xl ¢. W. A. Lewis on 
entomologists will have in a very great measure the effect of 
stopping that which it aims at stopping. But, supposing that 
it fails in securing this, it will be effective in another way. It 
will give us the right to disregard strange names hereafter to 
be brought up; and, considering that the law will be passed 
to supply a great need and to remedy evils whose pressure is 
as a fact severely felt, those who reap the benefit of it may be 
relied on to give it sturdy support. What reason is there to 
fear that, when they have a real boon of this kind granted 
them, people will be found renouncing it and submitting to the 
old disagreeables? At present we are without a lawful stand- 
point; and I admit that we are made to feel it. While, in 
answer to arguments, it can still be trumpeted that the “ laws 
of priority” are all in all, it is the case that there is a real 
difficulty in declining to receive these forgotten names. But 
when the new law is passed, the whole advantage is the other 
way. Every sanction which can now be laid claim to by those 
who support the innovations will then be the warrant for their 
rejection, and it appears to me that there will be little to fear 
from those who might insist on continuing their resurrectionary 
exercises. At all events we have begged this question. We 
now proceed on the basis that laws are obligatory; and the 
British Association Rules and the Dresden Code bear testimony 
to the fact. We should be acting strangely if we forbore to 
alter the old law which is enforced to oppress us, for fear of 
not being able to enforce the new law which is to release us. 
Summary of the Points contended for. 
I conclude, then, that the rule of priority, as originally en- 
acted in 1842, means that the earliest of the names in use 
should be adopted; or, at all events, that the consideration 
that the oldest name might have fallen out of use was not 
present to the minds of those who made the rule. That since 
then the circumstances are changed, and cogent reasons for re- 
settling the law have become operative. That the paramount 
principle in nomenclature is convenience; and that, if all 
agree to forget a name, there is no “error” in the case, but 
right is done. That convenience requires the upholding of 
accord, if that can be done ina manner to render the accord 
permanent. That the bare rule of priority has failed to supply 
us with permanent accord (7. e. certainty), because it is not 
possible to decide on the earliest descriptions. 
That, in order to make accord permanent, a law is necessary ; 
and that discretion cannot effect any good. That accord can 
only be upheld by a law excluding recourse to the old books; 
and that law may take any formal shape so that its provisions 
be definite. That a law denying to the rule of priority any 
retrospective operation will exclude recourse to the old books, 
