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.