you think it advantageous to science that this should be done: I think not, and that convenience and high merit (here put as mere argument) had better come into some play. The subject is heart-breaking.
I hope you will occasionally turn in your mind my argument of the evil done by the "mihi" attached to specific names; I can most clearly see the EXCESSIVE evil it has caused; in mineralogy I have myself found there is no rage to merely name; a person does not take up the subject without he intends to work it out, as he knows that his ONLY claim to merit rests on his work being ably done, and has no relation whatever to NAMING. I give up one point, and grant that reference to first describer's name should be given in all systematic works, but I think something would be gained if a reference was given without the author's name being actually appended as part of the binomial name, and I think, except in systematic works, a reference, such as I propose, would damp vanity much. I think a very wrong spirit runs through all Natural History, as if some merit was due to a man for merely naming and defining a species; I think scarcely any, or none, is due; if he works out MINUTELY