Nomenclature and Priority. Xxll 
able to decide the right and wrong of these questions, and 
point out where the fault lay? Conjecture and speculation are 
the only resort ; and conjecture and speculation (though we 
often have to act on them in other ways) have naught to do 
eee claims for “justice,” and justice has naught to do with 
them. 
Justice implies the giving to each his due; and when each 
gets what he ought to have, we say that justice is done. I 
believe that systems of jurisprudence provide for the ascertain- 
ment of rights and also the due chastisement of offences ; and 
it is a question whether the justice demanded should not be 
meted out under the latter branch. I never heard before the 
cry of “justice to our blunderers,” and to me such a demand 
suggests retributive justice alone. ‘There is such a thing as 
the lex talionis, but a fair compromise which leaves the old 
works undisturbed on the top shelves, will supply the best 
basis of settlement, least vexatious to the living, and likely to 
bring least into question the merits and demerits of the long 
departed. 
Are we in doing “justice” to one person (be he the first 
nomenclator or the last), to be regardless of the injustice which 
we may do to other people ? And are there not other people 
entitled to consideration? Which is the more important 
figure in science, the man who publishes stray descriptions, 
or he who masters the natural history of a group? Weare on 
questions of sentiment, although the sentiment is of a good 
kind—the sentiment of respect to predecessors. Well, whose 
claims for “justice” present the stronger appeal? While the 
describer is as likely as not to be a man of small attainments, 
we have in the case of a monograph a guarantee that we are 
dealing with the work of one who, to some extent, must be a 
naturalist, and who comes to us with his title to respect made 
out. Ifit be the case (which I should regret to Believe) that 
those who write books look for perpetuation of their memory 
in the names they bestow, then it seems to me that our 
sympathies should be enlisted on behalf of those who have 
Aone most for us. It comes to this: if we do not retain the 
names bestowed by the first describer it is because we do per- 
petuate the names bestowed by a monographer ; while if we do 
not retain the names bestowed by a monographer, then (on the 
principle which is asserted) a quantity of the good work goes 
unrewarded. Wherever this is carried to the point of supersed- 
ing names bestowed in a monograph for a name that is doubtful, 
most will agree with me that there is no “justice” at all in the 
case, but a flagrant injustice is committed. But, as I have 
already insisted, the cases where any names of the date we are 
considering can be brought forward which are not doubtful are 
either none at all or so exceedingly few that they do not 
materially affect the question. In nearly every case where a 
modern name is now superseded for an old one the case is one 
