-x *.. W. A. Lewis on 
Accord on a name is not to be desired, as I shall take it, on 
principles of eternal truth ; but it is imperatively necessary on 
the score of convenience. ‘Those who use the names are men 
and not machines; the subject they have to deal with is 
enormously vast, and cannot be called easy; life is short. 
Cross purposes about names, and the trouble necessary to clear 
up or avoid them, are a serious matter for those who have 
their hands full already; but that is a small part of it. If 
names are continually changed, inter-communication is em- 
barrassed, and the work of others becomes available only at a 
ruinous sacrifice of time and labour, which may frequently 
have the result of making an important work a closed book. 
Convenience cannot of course be paramount to the direct ad- 
vantage of science, and if that could become an element in the 
discussion convenience would take the second place. But, as 
the case stands, there will be few who do not hold with me 
that convenience is the be-all and end-all of nomenclature. 
I said just now that ‘‘if agreement on a name can be made 
secure and permanent,” you have already that which the law 
of priority was designed to provide. If the agreement be not 
permanent it is illusory ; and the only way in which it can be 
made permanent is by establishing it on a principle.. Although, 
therefore, convenience is, I say, the be-all and end-all of nomen- 
clature, it is none the less necessary to havea strict law. I argue 
that convenience requires that accord shall be upheld. The law 
to be aimed at, then, is a law to protect and render permanent 
names which are everywhere in use. 
From the very first of the discussion this was the ground 
taken up. The independent assertion of wishes and predilec- 
tions has formed no part of the battle. Where the object 
sought ex concessis is agreement, to stand wilfully on an ori- 
ginal tack defeats the object ; and the evils of this very course 
(and the hopeless prospect of agreement which it holds out) 
have been sufficiently dwelt upon. Those who have favoured 
the proposal which I put forward have done so on a principle 
which was plainly stated. 
Being conscious of all this, I think those who have agreed 
with me have some reason to complain that Dr. Sharp has con- 
sidered himself entitled to write of them as he has done. 
When undertaking a review of the question I should be wrong 
in passing by without notice his “ Object and Method of Zoo- 
logical Nomenclature,” for several reasons. Dr. Sharp, after 
mentioning the evidence of identification which has to be col- 
lected, observes* :—‘“ This will undoubtedly be a slow process, 
but it will be a sure one; and I may remind the impatient ones, 
who proclaim that we must have a way of settling such things 
right off, that they are, if they have any just voice in this 
matter, men of science as well as collectors, and, as such, they 
* Object and Method of Zoological Nomenclature, pp. 31, 32. 
