nd being driven back from it by their
mother.
It was in this way that the grey cub learned other attributes of his
mother than the soft, soothing, tongue. In his insistent crawling toward
the light, he discovered in her a nose that with a sharp nudge
administered rebuke, and later, a paw, that crushed him down and rolled
him over and over with swift, calculating stroke. Thus he learned hurt;
and on top of it he learned to avoid hurt, first, by not incurring the
risk of it; and second, when he had incurred the risk, by dodging and by
retreating. These were conscious actions, and were the results of his
first generalisations upon the world. Before that he had recoiled
automatically from hurt, as he had crawled automatically toward the
light. After that he recoiled from hurt because he _knew_ that it was
hurt.
He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was to
be expected. He was a carnivorous animal. He came of a breed of meat-
killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat.
The milk he had sucked with his first flickering life, was milk
transformed directly from meat, and now, at a month old, when his eyes
had been open for but a week, he was beginning himself to eat meat--meat
half-digested by the she-wolf and disgorged for the five growing cubs
that already made too great demand upon her breast.
But he was, further, the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louder
rasping growl than any of them. His tiny rages were much more terrible
than theirs. It was he that first learned the trick of rolling a fellow-
cub over with a cunning paw-stroke. And it was he that first gripped
another cub by the ear and pulled and tugged and growled through jaws
tight-clenched. And certainly it was he that caused the mother the most
trouble in keeping her litter from the mouth of the cave.
The fascination of the light for the grey cub increased from day to day.
He was perpetually departing on yard-long adventures toward the cave's
entrance, and as perpetually being driven back. Only he did not know it
for an entrance. He did not know anything about entrances--passages
whereby one goes from one place to another place. He did not know any
other place, much less of a way to get there. So to him the entrance of
the cave was a wall--a wall of light. As the sun was to the outside
dweller, this wall was to him the sun of his world. It attracted him as
a candle attracts a m
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