A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive

Besides the advantage which this principle of nomenclature possesses, in giving to the names of species the greatest quantity of independent significance which the circumstances of the case admit of, it answers the further end of immensely economizing the use of names, and preventing an otherwise intolerable burden on the memory. When the names of species become extremely numerous, some artifice (as Dr. Whewell227 observes) becomes absolutely necessary to make it possible to recollect or apply them. “The known species of plants, for example, were ten thousand in the time of Linnæus, and are now probably sixty thousand. It would be useless to endeavor 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. 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 seventeen hundred 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 though the number of generic names has since greatly increased, it has not increased in any thing like the proportion of the multiplication of known species.