"Then you don't think she has made a mistake?" said Arthur.
"No one can know that. But there's a kind of instinct in people which often guides them to what is right for them, though to an outsider their actions may appear quite foolish and incomprehensible. They unconsciously know what's good for them, just as animals know the kind of food that suits them best. Not a very complimentary analogy, is it?" he added, with his whimsical smile.
"No; but I see what you mean, I think."
"It doesn't need much seeing, for it meets us everywhere. Have you ever watched a dog in a field? He knows exactly what grasses are good for him, and he finds them. We don't know in the least the principle of his discrimination. Well, it's like that with men and women. They make their own choice, and it often seems to us a matter of folly or caprice. But, in nine cases out of ten, if they are left to themselves, they do somehow manage to choose what's best for them."
"And you would apply the same principle to my father?"
"Precisely. He is probably doing the only thing that was left for him to do. He knows what is the best medicine for his wound, and no one else knows anything at all about it."
"Poor father! At this moment, while we are feasting, he is working in bitterness of heart."
"Well, you don't know that. Very likely he is forgetting his bitterness of heart in his work, and if he were here he would remember it."
"And what about yourself?" cried Arthur. "If men really guide themselves by instinct, and do it with efficiency, there's a poor occupation for the man who sets out to reform them."
"I know it, my boy. Didn't I tell you I've given up thinking that I am competent to guide the world? Don't remind me of an old vanity of which I am ashamed. I guide the world! Why, God Himself appears to do that with difficulty."