day. . . . I believe it is so with every one, but it is difficult
to be sure; few men who go into dangers care very much to talk about
fear. . . ."

Later Benham found some excuses for fear, came even to dealings with
fear. He never, however, admits that this universal instinct is any
better than a kindly but unintelligent nurse from whose fostering
restraints it is man's duty to escape. Discretion, he declared,
must remain; a sense of proportion, an "adequacy of enterprise," but
the discretion of an aristocrat is in his head, a tactical detail,
it has nothing to do with this visceral sinking, this ebb in the
nerves. "From top to bottom, the whole spectrum of fear is bad,
from panic fear at one extremity down to that mere disinclination
for enterprise, that reluctance and indolence which is its lowest
phase. These are things of the beast, these are for creatures that
have a settled environment, a life history, that spin in a cage of
instincts. But man is a beast of that kind no longer, he has left
his habitat, he goes out to limitless living. . . ."

This idea of man going out into new things, leaving securities,
habits, customs, leaving his normal life altogether behind him,
underlay all Benham's aristocratic conceptions. And it was natural
that he should consider fear as entirely inconvenient, treat it
indeed with ingratitude, and dwell upon the immense liberations that
lie beyond for those who will force themselves through its
remonstrances. . . .

Benham confessed his liability to fear quite freely in these notes.
His fear of animals was ineradicable. He had had an overwhelming
dread of bears until he was twelve or thirteen, the child's