Many other modes of Nomenclature have been tried, but no other has at all taken root. Linnæus himself appears at first to have intended marking each species by the Generic Name, accompanied by a characteristic Descriptive Phrase; and to have proposed the employment of a _Trivial_ Specific Name, as he termed it, only as a method of occasional convenience. The use of these trivial names, however, has become universal, as we have said; and is by many persons considered the greatest improvement introduced at the Linnæan reform. APHORISM XV. _The Maxims of Linnæus concerning the Names to be used in Botany_, (Philosophia Botanica, Nomina. Sections 210 to 255) _are good examples of Aphorisms on this subject._ BOTH Linnæus and other writers (as Adanson) have given many maxims with a view of regulating the selection of generic and specific names. The maxims of Linnæus were intended as much as possible to exclude barbarism and confusion, and have, upon the whole, been generally adopted. These canons, and the sagacious modesty of great botanists, like Robert Brown, in conforming to them, have kept the majority of good botanists within salutary limits; though many of these canons were objected to by the contemporaries of Linnæus (Adanson and others[42\4]) as capricious and unnecessary restrictions. [Note 42\4: Pref. cxxix. clxxii.] Many of the names introduced by Linnæus certainly appear fanciful enough. Thus he gives the name _Bauhinia_ to a plant which has leaves in pairs, because the Bauhins were a pair of brothers. _Banisteria_ is the name of a climbing plant in honour of Banister, who travelled among mountains. But such names once established by adequate authority lose all their inconvenience and easily become permanent, and hence the reasonableness of one of the Linnæan rules[43\4]:-- That as such a perpetuation of the names of persons {309} by the names of plants is the only honour that botanists have to bestow, it ought to be used with care and caution, and religiously respected. [Note 43\4: _Phil. Bot._ s. 239.] [3rd ed. It may serve to show how sensitive botanists are to the allusions contained in such names, that it has been charged against Linnæus, as a proof of malignity towards Buffon, that he changed the name of the genus _Buffonia_, established by Sauvages, into _Bufonia_, which suggested a derivation from _Bufo_, a toad. It appears to be proved that the spelling was not Linnæus's doing.] Another Linnæan maxim is (Art. 219), that the generic name must be fixed before we attempt to form a specific name; 'the latter without the former is like the clapper without the bell.'