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
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. 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 no new processes and no new wealth to the learning which he had
achieved.
Now, I have said that we are glad to have you see us. You have already
treated us to a very
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