s during the year 1874 was 6000 butts, of 108 gallons each; that
their contracts for the supply of bottles during that period represented
25,000 gross, or 5,040,000 bottles, which, if laid end to end, would
extend to about 1000 miles; and that their accounts with Bass & Co.
alone for that term amounted to L150,000. All, from the highest to the
lowest, drink beer in England; and when unadulterated and taken in
moderation, it is one of the most healthful beverages of which the human
being, man or woman, can partake.

Though I have only partially gone over the ground contemplated at first,
I feel I must now draw to a conclusion, which I am the less indisposed
to do, as I think in what I have said I have pretty fairly set before
you the wonderful properties latent in a basin of hodge-podge. For it is
a habit of mine, which I have sought to indulge on the present occasion,
to analyse every subject to which my attention is directed, and in which
I feel interest, before I can make up my mind as to the proper
significance and importance of the whole compound. Thus, for instance,
set a dish of hodge-podge before me; it does not satisfy me to be told
that it is only a basin of broth, and that it is wholesome fare; I
must, as I have now been doing in a way, resolve the compound into its
elements, see these in other and wider relations, and refer them
mentally to their rank and standing in the larger world of the economy
of nature and of social existence. I am always asking "What's intilt?"
and am never satisfied, any more than the English tourist, with a bare
enumeration: I must subject the factors included to rational inspection,
and watch their play and weigh their worth in connection with interests
more general.

And if, in the delivery of this lecture, I have persuaded any one to
regard common things in a similar light and from a similar interest, I
shall deem the time spent on it not altogether thrown away. Mind, not
water, is the ultimate solvent in nature, and everything, when thrown
into it, will be found in the end to resolve itself into it, or what in
nature is of kin to it. And if a Latin poet could justify his interest
in man by a reference to his own humanity, so may we rest content with
nature when we find that we and it are parts of each other. It is well
to learn to look on nothing as private, but on everything as a part of
a great whole, of which we ourselves are units; so shall we feel
everywhere at home, and a