He did what he did instinctively and for no
other reason than because it was most natural to him. So far as he
thought at all, he thought wrong, but what he did was right. I said
something of this kind to him once not so very long ago, and told
him he had always aimed high. "I never aimed at all," he replied a
little indignantly, "and you may be sure I should have aimed low
enough if I had thought I had thought I had got the chance."
I suppose after all that no one whose mind was not, to put it
mildly, abnormal, ever yet aimed very high out of pure malice
aforethought. I once saw a fly alight on a cup of hot coffee on
which the milk had formed a thin skin; he perceived his extreme
danger, and I noted with what ample strides and almost supermuscan
effort he struck across the treacherous surface and made for the
edge of the cup- for the ground was not solid enough to let him
raise himself from it by his wings. As I watched him I fancied that so
supreme a moment of difficulty and danger might leave him with an
increase of moral and physical power which might even descend in
some measure to his offspring. But surely he would not have got the
increased moral power if he could have helped it, and he will not
knowingly alight upon another cup of hot coffee.
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