CASTING BREAD UPON THE WATERS 179 



little — only about two hundred generations. (Thomas Hunt Mor- 

 gan and his school have already been able to study a far larger 

 number of generations of the fruit fly, T)rosophiia melanog aster !) 

 Yet it is not even necessary to consider the whole sweep of his- 

 tory to realize that the progress, however slow, is tangible. To be 

 sure, it is never so certain and irrevocable as the progress in 

 the discovery of truth, but its precariousness itself decreases 

 gradually. 



To illustrate the reality of a change for the better let us go back 

 only a few generations to the middle of the eighteenth century 

 and to the city which was then the main center of culture in the 

 world : Paris. The French "society" of that time was exceedingly 

 polite and elegant. Nowhere in that age did the refinements of 

 life reach a higher pitch. Well and good. Let us repair to the 

 Place de greve, on March 78, 1757. A large crowd has gathered 

 there to witness a very exciting spectacle: a criminal being tor- 

 tured to death. There had been such competition to hire the win- 

 dows overlooking the square, that some people paid as much as 

 twelve louis for a single one. What was the occasion of that ex- 

 traordinary entertainment? 



On January 5 of the same year, a jobless servant named 

 Damiens, had a chance of approaching Louis XV at Versailles and 

 stabbed him with a knife. The wound was slight. The man was 

 obviously a monomaniac. He explained that his purpose had not 

 been to kill the king but to touch and warn him. This crime ex- 

 cited deep emotion and horror, for in spite of the king's vicious- 

 ness and insane profligacy which were well known, he was still 

 in the eyes of the multitude a sacred person. Damiens was sub- 

 mitted to frequent tortures for more than two months. The refine- 

 ments of medieval cruelty were found insufficient and a new 

 kind of rack was introduced from Avignon for his supplice. All 

 this to no avail, for he confessed nothing; — the poor devil had 

 nothing to confess except the crime itself which had been public. 

 Finally he was condemned to be quartered alive and the execution 

 was fixed for the 28th of March. It was arranged that the show 



