomy from what we have been saying. The recent progress of that science is involved in the rise and currency of the Terms which have been used by the anatomists whose synonyms Mr. Owen has to discuss; and the reasons for selecting among these, or inventing others, include those truths and generalizations which are the important recent steps of the science. The terms which are given by Mr. Owen in his table to denote the bones of the head are good terms, if they are good terms, because their adoption and use is the only complete way of expressing the truths of homology: namely, of that Special Homology, according to which all vertebrate skeletons are referred to the human skeleton as their type, and have their parts designated accordingly.

But further: there is another kind of homology which Mr. Owen calls General Homology, according to which the primary type of a vertebrate animal is merely a series of vertebræ; and all limbs and other appendages are only developements of the parts of one or another of the vertebræ. And in order to express this view, and in proportion as the doctrine has become current amongst 356 anatomists, the parts of vertebræ have been described by terms of a degree of generality which admit of such an interpretation. And here, also, Mr. Owen has proposed a terminology for the parts of the vertebræ, which seems to convey more systematically and comprehensively than those of preceding writers the truths to which they have been tending. Each vertebra is composed of a centrum, neurapophysis, parapophysis, pleurapophysis, hæmaphysis, neural spine and hæmal spine, with certain exogenous parts.

The opinion that the head, as well as the other parts of the frame of vertebrates, is composed of vertebræ, is now generally accepted among philosophical anatomists. In the History (Hist. I. S. b. xvii. c. 7, sect. 1), I have mentioned this opinion as proposed by some writers; and I have stated that Oken, in 1807 published a ‘Program’ On the signification of the bones of the Skull, in which he maintained, that these bones are equivalent to four vertebræ: while Meckel, Spix, and Geoffroy took views somewhat different. Cuvier and Agassiz opposed this doctrine, but Mr. Owen has in his Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton (1848), accepted the views of Oken, and argued at length against the objections of Cuvier, and also those of Mr. Agassiz. As I have noted in the last edition of the History of the Inductive Sciences (b. xvii. c. 7), he gives a Table in which the Bones of the Head are resolved into four vertebræ, which he terms the Occipital, Parietal, Frontal and Nasal Vertebræ respectively: the neural arches of which agree with what Oken called the Ear-vertebra, the Jaw-vertebra, the Eye-vertebra, and the Nose-vertebra.

Besides these doctrines of Special Homology by which the bones of all vertebrates are referred to their corresponding bones in the human skeleton, and of General Homology, by which the bones are referred to the parts of vertebræ which they represent, Mr. Owen treats of Serial Homology, the recognition of the same elements throughout the series of segments of the same skeleton; as when we shew in what manner the arms correspond to the legs. And thus, he says, in the head also, the basioccipital, basisphenoid, presphenoid and vomer are 357 homotypes with the centrums of all succeeding vertebræ. The excoccipitals, alisphenoids, orbitosphenoids, and prefrontals, are homotypes with the neurapophyses of all the succeeding vertebræ. The paroccipitals, mactoids and postfrontals, with the transverse processes of all the succeeding vertebræ: and so on. Perhaps these examples may exemplify sufficiently for the general reader both Mr. Owen’s terminology, and the intimate manner in which it is connected with the widest generalizations to which anatomical philosophy has yet been led.

The same doctrine, that the history of the Language of a Science is the history of the Science, appears also in the recent progress of Chemistry; but we shall be better able to illustrate our Aphorism in this case by putting forward previously one or two other Aphorisms bearing upon the history of that Science.

Aphorism XXVI.

In the Terminology of Science it may be necessary to employ letters, numbers, and algebraical symbols.

1. Mineralogy.

I have already said, in [Aphorism XV.], that symbols have been found requisite as a part of the terminology of Mineralogy. The names proposed by Haüy, borrowed from the crystalline laws, were so inadequate and unsystematic that they could not be retained. He himself proposed a notation for crystalline forms, founded upon his principle of the derivation of such forms from a primitive form, by decrements, on its edges or its angles. To denote this derivation he took the first letters of the three syllables to mark the faces of the PriMiTive form, P, M, T; the vowels A, E, I, O to mark the angles; the consonants B, C, D, &c. to mark the edges; and numerical exponents, annexed in various positions to these letters, represented the law and manner of derivation. Thus when the primitive form was a cube, ¹_B represented the result of a derivation by a decrement of one row 358 on an edge; that is, a rhombic octahedron; and ¹_BP represented the combination of this octahedron with the primitive cube. In this way the pentagonal dodecahedron, produced by decrements of 2 to 1 on half the edges of the cube, was represented by B² ^½_C G² ²G

Not only, however, was the hypothesis of primitive forms and decrements untenable, but this notation was too unsystematic to stand long. And when Weiss and Mohs established the distinction of Systems of Crystallography[66], they naturally founded upon that distinction a notation for crystalline forms. Mohs had several followers; but his algebraical notation so barbarously violated all algebraical meaning, that it was not likely to last. Thus, from a primitive rhombohedron which he designated by R, he derived, by a certain process, a series of other rhombohedrons, which he denoted by R + 1, R + 2, R − 1, &c.; and then, by another mode of derivation from them, he obtained forms which he marked as (R + 2)², (R + 2)³, &c. In doing this he used the algebraical marks of addition and involution without the smallest ground; besides many other proposals no less transgressing mathematical analogy and simplicity.

[66] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xv. c. 4.

But this notation might easily suggest a better. If we take a primitive form, we can generally, by two steps of derivation, each capable of numerical measure, obtain any possible face; and therefore any crystalline form bounded by such faces. Hence all that we need indicate in our crystalline laws is the primitive form, and two numerical exponents; and rejecting all superfluity in our symbols, instead of (R + 2)³ we might write 2 R 3. Nearly of this kind is the notation of Naumann. The systems of crystallization, the octahedral or tessular, the rhombic, and the prismatic, are marked by the letters O, R, P; and from these are derived, by certain laws, such symbols as

3 O ½, ∞ R 2, ½ P 2, 359

which have their definite signification flowing from the rules of the notation.

But Professor Miller, who has treated the subject of Crystallography in the most general and symmetrical manner, adopts the plan of marking each crystalline plane by three numerical indices. Thus in the Octahedral System, the cube is {100}; the octahedron is {111}; the rhombic dodecahedron is {011}; the pentagonal dodecahedron is π {012}; where π indicates that the form is not holohedral but hemihedral, only half the number of faces being taken which the law of derivation would give. This system is the most mathematically consistent, and affords the best means of calculation, as Professor Miller has shown; but there appears to be in it this defect, that though an essential part of the scheme is the division of crystalline forms into Systems,—the Octahedral, Pyramidal, Rhombohedral and Prismatic,—this division does not at all appear in the notation.

But whatever be the notation which the crystallographer adopts, it is evident that he must employ some notation; and that, without it, he will be unable to express the forms and relations of forms with which he has to deal.

2. Chemistry.

The same has long been the case in Chemistry. As I have stated elsewhere[67], the chemical nomenclature of the oxygen theory was for a time very useful and effective. But yet it had defects which could not be overlooked, as I have already stated under [Aphorism II.] The relations of elements were too numerous, and their numerical properties too important, to be expressed by terminations and other modifications of words. Thus the compounds of Nitrogen and Oxygen are the Protoxide, the Deutoxide, Nitrous Acid, Peroxide of Nitrogen, Nitric Acid. The systematic nomenclature here, even thus loosely extended, does not express our knowledge. And the Atomic Theory, when established, brought to view numerical 360 relations which it was very important to keep in sight. If N represents Nitrogen and O Oxygen, the compounds of the two elements just mentioned might be denoted by N + O, N + 2O, N + 3O, N + 4O, N + 5O. And by adopting a letter for each of the elementary substances, all the combinations of them might be expressed in this manner.

[67] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xiv. c. 6.

But in chemistry there are different orders of combination. A salt, for instance, is a compound of a base and an acid, each of which is already compound. If Fe be iron and C be carbon, Fe + O will be the protoxide of iron, and C + 2O will be carbonic acid; and the carbonate of iron (more properly carbonate of protoxide of iron), may be represented by

(Fe + O) + (C + 2O)

where the brackets indicate the first stage of composition.

But these brackets and signs of addition, in complex cases, would cumber the page in an inconvenient degree; and oxygen is of such very wide occurrence, that it seems desirable to abridge the notation so far as it is concerned. Hence Berzelius proposed[68] that in the first stage of composition the oxygen should be expressed by dots over the letter; and thus the carbonate of iron would be Ḟe + C̈. But Berzelius further introduced into his notation indexes such as in algebra denote involution to the square, cube, &c. Thus Cu being copper, the sulphate of copper is represented by S⃛²C̈u. This notation, when first proposed, was strongly condemned by English chemists, and Berzelius’s reply to them may be taken as stating the reasons in favour of such notation. He says[69], ‘We answer to the opponents, that undoubtedly the matter may be looked at in various lights. The use of Formulæ has always, for a person who has not accustomed himself to them, something repulsive; but this is easy to overcome. I agree with my opponent, 361 who says that nothing can be understood in a Formula which cannot be expressed in words; and that if the words express it as easily as the Formula, the use of the latter would be a folly. But there are cases in which this is not so; in which the Formula says in a glance what it would take many lines to express in words; and in which the expression of the Formula is clearer and more easily apprehended by the reader than the longer description in words. Let us examine such a Formula, and compare it with the equivalent description in words. Take, for example, crystallized sulphate of copper, of which the Formula is

C̈uS⃛² + 10H² O.

Now this Formula expresses the following propositions:
‘That the salt consists of one atom of copper-oxide combined with 2 atoms of sulphuric acid and with 10 atoms of water; that the copper-oxide contains two atoms of oxygen; and that the sulphuric acid contains 3 atoms of oxygen for one atom of sulphur; that its oxygen is three times as much as that of the oxide; and that the number of atoms of oxygen in the acid is 6; and that the number of atoms of oxygen in the water is 10; that is, 5 times the number in the oxide; and that finally the salt contains, of simple atoms, 1 copper, 2 sulphur, 20 hydrogen, and 18 oxygen.

[68] System of Mineralogy, 1816.

[69] Jahresbericht, 1824, p. 119.

‘Since so much is expressed in this brief Formula, how very long would the explanation be for a more composite body, for example, Alum; for which the Formula is

K̈ S⃛² + 2A⃛l S⃛³ + 48H² O.

It would take half a page to express all which this Formula contains.

‘Perhaps it may be objected that it is seldom that any one wants to know all this at once. But it might reasonably be said in reply, that the peculiar value of the Formula consists in this, that it contains answers to all the questions which can be asked with regard to the composition of the body. 362

‘But these Formulæ have also another application, of which I have sometimes had occasion to make use. Experiments sometimes bring before us combinations which cannot be foreseen from the nomenclature, and for which it is not always easy to find a consistent and appropriate name. In writing, the Formula may be applied instead of a Name: and the reader understands it better than if one made a new name. In my treatise upon the sulphuretted alkalies I found Degrees of Sulphur-combination, for which Nomenclature has no name. I expressed them, for example, by KS⁶, KS⁸, KS¹⁰ and I believed that every one understood what was thereby meant. Moreover, I found another class of bodies in which an electro-negative sulphuretted metal played the part of an Acid with respect to an electro-positive sulphuretted metal, for which a whole new nomenclature was needed; while yet it were not prudent to construct such a nomenclature, till more is known on the subject. Instead of new names I used formulas; for example,

KS² + 2As S³,

instead of saying the combination of 2 atoms of Sulphuret of Arsenic containing 3 atoms of Sulphur, with one atom of Sulphuret of Potassium (Kali) with the least dose of sulphur.’

Berzelius goes on to say that the English chemists had found themselves unable to find any substitutes for his formulæ when they translated his papers.

Our English chemists have not generally adopted the notation of oxygen by dots; but have employed commas or full stops and symbols (, or . and +), to denote various degrees of union, and numerical indices. Thus the double sulphate of copper and potash is Cu O, SO₃ + KO, SO₃.

What has been said is applicable mainly to inorganic bodies (as salts and minerals)[70]. In these bodies there is (at least according to the views of many intelligent chemists) a binary plan of combination, union taking 363 place between pairs of elements, and the compounds so produced again uniting themselves to other compound bodies in the same manner. Thus, in the above example, copper and oxygen combine into oxide of copper, potassium and oxygen into potash, sulphur and oxygen into sulphuric acid; sulphuric acid in its turn combines both with oxide of copper and oxide of potassium, generating a pair of salts which are capable of uniting to form the double compound Cu O, SO₃ + KO, SO₃.

[70] Fownes’s Chemistry. Part iii.

The most complicated products of inorganic chemistry may be thus shown to be built up by this repeated pairing on the part of their constituents. But with organic bodies the case is remarkably different; no such arrangement can here be traced. In sugar, which is C₁₂ H₁₁ O₁₁, or morphia[71], which is C₃₅ H₂₀ NO₆, the elements are as it were bound together into a single whole, which can enter into combination with other substances, and be thence discharged with properties unaltered; the elements not being obviously arranged in any subordinate groups. Hence the symbols for those substances are such as I have given above, no marks of combination being used.

[71] Fownes’s Chemistry, p. 354.

It is perhaps a consequence of this peculiarity that organic compounds are unstable in comparison with inorganic. In unorganic substances generally the elements are combined in such a way that the most powerful affinities are satisfied[72], and hence arises a state of very considerable permanence and durability. But in an organic substance containing three or four elements, there are often opposing affinities nearly balanced, and when one of these tendencies by some accident obtains a preponderance and the equilibrium is destroyed, then the organic body breaks up into two or more new bodies of simpler and more permanent constitution.

[72] See Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xiv. c. 3.

There is another property of many organic substances which is called the Law of Substitution. The 364 Hydrogen of the organic substance may often be replaced by Chlorine, Bromine, Iodine, or some other elements, without the destruction of the primitive type or constitution of the compound so modified. And this substitution may take place by several successive steps, giving rise to a series of substitution-compounds, which depart more and more in properties from the original substance. This Law also gives rise to a special notation. Thus a certain compound called Dutch liquid has the elements C₄ H₄ Cl₂: but this substance is affected by chlorine (Cl) in obedience to the law of substitution; one and two equivalents of hydrogen being successively removed by the prolonged action of chlorine gas aided by sunshine. The successive products may be thus written

C4 H4 Cl2; C4 { H3Cl } Cl2; C4 { H2Cl2 } Cl2.

Perhaps at a future period, chemical symbols, and especially those of organic bodies, may be made more systematic and more significant than they at present are.

Aphorism XXVII.

In using algebraical symbols as a part of scientific language, violations of algebraical analogy are to be avoided, but may be admitted when necessary.

As we must in scientific language conform to etymology, so must we to algebra; and as we are not to make ourselves the slaves of the former, so also, not to the latter. Hence we reject such crystallographical notation as that of Mohs; and in chemistry we use C₂, O₃ rather than C², O³, which signify the square of C and the cube of O. But we may use, as we have said, both the comma and the sign of addition, for chemical combination, for the sake of brevity, though both steps of combination are really addition. 365

Aphorism XXVIII.

In a complex science, which is in a state of transition, capricious and detached derivations of terms are common; but are not satisfactory.

In this remark I have especial reference to Chemistry; in which the discoveries made, especially in organic chemistry, and the difficulty of reducing them to a system, have broken up in several instances the old nomenclature, without its being possible at present to construct a new set of terms systematically connected. Hence it has come to pass that chemists have constructed words in a capricious and detached way: as by taking fragments of words, and the like. I shall give some examples of such derivations, and also of some attempts which have more of a systematic character.

I have mentioned (Aph. XX. [sect. 7]) the word Ellagic (acid), made by inverting the word Galle. Several words have recently been formed by chemists by taking syllables from two or more different words. Thus Chevreul discovered a substance to which he gave the name Ethal, from the first syllables of the words ether and alcohol, because of its analogy to those liquids in point of composition[73]. So Liebig has the word chloral[74].

[73] Turner’s Chemistry, 1834, p. 955

[74] Berzelius’ Jahresbericht, xv. p. 372.

Liebig, examining the product of distillation of alcohol, sulphuric acid and amber, found a substance which he termed Aldehyd, from the words Alcohol dehydrogenated[75]. This mode of making Words has been strongly objected to by Mr. Dumas[76]. Still more has he objected to the word Mercaptan (of Zeise), which 366 he says rests upon a mere play of words; for it means both mercurium captans and mercurio aptum.

[75] Ibid. xvi. p. 308.

[76] Leçons de Chimie, p. 354.

Dumas and Peligot, working on pyroligneous acids, found reason to believe the existence of a substance[77] which they called methylene, deriving the name from methy, a spirituous fluid, and hyle, wood. Berzelius remarks that the name should rather be methyl, and that ὕλη may be taken in its signification of matter, to imply the Radical of Wine: and he proposes that the older Æther-Radical, C₄ H₁₀ shall be called Æthyl, the newer, C₂ H₆, Methyl.

[77] Berzelius’ Jahresbericht, xv. (1836).

This notion of marking by the termination yl the hypothetical compound radical of a series of chemical compounds has been generally adopted; and, as we see from the above reference, it must be regarded as representing the Greek word ὕλη: and such hypothetical radicals of bases have been termed in general basyls.

Bunsen obtained from Cadet’s fuming liquid a substance which he called Alkarsin (alkali-arsenic?): and the substance produced from this by oxidation he called Alkargen[78]. Berzelius was of opinion, that the true view of its composition was that it contained a compound ternary radical = C⁶ H¹² As², after the manner of organic bodies; and he proposed for this the name[79] Kakodyl. Alkarsin is Kakodyl-oxyd, K̇d, Alkargen is Kakodyl-acid, K̈̇d.

[78] Ibid. xviii. p. 497.

[79] Ibid. xx. p. 527.

The discovery of Kakodyl was the first instance of the insulation of an organic metallic basyl[80].

[80] Miller’s Chemistry, iii. 220.

The first of the Hydrocarbon Radicals of the Alcohols was the radical of Tetrylic alcohol obtained by Kolbe from Valerate of Potash, and hence called Valyl C₁₆ H₁₈. Chloroform is perchloride of formyl, the hypothetical radical of formic acid[81].

[81] Dumas, Leçons sur la Phil. Chim. p. 356. 367

The discovery of such bases goes back to 1815. The substance formerly called Prussiate of Mercury, being treated in a particular manner, was resolved into metallic mercury and Cyanogen. This substance, Cyanogen, is, according to the older nomenclature, Bicarburet of Nitrogen; but chemists are agreed that its most convenient name is Cyanogen, proposed by its discoverer, Gay-Lussac, in 1815[82]. The importance of the discovery consists in this; that this substance was the first compound body which was distinctly proved to enter into combination with elementary substances in a manner similar to that in which they combine with each other.

[82] Turner’s Chemistry (1834), p. 420. Miller’s Chemistry, ii. 66.

The truth of our Aphorism ([XXV.]) that in such a science as chemistry, the history of the scientific nomenclature is the history of the science, appears from this; that the controversies with respect to chemical theories and their application take the form of objections to the common systematic names and proposals of new names instead. Thus a certain compound of potassa, sulphur, hydrogen, and oxygen, may be regarded either as Hydrosulphate of Potassa, or as Sulphide of Potassium in solution, according to different views[83]. In some cases indeed, changes are made merely for the sake of clearness. Instead of Hydrochloric and Hydrocyanic acid, many French writers, following Thenard, transpose the elements of these terms; they speak of Chlorhydric and Cyanhydric acid; by this means they avoid any ambiguity which might arise from the use of the prefix Hydro, which has sometimes been applied to compounds which contain water[84].

[83] Miller’s Chemistry, vol. ii. p. 583.

[84] Ibid. ii. 433.

An incompleteness in chemical nomenclature was further felt, when it appeared, from the properties of various substances, that mere identity in chemical composition is not sufficient to produce identity of chemical character or properties[85]. The doctrine of 368 the existence of compounds identical in ultimate composition, but different in chemical properties, was termed Isomerism. Thus chemists enumerate the following compounds, all of which contain carbon and hydrogen in the proportion of single equivalents of each[86];—Methylene, Olefiant gas, Propylene, Oil gas, Amylene, Caproylene, Naphthene, Eleene, Peramylene, Cetylene, Cerotylene, Melissine.

[85] Ibid. ii. 653.

[86] Miller’s Chemistry, ii. p. 654.

I will, in the last place, propound an Aphorism which has already offered itself in considering the history of Chemistry[87] as having a special bearing upon that Science, but which may be regarded as the supreme and ultimate rule with regard to the language of Science.

[87] Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xiv. c. 1.

Aphorism XXIX.

In learning the meaning of Scientific Terms, the history of science is our Dictionary: the steps of scientific induction are our Definitions.

It is usual for unscientific readers to complain that the technical terms which they meet with in books of science are not accompanied by plain definitions such as they can understand. But such definitions cannot be given. For definitions must consist of words; and, in the case of scientific terms, must consist of words which require again to be defined: and so on, without limit. Elementary substances in chemistry, for instance, what are they? The substances into which bodies can be analysed, and by the junction of which they are composed. But what is analysis? what is composition? We have seen that it required long and laborious courses of experiment to answer these questions; and that finally the balance decided among rival answers. And so it is in other cases. In entering upon each science, we come upon a new set of words. And how are we to learn 369 the meaning of this collection of words? In what other language shall it be explained? In what terms shall we define these new expressions? To this we are compelled to reply, that we cannot translate these terms into any ordinary or familiar language. Here, as in all other branches of knowledge, the meaning of words is to be sought in the progress of thought. It is only by going back through the successful researches of men respecting the composition and elements of bodies, that we can learn in what sense such terms can be understood, so as to convey real knowledge. In order that they may have a meaning for us, we must inquire what meaning they had in the minds of the authors of our discoveries. And the same is the case in other subjects. To take the instance of Morphology. When the beginner is told that every group of animals may be reduced to an Archetype, he will seek for a definition of Archetype. Such a definition has been offered, to this effect: the Archetype of a group of animals is a diagram embodying all the organs and parts which are found in the group in such a relative position as they would have had if none had attained an excessive development. But, then, we are led further to ask, How are we in each case to become acquainted with the diagram; to know of what parts it consists, and how they are related; and further; What is the standard of excess? It is by a wide examination of particular species, and by several successive generalizations of observed facts, that we are led to a diagram of an animal form of a certain kind, (for example, a vertebrate;) and of the various ways, excessive and defective, in which the parts may be developed.

This craving for definitions, as we have already said, arises in a great degree from the acquaintance with geometry which most persons acquire at an early age. The definitions of geometry are easily intelligible by a beginner, because the idea of space, of which they are modifications, is clearly possessed without any special culture. But this is not and cannot be the case in other sciences founded upon a wide and exact observation of facts. 370

It was formerly said that there was no Royal Road to Geometry: in modern times we have occasion often to repeat that there is no Popular Road—no road easy, pleasant, offering no difficulty and demanding no toil,—to Comparative Anatomy, Chemistry or any other of the Inductive Sciences.

THE END.

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CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Transcriber’s Notes

Whewell published the first edition of the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences in 1840 in two volumes, as a companion to the 1837 History of the Inductive Sciences. Revised second editions of both works appeared in 1847. The third editions saw a major reshaping of the Philosophy: a two volume History of Scientific Ideas (1858 – in Project Gutenberg as #69093), Novum Organon Renovatum (1858 – the present text, relying upon resources kindly provided by the Internet Archive), and On the Philosophy of Discovery: chapters historical and critical (1860 – long since in Project Gutenberg’s collection: #5155). (The third edition of the History of the Inductive Sciences is available in PG as #68693.)

Adaptations in this text

In the present text footnotes are numbered by Book and are placed after the paragraph to which they attach; in the original, notes were numbered by chapter. Page numbers appear in colour; where a word was hyphenated across pages the number has been placed before the word. Fractions have been transcribed as numerator ⁄ denominator; the original usually has numerator over a line with denominator below.

Some unusual symbols occur. On pages [357] and 358, there are italic letters with a number written above them. On two occasions B has a 1 above it, and once C has ½ above it. On page [364] a formula is written with two entries containing H on a line above Cl. These superpositions have all been transcribed by superscripting the first and subscripting the second item (with the result that the letters are printed smaller than in the original). The other oddities have been captured in Unicode.

On pages [152] and [197] Whewell uses a raised dot as a decimal point and in footnote [26] of Book III. a comma. These have been replaced by a mid dot.

Inductive Charts

At the end of Book II. ([p. 140]), Whewell included two very large inserts, described in some detail in the Book itself. They were not captured by the scans available in the Internet Archive. I was kindly provided with photographs of them. Those charts were four times as wide as the normal page and a quarter as long. In the html version they have been fairly accurately represented via tables; but with up to 25 columns these tables will be very difficult to decipher on small screens. In the text version, coded structure diagrams have been used, which again utilise the full 70 spaces Project Gutenberg allows.

Corrections

Corrections are comparatively few. Apart from the silent ones, they have been marked by dotted red underline, on mouse-over revealing the nature of the change. Given the various editions, some of the internal cross-references turn out to be obsolete or erroneous:
[note 11] in Book III. The text reads B. viii. c. iii. but it refers actually to Book viii. c. ii. article 3 in earlier editions and in the History of Scientific Ideas, cf. [Aphorism 88] in Book I. of the present volume. Compare also [Aphorism 19] in this volume’s Book IV.
[notes 58 and 59] in Book III. refer to Book v. c. i. For the present third edition they should have been aimed at that chapter of the History of Scientific Ideas.
On page [252] we are told that the Work is about to conclude, as the first edition did in a way (all the aphorisms were gathered after Book XIII. [= our Book III.], followed by various appendices). But we have Book IV. yet to come, plus some extra illustrations regarding language and symbols in science.

(I might add that I have not checked the many references to Whewell’s other related works. The errors here suggest one might need to take them with a pinch of salt, and help from the browser’s search function.)

There are some inconsistencies, notably in spelling, which have in general not been adjusted; nor have Whewell’s unbalanced quotation marks and positioning of footnote anchors been modernized.