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.