oe 
Nomenclature and Priority. 1x 
clature in this sense ; that there are cases where it may be we 
are in error in using a given name as the first name, but in 
those instances where we are all in the same error, right is 
done. The maxim does great credit to its inventor, who 
showed his sympathy with a just and natural human sentiment, 
at the same time that he threw into a proverb the modus 
vivendi which controls every one of us in daily life. In 
matters of positive enactment (not of course of scientific truth), 
what all, whether rightly or wrongly, are agreed on, is the 
law; and I should have supposed this did not call for much 
explanation. There are enthusiasts who from time to time 
work their way into courts of justice who cannot, I grant, be 
prevailed on to acknowledge this axiom. They, I doubt not, 
would press on you the opinion that the unanimous consent 
which they encounter is a universal error in favour of their 
opponents and against themselves. ‘To such the reply may be 
applicable : “To please you we will say we are wrong ; but 
we are all equally wrong together. At all events we are 
agreed.” 
Some pretty phrases (which certainly caused amusement if 
nothing else) found their way into print,* about the very 
essence of the studies of the naturalist being “the exposure 
and obliteration of error,” and that there could, “in an exact 
science, be no ‘common error.’” It certainly can never have 
occurred to some that there is a profound difference between 
facts in natural science, towards which men, after infinite 
study, occupy the position of mere learners, and the trumpery 
bye-laws of naturalists. When there was a universal agree- 
ment that the sun moved round the earth, I agree that it was 
necessary to abandon the universal error. The name of the 
Clouded Yellow butterfly is a matter on which universal 
agreement makes the right. The notion of an eternal right 
and wrong about the names of bugs appears to me a mis- 
conception ; and the allusion to “exact science” defeats me 
still as much as ever. 
The law of priority is a means to an end, and the end in this 
case is accord or common agreement on a name. If you have 
agreement on a name, and that agreement can be made secure 
and permanent, you have already that which the law was 
designed to provide. The object of the law is the important 
thing ; not the law, which is only machinery. Then, if all 
names, save one for a species, are obsolete, you are enjoying 
agreement on the name. What is wanted you have; better off 
you cannot be, and the most that can be done is to disestablish 
an accepted name in favour of one which at best has to fight 
for its position. One complaint therefore against those who 
insist on subverting accord by “ priority” is that they put the 
means above the end sought. 
* Entom. Monthly Mag. vol. viii. 41. 
