276 NOTES ON NOMENCLATURE II. 



Now, in this present case, an almost universal confusion 

 seems to exist between what the Code enforces as regards the 

 past, and what it recommends as regards the future. 



It is a generally received rule of construction that the part 

 is to be interpreted by the whole, and that any doubts as to 

 the letter of particular passages are to be cleared up with re- 

 ference to the spirit or manifest intention of the whole docu- 

 ment. 



The first thing, therefore, essental to a right interpretation 

 of the Code is a thorough mastery of its general intention — a 

 clear realization in fact of the spirit in which it was conceived. 



I do not hesitate to assert that, taken as a whole, the essential 

 features — the leading principles of the Code — are these. 



Priority is to be the rule of nomenclature ; it is of such 

 importance that, except in the most extreme cases, no name 

 which has priority is to be set aside, but for the future greater 

 care in framing new names is recommended. 



In fact the Code virtually says : Don't meddle with your 

 predecessor's work, except in the most extreme cases, but in the 

 matter of your own work be careful to avoid their blunders; 

 there are scores of errors that you ought to beware of, but the 

 fact that others have committed these very mistakes against 

 which we warn you, will in no way justify your attempting to 

 set their names aside." 



The Code thus far is essentially a British one — it breathes 

 a wise spirit of compromise; it is characteristic of the nation, 

 iu harmony with its whole traditions and practice, and ought to 

 be sacred to all English Naturalists. 



Of course Continental nations will not accept it. Compro- 

 mise is, and always has been, foreign to their national character ; 

 with them everything, be it a revolution, a reform, a republic 

 or a despotism, must be carried out to its logical conclusion — 

 they are always to our ideas in extremes. As a fact they are 

 always more nearly theoretically right than we are, but they 

 are very rarely as successful in practice. 



In one respect our Code is doubtless wrong ; the rejection 

 of all binomial names prior to 1766 is inconsistent with the 

 fundamental principle of the Code, which is, that priority is to 

 be the rule, and that absolute necessity alone justifies its 

 disregard. It 'was necessary to reject names that were not 

 hinomial, but it was contrary to the whole spirit of the 

 Code, to reject any truly binomial names, such as Briinnichs, 

 many of Brissons, &c, because published prior to the appearance 

 of Linnaeus' XII. edition of his Syst. Nat. 



In this respect our Code cannot possibly, I believe, stand, but 

 until altered by as influential a consensus as that on which it 



