andchildren. We decapitated, emasculated, malnourished, and
poisoned rodents against whom we had no personal animus for no other
reason than to keep an elaborate apparatus in use.

"Even these pastimes failed to satisfy our undiscriminating appetite.
Someone a little stupider, a little less imaginative--though such
conditions must have been difficult indeed to achieve--invented what is
called the Control Experiment whereby, if theory tested be correct, half
the subjects are condemned without trial to execution.

"These are my sins: that in despising academic ends I did not despise
academic means, that in repudiating the brainlessness of the
professorial mind I did not attempt to use my own. Because I was proud
of the integrity which made me choose not to do the will of a research
foundation or industrial empire, I overlooked the vital fact that I had
also chosen not to do God's Will, but what I stupidly thought to be my
own. It was not. It was faintheartedness, sloth, placation, doubt,
vagueness and romantical misconception. In a word, it was the
aimlessness and falsity of the nineteenth century coming back in the
window after having been booted out the door; my folly was the failure
to recognize it. I have deluded myself, I have taken halfmeasures, I
have followed false paths. Condemn me for these crimes. I am guilty."

Attorney General Smith said acidly, "This is neither a psychiatrist's
consulting room, a confessional, nor a court of law. I suggest the
witness be excused and her last hysterical remarks expunged from the
record."

"It is so ordered," ruled Senator Jones. "And now, gentlemen, we shall
recess until tomorrow."

THREE

_Man Triumphant ... I_

_21._ The hearings of the Committee to Investigate Dangerous Vegetation
went on for five days and Mr Le ffacase was increasingly delighted as
the proceedings went down, properly edited and embellished to excite
reader interest, in the columns of the _Daily Intelligencer_. He even
unbent so far as to call me a fool without any adjectival modification,
which was for him the height of geniality.

I don't want to give the impression the committee stole the show, as the
saying goes. The show essentially and primarily was still the grass
itself. It grew while the honorable body inquired and it grew while the
honorable body, tired by its labors, slept. It increased during the
speeches of Senator Jones, through the interjections of Judge Robinson,
and as Dr