WCP4012

Letter (WCP4012.3955)

[1]

9 St. Mark's Crescent

Septr. 2nd. [1865]1

Dear Newton

There is no need whatever for us to discuss the orthographical question, because I do not in the least dispute your accuracy.

All I say is, that not feeling competent to criticise Greek derivatives & spelling myself, I decline beginning a system on another person's authority which I can not carry out, whereas I can carry out the system of following the author of a [2] name. And that many others have & do think as I do, is shewn by the number of who have followed the author in using these, to you incorrect names.2

I also entirely deny on principle, the power or right of any limited body to make retrospective laws leading to alteration of names, however good those laws or rules may be for future application. To take your own case, if a man were christened Jak, & signed himself Jak certainly no one would ever think of trying to force upon him the more usual and perhaps more elegant orthography. To show you however that I am open to reason [3]3 I admit I. for J in Ianthaenus4 as you have shown that it was a local peculiarity of writing & does not seem to have been universally followed.

I hope we shall have something at once more interesting & more important to discuss at Birmingham.5

Yours very sincerely │Alfred R. Wallace — [signature]

1
The back of page [[2]] is annotated in ink in an unknown but apparently contemporary hand "A.R. Wallace, London. Sept. 2-3 /65 | Answered —"
2
Possibly a reference to ARW's spelling "Phlegaenas [sic] tristigmata. Bp." This was printed as "Phlegoenas" in Wallace, A.R. 1865. On the Pigeons of the Malay Archipelago. The Ibis. A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology, Series 2, 1(4): 365-400; [plate IX, p. 393]. See WCP4011.3954, ARW to Newton, 10 Aug. [1865].
3
Text on page [[3]] is written on the back of page [[1]] and at right angles to it.
4
Possibly "Ianthinus", [Latin: violet coloured]. Used as a species name for a variety of organisms. Wiktionary. Ianthinus. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ianthinus> [accessed 22 Aug. 2020].
5
The upcoming of meeting of the B.A.A.S. Both ARW and Alfred Newton were members of a committee discussing the rectification of the rules of zoological nomenclature. BAAS. 1866. Report of the Thirty-Fifth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement for Science, held at Birmingham September 1865. London: John Murray. [p. 26].

Editorial information

Status: Edited (but not proofed) transcription [Letter (WCP4012.3955)]

For more information about the transcriptions and metadata, see https://wallaceletters.myspecies.info/content/epsilon

Revision history

Transcribed by Royce, Isobel [2012-11-07] Transcription checked by Catchpole, Caroline [2013-01-15] Transcription checked by Lucas, Paula [2020-08-27]

Please cite as “WCP4012,” in Beccaloni, G. W. (ed.), Ɛpsilon: The Alfred Russel Wallace Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/wallace/letters/WCP4012