Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not alive
remained always in one place, but the live things moved about, and there
was no telling what they might do. The thing to expect of them was the
unexpected, and for this he must be prepared.
He travelled very clumsily. He ran into sticks and things. A twig that
he thought a long way off, would the next instant hit him on the nose or
rake along his ribs. There were inequalities of surface. Sometimes he
overstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped and
stubbed his feet. Then there were the pebbles and stones that turned
under him when he trod upon them; and from them he came to know that the
things not alive were not all in the same state of stable equilibrium as
was his cave--also, that small things not alive were more liable than
large things to fall down or turn over. But with every mishap he was
learning. The longer he walked, the better he walked. He was adjusting
himself. He was learning to calculate his own muscular movements, to
know his physical limitations, to measure distances between objects, and
between objects and himself.
His was the luck of the beginner. Born to be a hunter of meat (though he
did not know it), he blundered upon meat just outside his own cave-door
on his first foray into the world.
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