LETTERS ON THE LAND QUESTION. 521 



long as they are applied with that caution and discretion which 

 are to be gained only by practical experience in medicine or in 

 affairs. If Mr. Spencer were acquainted with the history of 

 medicine or with the present relations of physiology and thera- 

 peutics, he would have been unable to learn from me that which 

 it would have been ridiculous in any one to teach. 



MR. GREENWOOD'S THIRD LETTER. 



To the Editor of " The Times " : 



Sir : Without meaning to do so I am quite sure of that Mr. 

 Auberon Herbert has placed me in a false light. It might be sup- 

 posed, from a letter in which he deals with much more important 

 things, that I had reproached Mr. Herbert Spencer with changing 

 his opinions, which would be great presumption. That, however, 

 I have not done ; and, indeed, there is no reproach in changed 

 opinions when they are not fundamental, and when the one judg- 

 ment and the other are not based on the same unaltered data. My 

 complaint was against the publication of imperfect theories of 

 social reform " unaccompanied by a clear statement of whatever 

 reasons are fatal to their application in this work-a-day world," 

 the point being that certain doctrines of Mr. Spencer's, acknowl- 

 edgedly ill-considered and so unaccompanied, had gravely misled 

 large numbers of men eager for social revolution. That is a very 

 different thing from complaining of reasonably changed opinion. 

 Mr. Auberon Herbert seems also to make out that, on the ground 

 of reasonably changed opinion alone, I presume to impose "a 

 heavy lesson" on political philosophers. It would have been 

 arrogant indeed if I had so described my interference, as Mr. 

 Auberon Herbert suggests. But here he does me wrong alto- 

 gether. My account of the matter was that the conversation be- 

 tween Mr. Morley and Mr. Laidler, together with Mr. Spencer's 

 letter on that conversation, conveyed " a heavy lesson " to political 

 philosophers. That is what did it. I had nothing to do with a 

 lesson ready made. 



The controversy has been extremely useful thanks to your 

 liberal publication of it and will do a world of good all round, 

 especially after Mr. Spencer's welcome letter of to-day. 



Your obedient servant, F. Greenwood. 



November 19th. 



Prof. Chookes expresses the opinion, pertinent to his researches on the rare 

 earths, that while, besides compounds, we have hitherto recognized merely ulti- 

 mate atoms or the aggregations of such atoms into simple molecules, it is becom- 

 ing more and more probable that between the atom and the compound there is a 

 gradation of molecules of different ranks, which may pass for elementary bodies. 

 For these bodies he offers the provisional name of "meta-elements." Their true 

 character should be the subject of future unbiased research. 



