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 therapeutics, 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 supposed, 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 judgment 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, acknowledgedly 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 altogether. My account of the matter was that the conversation between 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. | |
