tise now at this dinner. When men wished
to possess themselves of the learning, the wisdom, the philosophy, the
courage, the great traits of any person, they immediately proceeded to
eat him up as soon as he was dead. [Laughter.] Having only this
diversity in that early time, that he should be either roasted or boiled
according as he was fat or thin. [Laughter.] Now, out of that narrow
compass, see how by the process of differentiation and of multiplication
of effects we have come to a dinner of a dozen courses and wines of as
many varieties; and that simple process of appropriating the virtue and
the wisdom of the great man that was brought before the feast is now
diversified into an analysis of all the men here under the cunning
management of many speakers. No doubt, preserving as we do the identity
of all these institutions, it is often considered a great art, or at
least a great delight, to roast our friends and put in hot water those
against whom we have a grudge. [Laughter.]

Now, Mr. Spencer, we are glad to meet you here. [Applause.] We are glad
to see you and we are glad to have you see us. [Laughter.] We are glad
to see you, for we recognize in the breadth of your knowledge, such
knowledge as is useful to your race, a greater comprehension than any
living man has presented to our generation. [Applause.] We are glad to
see you, because in our judgment you have brought to the analysis and
distribution of this vast knowledge a more penetrating intelligence and
a more thorough insight than any living man has brought even to the
minor topics of his special knowledge. [Applause.] In theology, in
psychology, in natural science, in the knowledge of individual man and
his exposition, and in the knowledge of the world, in the proper sense
of society, which makes up the world, the world worth knowing, the world
worth speaking of, the world worth planning for, the world worth working
for, we acknowledge your labors as surpassing those of any of our kind.
[Applause.] You seem to us to carry away and maintain in the future the
same measure of fame among others that we are told was given in the
Middle Ages to Albertus Magnus, the most learned man of those times,
whose comprehension of theology, of psychology, of natural history, of
politics, of history and of learning comprehended more than any man
since the classic time certainly; and yet it was found of him that his
knowledge was rather an accumulation, and that he had added