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126 Alfred J. Ewart:

Until the Congress is a thoroughly representative one, it must
remain a purely voluntary matter with each botanist as to
whether he follows its rules or not, and the power of the Congress
to enforce its rules will depend solely upon the number
of botanists who elect to follow them. Under these circumstances
I must take strong exception to Art. 36, and, by disobeying
it, adopt the best plan to have it rescinded or altered.

Art. 36 reads: "On and after January 1st, 1908, the publication
of names of new groups will be valid only when they are
accompanied by a Latin diagnosis." In Art. 13 a group is
defined as including a species. Any practice which tends to
render a science unnecessarily inaccessible to the general public is
bad in principle, and ultimately reacts injuriously upon the
science in question, and upon the eclectic few connected with it.
Latin is thoroughly discredited as a scientific language, and in
re-adopting it systematists are taking a step back to the middle
ages. If the rule had been to the effect that diagnoses not written
in English, French, or German, or unaccompanied by diagnostic
figures must be written in Latin, less exception could have
been taken to it, although it would have been more satisfactory
to state that diagnoses not accompanied by analytic figures,
must be written in English, French or German. A good diagnostic
figure is worth a dozen pages of the average systematist's
dog Latin, which at its best would hardly satisfy even Tacitus,
and at its worst is sufficient to make Cicero turn in his grave.

To describe plants both in the author's language and in Latin
would be to unnecessarily increase the already enormous bulk
of systematic literature, and to swell its pouring torrent to a
permanent flood level. To avoid this, and as a protest against
the rule, the plants, in the present and subsequent papers, will
be given, as hitherto, with diagnoses in English, and if necessary
with explanatory figures. Any Latinist who would like to
see his initials after a plant name is at liberty to acquire this
right by publishing a translation in Latin of the plant diagnosis
here given, and thus following the rule laid down by the last
Congress. I shall make no complaint, and am willing to take
this risk in order to get an absurd law altered.

It is a pity the rules were not submitted to some well-known
authority on jurisprudence before publication. Thus the omission