continually stuffed bodies. I have addrest them at public dinners, on
all topics and for all purposes, and whatever sympathy they may have
shown with the divers occasions which brought them together, they come
up to this notion of continually stuffed bodies. In primitive times
they had a custom which we only under the system of differentiation
practise 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, having only this diversity in that early time that he should
be either roasted or boiled according as he was fat or thin. 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.

Now, Mr. Spencer, we are glad to meet you here. We are glad to see you
and we are glad to have you see us. 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. 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. In theology, in psychology, in natural science, in the
knowledge of individual man and his exposition and in the knowledge of