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.’