ABSTRACT
Compound epithets are of occasional use to scientific description, particularly in botany, but they occur ordinarily in Greek or Latin forms—as parthogenetic and terraqueous. A sixteenth-century editor of Seneca advised students of natural science who were to write in Latin to choose terms that were not merely intelligible, but that could be easily spoken. The final factor leading to the general use of terms from the classical languages was, of course, the advancement of science itself. For the language of science was relatively stable over so many centuries because the increase of knowledge had not in that time caused the overthrow of many basic concepts. Though immense gains in both knowledge and theory were made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many ideas remained as significant to the members of the Royal Society as they had been to Greek scientists.
