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.