24 
Psyche 
[March 
Our present code orders us to use the type method. For 
the past half century the other two methods were almost 
consistently in vogue. And this change — in origin a com- 
promise between these two in themselves wholly contra- 
dictory methods — is the basis of a large proportion of the 
recent violent shifts in names. 
The code supplies a nominal loophole in the “conservanda 
principle.” If a name is in general use, though it violates the 
code it may be validated (in one or another way) by the 
Commission in suspension of rules. Unfortunately this 
method breaks down, because the preparation of a case and 
the validation is a long and tedious matter, and in the mean- 
time code-enthusiasts take up the technically valid but dor- 
mant name, so that long before a decision is reached, the 
unanimity on which a decision should be based has van- 
ished. And where there is any real uncertainty, with a 
resulting real confusion of use, the process has generally 
broken down completely. 
There is a complication which seems at first minor, but 
works out near the bottom of most of our practical diffi- 
culties. This is where the two names have been given to 
what is practically the same list of species. In that case shall 
we treat the two names strictly as synonyms, or if the group 
is later divided, shall we use each of these names for one of 
the later groups? The latter has been rather the tendency, 
but the practical result of our present code is highly in- 
consistent, and the earlier practice (so-called elimination 
method, actually giving the right to the first reviser) pro- 
duced a high per cent of ambiguous cases, mainly because 
the two authors who had originally proposed the rival names 
hardly ever had just the same assortment of species before 
them. In practice we cannot be quite sure whether they 
meant the same thing or not. 
Take Danaus, Pieris, Pontia, etc., — these half a dozen 
names were all intended primarily for the cabbage butter- 
flies. Yet each author had doubtless a different conception. 
Linnaeus, who included the monarch, certainly did not have 
quite the same conception as the later workers. 
Thirdly we have the names of groups. This is also a very 
old category, as Aristotle if not even earlier philosophers, 
