There is no ethical absolute that does not arise from error and illusion.
--GEORGE GAYLORD SIMPSON, _The meaning of Evolution_.
St Martin's Press
New York
_Copyright_ (C) _Edgar Pangborn 1961_
_Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 61-13391_
_Manufactured in the United States of America_
_by H. Wolff, New York_
_The author wishes to express his thanks to William Morrow &
Company, Inc., for permission to use an excerpt from_ THE COURT OF
LAST RESORT _by Erle Stanley Gardner, Copyright 1952 by Erle
Stanley Gardner; to Yale University Press for permission to use a
quotation from G. G. Simpson's_ THE MEANING OF EVOLUTION; _and to
Charles Scribner's Sons for permission to use a passage from_ THE
STORY OF MY LIFE _by Clarence Darrow._
To the
Memory of
My Father
NOTE: All characters in this novel are fictitious, not intended to
resemble any actual persons living or dead. The locale is
semifictitious: for "New Essex" read "almost any of the northeastern
States within a 300-mile radius of New York City."