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Title: The Play of Man

Author: Karl Groos

Author of introduction, etc.: James Mark Baldwin

Translator: Elizabeth L. Baldwin

Release date: December 4, 2018 [eBook #58411]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLAY OF
MAN ***

THE PLAY OF MAN
BY
KARL GROOS
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF BASEL
AUTHOR OF THE PLAY OF ANIMALS

TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR’S CO-OPERATION
By ELIZABETH L. BALDWIN

WITH A PREFACE BY
J. MARK BALDWIN, Ph. D., hon. D. Sc. (Oxon.)
PROFESSOR IN PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1901

Copyright, 1901,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

EDITOR’S PREFACE
The present writer contributed a somewhat lengthy preface and also an
appendix to the translation of the author’s earlier volume, The Play of
Animals, mainly because—apart from the expressed wish of Professor
Groos—he wanted to say something about the book. It is a pleasure to him
now to have the justification for it which comes from the adoption by
Professor Groos in this volume of the suggestions made in the translation of
the earlier one. The main points have all been accepted and used by the
author (see pp. 265, 376, 395, of this volume, for example), and further
discussions of them have been brought out. This is said in view of the
opinion of many that “introductions” are always out of place.
A notable thing about the present volume, considered in relation to the Play
of Animals, is the modification of the theory of play as respects its criteria
—a point fully explained by the author in his Introduction (see especially p.
5).
The present writer’s editorial function has been confined to the insertion of
various notes, and the suggesting to the translator of certain renderings;
both mainly of a terminological sort (see pp. 5, 122, 133, 264, for
examples). In this connection it has been found possible to anticipate and
follow the recommendations made in the present writer’s Dictionary of
Philosophy and Psychology (now in press), seeing that Professor Groos is
in active co-operation with the committee engaged upon the German-
English equivalents of that work, in so far adopted here. A particular case is
the group of renderings: “Preparation” (Vorübung), “Habituation”
(Einübung), “Exercise” (Ausübung), all terms of the “Practice” (Uebung)
theory of play. Another case is the set of terms applied to the various
reactions of “Shyness”—e. g., “Bashfulness” (Schüchternheit), “Coyness”
(Sprödigkeit), “Modesty” (Bescheidenheit), “Shame” (Scham), etc.
Biologists will note the adoption of “Rudiment” for Anlage in its biological
sense.
Intrinsically the work will be found a worthy companion to The Play of
Animals, a book which has already become famous.

J. Mark Baldwin.
Princeton University, February, 1901.

AUTHOR’S PREFACE
In this work my aim is to present the anthropological aspects of the same
subject treated of in my psychological investigation of animal play,
published in 1896, which may be said to have been a pioneer attempt in its
department. In the discussion of human play, however, I am supported by
valuable philosophical works, among which I acknowledge myself
especially indebted to those of Schaller, Lazarus, and Colozza. In regard to
the standpoint from which I approach the general problem of play, it is
hardly necessary for me to speak at length here. It is the same practice
theory on which I intrenched myself in the earlier work. The difficulties in
its way, arising from our as yet imperfect understanding of human impulse
life, are fully allowed for in the introduction to the first section, and I am
convinced that the results attained by its adoption will, on the whole, justify
the method of treatment which I have chosen.
Since it was my interest in æsthetics which first induced me to turn my
attention to the subject of play, it is natural that the æsthetic phase of the
question should be conspicuous in this volume. Still, I wish it to be
distinctly understood that my inquiry has not been conducted solely in
obedience to such leadings, nor should it be judged exclusively by æsthetic
criteria. I have intentionally left many questions open for more mature
consideration, at some future time, when I can give to them more thought
than was possible in the year’s study which I have devoted to play
phenomena.
Karl Groos.
Basel, December, 1898.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Editor’s Preface iii
Author’s Preface v
The System of Play—Introduction 1
PART I
PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTATION
I. Playful Activity of the Sensory Apparatus 7
1. Sensations of contact 7
2. Sensations of temperature 14
3. Sensations of taste 14
4. Sensations of smell 16
5. Sensations of hearing 18
(a) Receptive sound-play 19
(b) Productive sound-play 31
6. Sensations of sight 48
(a) Sensations of brightness 50
(b) The perception of colour 54
(c) Perception of form 60
(d) Perception of movement 67
II. Playful Use of the Motor Apparatus 74
A. Playful movement of the bodily organs 75
B. Playful movement of foreign bodies 95
1. Hustling things about 95
2. Destructive (analytic) movement-play 97
3. Constructive (synthetic) movement-play 99
4. Playful exercise of endurance 101
5. Throwing plays 103
(a) Simple throwing 105
(b) Throwing with the help of a stroke or blow 107

(c) Rolling, spinning, shoving, and skipping foreign
110
bodies
(d) Throwing at a mark 114
6. Catching 118
III. Playful Use of the Higher Mental Powers 121
A. Experimentation with the mental powers 122
1. Memory 122
(a) Recognition 122
(b) Reflective memory 128
2. Imagination 131
(a) Playful illusion 131
(b) Playful transformation of the memory-content 135
3. Attention 144
4. Reason 152
B. Experimentation with the feelings 158
1. Physical pain 159
2. Mental suffering 160
3. Surprise 163
4. Fear 166
C. Experimentation with the will 169
PART II
THE PLAYFUL EXERCISE OF IMPULSES OF THE SECOND OR
SOCIONOMIC ORDER
I. Fighting Play 173
1. Direct physical fighting play 174
2. Direct mental contests 186
3. Physical rivalry 197
4. Mental rivalry 201
5. The destructive impulse 217
6. Teasing 220
7. Enjoyment of the comic 232
8. Hunting play 237
9. Witnessing fights end fighting plays. The tragic 244
II. Love Play 252

1. Natural courtship play 254
2. Love play in art 268
3. Sex in the comic 278
III. Imitative Play 280
1. Playful imitation of simple movements 291
(a) Optical percepts 291
(b) Playful imitation of acoustic percepts 294
2. Dramatic imitation in play 300
3. Plastic or constructive imitative play 313
4. Inner imitation 322
IV. Social Play 334
PART III
THE THEORY Of PLAY
1. The physiological standpoint 361
2. The biological standpoint 369
3. The psychological standpoint 379
4. The æsthetic standpoint 389
5. The sociological standpoint 395
6. The pedagogical standpoint 398
Index 407

THE PLAY OF MAN

THE SYSTEM OF PLAY
Introduction

While many have undertaken, by various methods, to classify human play
satisfactorily, in no single case has the result been entirely fortunate.
Grasberger remarked, a quarter of a century ago, that a permanent
classification of play had not up to that time been achieved,1 and in my
opinion the present decade finds the situation essentially unchanged.
Under these circumstances, I can hardly hope that my own classification
will satisfy all demands, but I reassure myself with the reflection that
absolute systematization is and must remain, in the vast majority of cases, a
mere logical ideal. Yet even an imperfect classification may justify itself in
two ways: it may be very comprehensive and practical, or its aptly chosen
grounds of distinction may serve to open at once to the reader the inmost
core of the subject under discussion. My special effort has been directed to
the second of these uses, adopting as I do the conception of impulse life as a
starting point; how far I may have attained to the first as well is for others to
judge.
I consider the governing force of instinct as having been fully established in
the study of animal play. In the book2 which deals with this subject I
reached the conclusion that among higher animals certain instincts are
present which, especially in youth, but also in maturity, produce activity
that is without serious intent, and so give rise to the various phenomena
which we include in the word “play.” I shall treat of the biological
significance of this fact in the second, the theoretical section of this book.
Here I confine myself to remarking briefly that in child’s play (which,
according to one theory of our subject, is of the utmost importance)
opportunity is given to the animal, through the exercise of inborn
dispositions, to strengthen and increase his inheritance in the acquisition of
adaptations to his complicated environment, an achievement which would
be unattainable by mere mechanical instinct alone. The fact that youth is
par excellence the period of play is in thorough harmony with this theory.

An analogous position is tenable in the treatment of human play, although
the word instinct, while generally applicable, is not universally so—a
difficulty which is much more conspicuous here than in the classification of
animal play. We lack a comprehensive and yet specific term for those
unacquired tendencies which are grounded in our psycho-physical organism
as such. The word instinct does not cover the ground with its commonly
accepted definition as inherited association between stimuli and particular
bodily reactions. Even the imitative impulse, which is responsible for the
important group of imitative plays, is not easily included in this idea,
because no specific reaction characterizes it.3 It is safer, therefore, to speak
of such play as the product of “natural or hereditary impulse,” although
even that is not entirely satisfactory, since many psychologists connect the
idea of impulse with a tendency to physical movement. There are
undoubtedly deep-rooted requirements of our nature which this definition
does not include, and which must be given due weight in our study of play.
Thus, as Jodl, in agreement with Beaunis and others, maintains, every
sensory tract has not only the ability to receive and act upon certain stimuli,
but betrays itself originally through desire for their realization.4 And if we
keep in mind the tension toward special sensation, always present even in a
state of comparative rest and distraction of the sense organ, as well as those
external movements which are no longer the particular object of desire, we
find ourselves still further from the narrow idea of instinct in relation to
psycho-physical processes. In this dilemma we can only hold fast to the fact
of the primal need for activity, which, while it can not, any more than the
other, be included in the narrower use of the terms, has nevertheless an
unmistakable relation to the life of impulse and instinct. And while it is true
that mere intellectual fiat is not adequate to the establishment of such causal
connections, one might be tempted, under the stress of dire need, to coin
some such term as “central instinct,” did not any added burden threaten to
plunge the already over-weighted term into a very chaos of obscurity. The
case is much the same, too, with other mental attributes. Who is to decide
whether it is lawful to assume a universal “impulse to activity” (Ribot
approaches such an assumption)5 which may, according to circumstances,
become now effort after emotional excitement, now desire for logical
expression and the like? Or who shall pass on the legitimacy of a revival of
the hereditary central-impulse theory which directs attention not to external
physical movement, but exclusively to such internal dispositions as are

dependent on the psycho-physical organization? Should this latter view
prevail, biological psychology will have before it the task of linking an
ancient idea—it was developed in Ulrici’s Leib und Seele in 1866—to the
body of modern science.
As it is likely to be some time yet before scientific terminology shall have
attained such clearness and perfection in a sphere by no means easily
accessible, that we may count on banishing all obscurity, I must content
myself with the term “natural or inherited impulse”6 as the basis of my
classification. In far the greater number of cases it is equivalent to simple
instinct. But in the imitative impulse we have something which is
analogous only to instinct, and in reference to the higher mental
dispositions to activity, the term “impulse” must be expanded beyond its
usual significance. I am well aware that my classification lacks precision,
but I venture to think that it affords deeper insight into the problem than
may be had by other means and that some aspects of the subject, not evident
from other standpoints, may be brought out by this method of treatment.
The first important distinction made is that between the impulses by which
the individual wins supremacy over his own psycho-physical organism
without regard to other individuals prominent in his environment, and such
other impulses as are directly concerned with his relations to others. To the
first group belong all the manifold impulses which issue in human activity,
those controlling his sensory and motor apparatus7 as well as the higher
mental dispositions which impel him to corresponding acts. To the second
group we assign the fighting and sexual impulses, imitation, and the social
dispositions closely connected with these. Each of these manifests its own
peculiar play activity. Unfortunately, an adequate terminology here, too, is
wanting, and as the opposites “egotism and altruism,” “individualism and
socialism,” are not admissible in our classification, it is difficult to
designate the two groups with propriety. While awaiting better names for
them, I am forced to the very unsatisfactory expedient of calling them
impulses of the first order and impulses of the second order.8 To denote the
playful exercise of the first order of impulses, I shall use the expression
“playful experimentation,” which is already adopted in child-psychology,
and also, by myself at least, in animal psychology.

As all further subdivisions will be effected without difficulty in the course
of our investigation, I add here only a brief note on the general
characteristics of the playful exercise of these impulses. The biological
criterion of play is that it shall deal not with the serious exercise of the
special instinct, but with practice preparatory to it. Such practice always
responds to definite needs, and is accompanied by pleasurable feelings. The
psychological criterion corresponds with it; thus, when an act is performed
solely because of the pleasure it affords, there is play. Yet, the
consciousness of engaging in sham occupation is not a universal criterion of
play.

PART I

PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTATION

I. Playful Activity of the Sensory Apparatus

1. Sensations of Contact
The newborn infant is susceptible to touch sensations. Movements and loud
cries can be induced directly after it has for the first time become quiet, by
pinching the skin or slapping the thigh.9 Experiments with the hands and
mouth are most satisfactory, as these organs are extremely sensitive from
the first. During its first week the child makes many purely automatic
motions with its hands, and frequently touches its face. When contact is had
in this way with the lips, they react with gentle sucking movements, and
later follows the playful sucking of the fingers so common among children.
It is, of course, difficult to say when such movements are conscious or
when they are the result of taste stimuli.10 According to Perez, a two-
months-old babe enjoys being stroked softly, and from that moment it is
possible that it may seek, by its own movements, to provide touch stimuli
for itself. Here play begins. “Touch now controls. At three months the child
begins to reach out for the purpose of grasping with his hand; he handles
like an amateur connoisseur, and the tendency to seek and to test muscular
sensations develops in him from day to day.”11
a. We will first notice grasping with the hand as it is connected with taste
stimuli. The merely instinctive movements of the first few days are
multiplied and fixed, by means of inherited adaptation, progressively from
the beginning of the second quarter year. The child begins by handling
every object which comes within his reach, even his own body, and
especially his feet, and one hand with the other.12 In all this not only the

motor element, of which we will speak later, but also the sensor stimulus
becomes an object of interest, as Preyer’s observation shows. “In the
eighteenth week, whenever the effort to grasp was unsuccessful its fingers
were attentively regarded. Evidently the child expected the sensation of
contact, and when it was not forthcoming wondered at the absence of the
feeling.”13 This practice in grasping promotes the opposition of the thumb,
which first appears toward the end of the first quarter, and from that time
the refinement of the sense of contact progresses rapidly. At eight months
Strümpell’s little daughter took great pleasure in picking up very small
objects, like bread crumbs or pearls.14 This illustrates the familiar fact that
play leads up from what is easy to more difficult tasks, since only deliberate
conquest can produce the feeling of pleasure in success. At about this time,
too, the child’s explorations of its own body are extended, and their
conclusions confirmed by the recognition of constant local signs. “As soon
as she discovered her ear,” says Strümpell of his now ten-months-old
daughter, “she seized upon it as if she wished to tear it off.” In her third
year Marie G—— found on the back of her ear two little projections of
cartilage, which she examined with the greatest interest, calling them balls,
and wanting everybody to feel them. The nose, too, is repeatedly
investigated. Although it is seldom large enough to be grasped, still, as
Stanley Hall says, it is handled with unmistakable signs of curiosity, and
often pulled or rubbed “in an investigating way.”15
The value of the sense of touch for the earliest mental development is
testified to by the fact that the child, like doubting Thomas, trusts more to it
than to his sight. Sikorski says: “At tea I turn to my eleven-months baby,
point to the cracker jar, which she knows, and ask her to give me one. I
open the empty jar and the child looks in, but, not satisfied with that, sticks
her hand in and explores. The evidence of her eyes does not convince her of
the absence of what she wants.”16
In Wolfdietrich one verse runs:
“Die Augen in ihren (der Wölfe) Häuptern, die brannten wie ein Licht,
Der Knabe war noch thöricht und zagt vor Feinden nicht.
Es ging zu einem jeden und griff ihm mit der Hand,
Wo er die lichten Augen in ihren Köpfen fand.”17

Older children lose the habit of playful investigation quite as little as any of
the other manifestations of experimentation, even when the sensations
encountered are not particularly agreeable. Richard Wagner liked to handle
satin, and Sacher Masoch delighted in soft fur. In later life as well, Perez
continues, all the senses strive for satisfaction; when the adult is not forced
by necessity to put all his faculties at the service of “attention utile” he
becomes a child again. He easily falls back into the habit of gazing instead
of looking, of listening instead of hearing, of handling instead of touching,
of moving about merely for the sake of sensations agreeable or even
indifferent which are produced by these automatic acts.18 We all know how
hard it is for school children to keep their hands still during recitation. “I
knew a little girl,” says Compayré, “who would undertake to recite only on
condition that she be allowed to use her fingers at the same time, and she
would sew and thread her needle while she was spelling.”19 The knitting of
women while they listen is perhaps of the same nature. Wölfflin remarks:
“We all know that many people, especially students, in order to think
clearly need a sharp-pointed pencil, which they pass back and forth through
the fingers, sharpening their wits by the sensation of contact.”20 Then, too,
there are the innumerable toying movements of adults, such as rolling bread
crumbs and the like, all of which serves to introduce a short ethnological
digression. “In the year 1881,” relates the brilliant W. Joest, “when I was
travelling through Siberia, ... I noticed that many of the men, requiring
some occupation for their nervous hands during leisure hours, played
absently with walnuts, which had become highly polished from constant
use.” He saw stones, brass and iron balls, and the Turkish tespi, whose
original use is devotional, employed for the same purpose; indeed,
Levantines, who are not Mohammedans, often regard these latter as special
instruments of gaming and vice.21
Carrying a walking-stick is another playful satisfaction in which the hand’s
sensation of contact has a part, while the lead pencil, small as it is, will
sometimes satisfy the demand for “something in the hand.” This is a
genuine craving, which betrays itself in all sorts of awkward movements if
we try to deny its indulgence. Carrying a cane is a remarkably widespread
custom, and some think that the very small stone hatchets so common in
ethnological museums as relics of a prehistoric time were used as cane
handles in the stone age. Joest says, in the article cited above, that walking-

sticks are used in millions of forms, on every continent and island of our
earth. The naked Kaffir uses a slender, fragile cane of unusual length, and,
according to P. Reichard,22 his ideal of peace and prosperity is embodied in
“going to walk with a cane,” since this implies freedom from the necessity
of bearing arms. I close this digression with an instance which borders on
the pathological. Sheridan was waiting for the celebrated Samuel Johnson,
well known to be eccentric, to dine with him, and saw the doctor
approaching from a distance, “walking along with a peculiar solemnity of
deportment and an awkward sort of measured step. At that time the broad
flagging at each side of the streets was not universally adopted, and stone
posts were in use to prevent the annoying of carriages. Upon every post, as
he passed along, I could observe he deliberately laid his hand, but, missing
one of them, when he had got at some distance he seemed suddenly to
recollect himself, and, immediately returning back, carefully performed the
accustomed ceremony and resumed his former course, not omitting one till
he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd it
might appear, was his constant practice.”23
b. The mouth of an infant is, of course, very sensitive to touch stimuli, and
the lips and tongue are especially so. When Preyer put the end of an ivory
pencil into the mouth of a child whose head only was born as yet, it began
to suck, opened its eyes and seemed, to judge from its countenance, “to be
very agreeably affected.”24 It happens very soon that automatic arm
movements accidentally bring the fingers near the mouth, and such
automatic sucking results. From it the familiar habit of thumb sucking is
formed, as well as the practice of carrying every possible object to the
mouth. “Your finger, a scrap of cloth, a bottle, fruit, flowers, insects, vases,
objects large and small, attractive or repulsive, all seek the same goal.”25 I
think Compayré is right when he says that it is not merely a case of duped
appetite which Preyer points out. “The child enjoys the mere contact; it
gives him pleasure to test with his lips everything that offers an occasion for
the use of his nerves and muscles.”26 We find that in later life many persons
like to play about the lips with fingers, penholder, etc. Many, too, who have
outgrown the fascinations of thumb sucking, still lay a finger lightly on the
lips when going to sleep or when half awake.27 The pleasure derived from
smoking is due perhaps more than we realize to this instinct, and the
common habit of holding in the mouth a broken twig, a leaf, a stalk of grass

or hay, so far as it is not practice in chewing, belongs here. In K. E. Edler’s
romance, Die neue Herrin (Berlin, 1897, p. 137), portraits of the extinct
species of young lady are described. “In this one the lips pressed a cigarette,
while in other pictures a rose stalk, the head of a riding crop, or some other
object, not excluding her own dainty finger, was held against them, showing
that in those days the mouth must have something to do as well as the
hands, feet, eyes, and all the rest of the body.”
Finally, it must be remembered that much of the enjoyment of delicate food
is due to the sense of contact. When certain viands are consumed without
hunger, because “they slip down so easily,” we have play with touch
sensations. This has something to do with the popularity of oysters and of
effervescing drinks. “It tastes like your foot’s asleep,” said a small maiden
on being allowed to taste something of the kind—a proof of the close
connection with touch stimuli.
A few words may suffice in regard to playful use of touch sensations in
other parts of the body. We have seen that an infant enjoys being softly
stroked, and we may assume that a soft bed is appreciated early in life. The
question is, whether the child or the adult voluntarily produces such
sensations for the sake of the pleasure they afford. Perhaps this is why we
like to roll about on a soft bed, and more unmistakably playful is the
fondness of children for throwing themselves repeatedly into a well-filled
feather bed or on piles of hay, to feel themselves sink into the elastic mass.
Violent contact is indulged in in many dances. In the Siederstanz, which I
myself learned in the Gymnasium, the thighs were beaten with the hands.
Somewhat similar, but decidedly more violent, is the Haxenschlagen of the
Bavarian dances, and the ancients practised the ῥαθαπυγίζειν, an alternate
striking of the foot soles on the back. A verse is preserved, written in praise
of a Spartan maiden who succeeded in keeping this up longer than any one
else—one thousand times.28
Water affords delightful sensations of touch; in the bath, of course,
enjoyment of the movements and temperature is more conspicuous, but the
soothing gentleness of the moist element is not to be despised. For
confirmation I will cite Mörike’s beautiful verses:

“O Fluss, mein Fluss im Morgenstrahl!
Empfange nun, empfange
Den sehnsuchtvollen Leib einmal
Und küsse Brust und Wange!
Er fühlt mir schon her auf die Brust,
Er kühlt mit Liebesschauerlust
Und jaucbzendem Gesange.

“Es schlüpft der goldne Sonnenschein
In Tropfen an mir wider.
Die Woge wieget aus und ein
Die hingegebnen Glieder;
Die Arme hab’ ich ausgespannt,
Sie kommt auf mich herzugerannt,
Sie fasst und lässt mich wieder.”

“O stream, my stream in the
morning beam!
Receive me now, receive
Me thrilling, longing as I am,
And kiss my breast and cheek;
I feel already in my breast
The cooling, soothing influence
Of fresh, delicious showers
And joyous, rippling song.

“The golden sunshine rains on me
In glittering drops. Soft waves
Caress my yielding limbs,
My outstretched arms receive them
As they hasten up to clasp
And then release me.”

Here, as in all specialized pleasures, intensive emotion betrays itself. In sea
bathing the principal stimulus is found in the sharp blow from the waves as
they break repeatedly over one. Last of all, we notice the sensation of
movement in the air. We take off our hats to let the wind play with our hair,
and fanning is not always indulged in merely for the sake of cooling off, but
also for the sake of the touch stimuli excited by the soft contact with waves
of air.

2. Sensations of Temperature
There is a scarcity of material under this head, since the occasions to
produce such sensations, except for the serious purposes of cooling or

warming ourselves, are comparatively rare. Among the few that may safely
be called playful, the most prominent is the seeking for strong stimuli for
their very intensities’ sake, and because like all powerful excitation, they
give us the feeling of “heightened reality” (Lessing). When we court the
stinging cold of a winter day, or sit in spring sunshine to get “baked through
for once,”29 we are as much playing, I think, as when watching rippling
water, or gazing at heaven’s blue dome.30 Cool air has the same refreshing
effect as a cold bath, while even in a warm bath the pleasantness of the
temperature sensation is a satisfaction quite apart from its cleansing and
sanitary effects, and most bathers will stretch themselves out to enjoy it for
a little while after soap and sponge have done their duty. Among the
refinements of the sense of taste, too, the stimulus of heat and cold is
conspicuous, as ices and peppermint, hot grog, spices, and spirits witness.

3. Sensations of Taste
Brevity of treatment is accorded to this class of sensations as well, though
in this case from no lack of data.
Kussmaul’s investigations31 show that, as a rule, the child prefers sweets
from its birth, and will reject anything bitter, sour, or salt, although, until the
later developed sense of smell is perfected, it is incapable of more delicate
taste distinctions.32 On the whole, we find that with children such
distinctions are less varied than among adults, the sweet of candy and the
acid of fruits furnishing the staple material for their playful use of the sense.
It is true that the pleasure which they derive from these is extreme. I well
remember what unheard-of quantities of these viands were consumed at our
birthday fêtes at school in Heidelberg, by children from six to nine years of
age, not at all because they were hungry, but from mere pleasure in the
taste. For we find even in children that enjoyment of eating is no more
confined to the satisfaction of hunger than is æsthetic pleasure limited to the
contemplation of the beautiful. When Marie G—— was barely three years
old she displayed an unmistakable preference for piquant flavours; even
those which were evidently disagreeable in themselves she enjoyed, trying
them again and again for the sake of the stimulus they afforded—a taste
which is much more common among adults than with children.

A review of the pleasures and practices of the table at various periods and
among various peoples is an alluring but here impracticable undertaking.
Let it suffice to cite one example from the ancients, that most celebrated of
all descriptions of revelry at the board, the cœna Trimalchionis of Petronius,
which W. A. Becker has made use of in his Gallus. The following will serve
as a characteristic ethnological instance of the enjoyment of flavours, which
are, to put it mildly, decidedly equivocal. In Java the durian tree bears green
prickly fruit, about the size of cocoanuts and with a flavour which,
according to Wallace, furnishes a new sensation well worth journeying to
the Orient for. The smell of it is something frightful—a cross between musk
and garlic, with suggestions of carrion and “overripe” cheese. The taste is
aromatic, satisfying, and nutty, like a combination of cream cheese, onion
sauce, and burnt sherry. This fruit is rigidly excluded from the hotels, as its
odour would instantaneously pervade every room, but it is sought elsewhere
by the guests and eaten with avidity. Semon says of it: “This fruit, like our
strong, rich cheeses, is detested by those who are not fond of it.”33 What
various associations are connected with the pleasures of the palate is shown
by the epitheta ornantia of a wine list, such as strong, fiery, soft, fresh,
lovely, sharp, elegant, hard, spicy, fruity, and smooth. Huysmans, in his
novel A Rebours, gives a pathological example of amusement derived from
taste association in the following passage. After describing the life of the
nervously diseased Des Esseintes, he goes on: “In his dining room was a
closet containing miniature casks on dainty sandalwood stands, each one
fitted with a silver cock. Des Esseintes called this collection his mouth
organ. A rod connected all the cocks, and they could be turned with a single
movement answering to the pressure of a knob concealed in the woodwork,
filling all the little glasses at once. The organ was standing open, the
register with the inscriptions of flûte, cor, voix céleste, etc., displayed, and
all was ready for use. Des Esseintes sipped here and there a few drops,
playing an inner symphony and deriving from the sensations of his palate
pleasure like that produced on the ear by music.”

4. Sensations of Smell
The ability to distinguish the character of odours seems to be a later
development than taste differentiation. At least this is the case with regard
to the enjoyment of agreeable smells. Among children of various ages

experimented on by Perez, one of ten months showed some appreciation of
the perfume of a rose,34 but most children are probably first rendered
susceptible to pleasure from scents by their association with flavours. Girls,
however, seem to enjoy sweet smells as such more than boys do, though M.
Guyan relates that he recalls vividly the émotion penetrante which he
experienced on inhaling for the first time the perfume of a lily.35
With reference to adults, the same writer may be cited: “In spite of its
relative incompleteness, the sense of smell has much to do with our
enjoyment of landscape, whether actually viewed or vividly portrayed. No
portrayal of Italy is complete without the softened atmosphere which recalls
the perfume of its oranges, nor of Brittany or Gascony without the crisp sea
air which Victor Hugo has so justly celebrated, nor of pine forests without
suggestions of its aroma.” “The passion for smoking,” says Pilo (I give this
to show how complicated our apparently simple enjoyments may be), “is so
general because almost all the senses are flattered impartially by it; visceral,
muscular, and taste sensations are involved in the use of the lungs which it
calls for, the lips, tongue, teeth, and salivary glands through feelings of
temperature; the senses of taste and smell through the piquant, aromatic
flavour; hearing, in a very direct and intimate way, through the crackling of
the leaves and the rhythmic inhaling and exhaling of the breath; and, finally,
the sense of sight in gazing at the glowing cigar and soft, gray ashes and
curling smoke which winds and glides upward in a fantastic spiral; while
the brain, under the soothing influence of the narcotic, enjoys a repose
enlivened by dreams and visions.”36 Complete as this description appears, it
yet misses one point—namely, the sucking movements which, from the
recollections of the earliest months of life, we associate with pleasurable
feeling. We may find the Des Esseintes of Huysmans’s romance useful once
more. “Wishing now to enjoy a beautiful and varied landscape, he began to
play full, sonorous chords, which at once called up before the vision a
perspective of boundless prairie lands. By means of his vaporizer, the room
was filled with an essence skilfully compounded by an artist hand and well
deserving of its name—Extract of the Flowery Plain.... Having completed
his background, which now stretched itself before his closed eyes in bold
lines, he breathed over it all a light spray of essences, ... such as powdered
and painted ladies use—stephanotis, ayapapa, opoponax, chypre,
champaka, sarkanthus—and added a suspicion of lilac, to lend to this

artificial life a touch of natural bloom and warmth of genuine sunshine.
Soon, however, he threw open a ventilator, and allowed these waves of
heavy odour to pass out, retaining only the fragrance of the fields, whose
accent and rhythmical recurrence emphasized the harmony like a ritornelle
in poetry. The ladies vanished instantly, the landscape alone remained; after
an interval, low roofs appeared along the horizon with tall chimneys
silhouetted against the sky, an odour of chemicals and of factory smoke was
borne on the breeze his fans now produced, yet Nature’s sweet perfumes
penetrated even this heavily weighted atmosphere.”

5. Sensations of Hearing37
In the consideration of this important sphere of play activity we encounter
one of the special problems of our subject. Since Darwin’s time it has been
customary to explain the art of tone and the musical element in poetry as an
effect of sexual selection. But while I am convinced that these arts do on
one side bear the very closest relation to sexual life, yet I believe that
Spencer is right in warning us that the exclusive reference of such
phenomena to sexual selection is hardly warranted. The courtship arts of
birds, it is true, are sufficiently striking, yet we must remember, aside from
the fact that prominent investigators have raised serious objections to the
application of the theory even to them, that birds have but a distant kinship
to man. As regards our closer relatives in the animal world, Darwin himself
says, “With mammals the male appears to win the female much more
through the law of battle than through the display of his charms.”38 And
among mammals, again, monkeys are not distinguished by any special arts
of courtship. The acoustic phenomena cited by Darwin are summed up in
the cry of the howling ape and the musical notes of the species of Gibbon
from Borneo and the Sumatran ape described by Selenka.39 Of other such
arts, only one is noteworthy in monkeys as being also practised by man, and
even that not directly in connection with love-making—namely, the
disposition to display the back. It has not yet been proved that the monkey’s
wonderful dexterity serves him especially in courtship. The supposition has
much in its favour, it is true, but finds little support from what we know of
his sexual life. Brehm covers the ground pretty well when he says,
“Knightly courtesy serves him little with the weaker sex; he must take by
force the rewards of love.” Ethnology shows us, too, that an exclusive or

even a preferential reference of music and poetry to sexuality can not be
assumed among primitive races. Having thus stated the doubts in advance,
it may be interesting to glance once more over the psychology of play, with
a view to discovering which arts and æsthetic pleasures may have arisen
independently of sex. In such a review of hearing plays we are likely to find
much which tends to expand and also to limit the Darwinian theory—
nothing which will refute it.
Hearing plays may serve merely as a means for the satisfaction of acoustic
impulses, or to give necessary exercise to motor apparatus, and, while this
whole inquiry can not be said to penetrate further than to the antechamber
of æsthetic perception and artistic production, an obvious distinction at once
becomes apparent—namely, that between the receptive or hearing function
and the production of sounds and tones. From the suckling’s delight in his
own guttural gurglings to the most refined enjoyment of a concert-goer,
from the uncouth efforts of the small child to produce all sorts of sounds, to
the creative impulse which controls the musical genius, there is, in the light
of history, a progressive and consistent development.

(a) Receptive Sound-Play
Pleasure in listening to tones and noises shows itself remarkably early,
although, as is well known, the child is born deaf. Infants but two or three
days old will stop crying in response to a loud whistle, and Perez has noted
signs of enjoyment of vocal and instrumental music during the first month.
Preyer reports of the seventh and eighth weeks: “There seems to be a
marked sensitiveness to tone, and perhaps to melody as well, for an
expression of the most lively satisfaction is discernible on the child’s face
when its mother soothes it with lullabys softly sung. Even when it is crying
from hunger a gentle sing-song will cause a cessation such as spoken words
can not effect. In the eighth week the baby heard music for the first time—
that is, piano playing. Unusual intentness of expression appeared in his
eyes, while vigorous movements of his arms and legs and laughter at every
loud note testified to his satisfaction in this new sensation. The higher and
softer notes, however, made no such impression.”40 The little boy in Sully’s
Extracts from a Father’s Diary manifested displeasure at first on hearing
piano playing, but soon became reconciled to it, and his mother noticed that
while his father was playing the child became heavier in her lap, “as if all

his muscles were relaxed in a delicious self-abandonment.”41 Perez relates
of a child six months old, on a visit to two aunts: “As the first of the young
women began to sing he listened with evident delight, and when the other
one joined in with a rich and melodious voice the child turned toward her,
his face expressing the utmost pleasure, mingled with wonder and
astonishment.”42 This seems to indicate that agreeable tones and variety of
movement are at first more appreciated than is the actual beauty of the
melody. According to Gurney, appreciation of melody as such first appears
in the fourth or fifth year.43 It is otherwise with rhythm. Just as ethnology
shows us that from the first inception of music rhythm was more prominent
than melody, so it seems that the child too, as a rule, is sensitive to
rhythmical cadence even when the beauty of melody is lost upon him. The
regular ticking of a watch excites lively interest in the merest infant.
Sigismund says: “I have often seen three- and four-year-old children skip
about when they heard enlivening band music, as if they wished to catch the
time of the rhythmic movement, an impulse which indeed affects adults as
well,44 as all well know.” Here we have inner imitation, the central fact of
æsthetic enjoyment, displayed by the veriest babes. Children show their
enjoyment of rhythm, too, in their preference for strongly accented poetry.45
Even half-grown boys and girls take but little note of sense, compared with
the interest which they bestow on rhythm and rhyme. That a normally
endowed girl could interpret the words of a poem, Singing on its Way to the
Sea, as Singing on its Waiter, etc., without having her curiosity aroused, can
only be explained by this fact.46 Is it not a frequent experience of full-
grown men to be suddenly struck with the profound truth hidden in some
epigrammatic form of expression whose euphony has a hundred times
delighted them? They have actually failed up to that time to grasp the clear,
logical meaning of the verse or passage. Indifference to the words of their
songs is most marked among primitive peoples, while with children an
instinctive demand for some employment of their organs of hearing has
much to do with their pleasure in harmony and rhythm. The following facts
justify this statement: The disposition toward acoustic expression is
particularly susceptible to satisfaction from sensuously agreeable stimuli,
such as are responsive to harmony, melody and rhythm, partly on known
and partly on unknown grounds. Here Fechner’s principle of co-operation is
applicable—namely, that two pleasure-exciting causes working together

produce a result which is greater than their sum—and is so strong, in fact,
as to extend the sphere of sound-play far beyond that of the sensuously
agreeable. Absolute silence makes us uncomfortable, and, when it is lasting,
conveys to the mind a special quality of emotion, as in optics there is a
positive feeling of blackness. So it happens that we take pleasure in noise as
such even when it is not agreeable. This applies especially to children. “Les
bruits choquants, aigus, glappissants, grondant,” says Perez, “ne leur sont
pas désagréable de la même manière qu-aux grandes personnes.” Marie G
—— manifested in her third year the liveliest joy in the grinding and
squeaking of an iron ring in her swing. To small boys it is a treat to hear a
teamster crack his whip. My brother-in-law when a boy cherished for years
the ambition to make all the electric clocks in our house chime in concert
with a great musical clock. A sense of discomfort is produced sooner,
however, by a variety of discordant sounds to which we are passively
listening, than when the din is self-produced—a distinction which extends
into the domain of art, as testifies many a piano virtuoso.
Among adults it is probably true that sound-play is either entirely or in part
connected with the pleasure we derive from ringing and resonance, subject
to much the same limitations as we have applied to children. Underlying it
all we find, though it is not always easily recognisable, enjoyment of the
stimulus as such. I would instance the cheery crackling of flames in a
fireplace, the frou-frou of silken garments, the singing of caged birds, the
sound of wind, howling of storms, rolling of thunder, rustling of leaves,
splashing of brooks, seething of waves, etc. Most of these, it is true, contain
elements of intellectual pleasure as well, and so through association link
themselves to genuine æsthetic enjoyments. Yet the satisfaction in mere
sound as such is also unmistakably present, being most evident perhaps
where strong stimuli are involved, since these have a directly exciting
effect, while weaker ones, on the contrary, are soothing. Edler’s romance,
Die neue Herrin, gives a good instance of this emotional sensibility
abnormally exaggerated. “Thomasine was exactly like a child in her dread
of silence, and spared no effort to enjoy pleasant sounds, whether produced
by herself or from other sources.... When her birds were silent she resorted
to the music room, with its musical box and two grand pianos.” This seems
to confirm the idea that mere desire for sound as such is an important
element in the attention given to music. The art of primitive races illustrates
this as well as our own marches, dances, etc. Gurney distinguishes two

methods of listening to music: the one accompanied by intelligent
appreciation, the other “the indefinite way of hearing music,” which is only
cognizant of the agreeable jingle or harmony. I think there is a form of the
satisfaction still more crude; when we note the indifference of many
habitual concert-goers to fine chamber music we must infer that the power
of stimulus is the principal source of their apparently absorbed enjoyment.
Gurney, too, seems to recognise this elementary factor when he says:
“While it is natural to consider as unmusical those persons in whom a
musical ear is lacking or is only imperfectly developed, and who therefore
can not at all reproduce or perhaps recognise melodies, such persons often
derive extreme pleasure of a vague kind from fine sound, more especially
when it rushes through the ear in large masses.”47
Not to penetrate too far into the realm of æsthetics, we will attempt to
answer but two of its more obvious questions, which, however, are by no
means simple ones. Whence is derived the strong emotional effect (1) of
rhythm and (2) of melody? (Some thoughts on the acoustic effects of poetry
will be presented in the next section.) Rhythm may be regarded as the most
salient quality of music, and seems to have antedated melody considerably
among primitive peoples. While nothing is easier than to recognise the
pleasure it affords, the derivation of its exciting effect on the emotions is
most difficult to trace. Widely diverse theories have been advanced in the
various attempts to solve this riddle. Rhythm is a conspicuous instance of
the unity in variety which characterizes beauty. It satisfies this intellect, and
is calculated to rivet the attention by exciting expectation. It answers to our
own organization; the step, the heart-beat, breathing, the natural physical
processes, are all rhythmic, as well as the alternation of waste and repair in
the nervous system. But while these facts undoubtedly contribute to our
enjoyment of rhythm, they can hardly account adequately for its intense
emotional effects.
At this point the Darwinist comes to the rescue, and says that its
employment in courtship sufficiently explains these effects, taking into
account their hereditary association. He dwells on the sexual excitation
which quivers in the purest enjoyment of music, and is “likely to excite in
us in a vague and indefinite manner the strong emotions of a long-past
age.”48 Far be it from me to discard this hypothesis hastily, particularly as I
have no better one to offer, but since it appears to afford but a meagre

chance of solving the problem, we may venture to seek enlightenment in
another supposition. It is to be found in Souriau’s system of æsthetics,
which in my opinion is not yet fully appreciated. As Nietzsche has said, “As
in art, so with any æsthetic fact or appearance, a physiological condition of
transport is essential,”49 so, too, Souriau insists that art employs every
possible means to induce in us a semi-trance or hypnotic state, and through
it renders us approachable to a degree which would be impossible when we
are normally alert.50
Now, rhythm is to the last degree such a transporting agency, owing to its
strong hold on the attention. Weinhold and Heidenhain have induced
hypnosis by means of the ticking of a watch, and in so doing have only
employed an agency which has similar uses the world over. Just as most of
the inhabitants of the earth have learned the use of narcotics, so too are they
eager to adapt such an intoxicant as rhythm proves to be.51
We may read numberless statements of hypnotic conditions being turned to
account for religious and magical ends. Next to measured movements of
one’s own body, we find that listening to rhythmic sounds and the
monotonous repetition of incantations is the surest key to this state of
dreamy consciousness.52 In Salvation Army methods the catchy, swinging
songs are an indispensable means of eliciting the ecstatic condition, though,
through the power of auto-suggestion, the expectation of the state is also
strongly influential. It is the singing, however, as Souriau says, which
throws the hearer into a state of mild hypnosis and renders him accessible to
any suggestion.53 When the end in view is a religious one, the ecstatic
subject sees all sorts of visions, and can swear to the appearance of saints or
gods. When the measure is martial in its suggestions, the subject becomes
belligerent; when it excites sexual feeling, he responds in that direction; in
short, his soul, being entirely under the influence of the hypnotist, will
reflect, and involuntarily respond to, every suggestion. We see, then, that
these intense emotional effects are only in part attributable to sound as such;
rhythm is not entirely responsible for them, but figures rather as a
contingent cause through which suitable suggestions act as the immediate
cause of emotional disturbances. “Hypnotism,” says Souriau, “is but a
means, never an end. Art employs this means the better to control our minds

and keep our imagination in the limits prescribed by her suggestions. What
we owe to her is not sleep, but the dream.”54
This view seems to correspond with the facts. When we drum a familiar air
with the fingers the regular time-beat is not at all stirring, indeed it is
sometimes quite the contrary. When, however, agreeable or interesting
associations are connected with it the rhythm at once induces in us a
condition of the utmost susceptibility to suggestion. Any change in intensity
or time then calls forth our capacity for “embodiment” (Einfühlung) or
inner imitation in such force and completeness as would be altogether
unattainable without this deep-seated propensity of ours for measured
rhythm. In many cities it is customary, when fire breaks out, to ring a
church bell in quicker time than its usual stroke, and by reason of the
indirect factor—namely, their significance as a warning—the uniform
sounds produce the most profound effect on æsthetically sensitive persons.
Even those who would be unaffected by the announcement that another part
of the city was in flames are deeply moved on hearing the tolling bell. The
harmless tones become appalling. They seem to proclaim the destruction of
the world, and the imagination dwells on the idea that nothing will be left in
existence but these terrific, all-pervading waves of sound. The intense
feeling aroused by drum-beats is similar to this. Since every loud sound is
calculated to arouse our involuntary attention, a rhythmical succession of
loud sounds irresistibly holds our consciousness, and, in the case of martial
or festive music, association aids in casting the spell and, with the acoustic
pulsations, forms a strong combination to which for the moment our whole
being is subjected.
It is, however, when rhythm develops into melody that we experience the
utmost force of its suggestive power.55 It is interesting to see how well
Hanslick describes this preliminary condition of musical enjoyment—this
trance-like state—only to censure it. “The elements of music, sound, and
movement hold many emotional music lovers willing captives. It is
surprising how large the number is of those who hear, or rather feel, music
in this way. Since they are susceptible only to what is elementary, they
attain but a vague supersensuous and yet sensuous excitement, answering to
the commonplace character of the music which appeals to them. Lounging
half asleep in the boxes, they yield themselves to the swing of the melody
without taking note of the exalted passages which may swell, yearn,

jubilate, and throb with increasing appeal. These people, sitting in a state of
undefined ecstasy, form the body of ‘the appreciative public,’ and do more
than any other class to discredit what is best in music. Science can now
supply these hearers who are void of spirituality and seek only the effects of
rhythm in music with what they need, by means of an agency which far
surpasses art in this effect—namely, chloroform. It will plunge the whole
organism into a lethargy pervaded by lovely dreams, and, without the
vulgarity of drinking, will produce an intoxication which is not unlike its
effect.”56 Hanslick is quite right in one respect: the trance condition as such
is not confined to musical enjoyment; but he overlooks what Nietzsche
makes so clear, that it is an indispensable physiological condition of the
most intense form of æsthetic pleasure. His position is more that of the
critic than that of the pleasure seeker. His saying that “the laity ‘feel’ music
most and the cultivated artist least” shows this. First and foremost to him is
his “intellectual satisfaction in following and anticipating the motive of the
composition, in being confirmed in his judgment here or agreeably
disappointed there.”57 The element of æsthetic enjoyment in this I have
characterized, in my Einleitung in die Aesthetik (p. 187), as internal
imitative creation. But the purest, highest, and most spontaneous pleasure is
that in which we have no thought for the artist, but yield ourselves whole-
heartedly to the beautiful object. Here is the essence of the problem, and
here the condition of transport becomes most prominent, though it is never
entirely wanting, even in the outer circles of æsthetics, where it becomes
comparatively unimportant, as, for instance, in the satisfaction afforded us
by the happy arrangement of the heads of a discourse.
In trying to find out just what it is that rhythm suggests to us in simple tones
that succeed one another at agreeable intervals we may advance the
hypothesis—to use a somewhat strained expression—namely, that it makes
the impression of a dancing voice. By this I mean that in the enjoyment of
melody there is a mental fusion of two kinds of association, one the
analogue of pleasing movement in space, and the other the analogue of
vocal expression of mental and emotional processes. The two are so
incorporated as to produce a new entity which, as a whole, is unlike any
other. The fact that we represent tone-beats by up-and-down motion in
space has never been satisfactorily explained, although the greatest variety
of reasons has been advanced.58 Yet it is unquestionable that we do, and that

the act is one of our most cherished mental recreations; to use
Schopenhauer’s expression, nothing else produces the “idea of movement”
in such purity and freedom as do tone-beats. A series of tones more or less
rapid, says Siebeck, can adequately reproduce the rhythm of movement
“without a visible physical basis, which, by reason of its relation to other
associated images, would tend to destroy the impression of movement
considered purely as such.”59 On this, too, depends the extraordinary
facility of tone movement, of which Köstlin says that it “glides, turns,
twists, hops, leaps, jumps up and down, dances, bows, sways, climbs,
quivers, blusters, and storms, all with equal ease, while in order to
reproduce it in the physical world a man would have to dash himself to
pieces or in some way become imponderable.”60 All this goes to prove that
our pleasure in the realization of movement is never more perfectly
ministered to than in music. Spellbound by the magic of rhythm, our
consciousness repeats, voluntarily and persistently, the varying dance of
tones, and, freed from all incumbrances, floats blissfully in boundless
space, like Musa in Keller’s dance legend.
But melody is more than a mere alternation of tone. It is also a kind of
language, by means of which the soul’s deepest emotions seek expression.
While it does suggest up-and-down motion in space, at the same time it
stands for the audible expression of our mental life. It would be misleading
to attempt to explain this illusion from simple analogies between speech
and music, since it is itself primarily a mode of expression, and we
involuntarily make known our feelings and desires by means of it; by such
association of tone with voice the former comes to point for us to life and
its manifestations. There are, however, many points of resemblance
between melody and the verbal expression of feeling. Dubos has devoted
some attention to this relation, and, among contemporary writers, Spencer
has most clearly set forth the analogy. But he makes the mistake of applying
it to the origin of music, rather than as an explanation of our enjoyment of
it, and is decidedly at fault in the statement that music originated in
passionate and excited speech.61 It can attain reflection only by means of
the changing time and stress of melodic and rhythmic movement, as well as
the appropriation of the numerous sounds and intervals which are hidden in
feeling speech, and which take effect on the listener. Yet even this statement
must not be interpreted too literally. Just as scenery often owes its

impressiveness to vague suggestions of human interest, just as thunder
sounds like an angry voice without being an exact copy of it, so the analogy
between music and speech may be very real without their becoming
identical at any point. The song of birds will perhaps best illustrate my
meaning. Why does the nightingale’s note seem plaintive and that of other
birds cheerful or bold? Certainly not because we know the bird’s feelings,
but because there is an indefinable likeness between our own vocal
expression of emotion and the bird’s song, which, in spite of its vagueness,
calls forth in us the most direct response. And it is exactly so in the other
case. We can not expect to change an emotional declamation into the same
kind of melody simply by fixing the pitch and regulating the intervals, for
melody has its own laws, to which speech is not amenable. We see, then,
that though the analogy is a real one and a constant, it must not be carried
too far. How far variation of stress is concerned with emotional expression
is interestingly shown in Wundt’s attempt to classify temperament on this
basis:

Strong. Weak.
Fast Choleric. Sanguine.
Slow Melancholic. Phlegmatic.

With regard to intervals, let any one attempt a mournful “O dear!” and a
jubilant “All right!” in the major and minor thirds, and he will not remain in
doubt for a moment as to which is the suitable one for each occasion.
Gurney’s experiments with children resulted in the same emotional effects
when the piano was very much out of tune as when it was correct,62 and the
attempt of Helmholtz to find a physical explanation signally failed. All
these facts point to the independence of the musical interval.
In concluding, I repeat that these two analogies are capable of fusion, as my
figure of “dancing voice” implies.63 If we try, for instance, to determine
what constitutes the masculine, almost harsh, quality of Bach’s melodies,
we will find on inspection that his best arias have a variety of formal
qualities of which it is difficult to say whether they pertain more to
movement in space or to voice expression. There is pre-eminently a fulness
of accent which imparts even to the weaker notes a certain impetus (Béreíté

dích Zîón). Moreover, his propensity to begin with two strong accents
directly contiguous (Méin gläúbiges Heize, In Déine Hände), which impart
to the whole a massive character from the very first, as well as the many
repetitions abruptly introduced in a different pitch, and the strongly
accented final syllables where again two frequently come together; all these
are characteristics which tell in two directions. Here is melody governed by
the laws of harmony in its forceful, clear, and irresistibly progressive
movement, as well as in the expression which it gives to a purely masculine
personality, full of earnest purpose and sure of himself and his aims. Only
by the fusion of these two lines of association do we get at the full
significance of the piece.

(b) Productive Sound-Play
An embarrassing copiousness of material greets us when we turn to the
subject of sounds and tones spontaneously produced. In them too we
recognise the beginnings of, or rather the introduction to, art. Adherence to
facts requires our classification to distinguish between vocal and
instrumental music, and we will first consider voice practice and afterward
the production of acoustic effects by means of other agencies, both in their
playful aspects.
The child’s first voice practice consists in screaming. So far as it is a merely
reflex expression of discomfort it does not concern us, but it is probable that
the crying of children becomes practice for the organs of speech.
Discomfort may still be its first occasion, but the continuation of the cry is
playful. “L’enfant qui crie,” says Compayré, “a souvent plaiser à crier.”64
Children of two and three years show this very plainly; the howl begun in
earnest is often prolonged from playful experimentation.65 And the same is
probably true of the customary moaning wail of women over their dead. O.
Ludwig says somewhere that a woman subdues pain when she can not
escape it by means of the sensuous relief which she finds in noisy moaning.
More important than crying are the babbling, chattering, and gurgling of
infants, which begin about the middle of the first three months. This
instinctive tendency to motor discharge produces movements of the larynx,
mouth, and tongue muscles, and the child that attains now to the voluntary
production of tone is fairly launched in experimentation. Without this
playful practice he could not become master of his voice, and the

imperative impulse to imitation which is developed later would lack its
most essential foundation. From among the numerous reports of the first
efforts of infants in the direction of speech we will select Preyer’s very
satisfactory observations: “At first, when the lall-monologue begins the
mouth assumes an almost infinite variety of forms. The lips, the tongue,
lower jaw, and larynx are all active, and more variously so than in later life;
at the same time the breath is expelled loudly, so that now one, now another
sound is accidentally produced. The child hears these new sounds, hears his
own voice, and delights in making a noise as he enjoys moving his limbs in
the bath.66... On the forty-third day I heard the first consonants. The child,
being comfortably seated, gave utterance to numerous incoherent sounds,
but at last said clearly am-ma. Of the vowels, only a and o could be
distinguished then, but on the following day the baby astonished us by
pronouncing the syllables ta-hu with perfect clearness. On the forty-sixth
day I heard gö, örö, and five days later ara. On the sixty-fifth day a-omb
sounded in his babbling, and on the seventy-first, at a time when he was
most contented, the combination ra-a-ao. On the seventy-eighth day, with
unmistakable signs of satisfaction, habu was pronounced. At five months he
said ögö, ma-ö-ĕ, hӑ, ŏ, ho, ich. The rare i (English e) was clearer here than
in the third month, and at about this time began the loud crowing as an
expression of delight. The unusually loud breathing and the clearly voiced h
in connection with the labial r in brrr-hà, are specially indicative of
pleasure, as are also the aja, örrgö ā-ā-i ŏā sounds which, toward the end of
the first half year, a child lying comfortably, indulges in. To this list, too,
should be added the constantly repeated eu and oeu of the French heure and
cœur, and the German modified vowels ä and ö. It often happens that the
mouth is partly or entirely closed by the various movements of the tongue,
causing the imprisoned breath to seek any possible outlet and giving rise to
many sounds that are not employed in our speech, such as a clearly sounded
consonant between b and p or b and d, and also the labial brr and m, all of
which evidently please the child. It is noteworthy that without exception
these sounds are expiratory, and I have never known any attempt to produce
similar inspiratory ones.67 In the eleventh month the child began to whisper;
he also produced strong, high, and full notes of varying tone, as if he were
speaking in a language strange to us. In his monologue a vowel sound
would be repeated, sometimes alone, sometimes in a syllable, as many as
five times without a pause, but usually three or four times.68 The

mechanical repetition of the same syllable such as papapa, occurs oftener
than alternation with another, as pata, and the child will frequently stop
short when he notices in the midst of his complicated lip and tongue
movements and the expansion and contraction of his mouth that such a
variation of acoustic effects is being produced. He actually appears to take
pleasure in systematically exercising himself in all sorts of symmetric and
asymmetric mouth movements, both silently and vocally.”69
Not to prolong this section unduly, I devote only cursory notice to the
various voice plays of older children and adults, which may be said to
correspond with the lall-monologue of infants and give expression to
delight by shouting, whistling, yelling, crowing, humming, smacking,
clicking, and the like. An example from the ancients is the “stloppus”:
“C’est un amusement qui consiste à enfler see joues et à les faire crever
avec explosion en les frappant avec les mains.”70
Another example, which, however, distorts the idea of play and makes it
border on the pathological, is given in Boswell’s Life of Johnson: “In the
intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth, ...
sometimes making his tongue play backward from the roof of his mouth, as
if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums
in front, as if pronouncing quickly, under his breath, loo, too, too; all this
accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a
smile. Generally, when he had concluded a period in the course of a dispute
by which he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he
used to blow out his breath like a whale.”71
Two specially interesting motives are operative in producing playful voice
practice—namely, the stimulus of what is agreeable and the stimulus of
difficulty—and these we will find introducing us to the formal side of
poetry. The pleasurable stimulus here takes the form of enjoyment of the
repetition of like and similar sounds of a particular stress. This pleasure in
repetition is a remarkable thing from many points of view; on the motor
side there is a tendency to use the original sound as a model for the new one
(Baldwin’s circular reaction), while in listening to self-originated tones and
sounds primary memory is employed, that lingering of what has been heard
in the consciousness which makes it possible to secure harmony of the new
note with the previous one. The rhythm which we have been investigating is

a simple form of such repetition, and a child will enjoy it in poetry as much
as in music. At about the beginning of the fourth year children are often
observed to make the attempt to talk in measure and assume the rôle of the
productive artist. In general, the result is a senseless succession of words
and syllables arranged rhythmically.72 Marie G—— frequently pretended to
read such jingles to her dolls. The measure most popular with children
seems to be the trochaic.73 This partiality still earlier takes in whole groups
of sounds, as the mechanically measured repetition of the lall-monologue
bears witness. Perez gives two good examples. “A little girl,” he says,
“repeated from morning till night, for fourteen days, toro, toro, toro, or else
rapapi, rapapi, rapapi, and took great delight in the monotonous rhythm.
Another child, nearly three years old, kept up these refrains in speaking or
crying, and would take a great deal of trouble to use them in answering
questions, although his parents made every effort to rid him of this vagary.
For three months this little parrot continued to repeat in a loud voice the
syllables, unintelligible to himself or any one else,74 tabillè, tabillè, tabillè.”
R. M. Meyer, who sees in the meaningless refrain the germ of poetry, will
find in such extraordinary persistence a confirmation of his view.75 It is
difficult to say whether there is not an inherited tendency connected with
courtship in the instinctive impulse toward the gratification of such motor
and sensor apparatus as is involved in this.
Be that as it may, it is undeniable that the repetition of meaningless rhymes,
as well as of reasonable words and passages, is important to poetry as a
whole. I would refer in this connection to Grosse’s Beginnings of Art, and
for my own part confine myself to selecting a few interesting examples. The
first is the chain rhyme, such as always delights a child. The following is
from a favourite song of theirs:
“Reben trägt der Weinstock;
Hörner hat der Ziegenbock;
Die Ziegenbock hat Hörner;
Im Wald der wachsen Dörner,
Dörner wachsen im Wald.
Im Winter ist es kalt,
Kalt ist’s im Winter,” etc.

“Vines bear grapes;
Billy-goats have horns;
Horns has the billy-goat;
In the woods grow thorns,
Thorns grow in the woods.
In winter it is cold,
It is cold in winter,” etc.

A negative form is:
“Ein, zwei, drei,
Alt ist nicht neu,
Neu ist nicht alt,
Warm ist nicht kalt,
Kalt ist nicht warm,
Reich ist nicht arm,
Arm ist nicht reich,” etc.

“One, two, three,
Old is not new,
New is not old.
Warm is not cold,
Cold is not warm,
Rich is not poor,
Poor is not rich,” etc.

A chain rhyme which dates back to the fourteenth century has this same
echoing effect, and, as Zingerle remarks, “affords a striking proof that the
children’s verses of that period had the same form as our own.”76
A striking analogue of this is found in many poems of the Molukken
dwellers. They consist of four-lined strophes, whose first and third lines
form the second and fourth of each preceding one. This often results in
absolutely inconsequent insertions, whose only office is to promote the
echo effect and onward77 swing, yet sometimes the thought is well
sustained. Here is an instance:

“Jene taube mit ausgebreiteten Flügeln,
Sie fliegt in schräger Lage nach dem Fluss.
Ich bin ein Fremder,
Ich komme hierher in die Verbannung.

“Sie fliegt in schräger Lage nach dem Fluss.
Tot wird sie mitten im Meere aufgefischt.
“Ich komme hierher in die Verbannung,
Weil ich es wegen meiner elenden Lage so will.

“Tot wird sie mitten im Meere aufgefischt,” etc.78

“The dove with wide-spread wings
Flies along the winding stream.
I am a stranger,
I come an exile here.

“She files along the winding stream
And is drawn up dead from the sea.
I come an exile here,
Since that is my bitter fate.

“She is drawn up dead from the sea,” etc.

While the genuine refrain originated in the chiming in of the chorus with
the other singers, this chain singing must have begun from new voices
taking up the verse where others dropped it. For a last word on the subject,
take this exquisite poem of Goethe’s, which combines the chain repetition
with the charm of a refrain:

“O gieb vom weichen Pfühle
Träumend ein halb Gehör!
Bei meinem Saitenspiele
Schlafe! Was willst du mehr?

“Bei meinem Saitenspiele
Segnet der Sterne Heer
Die ewigen Gefühle.
Schlafe! Was willst du mehr?

“Die ewigen Gefühle
Heben mich hoch und hehr
Aus irdischem Gewühle.
Schlafe! Was willst du mehr?

“Vom irdischem Gewühle,” etc.

“O from that soft couch
Dreamily lend an ear!
Lulled by my violin’s music
Sleep! What do you wish for more?

“Lulled by my violin’s music
Like the spell of the starry skies,
A sense of the infinite moves you.
Sleep! What do you wish for more?

“A sense of the infinite moves you
And me to loftier heights,
Away from earth’s striving tumult,
Sleep! What do you wish for more?

“Away from earth’s striving tumult,” etc.

When the repetition is of single letters and syllables, instead of whole
sentences, we call it alliteration and rhyme. A few examples will suffice to
show that both are as important to the sound plays of children as to the
poetry of adults. The alliteration may be mere repetition, as even the
babbling babe loves to duplicate sounds, and while sometimes logical
connection of ideas is conveyed as well (Haus und Hof, hearth and home),
children enjoy meaningless sound-play quite as well.
“Hinters’ Hanse Hinterhaus
Haut Haus Holderholz
Hetzt Hund und Hühnerhund
Hart hinter’m Hase her.”

“Meiner Mutter Magd macht mir mein mus mit meiner Mutter Mehl.”

“Können Kaiser Karls’ Köch
Kalbsköpf und Kabisköpf kochen?”

“Round the rugged riven rock the ragged rascal rapid ran.”

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

“Didon dina, dit-on, du dos d’un dodu dindon.”

As an example of original production, take this composition of Willie F
——’s, which he liked to recite as he pushed his wagon about the room:
“Wein, wein, wein, wein, wein, wein, wam,
Wein, wein, wein, wein, wein, wein, wam,” etc.

The verse of Ennius, “O Tyte, tuti Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne tulisti,” shows
that adults, too, enjoy such alliteration, not only as a promoter of poetic
beauty, but also for the mere play of sound.
Rhyme is often mere reduplication,79 its agreeableness being due to the
actual musical quality to which identity and variety contribute, to repetition
as such, and to its unifying effect on the two words or lines concerned.
Children show enjoyment of rhyme at a very early age, and as soon as they
can talk often amuse themselves with such combinations as Emma-bemma,
Mutter-Butter, Wagon-Pagon, Hester-pester, and the like.80 And there are
many counting out rhymes where the original meaning of the words is lost,
and only the jingle remains, as:
“Ane-Kane, Hacke-Packe,
Relle-Belle, Rädli-Bägli,
Zinke-Pinke, Uff-Puff:
Das fûle, futze Galgevögeli
Hocket hinten ûff.”

“Wonary, uary, icary, Ann,
Philison, folison, Nicholas, John,
Quimby, quamby, Virgin Mary,
Stringulum, strangulum, Buck!”

“Eindli-Beindli. Drittmann-Eindli,
Silberhauke, Finggefauke,
Pärli, puff, Bettel duss.”
“Anige hanige, Sarege-sirige,
Ripeti-pipeti-knoll!”81

To regard these rhymes as the direct inventions of the children themselves
would be as mistaken as to attribute folk poetry to the masses. Most songs
for children originate with grown people, yet they are childish and contain
only what children can appreciate, for the principle of selection decides
their fate. At the same time, original artistic production is exhibited by
children in alliteration and rhythm as well as in rhyme. Thus, I noticed in
Marie G——, when she was about three years old, a disposition to sportive
variation of familiar rhymes appearing simultaneously with the rhythmic
arrangement of words. The first rhyme evolved entirely from the
profundities of her own genius came to light at the beginning of her fourth
year, in the shape of this strange couplet, which she repeated untiringly:
“Naseweis vom Wasser weg
Welches da liegt noch mehr Dreck.”

Another child, Rudolf F——, also in his fourth year, declaimed persistently
this original poem:
“Hennemäs’che, Weideidäs’che,
Sind ja lauter Käsebäs’che.”

Pleasure in overcoming difficulties is an essential feature of all play. The
determined onset against opposition, which is so conspicuous in play,
shows how important is the fighting instinct, so deeply rooted in us all.
Even in the lall-monologue, when the child accidentally produces a new
sound by means of some unusual muscular effort, he intentionally repeats it
(Baldwin’s persistent imitation82). Older children playfully cultivate
dexterity of articulation by repeating rapidly difficult combinations of
sounds. The commonest are those where the difficulty is mainly
physiological, as Wachs-Maske, Mess-Wechsel; Der Postkutscher putzt den
Postkutschkasten; L’origine ne se desoriginalisera jamais de son originalité;
Si six scies scient six cyprès; She stood at the door of Burgess’s fish-sauce
shop welcoming him in; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? And many similar
ones. Others require quickness of wits as well, as in these verses:

“This is the key to the gate
Where the beautiful maidens wait.
The first is called Binka,
The second Bibiabinka,
The third Senkkrenkknokiabibiabinka.
Binka took a stone,
And for Senkkrenkknokiabibiabinka broke a bone,
So that Senkkrenkknokiabibiabinka began to moan.”83

Occasionally some obscurity in the language used involves a comic
element, as—
“Basanneli, Basanneli,
Schlag ’uff und stand a Licht
Es geht a Haus im Geist herum,
Ich greif, er fürcht mich an.
Zünd’s Kühele an, zünds Kühele an,
S’Lauternle will a Kälble han,
Und wie der Teig am Himmel steht,
Da schiesst der Tag in Ofa.”84

A. Bastian relates of the Siamese children that they delight in repeating
difficult sentences and alter their meaning while speaking rapidly, as Pho Pu
Khün Me Pu (The grandfather near the grandmother) is changed to Pho Ku
Khün Me Ku (My father near me, his mother), or Pit Patu Thöt, Pit Patu
Thot (Shut the door, Shut the temple door), Mo Loi Ma Ha Phe, Phe Loi Pai
Ha Mo (The floating pot bumped against the boat, and vice versa), etc.85
“Negro mothers on the Loango coast,” says Pechnel-Loesche, “teach their
children verses which trip the tongue when spoken rapidly.”86
A similar sport for adults is afforded by the students’ song, Der Abt von
Philippsbronn, in which the syllable “bronn” must be repeated four times.
After the first time there is a “Pst!” sound, after the second a “Pfiff!” after
the third a “Click!” and after the fourth a snore, all given as rapidly as
possible. The accelerated tempo in the country song in Don Juan and in the
wedding feast of the dwarfs in Goethe’s Hochzeitslied are of the same
character.
Other instruments besides the human voice are employed in sound-play.
Even parrots and monkeys have found pleasure in other noises than the
practice of their own voices. The young gorilla, in his exuberance of spirits,
drums on his own breast, or, with even more satisfaction, on any available
hollow object, such as a bowl, a cask, etc. The child’s first auditory

satisfaction derived from any act of his own is probably the splashing of
water; another is the rustling of paper. Preyer says: “The first sound
produced by himself which gave the child evident satisfaction was the
rattling of paper. He often indulged in this, especially in his nineteenth
week.”87 Strümpell noticed the same thing at six months, and also that it
gave his little daughter pleasure to pat the table with the palm of her hand88
(rhythmic repetition again). The boy observed by Sully was in the
beginning of his eighth month when he one day accidentally dropped a
spoon from the table where he was playing with it. “He immediately
repeated the action, now, no doubt, with the purpose of gaining the
agreeable shock for his ear. After this, when the spoon was put into his hand
he deliberately dropped it. Not only so, like a true artist, he went on
improving on the first effect, raising the spoon higher and higher, so as to
get more sound, and at last using force in dashing and banging it down.”89
At nine months Preyer’s child beat twelve times on the stopper of a large
caraffe with increasing force. “On the three hundred and nineteenth day,” he
goes on, “occurred a notable acoustic experiment which denoted much
intellectual progress. He struck the spoon on his tray just as his other hand
accidentally moved it. The sound was deadened, and the child noticed the
difference. He took the spoon in his other hand and struck the tray,
deadening the sound intentionally, and so on repeatedly. In the evening the
experiment was repeated, with the same result.”90 Possibly Preyer is right in
regarding this as a sort of scientific experiment on the part of the child to
investigate the causes of the deadening of the sound, but Perez thinks the
child’s action is accounted for by his desire to feel in both hands alternately
the effect of the blow and of the shock.91 However that may be, we are
forced to agree with the German student entirely when, from these
observations, he finally draws the conclusion: “The restless experimentation
of little children and of infants in their first attempts at accommodation, and
even their apparently insignificant acts (such as the rattling of paper in the
second quarter), are not only useful for the development of their
intelligence, but are indispensable as a means of determining reality in a
literal sense. We can never estimate how much of the common knowledge
of mankind is attained in this way.”92
Without pausing to enumerate the various instrumentalities employed in
childish sound-play, we will leave the infant and pass on to consider the

insatiate demands of our sensory organism. It seems that, in order to
maintain our present life, an incessant rain of outer stimuli must beat upon
us, like that atomic storm which many believe pours constantly upon the
heavenly bodies and accounts for gravitation. Indeed, the opinion has been
advanced, and apparently supported by some pathological phenomena, that
the cessation of all peripheral stimuli marks the dissolution of psychic
existence. Certainly the sense of hearing has large claims to notice in this
connection—we all know the gruesomeness of absolute silence. This may
be why children are so indefatigable in making noises, patting their hands,
cracking their knuckles,93 snapping and drumming with the fingers,
stamping and beating with the feet, dragging sticks about, creaking and
slamming doors, beating hollow objects, blowing in keys, banging on
waiters, clinking glasses, snapping whips, and, in short, delighting in
tearing and smashing noises generally.94 And adults are not much behind
them. These same sounds in other forms please us too, as, for example, the
clinking of spurs, snapping a riding whip, rattling sabres, the tinkling of
tassels and fringe, the rustle of flowing draperies. The versatile walking
cane, too, comes in for a thousand uses here—in striking, beating, and
whistling through the air. Going for a walk one winter day, I fell behind two
worthy scholars who were deep in an earnest discussion. We came to a
place where the drain beside the road was filled with beautiful milk-white
ice. Crack! went the older man’s cane through the inviting crust, in the very
midst of his learned disquisition. The student everywhere is a past master in
such sport, as his unfortunate neighbours find out to their sorrow in the
watches of the night. The measured hand clapping, which the child learns so
early, occurs in the dances of the people. I have mentioned the maddening
rapidity of the Haxenschlagen. Enjoyment of crushing or rending
destructible objects is characteristic of every age. I will cite as an example
Goethe’s famed boyish exploit. After throwing from a window and
smashing all his own store of breakable ware, incited by the appreciative
cheers of the neighbours, he descended to the kitchen and seizing first upon
a platter found that it made such a delightful crash that he must needs try
another. He continued the entertainment until he had demolished all the
dishes within his reach. In such a case, of course, enjoyment of the sound is
not the only source of pleasure. Joy in being a cause is conspicuous when
the clatter is self-originated, and sometimes renders even unpleasant sounds
attractive, like scratching with a slate pencil, for instance. Besides, there is

the satisfaction of impulses to movement, and often, too, the destructive
impulse like that for overcoming difficulties is closely related to the
propensity for fighting.
In all this we have not yet touched on the subject of acoustic playthings, and
it is so large that I can only throw out a few suggestions as to the likeness
between primitive musical instruments and the noise-producing toys of
children. We have seen that even the ape has discovered the principle of
instrumental music, and puts it to practice by pounding with his hand on a
stick or some hollow object. A baby does the same thing, and will take great
delight in beating persistently and with a certain regularity on a table with
his hand, on the floor with a stick, or on his tray with a spoon. If we regard
these sounds thus playfully produced by beating on some foreign object,
together with some notion of time, as affording probably the first suggestion
of a musical instrument, we are met by two possibilities: either the stick
itself is considered as the source of the noise or else the object it strikes is
so regarded. In the simple instruments of savages both possibilities are
realized. The Australian bell is a thick, bottle-shaped club of hard wood
which, on being struck, gives forth a peculiar long note, and the drum with
which the women accompany the dancing of the men is only a tightly
stretched opossum skin, which they have been wearing on their shoulders.95
Stringed instruments were derived from the bow; Homer sang of the clear
sound which Odysseus drew from the tightly strung bow, and Heraclitus
uses a complex figure of speech involving the bow and the lyre. The South
African “gora” is only a modified form of this trusty weapon of the
Bushman. The modification consists in introducing on one side, between
the end of the cord and the bow, a trimmed, leaf-shaped, and flattened quill,
which is placed upon the lips of the performer and set in motion by his
breath.
How can we explain these inventions otherwise than as the results of
indefatigable experimentation on the part of either children or adults? Wind
instruments no doubt arose from contracting the lips and blowing through
the fist or from playful investigation of the properties of arrows and the
hollow ornaments worn on the neck, while vibratory ones, like the gora, no
doubt find their prototype in the blowing on leaves and grass blades, which
children are so fond of. Where there is no such thing as scientific

experimentation, playful experimentation becomes the mother of invention
and of discovery.
While it is thus not improbable on the whole that child’s play has had much
to do with the origination of primitive instruments, we find, too, that
children have borrowed many of their toys from the grown people. Things
which, from the crudest beginnings, have been brought to a high degree of
perfection are reproduced in miniature and simplified form for the little
ones. Instances of this are too common and familiar to require illustration
here. Even in remote ages it was the custom to give children little bows,
wagons, dolls, etc., as well as copies of musical instruments. In the province
of Saxony queer clay drums, shaped like an hourglass, have been unearthed;
they must belong to the stone age, and among them is a tiny specimen,
which can hardly be anything else than a toy.96 It often happens that
instruments which have entirely gone out of use among adults continue to
be playthings for the children for thousands of years. This is the case with
the rattles which are now the merest plaything, having no interest for grown
people, except as a means of quieting an infant, yet their original
connection with it was probably much closer, as our progenitors used such
instruments at dances, feasts, etc., for the pious purpose of driving off evil
spirits.97 There is a widespread custom among savage tribes of frightening
away the enemies of the stars by noisy demonstrations, especially during
the absence of the moon. As these observances gradually become obsolete,
the rattling instruments are saved from oblivion by being handed down as
toys to the hospitable little people, without, however, entirely losing the
glamour of their religious office. Becq de Fouquières says, in speaking of
the many religious practices that are connected with children’s toys: “Ses
premiers joujoux dont en quelque sorte des talismans et des amulettes.”98
Many rattles have been found in the graves of prehistoric children, together
with clay figures of animals, marbles, etc. Schliemann found a child’s rattle,
ornamented with bits of metal, in the “third city” at Hissarlik, and Squier
found a snail shell filled with tiny pebbles, with the mummy of a child, in
Peru.99 Amaranthes, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in his
remarkable Woman’s Lexigon, defines a child’s rattle as “a hollow
instrument made of silver, lead, wood, or wire, trimmed with bright coral
and with little bells either inclosed in it or attached to the outside.”100 Older
boys make a rattle of a dried bladder, with peas in it.

As I have dwelt on the probability of the invention of the first musical
instruments by means of playful experimentation, I will now touch briefly
upon another view. Karl Bücher, in his admirable treatise on Arbeit und
Rhythmus, develops the hypothesis that rhythmic art is derived from
physical labour. Physical labour which employs the limbs with perhaps
some simple implement assumes spontaneously a rhythmical character,
since this tends to conserve psychic as well as physical force. The sounds
arising as the work proceeds suggest the germ idea of instrumental music
and lead to involuntary vocal imitation. Thus, poetry and music are
engendered in the very midst of toil, and only later, when they attain to
independent existence, are dance motions substituted for the movements of
physical labour, and frequently become adaptations of them (as in
pantomime dances, for instance).
Convinced as I am that this theory contains a genuine though perhaps one-
sided101 contribution to the proper explanation of rhythmical art, I am
unable to concur in what Bücher regards as its logical consequence—
namely, that musical instruments are adaptations of the labourer’s tools.
“We know,” he says, “that labour rhythmically carried on has a musical
quality, and since savages, having no appreciation of pitch or harmony,102
value rhythm alone, it is only necessary to strengthen and purify the tone
produced by the implement and to complicate the rhythm, in order to
produce what is in their estimation high art. Naturally, to accomplish this
the tools were differentiated; varying conditions, as they arose in their
labours, became the occasion of further efforts for the perfecting of tone
and timbre, and the art instinct, struggling for expression, first found it in
such rude music. So originated musical instruments from these tools of
manual labour, and it is a noteworthy fact that beaten instruments were the
first to appear, and are to-day the favourites of savages. We find among
them the drum, gong, and tam-tam, while with many tribes the only
instrument is the kettledrum, which clearly proclaims its origin, being in
many cases nothing more than a skin tightly stretched across the grain
mortar or a suitable pot or kettle. Primitive stringed instruments also were
struck, like the Greek pleptron, the tone of a violin and of the strings
themselves being a later discovery. Wind instruments, too, are of very
ancient origin, the commonest being the flute and reed pipe, both of which

are rhythmic. The ancient Greeks used them first to mark time and as
accompanying instruments.”103
I hardly think that this view will meet with general acceptance. The wind
instrument, whose importance to primitive peoples Bücher somewhat
underestimates, did indeed serve the purposes of rhythm principally, but it
would be difficult to trace its derivation from any manual tool. Nor does it
follow that rattles and flappers came from the use of hammers; while the
drum, whose prototype he finds in the grain mortar, is in use by tribes who
have no mortars. I conclude, therefore, that musical instruments can, with
more probability, be accounted for as the result of instinctive sound-play
and the experimentation with noise-producing implements, which
accompanies it.

6. Sensations of Sight
Turning his face toward the light is about the only manifestation of sight
sensation displayed by the infant during his first few days. Many young
animals find themselves very much at home in the outer world as soon as
they are born, but such is not the case with a child. He must attain to a clear
perception of external objects by toilsome experimentation, which
commonly requires about five months for its completion, though the fifth
week as well as the fifth month marks an epoch in the practice of sight.
“The average time is about the fifth week,” says Raehlmann, “when the
capacity to ‘fix’ an object is attained—that is, to take cognizance of the
retinal picture of what comes within the line of his vision, as it is thrown on
the macula lutea. About this time, too, the eye movements, which till then
are not definitely co-ordinated, become regulated, while associated
movements, such as elevating and depressing the line of vision (the latter
somewhat later than the former), also appear.... But movements for the
purpose of directly subjecting to fixation objects which lie in the periphery
of the field of vision are entirely wanting at this period. The second epoch,
that at five months, is marked by the development of orientation in the field
of vision. At this time begin actual glancing movements, which shift the
line of vision and bring peripheral retinal images on to the macula lutea.
Contemporaneously with this, a definite system of innervations is
established, especially for those muscles which are employed in shifting the
line of vision. Secondly, the winking reflex is perfected by the approach of

objects from the periphery of the field of vision. Thirdly, at this time the
first experiments in touch controlled by sight are instituted, and serve to
bring tactile perceptions into relation with those of sight. The interval
between birth and the fifth week, as well as that from this time to the fifth
month, is employed in the acquirement of such sense perceptions as react
collectively on the organ and commit it to special uses and control. So, on
the authority of repeated experience, whatever is unsuitable is gradually
excluded, and only those eye movements are retained which further the
proper convergence of the two retinal images.”104 Of course, the power of
vision is by no means completely developed at five months, though the
technique of the function, so to speak, is by that time essentially perfected.
Now begin the real tasks of visual practice: acquiring familiarity with
external objects, imprinting the visual images on the mind, and widening
the scope of association. On entering the subject of child’s play which is
connected with vision it is evident that there are four points for us to keep in
mind—brightness, colour, form, and movement. The inner images and
concepts, which go hand in hand with such perception (especially with the
notion of movement), do not, so far as I can see, form part of our study,
since while an effect of the highest importance they do not constitute one of
the objects of play.105

(a) Sensations of Brightness
Sensations of brilliance seem to arouse feelings of pleasure at a remarkably
early period. Thus Preyer says: “Long before the close of the first day the
facial expression of the babe held facing the window changed suddenly
when I shaded his eyes with my hand.... The darkened face looked much
less satisfied.”106 Toward the end of the first week the child turned his face
toward the window when he had been placed otherwise, and seemed
pleased to see it again. During the second week a child will sometimes cry
when taken into the dark, and can only be quieted by having the sensation
of brightness restored. Thus, we see that in the very first week there is at
least a premonition of experimentation. In his second month the infant will
break out into joyful cries at the sight of gilded picture frames or lighted
lamps, illuminated Christmas trees or shining mirrors. Even in Wolfdietrich
the delight of children in bright and shining things is recorded:—

“Do vergaz es sînes frostes und spielte mit den ringen sîn.
also daz kleine Kindel sîner sorgen gar vergaz,
dô greif ez on die ringe und sprach: waz ist daz?
des Halsperges schoene daz Kindel nie verdroz.”107

And it seems to grow with his growth in other directions. The following are
some of Sigismund’s notes on his daughter’s third quarter: “The child is
now passionately fond of light, and in the evening, when the darkening
room is lighted up, she regularly shouts aloud and dances for joy.... This
coincides with the fact that artificial illumination stimulates adults also to a
genuine and boisterous gaiety. Our feasts and dances are always held at
night, and indeed it is difficult to attain the requisite dithyrambic pitch in
the daytime.”108 Nansen wrote, when the electric light blazed for the first
time on the frozen-in Fram: “What a tremendous influence light has on the
spirits of men! This light enlivened us like a draught of good wine.”109
To what degree this feeling is universal is shown by the fact that bright and
shining objects are highly prized the world over. The school child, the
savage, the cultured man, display the same preference; there is no essential
difference whether it is a scrap of glass for which the negro gives a
generous portion of his worldly goods, or the blazing diamond coronet for
which the lady in society parts with hers. That our coins are made of gold
and silver is attributable to the high polish which they take, and which won
great favour for them in prehistoric times. Poets of all ages have celebrated
the brightness of the human eye, and because light makes us cheerful we
speak of the brilliancy of an entertainment, the beaming joyousness of the
golden day. The strongest light effects are produced by flame and by the
heavenly bodies. The strange attraction which flame exerts on insects, fish,
and birds is familiar to all. Romanes’s sister relates in the journal which she
kept, about a capuchin ape, that the clever little fellow rolled strips of
newspaper into lamplighters and stuck the end into the fire, to amuse
himself watching the flame.110 Primitive men must have experimented with
fire in the same way when they came in contact with it in lightning strokes
and volcanic phenomena, and in their earliest use of it for boring their stone
hatchets. Without playful experimentation, this most important acquisition
of mankind, the mastery of fire, could hardly have been attained. The little
ones in our homes would find playing with fire one of their favourite
diversions if we did not use every means to prevent it, on account of the

danger. In spite of all warnings, the untoward fate of little Polly Flinders of
nursery memory is daily becoming the experience of numberless children.
With grown people the light and glow of fire are of the first importance in
both religious and secular festivities. I need only refer once more to
Sigismund’s saying, quoted above. The charm of moonlit and starlit nights
is one of the deepest joys that Nature affords us, which only the regal
splendour of sunshine can surpass. Perhaps it has never been more worthily
sung than in these verses of Mörike’s, which the very spirit of Shakespeare
seems to have dictated:
“Dort, sich, am Horizont lüpft sich der Vorhang schon!
Es träumt der Tag, nun sei die Nacht entfloh’n;
Die Purperlippe, die geschlossen lag,
Haucht, halbgeöffnet, süsse Athemzüge;
Auf einmal blitzt das Aug’ und wie ein Gott, der Tag
Beginnt im Sprung die königlichen Flüge!”111

The human longing for light is so strong that it becomes for him the natural
symbol for divinity, a fact on which we have not time to dwell, except to
note the significance of the heavenly bodies and of fire in religion. The self-
devised Nature worship of young Goethe, who greeted the rising sun with
an offering, is interesting, and still more so is the statement of the deaf-mute
Ballard that, as a boy of eight years, he arrived by his own unaided efforts
at some sort of metaphysical and religious thought, and felt a kind of
reverence for the sun and moon.112 This is the effect of light which has so
great a part in the mythology of all peoples. Even in the Old Testament
account of the creation light is the first thing which God called out of chaos.
“And God saw that the light was good.”
We find brightness of aspect especially affected in the industrial arts and in
painting, and the employment of shining and glowing substances in
decoration is too familiar to need comment. They are found in the
ornaments of the Stone period, such as necklaces of animals’ teeth, bits of
ivory and shells, as well as among savage tribes of the present day. Grosse
says: “The ornaments of these people may be called brilliant not in a
figurative, but in a literal sense, and there is hardly any quality which
contributes so much to the decorative effect of an object in savage
estimation as brightness. The natives of Fire Island frequently hang
fragments of a glass bottle on their neck band, considering them very

superior adornments, and Bushmen are happy when they are made the
proud possessors of iron or brass rings. However, they are by no means
dependent on such windfalls from a higher race, and when the ornaments of
civilized man and barbarian are both wanting and precious stones are not
available they betake themselves to Nature, who can well supply their
needs. The sea tosses up polished shells upon the beach, vegetation
furnishes bright seeds and shining stalks, and animals give their shining
teeth, as well as fur and feathers.”113
In painting, light effects in connection with colour are of the greatest
importance, and are skilfully managed by many masters of the art.
Rembrandt may be said to possess the highest genius for their treatment.
Without going into particulars of technique, I may note that the pleasure
which we derive from light effects in painting may be referred to two
opposite extremes. We know that it is out of the question for the painter to
transfer to his canvas Nature’s extremes of light and shade, only about half
of the eight hundred ascertained degrees of brilliancy being available to
him.114 Helmholtz has shown in an interesting manner how the artist may
triumph over this difficulty. It proves to be a special case for the application
of Weber’s law; the adjustment of intensities is not in proportion to the
actual force of the stimuli, but to their relative force. Thus, when the painter
tempers the brilliance of Nature he actually gives a more faithful
representation, because the toned-down light against the deepened shadows
of a picture produces the same effect on the senses as the clear beams of
sunlight in contrast with its luminous shadows.115 This so-called normal
technique is objected to on diametrically opposite grounds. Some painters,
refusing to darken and falsify Nature, seek to make their shadows as bright
as are those in the diffused light of day. As it is impossible, however, to
represent the actual intensity of the light, their attempt to reproduce the
actual is only half realized. The true contrast between light and dark fails,
and the result is the faded, obscure, hazy appearance which characterizes
the work of extremists of this school. In the other direction the attempt is
sometimes made to darken the shadows so excessively as actually to make
the difference between light and shade greater than it is in Nature.
Caravaggio and Ribera, Lenbach and Samberger, furnish examples of this
kind of painting. Their work is done on the principle of darkening the
shade, in order to bring out the light more sharply; eyes, brow, and hands in

their pictures seem to surpass the clearness of Nature because of this
difference, which is greater than that of reality. These artists are true lovers
of light.

(b) The Perception of Colour
The exact period in a child’s life when susceptibility to colour impressions
arises has not been determined. Preyer’s son seemed interested in a rose-
coloured curtain, with the sun shining on it, on his twenty-third day,116 but
who knows whether it was the colour that pleased him or only the
brightness? And the same doubt hangs over a hundred other observations
taken in the first months of life, as, for example, this of Sully’s: “Like other
children, he was greatly attracted by brightly coloured objects. When just
seven weeks old he acquired a fondness for a cheap, showy card, with
crudely brilliant colouring and gilded border. When carried to the place
where it hung, ... he would look up to it and greet his first love in the world
of art with a pretty smile.”117 Since we can not be certain that it was not the
mere brilliancy which produced this effect, Sully is quite right when he
says: “The first delight in coloured objects is hardly distinguishable from
the primordial delight in brightness.”118 Raehlmann thinks, however,
judging from the child’s positions and actions, that one can—though not till
considerably later than the fifth week—be sure that it perceives a difference
between objects of similar form and complementary colour.119 And it is
probably quite safe to assume that there is pleasure in gay colours by the
end of the first three months.
Here we are met at once by the question, Does the child prefer any
particular colours? Most observers agree that the child displays more
interest in the warm colours—red and yellow—than in the colder ones.120
Baldwin, on the contrary, found from his experiments with a baby nine
months old (not using yellow, however) that blue was chosen oftenest.121
Although Preyer denies the validity of Baldwin’s experiment, it seems to
me quite possible that here, as well as elsewhere, there is room for the
manifestation of individual preference.122 The choice of yellow and red can
hardly be a necessary one. For example, I find Grosse’s rule, that children
will always empty the vermilion cup in a paint box first and will, when
allowed to choose, always take a flaming red, by no means invariable.
Marie G—— (five years old) turns oftener to the blue in her paint box than

to the red. She herself pointed out lilac as her favourite colour, and weeks
before my question she persisted in using bits of lilac silk in her
embroidery, though her mother had taken them away from her. Having
chosen the lilac, she however added, after a pause for reflection, “Red is
pretty, too.” Another little girl, Deti K——, at the same time answered the
question as to what colour she liked best, “Lilac too, but bright.” Still
another named first lilac, then rose, and after these red and yellow. I
consider it not improbable that in many children of fine sensibility the
stimulus of crude red and yellow is too strong to be particularly agreeable.
This supposition perhaps explains the exceptions to the rule, and also seems
to interfere with the likening of children to savages, which was formerly so
useful. Observations of the children of such tribes have never been made, to
my knowledge.
Before going on, however, to consider the case of savages, we must look
briefly into the problem suggested by the fact that there is choice of any
colour. The child’s susceptibility to the cooler colours, and even its
perception of them, especially blue and gray, has been questioned. Preyer
says: “The inability of my two-year-old child to recognise blue and gray can
be argued not only from his occasional failure to do so, but also from the
evident difficulty he encounters in connecting the commonly used and
familiar names ‘blue’ and ‘gray’ with any special sensations, while ‘yellow’
and ‘red’ were correctly applied several months ago. Were the sensations of
blue and gray as clear as those of red and yellow there would be no failure
to recognise the colours. The child does not know what green and blue
mean, though he does know red and yellow.... Even at four years blue was
oftener called green in the morning twilight, though to me it was clearly
blue. The child was greatly astonished to find that his blue stocking had
become gray overnight. For years very dark green was called black.”123
These striking observations seem indeed partially to confirm the hypothesis
of Geiger, Gladstone, and Magnus, who came to the conclusion, from the
study of ancient picture writing, that primeval man distinguished only the
three primary colours (the Young-Helmholtz theory)—red, green, and
violet. From these were derived orange and yellow, while blue was the very
last to be discovered. Yet, indeed, so far as any philological support is
concerned, the hypothesis can hardly be maintained either in regard to the
ancients or to modern low-standing tribes.

In the remains of buildings and plastic works, which are older than any
picture writings, traces are found of all the colours of the spectrum, and the
philological test, when applied to civilized peoples, does not yield the
confirmation which advocates of the theory desire. While it is true that the
Esthonians have no word of their own for blue (their sini is borrowed from
the Russian), but the apparent deduction from that fact is rendered doubtful,
to say the least, by this passage from Raehlmann: “Some time ago I tested
an old Esthonian peasant woman with a gray starling. She was not quite
sure of the name of the colour, and changed it often. On closer questioning
about her ideas of colour, she seemed to have the spectral series correctly in
mind, distinguishing the colours as blood, wax, grass, and sky. She had
never needed other terms with which to express her sensations, but she took
pains to convince me that she had perfectly clear ideas on the subject of
colour.”124
But how is it with the savage tribes? Here we find, indeed, that for the
painting of their bodies, as well as for other ornaments, the warm colours
are almost exclusively chosen. Besides black and white, hardly any other
colours than red and yellow are found at all. “The Australian has always, in
his bag of kangaroo skin, a supply of white clay and of red and yellow
ochre. For ordinary occasions he contents himself with dabs on cheeks,
shoulders, and breast; on holidays he paints his whole body.”125
Bushmen rub their faces and hair with red ochre; red is the Fire Islander’s
favourite. Other savages use, with deep blue-black, a blazing vermilion, a
combination which imparts to their faces the wildest and most forbidding
expression. Among the famous discoveries which Fraas has described so
well126 was a lump of kneaded paste about as big as a nut, compounded of
iron rust and reindeer fat, and intensely red in colour. Probably every
huntsman of the Ice period had one of these to colour his body with. The
same colours are chosen for their other ornaments as well. The Australians
stripe their girdles and neck and brow bands with red, white, and yellow,
and the same or similar colours are in demand with the Bushmen and Fire
Islanders. Among the Botoku red feathers, as the most costly decoration,
form the insignia of rank. Others wear yellow feathers in the hair, and the
same ornament floats above the brow of the Australian hunter. The cool
colours are scarcely ever seen in primitive ornamentation, even in
combination with red and yellow. Blue decorations are extremely rare, and

the Eskimo’s lip wedge of green nephrite is quite unique in colour.127 From
this brief survey we reach the conclusion that primitive man is not so
sensitive as we are to the stimulus of the colder colours. In the painting of
the body and some other ornamentation the prevalence of red and yellow
may be partly attributed to the more general distribution of these pigments,
but such a reason can not be assigned in the case of feathers, and we can not
therefore deny the probability that for the savage simple green and blue lack
the charm which they possess for the cultivated eye.128 That the cooler
colours are imperfectly perceived, however, is an unwarranted supposition
in the provisional stage which our knowledge of the subject has up to the
present time attained.129 With them, as with children, probably the cooler
colours fail to arrest their attention and excite their interest as they do ours.
Whether this is the result of a kind of colour blindness or whether it is due
solely to the intensive emotional effect of the warm colours it is difficult to
say. The extraordinary want of susceptibility to reflected colour displayed
by educated adults proves that the lack of æsthetic interest may assume the
form of partial colour blindness. There are thousands, for example, who
have never noticed the intense blue of a shaded cement road under a clear
sky, although they may have seen it a hundred times. And they will
complain bitterly of the gross inaccuracy of a picture which faithfully
reproduces what is actually before them.
We may not dwell on the pleasure that is derived from colour in natural
scenery, in ornament and in clothing, in the arts and industries, for the
theme is practically inexhaustible, and we would hardly have space for even
the baldest enumeration of its leading divisions. It would, for example, be
well worth while to trace the historical development of the various
standards of taste in such matters, to which this pleasure has at different
times conformed. The special emphasis given to colour in the last decade
has deeply influenced our poetry, and is characteristically illustrated in the
writings of Jacobsen and G. Keller. The following passage from Martin
Salander could hardly have been written in any century before the present
one: “The setting sun, whose level rays shone through the handsome dining
room, glittered on the golden lining of a large beaker, which stood before
him, freshly filled with ruddy wine. The yellow gleam shot with
indescribable beauty through the heart of the rich red transparent fluid.
Martin raised his eyes from the glowing colour picture, which, coming

direct from the open sky, was like a flaming seal for his thoughts. A
sprightly lady sitting opposite him noticed that a rosy shimmer from the cup
spread over his animated face, and begged him to sit still, for he looked
beautiful. Flattered, he kept his face unmoved while the reflection vibrated
with the wine in the cup, for a slight tremor ran along the table and
disturbed the contents of the cups.” It is interesting, too, to note that boys
concern themselves much less about colour than girls do, and yet the history
of painting seems to show that the masculine sex has a finer colour sense
than the feminine. This is probably explained by the fact that boys early
develop the fighting instinct, and the active motor side of their nature
keeping perceptive play activities more in the background, without
necessarily depreciating their inborn capacity for enjoyment of colour.
I now turn to the subject of play with colour, as it is practised by adults. In
his classification of the arts Kant has, strangely enough, inserted a colour
art besides painting, because he looks upon the latter as pre-eminently
linear. As a matter of fact, there are several colour arts. Such, to a certain
extent, was the glass tinting of the middle ages, which resembles æsthetic
tapestry weaving more than it does painting. Pyrotechnics, too, produce
very lively enjoyment by means of the play of light and colour, and finally
we have that modern invention, the serpentine dance, which seems to be
quite near to music in the direction of sensuous gratification, while far
below it as a means of intellectual expression. Those modern painters who
strive only to impart colour-tone and harmony, to make the effect of their
pictures resemble that of music, are far surpassed by the serpentine dance (a
fact which is sufficient to prove that such an aim is mistaken). Here is
actual rhythmical movement, ecstasy terminating in itself, waving and
attenuation as of tone, and, above all, the thing that moves us so, the
succession of glowing colours on a dark background, whose intensity takes
hold of the beholder’s soul as only the noblest of musical instruments or
perfectly harmonious voices can.

(c) Perception of Form
Recognition, the first requirement for reproduction, is dependent on
perception of form. Later, in considering mental experimentation, I shall
return to this subject and treat it more fully. Here I will make only the
general statement that the visible form of objects is of higher biological

value to the exceedingly important faculty of recognition than is colour or
brilliancy. Evidently the child has a very special interest in form, or he
could not without great effort distinguish the meaning of simple outline at
the relatively early age when we find him doing so. It is remarkable how
indifferent little children are to gay colour in pictures. Konrad Lange has
treated the subject exhaustively in his well-known book, and Sigismund
says: “I can not affirm that there is any preference for coloured pictures at
this age (two years). When I laid before the child copies of the same picture
done in colours and in black and white he seemed to regard them with equal
pleasure.”130 This indifference is displayed, too, by children who take the
liveliest interest in a gaudy ribbon or bright flowers; therefore it seems to
me probable that the child is so concentrated in the apperception of form
that he has no attention left to bestow on the colour—a legitimate argument
for the importance of form in recognition. Very striking, too, is the child’s
extraordinary capacity for illusion in the observation of form. When
Souriau says, “Regarder un dessin, c’est voir des chimères dans les
nuages,” he rightly adds that it applies with special force to children.131
“Mere outlines,” says Sigismund, “serve for any object of that general
shape. My little one calls a square a bonbon, and a circle a waiter.”132
Preyer’s son called a square drawn on paper with a red pencil a window, a
triangle was a roof, and a circle a ring.133 All this goes to show how
strongly the child’s interest is concentrated on the apperception of form.134
Such a capacity for illusion often has notable results. Thus Marie G——,
when three years old, saw a painting which represented the early morning
just before sunrise, and asked me to turn the picture round to see if the sun
was on the other side.
Recognition and illusion are two of the threads from which the complex
web of æsthetic enjoyment is woven. When the child begins to take
pleasure in form it is difficult to say, and more difficult still to determine,
when the æsthetic personification, which is so important to adults, arises.
Experiment may, however, throw some light on both questions. Marie G
—— was five years old when I first attempted something of the sort with
her. I showed her a straight line, and near it an irregular one, and, in order to
excite her interest, told her that I wanted to keep one of them and was in
doubt as to which it should be. She pointed at once to the straight one—“I
should keep that.” Well-drawn equilateral triangles were preferred to

irregular ones, but she gave a characteristic reason for choosing the uneven
quadrilateral instead of a perfect rectangle—because, she said,
it looked like a hat. Here the less pleasing form was preferred
for the sake of its meaning; she was still quite clear in her idea
of regularity. She asked me, for instance, to draw “some
straight figures and some of the other kind.” By straight she
meant regular—she called a perfect circle straight. We thus
find in a child the æsthetic rule operative—namely, that formal regularity is
agreeable. Personification of the figure by children is also a subject for
experimentation. German students of æsthetics found out long ago that the
object of our enjoyment is endowed by our imagination with personal
attributes analogous to our own. “We conceive of all natural objects,” says
Wölfflin, “as analogous to our physical organism.”135 One of the first
requirements of our organism is that it shall maintain its equilibrium, and
accordingly an elementary fact in our personification of natural objects is
that a distorted figure causes us an unpleasant feeling of disturbed
equilibrium. I showed the five-year-old Marie G—— these two figures, and
asked which she would rather have. Unhesitatingly she pointed to A.
“Why?” I asked. “Because it stands on the point.” “But the other one stands
on its point too.” “Yes, but this” (pointing to the angle S) “is so low.” She
played with the squares, and turned them so that they rested on the horizon
line. “Now they hang down,” she said; “but this one” (pointing to B) “is just
willing to come down.” That the child at play personifies all possible
objects is a familiar fact, and we here find that they can conceive of even
abstract figures according to physical analogies.

Savages manifest pleasure in form, more particularly in their
ornamentation. It was formerly believed that creative imagination was
responsible for some of their geometric patterns, but lately this idea has
more and more given place to the opinion that all their patterns, without
exception, are the product of imitation. The reports of Ehrenreich and von
den Steinen of the tribes of central Brazil go far to confirm this view. With

them animals almost invariably furnished the models, their forms being
reproduced in a conventionalized manner. Thus a zigzag was derived from
the markings of a snake, the cross from those of a lizard, etc.136 It is
possible that this theory attempts to prove too much, for basket work may
well account for some patterns which it would be difficult to find in
Nature.137 This possibility being once granted there is no convincing proof
that natural models were used in the construction of conventional figures at
all. Often the resemblance may have been an afterthought, as a child calls a
square a window, though it may have been drawn with no such intention, or
the Eskimo explains the peculiar outlines of his characters by likening them
to animal forms. However this may be, it is at least certain that these savage
people offer a convincing proof that the pleasure which is derived from
form is primordial and universal. If geometric figures did originate in
imitation of natural models, still the persistence and abstract
conventionalizing of them points to a high valuation, which is in one case at
least independent of such accidental association—namely, when
ornamentation is applied to tools and utensils, and especially if we consider
their fine polish and symmetrical form as belonging to the order of
embellishments. “Smoothness and good proportion,” says Grosse rightly,
“are usually not so much æsthetic as practical qualities. An awkwardly
shaped weapon does not reach the mark as surely as does a symmetrical
one, and a well-polished arrow or spear head penetrates farther than a
roughly finished weapon. Yet we find among primitive people articles
which have just as much care bestowed upon them, without any such
evident utility. The blubber lamp of the Eskimo need not be either so
regular in form or so highly polished in order to shed its light and heat; the
Fire Islander’s basket would no doubt be quite as useful were it a little less
evenly woven. Australians always carve their talismans symmetrically,
though, for all we know to the contrary, they might be just as effective
otherwise. In all such cases we may be sure that the workman is satisfying
an æsthetic as well as a practical demand.”138
Since we can devote but a passing glance to the significance of form in the
art of cultured man, I confine myself to some remarks on the æsthetic effect
of the simplest of all forms—the straight line. Fr. Carstanjen, in his
interesting paper on the developmental factors of the early renaissance in
the Netherlands,139 advances the opinion that progress and development in

art are the direct result, psychologically speaking, of dissatisfaction with
contemporary art and its productions with which the people have become
satiated. As concerns the evolution of form, the common process seems to
be that, by a naturalism more or less fortunate, something like style is first
acquired by means of the mastery of straight lines. From this point
development is in the direction of overcoming their stiffness and angularity.
The representation of form is constantly more free, reaching thus a high
degree of beauty, but passing on through a period of extravagant exaltation
of circles, spirals, swells, and curves to final and inevitable decadence. In
following out this succession of styles it becomes apparent that separation
from the direct is, æsthetically speaking, separation from repose (as well as
from stiffness). So Wölfflin says, in pointing out emotional analogies as
they bear on form: “A line composed of short, delicate curves is commonly
called tremulous, while one with wider and shallower vibrations indicates
dull humming or buzzing. A zigzag rustles and splashes like falling water,
and when very pointed sounds shrill like whistling. The straight line is quite
still; in architecture it suggests the quiet simplicity of the antique.”140 It is a
most interesting study to note the almost illimitable force of this effect of
the straight line in an art which, having reached the pinnacle of its
development, allows full swing to the tendency toward rounded forms as
well. During the most flourishing period of the Italian renaissance there was
scarcely a single master who gloried more in the pride of sensuous
loveliness than did Titian, yet even in the midst of his intoxicating triumphs
he attained something of that quiet grandeur which, according to
Winckelmann, formed the basis of Greek art. How can we account for this?
In my opinion it was accomplished, in part at least, though not entirely, by
the use of the short straight line which characterizes Titian’s style, and is
repeated in the work of many of his imitators—I mean the line that is
formed by the peculiar inclination of the head. It is found in the wonderful
Madonna of the house of Pesaro, in the Flora of the Uffizi, the Laura de
Dianti in the Louvre, in the so-called “Loves” and other works of the
master. Their chief common characteristic is a certain commanding dignity
impossible to describe. Among those artists influenced by Titian, Moretto
has followed him most successfully.
This same line may become almost unpleasing when the figure is too much
in profile and the head bends forward, as does Mary Magdalene’s in Titian’s
Dresden Madonna. I mention this because it is repeated in the Medea by

Feuerbach, who is very faithful to Titian’s ideal. He is, moreover, one of the
vanguard of German artists who are leading the way to the new idealism—a
thing as yet more hoped for than realized. And just here I have a word to
say. An essential of ideal art is that, as opposed to naturalistic reproduction,
it plays with conventionalized form and subordinates reality to it. While at
the height of the renaissance marvellous effects were achieved by mingled
and contrasted curves, such as astonish us in the work of Raphael and
sometimes of Rubens, of our modern idealism we may say: if we are
justified at all in calling its developments new, it is because, from the
standpoint of form, it does possess one unique and original characteristic—
namely, that in it for the first time straight lines, and especially the
perpendicular, are dominant in a well-mastered technique, which is no
longer primitive. There are many traces of this principle in Feuerbach’s
work, and it is still more strikingly shown in that of Böcklin, who has close
kinship with the Venetians. The tensely upstretched necks of the swans in
the Island of the Blest is a perfect example of the new style. It comes out
again in the stiff little trees of his spring landscape, in the abrupt lines of the
drapery of a Muse at the Arethusan spring, in the perpendicular line
extending from the shoulder of the musical shepherd boy quite to his foot,
and in many other pictures. Max Klinger is partial to the horizontal, and
much of the characteristic power of his Pieta is due to his employment of
these lines; three stone steps, the outstretched body of the Redeemer, the
stretch of a wall in the background, the straight lines of a thick wood, in
contrast to these the upright half figures of John and Mary. Many of our
modern idealistic painters have unfortunately abandoned the use of this
“line of Praxiteles,” which imparts so finely poised a position to the head
and body and that peculiar mysterious dignity and air of detachment to the
whole figure—“schöne, stille Menschen.” In the industrial arts this
preference for straight lines is most conspicuous in what we wish to appear
as new and original, and even in the newest styles for men it gives us the
creased trousers, the waistless coat, and the stiff, high hat. These
phenomena, however, we will not presume to attribute to the influence of
ideal art.

(d) Perception of Movement
When sight is the medium of perception movement plays are at the same
time visual plays, otherwise consciousness is reached through the sense of

touch. We will here give special attention to experimental exercise of the
motor apparatus, as actual movement play is treated of in detail in another
section. After some general remarks, a few cases will be cited whose most
important feature is the pleasure derived from the contemplation of the
movement, as is especially the case when it is not self-produced. The
powerful attraction which movement has for us is well grounded
biologically, for evidently it is of the utmost importance in the struggle for
existence that attention should be at once and instinctively aroused by any
stir or change in the environment.141 But perception of movement by means
of the eye alone, and consequently the instinct of keeping absolutely
motionless, is of great importance to the pursued animal. Thus Edinger
says: “I have repeatedly seen a hungry snake pause in the midst of his
pursuit of a fleeing mouse, when it crouched down and was quiet. I have
seen it recoil from the frog, which it was trying to catch, as soon as the
creature kept still.”142 Even our own involuntary attention to motion has
some analogy to instinct, and recalls the violent and sudden reaction with
which we respond to an unexpected touch on the bare back.143 As a matter
of psychological fact, there is associated with movement, as with sensations
of hearing, a strong emotional effect.
It is no wonder, therefore, that all his life long man shows a peculiar interest
in movement, and acquires the capacity to detect its intimations very early
in life. Indeed, this capacity is one of the first to be developed, and depends,
apart from skin stimuli and the so-called after images which reveal
objective movement to the eye at rest, principally on the ability to follow
the moving object with the glance. Practice is necessary for the mastery of
this capacity. The eyes accompany, in addition to the regular objective
motion, a constantly renewed backward movement as well, by means of
which we again grasp the escaping object, an effort requiring the
simultaneous exercise of volition and attention. “This process requiring
continuous and constantly renewed attention,” says L. W. Stern, “this lying
in wait that the object may not give us the slip (for any laxity would at once
be avenged by an increased difficulty in fixing the object), bears witness to
a condition and teaches us that the object with which we are carrying on
this game of ‘catcher’ is in motion.”144 This explains why little children so
easily lose sight of a moving object which they wish to follow with the eye.

Here again we find that playful experimentation is essential, and, according
to Raehlmann, it commonly appears toward the end of the fifth week, rarely
earlier.145 That Preyer’s boy on the twenty-third day followed with his eyes
a slowly moving light was probably an instance of forced development, as a
result of much experimenting. On the twenty-ninth day the same child
crowed aloud at the sight of a swaying tassel. On the sixty-second day he
gazed at a swinging lamp with constant manifestations of delight for nearly
half an hour, but his eyes did not follow the swing of the pendulum; they
moved, it is true, now left, now right, but not in time with the lamp. “On the
one hundred and first day a pendulum making forty complete swings in a
minute was for the first time followed with mechanical exactness by his
glance.”146 As his capacity for following the movement increased, the
greater his interest in it became. A dog racing away or leaping about the
child, the fast horse, the hopping toad, the crawling worm or gliding snake,
running water, leaping flame, a rolling wagon, and, more than all, the fast-
rushing train, with its cloud of steam—all these excite a really passionate
sympathy. The smoke of a cigar, too, gives great satisfaction, and if a father
knows how to make the beautiful blue rings he must at once renounce his
peaceful contemplative enjoyment of his own play, for the youngster will
demand a very different tempo in the repetition than is agreeable to him. In
enumerating instances of animal motion I omitted one because it deserves
more extended notice—namely, the flight of insects, in which children take
such lively interest. The common illusion that an insect which has been
caught can be induced to fly away by the recital of a form of words is
highly interesting, in itself considered as well as in view of its probable
origin. May not such poetic formulæ be traceable to a religious or at least
superstitious origin? The commonest of these rhymes are those addressed to
the ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) and the June bug. Rochholz has
made a collection of the names of the former, and found that in India it was
sacred to the god Indra, and among the old Germans to Frega. I give two
German forms of the verse:
“Muttergotteshühle, Mückenstühle,
Fliege auf, fliege auf! Wohl über die Bussenberg,
Dass es besser Wetter wird.”

“Marienkäferchen, wann wird Sonne sein?
Morgen oder heut?
Flieg weg in den Himmel!”

An English one is:
“Ladybird, ladybird,
Fly away home;
If you’ll be quick,
The sunshine will come.”

All are familiar with the adjuration to the June bug. French children sing:
“Hanneton, vole, vole!
Ton mari est a l’école,
Il a dit qu’si tu volais,
Tu aurais d’la soupe au lait
Il a dit qu’si tu n’volais pas,
Tu aurais la tête en bas.”

To the butterfly, which is not so easily caught, the invitation is to alight:
“Molketewer sett di,
Kömmt e Pogg de frett di!”

And in Scotch:
“Le, la, let,
My bonnie pet!”

The snail, too, is addressed in a rhyme which favours the illusion that he
will put out his horns to order:
“Schneck’ im Haus, kreich heraus,
Strecke deine vier Hörner heraus!
Sonst werf ich dich in Graben,
Fressen dich die Raben.”

“Snail, snail, put out your horn,
Or I’ll kill your father and mother the morn.”147

As a final example, I will mention the gruesome custom which, according
to Papasliotis, obtains in modern Greece, and especially in Crete, of
attaching a small lighted taper to a beetle and releasing it amid the
acclamations of excited children. A passage in Aristophanes gives the
impression that the children of ancient Greece also indulged in this cruel
sport.148
The eye of the adult, too, delights in movement; absolute immobility is as
disturbing as absolute stillness. Here, as elsewhere, in considering the
playful indulgence of sensuous perceptions, we must distinguish between

pleasure in movement as such and pleasure in sensuously agreeable
movement. Even children seem to exhibit this difference. Some weeks after
the experiments in form described above I drew irregular zigzags and some
even, wavy lines in the air before Marie G——, then five years old, and
asked which she liked better. She chose the latter, though the others were
calculated to produce a much more exciting impression, giving as her
reason that the wavy lines were “straighter”; evidently meaning, as in the
case of the figures, that these were more regular. In adults susceptibility to
sensuously agreeable movement is doubtless still stronger, yet with them,
too, there is a wide margin of pleasure in movement as such. From the
multiplicity of available examples of this I select first the observation of
street scenes, which I have already noticed in the case of animals,149
especially the dog. The pleasure which we find in gazing out of our own
windows or from behind the plate glass of a café at the bustle and swarm of
a city’s traffic detaches itself from all intellectual or even imaginative
associations, and is gradually merged into a dreamy consciousness of a
sensation of movement, mingled with mild enjoyment of its contrast with
our own repose. With similar sensations we observe the stir of an ant-hill,
the swarming of gnats in the evening glow, the confusion of snowflakes,
and the whirling of leaves in a wind. A special interest attaches to the
witnessing of skilful acrobatics where the feeling of inner imitation is
strongly excited, and well does the juggler know how to turn this interest to
account. The dexterous leaps which Amaranthus records at the beginning of
the eighteenth century furnishes us an historical example: “Many are the
leaps by which the jugglers cause the money of the spectators to jump into
their own purses, and they have names as strange as they are ridiculous.
There is the monkey jump, which throws one backward, landing him on
both feet; the trout leap, which does the same thing twice in quick
succession and with the legs crossed; twenty-two monkey jumps without
stopping; a great variety of table and board jumps; the goat and hare leaps;
the leap through eight rings, one from floor to ceiling, over chairs, etc.”150
The enjoyment is of course strengthened when the already interesting
motion becomes sensuously agreeable; a low degree of such pleasure is
experienced in witnessing regular motion in a single direction, such as that
of a rushing stream or of clouds sailing across the heavens. In one of his
verses Gottfried Keller calls these latter the “friendly companions of the

dwellers on earth.” “As they wander on they attract and distract the
burdened soul of him who observes them with wonder, and keep him
amused all through the weary hours.” Gurgling springs add to their upward
gushing motion the soft underground murmur of their waters, while the
beauty of circling motion is perhaps never more effectively shown than in
the majestic floating of birds of prey. Darwin says in his Voyage of the
Beagle round the World: “When the condors are wheeling in a flock round
and round any spot their flight is beautiful. Except when rising from the
ground, I do not recollect ever having seen one of these birds flap its wings.
Near Lima I watched several for nearly half an hour, without once taking
off my eyes. They moved in large curves, sweeping in circles, descending
and ascending, without giving a single flap.” Perhaps our pleasure is even
greater in wave motions, as they roll over the ocean or are produced by the
wind on a field of grain, or surge in the current of a rapid stream. These
noble verses of Mörike’s on the Rhine falls bear witness to the power of the
æsthetic feeling so aroused:
“Halte dein Herz, o Wanderer, fest in gewaltigen Händen!
Mir entstürzte vor Lust zitternd das meinige fast.
Rastlos donnernde Massen auf donnernde Massen geworfen,
Ohr und Auge wohin retten sie sich im Tumult?...

“Rosse der Götter, im Schwung, eins über den Rücken des ander
Stürmen herunter und streu’n silberne Mähnen umher;
Herrliche Leiber, unzählbare, folgen sich, nimmer dieselben,
Ewig dieselbigen—wer wartet das Ende wohl aus?”151

Finally, we will notice dancing movements. It is not only among birds that
the courted female gazes with interest at the dancing of the male; we see it
in all public dancing. This is one of the instances where visual play is as
important as the movement, for even among the participants pleasure is
heightened by the exciting spectacle of the other dancers,152 and it is true
the world over that spectators of a dance always become as passionately
aroused as do the performers themselves. The piercing trills with which the
women of some negro tribes at intervals accompany the dance of the males
are surely not merely invitations to the latter, but indications as well of their
own excitement. For this reason many onlookers are impelled to keep time
with the rhythmic dance by clicking the tongue or clapping the hands. “The
feeling of pleasure which is kindled in the performer,” says Grosse, “sheds
its rays on the beholder as well.... In this way both become passionately

excited, intoxicated by the sounds and movements; the transport constantly
increasing, swells at last to veritable madness, which often results in violent
outbreaks.”153 The solo dances of primitive peoples presuppose an
onlooking public more than mass dances do. Among Bushmen and Eskimos
the men dance alone, while, according to Eyre, Australian women do it
sometimes alone and sometimes in companies to, arouse the men.154
Among the civilized people of the Orient professional dancing girls perform
in the presence of men, in which case the spectators alone can be said to
play. And the same is true of our ballet, which, indeed, except for its direct
sexual effect, possesses but little pleasurable quality.155

II. Playful Use of the Motor Apparatus

In this new section we by no means cut loose from what is sensory in a
subjective sense, for of course we become conscious of our own
movements only through the sensory paths of sight and what is collectively
called touch, chiefly sensations of contact, and tendon and joint sensations.
Yet from an objective standpoint we must enter upon the investigation of an
entirely new province, where we shall be concerned not so much with the
senses as with the manifold co-ordinated muscular movements of which our
bodies are capable, and which are necessary or at least useful for the
accomplishment of the tasks of life.
Since these movements are progressively acquired, the child’s first efforts
can hardly be said to be voluntary. Many that are instinctive and automatic
must be repeated over and over before voluntary ones come, for will
implies an image which is a memory picture of the movement to be made.
Preyer thinks that no intentional movements are made before the end of the
first quarter.156 Vierordt, indeed, says that their development is gradually
progressive. “All indications point to the arm as first becoming obedient to
volition, and the sucking movements, too, seem early to lose their reflex
character. Then follow intentional movements of the head and neck and
some groups of face muscles, and finally those of the lower limbs, which as
late as the sixth month still move in the most haphazard manner.”157 Playful
experiment then promotes this acquisition of control over the bodily
movements by the will, and strengthens and renders it permanent after it has
been acquired.

Playful movements naturally fall into two great subdivisions, namely, those
belonging to the organs as such and those directed toward other objects in
connection with such organs—a distinction already familiar to us in our
study of the production of noises and tones. We will now consider the first
of these divisions, the most important phenomenon of which is locomotion.

A. PLAYFUL MOVEMENT OF THE BODILY ORGANS

In other connections we have touched upon many movement plays, such as
voice practice and the production of sounds by means of various bodily
organs, experimentation with tactile stimuli, and watching moving objects.
This sort of exercise often combines motor with sensor play, as has been
frequently pointed out. Therefore, to avoid repetition, I will in this section,
after a few preliminary remarks suggested by such bearings of the subject
as I conceive to be essential, proceed at once to consider the most important
and obvious of all movement-plays—namely, those connected with change
of place.
In voice practice experiments with the larynx, tongue, lips, and breathing
muscles are involved. When children whisper, for example, their enjoyment
must be due as much to the lip movements as to the slight sounds produced.
The fact that the blind deaf-mute Laura Bridgman158 playfully indulged in
the production of various sounds seems to confirm this, and the principle is
applicable too to other noises. The child who claps his hands, splashes in
the water, bangs on the table with his fist, or puffs out his cheeks to blow a
horn; the grown man who shuffles his feet, drums on the table or window
pane, the noisy dancer, and even the piano or violin player who indulges in
movements now loud, now soft, now slow, now quick—all derive a
considerable part of their pleasure in the sport from the motor discharge
which is involved.
No exhaustive demonstration is needed to prove that the same conditions
prevail in experimentation with touch stimuli and the observation of
motion, which is so often connected with it. “In the first year,” says Preyer,
in speaking of the manifold and apparently aimless movements of the
infant, “exercise of the muscles is the raison d’être of all this activity which
appears to be aimless. An adult lying on his back could not repeat the
commonest movements of a seven to twelve months child without extreme

fatigue.”159 In arm movements the development of right-handedness is of
especial interest. Formerly it was attributed to the mother’s or nurse’s
method of carrying the child, to the greater weight of one side of the body,
and similar pretexts; but Baldwin’s investigations show that such
extraneous influences have little to do with it, for he found on excluding
such agencies a marked preference for the right hand in the seventh and
eighth months, displayed first in strenuous grasping movements.160 An
entirely satisfactory explanation has not yet been offered, though Sticker’s
theory, is perhaps most probable—namely, that the left brain hemisphere
has a better blood supply than the right.161 When there is some difficulty to
overcome, some opportunity to display dexterity, there are heightened
stimulus and greater directness in the movements of arms and hands. Older
children delight to set themselves such tasks as, for instance, clasping the
hands behind the back, so that one arm crosses the shoulder, or placing the
open hand on a table and raising the ring finger without any of the others, or
laying the fingers over one another, etc. When such efforts are overlooked
and directed by parents and teachers, we have the beginning of gymnastics,
which remains a play so long as the subject enjoys it. Free-hand
movements, exercises with dumb-bells and weights and the like, so far as
the interest is not centred in the foreign body, all belong here. The intense
desire for movement in many forms of mental disease should also be noted
in this connection, since they have an indirect playful character, and by their
very exaggeration are calculated to throw some light on the conduct of
normal humanity. No psychic derangement shows this more clearly than
does mania. The voice of such patients, says Kraepelin, “is usually high-
pitched.... They are contented, feel inclined to all sorts of fun, and teasing,
singing, and joking,” yet all this is invariably followed by a sudden plunge
into the contrary mood. “That grave symptom of derangement, strong
propensity to movement seems to stand in the closest connection with
liveliness of spirits. The patient fairly revels in emotion; he is uneasy, can
not long lie or sit still, stirs about, skips, runs, dances. He gesticulates
wildly, claps his hands, makes faces, scribbles and rubs on the ground,
walls, and windows, beats and drums on the floor, strips off his clothes,
tears them to ribbons, etc.”162 Since movement and its opposite are closely
connected, the question arises whether the strange rigidity of body
manifested in catalepsy is not referable to the same cause. There is certainly
often a certain designedness about it. “When any attempt is made to change

the position of the patient every muscle is found to be tense. If the head is
forced aside by pressure, it flies back to its former position when released.
To support the head hardly requires more than the weight of a finger. We are
best acquainted with the psychic organ of this stubborn resistance in the
common cases where the patient responds contrarily to speech suggestions.
He can be made to go forward by being ordered back, and vice versa, will
take a seat when told not to, stand still when commanded to go on, etc.”163
Finally, before going on to our principal subject, we should glance at the
instinctive chewing motions which were mentioned among tactile plays.
When a full-grown man going for a walk sticks a twig in his mouth and
gnaws it the movements of his own jaw are of more interest to him than is
the stick, except as it promotes sensations of contact. We take genuine
pleasure in crunching toast and gnawing on a bone, and the unfortunate
habit of biting the finger nails is one form of such play. Many smokers soon
chew up the mouth pieces of their pipes and cigar holders, and others
constantly bite pencil or penholder, and are unhappy when such indulgence
is denied them. Betel-chewing, which, it is true, has the attraction of a
narcotic, is indulged in, according to Von Bibra, by one hundred million
human beings.164 New Zealanders use kauri, the resin of a certain tree. “In
the northern part of Sweden resin obtained from the trunk of a pine tree is
very generally chewed.”165 Americans who twenty-five years ago chewed
prepared resin have adopted the chewing-gum habit. Material for it is
brought chiefly from Mexico; in 1895 four million pounds of chicle gum
was imported for this purpose. Jules Legras says of Russia: “Gnawing
sunflower seeds is the favourite amusement of children and of the poorer
classes. The streets are full of shops where the beloved grain is sold, and the
common people stuff their pockets with it. They skilfully split open the
husk with the front teeth, discard it, and mechanically chew the kernel. It is
a national habit, inexplicable to an outsider, for the seeds are tasteless; but
the jaws are kept busy, and their motion forms an accompaniment to the
vague dreaming of the poor people.”166
Turning now to our subject proper—namely, playful locomotion or change
of place—we find the biological significance of play, the elaboration of
certain imperfect instincts, brought out with marked distinctness. The
child’s first practice in the direction of future walking is found in the
alternative kicking, which is so essential to muscular development.167

Further progress is marked by raising the body and learning to sit, efforts
marking the beginning of the struggle with weights which Souriau regards
as the leading stimulus to movement-play. So long as this struggle to retain
his equilibrium lasts, the child’s behaviour betrays the direct intention of the
play. Preyer says: “In his fourteenth week my sturdy boy easily made his
first attempt to sit, having his back well propped. In his twenty-second
week the child could raise himself in the effort to reach my face, but not till
the thirty-ninth week could he sit alone, and still preferred a back. In his
carriage it was necessary for him to hold on even in the fortieth and forty-
first weeks. But when for a supreme moment he did manage to sit up
unassisted he was evidently delighted, and made the greatest efforts to
preserve his equilibrium.”168
Creeping is an imperfect though genuine sort of locomotion preparatory to
walking. “It is a treat,” says Sigismund, “to watch a creeping child. The tiny
creature, seated on the floor, longs for something beyond his reach;
straining to get it, he loses his balance and falls over. In that position he still
stretches his hand out, and notices that he is nearer the object of his desire,
and that a few more such forward motions would attain it. Soon he becomes
more active, sure, and courageous, and learns to maintain his centre of
gravity on three supports while he lifts the fourth member for his next step
forward, for at first the child raises but one limb at a time, though he soon
learns to use the right hand and left foot together. I have never seen one so
use the hand and foot on the same side. Sometimes the child crawls
backward like a crab, even when there is nothing before him which he
wishes to shun.”169 Fouquières gives two beautiful ancient representations
of creeping children, the first going toward some fruit which lies on a
footstool, and the other gazing at a vase on the ground.170
Children who have a lively desire to roam before they are able to walk
invent many expedients which afford them great satisfaction; for example, a
little boy, Werner H——, has acquired remarkable skill in getting about by
stiffening his arms as he stretches them down at his sides and swinging
himself forward as if on crutches, as we sometimes see the unfortunates do
who have had both legs amputated.
Learning to stand is an essential step preliminary to talking, and causes a
child the liveliest satisfaction, giving him further control over his own body,

and responding as it does to an inborn impulse. Sigismund places the first
efforts in this direction in the eighteenth or twentieth week. “If the nurse
holds up a child of this age on her lap, supporting it under the arms, it will
dance, hop, and spring perpetually like a hooked fish, bound like a
grasshopper, draw up his legs like a closed pocket knife, and twist his head
and neck—in short, he will exhibit the same mercurial exuberance of
motion which pleases us in young goats, lambs, and kittens. The child’s
movements, however, are naturally in the direction of the normal human
attitude, and he will make desperate attempts to pull himself up by his
nurse’s dress or the edge of a chair or his bath tub, and when by the exertion
of this utmost strength he succeeds he commonly breaks out into loud cries
of joy.”171 The playful quality so clearly recognised here appears also in
Preyer’s remark that his boy in the fortieth week preferred to be exercised
in standing rather than in sitting, although the former was more difficult.172
This fact no doubt enhanced the pleasure. At the end of the first year or
beginning of the second the child is usually far enough on to stand entirely
alone. “He is amazed at his own daring, standing anxiously with feet wide
apart, and at last letting himself down rather abruptly.”173
Coming now to actual walking, it is uncertain whether the alternating kicks
of the infant point to special instinctive impulses, but we may be sure that
when a child pushes forward on being held with the feet touching the floor
he feels the stirrings of instinct. “Champney’s child,” says Preyer, “was held
upright for the first time at the end of the nineteenth week, so that his feet
rested on the floor, and he was moved forward; his legs worked with
regularity, and each step was taken accurately and without hesitation or
wavering even when the feet were lifted too high. Only in this case was the
alternation interrupted, and he made another effort to take the step with his
feet in the air. Resting the body sideways on one foot seemed to transfer the
stimulus to the other. These observations ground my belief that walking is
an instinctive act.”174 This happens somewhat later if the child is not moved
forward on being held up; thus Baldwin, whose experiment included no
such motion, found that the “native walking reflex” suddenly appeared in
the ninth month, while previous to that only a single alternation appeared,
which might well be ascribed to chance.175 Independent experimentation
begins when, having drawn himself up by a chair, the child walks around it
with the help of his hands, all the time resting on the seat, in which progress

the achievement of a corner is as critical a movement as the rounding of a
jutting crag in the path of a mountain climber. Soon after this arrives the
crucial test—the terrible risk of the first step alone, which, when
successfully accomplished, throws both parent and child into a transport of
joy. The appreciative Sigismund gives a beautiful description of this too:
“Forward steps having been practised while the hands cling to some fixed
object, he is prepared to venture alone. This first step alone of a little child
makes one involuntarily hold his breath at the sight. The small face reveals
a conflict between the bold resolve to venture all and the cautious counsels
of conservatism. Suddenly one little foot is shoved forward rather than
lifted, and one hand at last stretched out as a balance. Sometimes that one
step is all, and the little Icarus sinks down again. But often the child to
whom the effort is particularly difficult makes, like a boy learning to skate
or a man walking a rope, several steps in one direction, especially when the
haven of safety is near at hand. Many children make no further attempts for
weeks after the first; others, again, follow it up at once. Very gradually
walking loses its anxious, doubtful character, and becomes an easy habit not
requiring attention.” Froebel has well described the pleasure in success
which, together with the gratification of instinctive impulse, makes learning
to walk such a satisfaction. “The fact is well established,” he says, “that
walking, and especially the first steps, give the child pleasure merely as a
demonstration of his strength, although this is soon followed by other
elements of enjoyment, such as the realization that it is means of arriving
and of obtaining.”176 As it becomes mechanical, walking, of course, loses
its playful character. Pleasure in simple locomotion is experienced by
adults, as a rule, only when the discharge of their motor impulses has been
hindered by a sedentary life, and even then motion is not the chief source of
satisfaction. The regular rhythm of walking acts like a narcotic on an
excited mind, which reacts to it unconsciously. I remember that Ibsen’s
John Gabriel Borkmann paced up and down like a sick wolf before the door
of the wife from whom he was separated; and we find a fearful reminder of
the restless walking back and forth of caged animals in the deep-worn
footprints of the prisoner of Chillon. We find, though, for all ages games
whose object is the conquest of some difficulty, great or small. We
frequently see small dogs keep one leg up in the air without any apparent
reason and, run along on three, and in the same way children try all sorts of
experiments in walking. Now one of them is lame in one foot, now one

small leg is stiff, now he drags his feet, now walks with a jerk or on tiptoe.
Many of these movements are turned to account in elementary gymnastics,
and those pathological subjects whose mania takes a playful turn show quite
similar peculiarities in walking.177 Almost as soon as the child has learned
to preserve his equilibrium in ordinary walking he proceeds to complicate
the problem by trying to walk on curbstones, in a rut, on a beam, on a
balustrade or narrow wall. Unusual facility in these leads on to rope
walking, and afterward turns out to be of great service to the mountain
climber on narrow ridges and snow-covered ledges. A famous architect was
so foolhardy as to walk round the narrow leads of the Königstuhl tower in
Heidelberg, and it is recorded of the ancient Norse king Olav Tryggvason
that he possessed the accomplishment, among others, of being able to run
across the oars of a boat while the men were rowing. Another form of self-
imposed difficulty and consequent conversion of locomotion into play is the
attempt to step on all the cracks in the pavement or floor or on certain
figures in a carpet. Something of this kind must have led to the game of
Paradieshüpfen in Germany, hop-scotch in England, la Marelle in France, in
which certain spaces are marked out in the sand or on a floor, on whose
outlines the foot must not be set.
Running games will form our next subject, and we find that the child’s
earliest efforts for locomotion are as much like running as walking. His first
steps alone are, it is true most hesitatingly made, but the nearer the goal,
especially if it happens to be his mother kneeling with outstretched arms,
the more rapid are his movements. Gradually the distinction between
running and walking becomes more marked. For an example of genuine
practice for a quick run Preyer’s observations may again be cited. He says
that on the four hundred and fifty-ninth day the boy stopped short several
times in his rapid course and stamped. In his seventy-seventh week this
child ran nineteen times without stopping around a large table, calling out
“mama,” and “bwa, bwa, bwa,”178 the while. This simple running soon
loses its charm, and is not much used later in play until it is transformed
into a contest and acquires a new and higher meaning, of which we shall
speak presently. Yet there are many running games whose attraction
consists in the difficulties to be overcome, and very rapid running is a
delight in itself, throwing us into a sort of transport and exciting in us “je ne
sais quelle idée d’infini, de désir sans mesure, de vie surabondante et folle,

je ne sais quel dedain de l’individualité quel besoin de se sentir aller sans se
retenir, de se perdre dans le tout.”179
Running down a smooth slope is a diversion which easily tempts even
grown people, and boys at least find something like it in their game of
snapping the whip, in which game a chain is made with the strongest boy in
front. He has the task of moving the whole line in curves, so that the end
ones are obliged to run in dizzy haste. In both cases natural forces, coming
to the aid of the individual’s own efforts, add to the enjoyment. Overcoming
difficulties is prominent in the Hellenic πιτυλίζειν, which it seems consisted
in running on the tips of the toes, as well as in the equally ancient
ἐκπλεθρίζειν, which was a peculiar varied running, without curves, in a
straight line back and forth, the line growing shorter and shorter till a
central point was reached, where, as only one step remained, the runner
came to a standstill.180
Hopping and skipping are also to be classed with running plays; the body is
suspended in the air for an instant in all these movements, though in
hopping and skipping the motion is more vertical. They belong in the same
category with the vagaries of locomotion which I have pointed out, and any
lively child finds it hard to dispense with them when out for a walk, just as
lambs and kids do. In the ordinary skip one foot at a time comes with a
slight shoving motion on the ground and gives us the beginning of a galop
and the principle of the waltz, while hopping forms the foundation for the
polka. This hop on one foot is utilized in many plays, such as the hopscotch
already mentioned, and in chasing and fighting games, like “Cock Fight”
(German Hahnenkampf), “Fox in his Hole,” etc. In Greece the ἀσκωλιάζειν
was a popular game, and Grasberger says that their hopping was the same
as ours, and in some games he who accomplished the task with the fewest
hops won the prize. In a catching game the contestants hopped on a circular
line and attempted to touch one another with the free foot. Finally, the
drollest and most popular form of the game, which never failed to excite
laughter in all beholders, was the genuine Askoliasmos. A skin well oiled on
the outside and filled with air was stepped on by the player, who attempted
to stand on it while he went through various dancing and hopping motions.
The favourite circus trick of running on a rolling cannon ball is a modern
form of this.

Children begin to jump by leaping downward. Before the little
experimentor has halfway learned to go down steps he likes to reach the
ground by a jump from the last one, at first a difficult enough exploit. But
soon this palls, and something harder is at once undertaken, just as the
habitual drunkard attains to stronger and stronger potations. The three-year-
old can take two or three steps or boldly leap from a chair on which he has
laboriously clambered with this intent. When some large stone pillars
intended for a garden gate lay in the street before my house all the children
in the neighbourhood collected to enjoy the pleasure of jumping off of
them. Psychologically this pleasure is derived not merely from the
agreeable flying motion, but from the stimulus of difficulty to be overcome
and a feeling of pride in encountering risks. Chamberlain tells of two small
Americans who had in their familiar speech a word for “the feeling you
have just before you jump, don’t you know, when you mean to jump and
want to do it and are just a little bit afraid to do it,” and another for “the way
you feel when you have just jumped and are awfully proud of it.”181
Perhaps the liveliest feeling of pleasure is caused by the leap into water,
because the soft, yielding, and yet resisting element furnishes an unusually
long trajectory. Many South Sea islanders have cultivated this art to an
astonishing degree. The pleasure of snowshoeing, too, consists chiefly in
the circumstance that the path ends suddenly in an abrupt slope, over which
the skilful sportsman flies in a tremendous leap amid a whir of soft snow.
“To see,” says Nansen in his book on Greenland, “how the practised runner
makes his leap into the air is one of the finest spectacles in the world. To
see him whizzing boldly down the mountain, collect himself in a few steps
before the spring, pause and take position, and then like a sea gull glide
through the air, striking the ground at a distance of twenty to twenty-five
metres immersed in a cloud of flying snow—all this sends a thrill of
sympathetic pleasure through one’s frame.” Later, children learn high and
long-distance jumps, the doorstep, a tiny stream and narrow ditch affording
opportunity for the first practice, and an older boy leaps gaily over a low
hedge, a wide brook, or his comrade’s back in leap-frog. The element of
danger exists here and some combativeness, as though it were a sort of
conquest of the object; these features are especially prominent when the
vault is made over a blazing fire, as in the custom with some mountaineers’
games. It is first heard of in the Palilia, a herdsman’s game of ancient
Rome, commemorative of the founding of the city, and the people of the

Nicobar Islands believe that leaping through fire is a sure cure for colds,
fevers, etc.182 The salto mortale marked the highest degree of difficulty and
danger—a Greek vase shows it as a somersault in the midst of the high
jump. Norwegian youths can spring up so high as to touch the ceiling with
one foot and agilely regain their upright position. The Greeks used weights
of stone or lead, which they swung violently to intensify the force of the
leap, the springboard being apparently unknown to them. Grasberger
regards the statement that Phayllos of Crete could cover from fifty to fifty-
five feet183 as well authenticated, but it was certainly a prodigious leap.
Similar incredible feats are reported of the ancient Germans, one being that
of the Viking Halfdan, who jumped over a gorge thirty yards wide.184 From
this is but a step to the world-famed contest between Brunhilde and
Gunther, in which Brunhilde hurled a mighty stone and then leaped after it
as far as or farther than the stone went, and Siegfried performed the same
feat, carrying Gunther with him.
Climbing is probably the outcome of a special instinct. The striking fact that
a newborn infant is at once able to cling with his hands certainly points to
this. It has been shown by Robinson that infants may cling fast enough to a
stick to be lifted from the ground and held suspended in midair.
The first attempts at actual climbing occur in the second year in conjunction
with creeping, and are usually efforts to go upstairs. Young animals whose
future life demands skill in climbing also manifest this upward tendency.
Where Lenz says that the two-weeks-old kid enjoys neck-breaking
adventures and makes remarkable leaps, that he always wants to go upon
piles of wood or stone, on walls and rocks, and that climbing upstairs is his
chief delight,185 he gives at the same time a faithful picture of dawning
human impulses. Little George K——, a year and a half old, made his way
in an unguarded moment from the garden to the third story of his father’s
house. Numberless accidents have resulted from the climbing upon chairs
and tables, which is so indefatigably persisted in, and there are few plays
which afford so much pleasure to older children as climbing trees. It is
probable that, in spite of the danger of the situation, there is an instinctive
feeling of security and comfort when they are cosily settled among the
branches. We naturally attribute this, to the habits of their progenitors, but a
simpler explanation of their enjoyment of the situation may be that their
elders can not get to them. That girls gladly participate in this supposedly

masculine indulgence is noteworthy. Marlitt and Mrs. Hungerford give
amusing instances of trying situations in which older girls have been placed
through this propensity. The tall and glossy beech tree, with all sorts of
beauties luring one to its topmost branches, presents special difficulties to
adventurers. Climbing steep cliffs, too, is a favourite pastime; one of the
pleasantest recollections of my own youth is of climbing a wooded slope in
the neighbourhood of St. Blasien in the Black Forest, where I spent half a
day with two other children building a moss hut on an almost inaccessible
crag. The modern fad of making foolhardy excursions to the highest peaks
is too familiar to need enlarging on. It clearly shows that the most difficult
movement plays are combative. Th. Wundt, the famous climber, is quite
right when he says in his book on the Jungfrau and the Bernese Oberland
that the mountain climber “takes Nature by storm; he does not expect that
she will present a smiling aspect; he measures strength with her; he seeks a
contest which will try him to the uttermost, and the longing for adventure is
much stronger than any mere passive enjoyment.” We find traces of this
same spirit in old German records, as witness thus: King Olaf Tryggvason,
to prove his prowess, climbed the Smalsarhorn, hitherto regarded as
unscalable, and fixed his shield to its summit.186
With only a passing mention of swimming movements, in which the South
Sea Islanders excel, I turn at once to the dance, or what may be called the
artistic form of locomotion, confining myself, however, strictly to those
forms of it which have to do with pure movement-play. We must, I think,
assume that elementary ideas of dancing are present in childhood, but the
developed art belongs to adults. Besides the walking, running, hopping, and
skipping of which we have spoken, the child makes use of every imaginable
turn and attitude of the head, trunk, and limbs, and a careful study of the
various gymnastic motions of all times and peoples could hardly reveal
greater variety than is found among these little ones. A certain rhythm, too,
is noticeable in their ordinary hopping and skipping, but the essential
feature of the dance, the regulation of bodily movement by measured music,
must be acquired. Preyer’s statement that his child in its twenty-fourth
month danced in time with music,187 it seems to me, is an exception to the
rule, for among the large number of small children whom I have seen
dancing to music I can not recall a single one who kept time regularly and
with assurance without some teaching and example. I myself learned the

polka step, moving forward in a straight line, when I was a ten-year-old
boy, and I can remember feeling that it was something new and peculiar,
and that many of my comrades had great difficulty in achieving it. I am told
by a woman teacher that she attempted to teach some little girls between
five and eight years old to walk in time to a march played on the piano, and
that not a single one of them could do it successfully on the first trial. Yet,
on the other hand, it is certain that children learn dancing very quickly
through imitation, especially among savages. It is amazing to see with what
assurance these little ones can participate in the complicated dances of their
elders. I shall return to this in speaking of imitative plays. The ring dances
of European children, which we shall shortly refer to under social plays, are
derived from mediæval and ancient dances of adults.
To find the sources of pleasure in dancing we must go back to the common
ground of satisfaction in obeying the impulse for motion, yet it is not easy
to assign a general explanation for the peculiar charm of rhythmical
movement. Spencer holds that passionate excitement naturally manifests
itself in rhythmic repetition; while Minor, on the contrary, sees in it the
expression of a prudential instinct to restrain the fury of passionate
feeling.188 As Schiller, too, says:
“Es ist des Wohllauts mächtige Gottheit,
Die zum geselligen Tanz ordnet den tobenden Sprung,
Die der Nemesis Gleich, an des Rhythmus goldenem Zügel
Lenkt die brausende Lust und die verwilderte zähmt.”189

This view is quite plausible when applied to the social effect of dancing, as
Grosse has pointed out. Rhythm does subdue and order “riotous lust,” and
afford a harmless outlet to the general need for some expression of it. Yet it
would be a mistake to suppose that its effect is always subduing, since, as a
matter of fact, it often leads to the wildest tumult. “Oh, thou bold gamester,”
an old song runs, “Make for us a long row, Hip, hip, hurrah! how he can go!
Heart, lungs, and liver he will overthrow.”190
Spencer’s remark makes it clear, from the other point of view, that rhythm
is a most suitable instrument for the expression of passionate emotion, be it
sad or joyful, but fails to explain why it is in itself intensely exciting and
pleasurably so. Grosse justly says of Spencer’s view: “According to this
theory the rhythm of dancing movements seems to be only a sharply and
strongly intensified form of locomotion. It does not at all explain the

pleasurable quality of rhythm, and if we are unwilling to accept description
in lieu of explanation we can only regard this statement of fact as
introductory to further investigation.”
Since Darwin’s theory, mentioned above, has as yet found little substantial
proof, the intoxicating effects of rhythmic motion must find some other
explanation here. Such movements are employed among most peoples as a
means of producing ecstatic conditions. Selenkas gives a simple instance
from Borneo: “The candidate [for the office of doctor] was led before the
Manangs as they squatted on the ground. The Dekan, or spokesman,
addressed him, and, rising, anointed his forehead with oil and ordered him
to go around the ring bearing a lance to which was hung a medicine bag.
The Dekan followed him at a trot, and their speed was constantly increased
as the accompanying song of the others grew louder, until at last the
novitiate, gasping and stumbling as if hypnotized, broke down.”191
Here we have in elementary form the kind of intoxication which is so
fruitful in the production of religious ecstasy as it is indulged in by many
Christian sects, notably the American Puritans in their rolling exercise.
Numerous descriptions, however, show that some dance movements may
produce the same effect; indeed, some investigators have been led to the
belief that all dancing was originally religious, but this view is as one-sided
as is the attempt to refer dancing exclusively to courtship. It is safer to
regard it rather as an exciting movement-play which possesses, in common
with other narcotics, the magic power of abstracting us from commonplace
existence and transporting us to a self-created world of dreams. When
accompanied by special influences, which relate to fighting or love, the
agitation produced is sufficient to stir the soul to its depths; but even
without these associations the intoxicating power of movement is apparent,
its simplest effects being a kind of anæsthesia, relaxation of all tension,
unconsciousness of fatigue, and the illusion of being free from bodily
weight, like a spirit floating about in space. As Schiller says, “Befreit von
der Schwere des Leibes.” This illusion, in itself productive of great
enjoyment, explains our pleasure in such dances as we are considering.
Much has been said in criticism of the modern round dance. Apart from
sexual considerations, to which, after all, I do not attach much weight,
present-day dancing, is said to lack the social effect of mass plays and the
stimulus of mimic dances. But if we look upon it as a simple movement-

play, and consider it more from the standpoint of the dancer than of the
spectator, that criticism loses its force. The slower time of old-fashioned
waltzing was certainly more effective, and made a much more dignified
spectacle, but from the dancer’s point of view it was a distinct advance
when the tempo was quickened, for the present method plunges the dancing
pair more surely and quickly into the delicious tumult and madness of
motion.192
Since it would take too long even to glance at all the gymnastic dances of
times gone by, it will serve our purpose to point out those which were
controlled by rhythm. The wild leaping of mediæval ring dancing, where it
is said that even the ladies jumped a distance of six feet, and flew through
the air like birds; the Spartan βίβασις, kept up until exhaustion ensued; the
forward, sideward, and backward springing, and the measured tramping of
the Australian corroborris; the squatting and kneeling of the Nicobar
Islanders; bowing the body, swinging the arms, and nodding the head in the
Dajak war dance; the clapping and “Haxenschlagen” of Europeans—all
these are typical phenomena. Sometimes, in the midst of the general
agitation of the body, one part will remain rigid, as in this instance,
described by Man: “The dancer bent his back and threw his whole weight
on one leg, whose knee was crooked; the hands were stretched out before
his breast, one thumb held between the other thumb and forefinger while
the other fingers were strained forward. In this position the dancer turned
round, hopping forward on the supporting leg, and with every hop stamping
on the floor with the free foot.193 Similar spreading out of the fingers is
mentioned in Selenkas’s picture of a Malay woman’s dancing in
Sumatra,194 and I saw a comic European dancer hold his arm out
horizontally, but turned up from the elbow in a stiff manner, which made
the immobility of the upper part of his body appear in ridiculous contrast to
the lively motion of his legs. It would seem that the inhibition of all
involuntary muscular innervation produces more absolute surrender to the
prescribed movements of the dance....”
Before entering on the second half of this section we must devote a few
words to artificial methods of moving the body, which are divided into two
classes, those which are passive and those employed in active locomotion.
Naturally the first implement of this kind to be mentioned is the cradle, of
whose use among the Greeks we find no evidence, but the Romans had

them since the time of Plautus. The oldest German record of them is in the
Saxon manuscript at Heidelberg.195 Of course, the cradle’s rocking motion
and its soothing effect should be included in our enumeration of agreeable
movements. The same may be said of swinging, which we find practised by
many birds and by the ape; indeed, one case is recorded where a monkey
himself attached a rope to the projection of a roof and swung himself on it.
The human race, too, probably without exception, enjoy the sport. The
hammock is in some cases the prototype of the swing. Von den Steinen
relates of the Brazilian Bakairi that the men when at home spend most of
their time swinging in hammocks.196 Parkinson describes a still more
primitive sort of swing. It seems that the Gilbert Islanders select a stout,
well-grown cocoanut tree and attach a cord to it, on the other end of which
is a club. A young woman climbs on the trunk, and taking her seat there is
swung by a youth, who, watching his chance when the motion is well under
way, catches hold with his hands and swings with her.197 The Greeks had
several forms of the swing, among them the joggling board, consisting of a
flexible plank supported at its ends on fixed beams, and the rope swing
which with its comfortable seat supported by four cords was used by adults.
The Berlin Museum possesses a bowl ornamented with the figure of a fawn
running under a young girl in such a swing and sending her high in the air.
Athens celebrated a special holiday called after the swing, αἰῶραι.198
Pleasure in riding and driving being partly due to the control we have over
the horses, such enjoyment is a combination of active and passive. Even
when we are only steering a boat the illusion is easily supported that we are
to some extent responsible for its progress. Riding has other elements of
attraction: besides the forward motion and lofty seat there is some peculiar
enjoyment of each particular gait, the sensuously agreeable canter and the
hard shake of the trot, which, so far as it can be pleasurable, furnishes an
instance of more vehement enjoyment. Among artificial means of
locomotion, those are most agreeable which afford a swift and yet smooth
gliding or rocking motion. Souriau says in his Esthétique du Mouvement
that the chief attraction of movement-plays lies in the overcoming of
gravitation. But in that case, as I pointed out in my earlier work, downward
movement would have no charm, since gravitation is there triumphant. The
child’s first jump is, as we have seen, downward, and the downward rush of
a sled fills us with exquisite delight. Souriau’s other supposition, that

perhaps it is the exemption from friction, from the slight hindrances and
detentions which commonly attend our movements, which accounts for our
pleasure,199 seems more probable. It is to be hoped that among the sports of
the future, flying either in balloons or with flying machines will be
included. Lilienthal, in recounting his experiences in these arts, assures us
that gliding through the air in a slanting direction affords a new and
delightful sensation.
A long list of inventions, for the most part recreative, meet the demand for
aids to active locomotion, notably appliances for rowing and the bicycle.
Among ancient implements of this character I mention but two: stilts and
snowshoes. Running on stilts is a favourite sport of children, both on
account of the difficulties it presents and because of the elevation it affords.
It was practised by both Greeks and Romans, and Pollux mentions a
Spartan dance which was performed on stilts, probably the kind which is
bound to the foot.200 In speaking of the ethnological distribution of this
custom Andree says that stilts are found all over the world. “In China they
are very skilfully used, and are not unknown to Africa among many African
tribes. The negro boys left of the Congo bind stilts to their ankles to appear
taller. They are well known to the Malays and the inhabitants of the South
Sea Islands. In Tahiti a limb of a tree is used, having a smaller branch
projecting at about a metre from the ground, and in this fork the foot is
placed. The beautifully carved stilts of the Marquise Islanders have attained
a certain celebrity.”201 The snowshoe, which has recently become popular
once more, seems to be as ancient as the skate.202
“In skating,” says Weinhold, “the men and boys emulated the example of
Ullr and Skadi, who must have been very gods of snow and ice. But they
did not use steel skates like ours, but stood on long boards and held a staff
to steady them. Many Norsemen became famous for this kind of running;
such sagas of their skill have come down to us.... The Finns were teachers
of this art, which was carried to great perfection among them. In their peace
treaties any violator of them was menaced with being called a traitor as far
as ships sailed or shields glittered, as the sun shone or snow fell, or the Finn
could skate.”203

B. PLAYFUL MOVING OF FOREIGN BODIES

The primitive impulse to extend the sphere of their power as far as possible
leads men to the conquest and control of objects lying around them. We can
distinguish six different groups of movement-plays resulting from this
impulse: 1, Mere “hustling” things about; 2, destructive or analytic play; 3,
constructive or synthetic play; 4, plays of endurance; 5, throwing plays; 6,
catching plays.

1. Hustling Things about
By this rather inelegant but expressive term we designate a kind of play
which belongs to early childhood. From the grasping impulse the tendency
is developed in the second quarter to push and pull things about in all
directions, to shake and test them with hands and lips, to seize and to push
away. External objects are all playthings to the child, says Perez, all objects
of his investigating tendencies. “Il les manie, les tourne, les abat, les
redresse, les jette, les reprend, les poursuit à quatre pattes, quand il ne peut
les atteindre, les attire à lui, les frappe, les uns contre, les autres, fouille
dans leurs profondeurs, les entasse et les sépare, enfin joue ou s’instruit par
eux de mille manières.”204 Tearing paper gives particular pleasure. The
child “seizes it with avidity, crumples it up in his hand as if pleased to find
that there is power enough in the tiny fist to change the form of anything, or
he polishes the tables with it as zealously as a Dutch woman.”205
“A child delights to play with things that can be put in motion, takes
pleasure in shaking a well-filled purse, turning the handle of a coffee mill,
pulling out drawers, dabbling in water, and for the same reason older
children are fond of handling smooth sand and clay.”206 Autenrieth gives a
good instance of what we call joy in being a cause, which is conspicuous in
all play of this class. “All small boys regard it as a treat to be allowed to
paddle in street puddles, where they can produce a great effect with little
effort.”207
Much that might suitably be classed here has already been mentioned in
connection with seeing, hearing, and tactile plays, since the impulse to set
surrounding objects in motion is very closely connected with the desire for
sensuous excitement. To avoid repetition I will simply refer to what has
been said, and content myself here with adding one more play to the list, as
it has special claim to be classed with them—namely, flying kites and

similar play with captive insects. Although a little child can have but a very
imperfect conception of the difference between animate and inanimate
objects, yet living creatures certainly have a paramount interest for him.
Everything which flies or crawls is watched and questioned with an almost
passionate interest, and the desire to follow a flying insect and to possess it
leads the child to tie a string to some part of its body. K. von den Steinen
saw two Bororó boys in Brazil, one of whom had a bee and the other a
butterfly fluttering on a cord.208 In Greece such sport was called μηλολόνδη
or μηλολάνδη. Gold beetles were attached to cords three yards long, with
pieces of wood on the end, and unmercifully pulled about in the air—
veritable “hustling” indeed.209 Children sometimes treat little birds in the
same way. “When a boy catches a sparrow,” says Geiler von Kaisersberg,
“he ties a thread one or two ells long to it, letting the bird fly while he holds
the cord in his hand. If it darts off and tries to get away the boy jerks the
string, and the poor little creature falls down again.”210
Paper kites in the form of birds and animals afford similar entertainment,
and have a remarkably lifelike appearance as they sail aloft. They impart to
their owners a pleasant sense of a widely extended sphere of control. This
fine sport originated in China, where it is the national game. Bastion saw
Siamese children211 playing with kites, and the Berlin Museum has paper
ones from the Soudan. They are in use also in the South Sea Islands as far
down as New Zealand.
In concluding, I remark it was this faculty of busying one’s self with all
sorts of objects in this kind of play which first suggested to me the term
experimentation which I have found useful in a much wider sense.

2. Destructive (Analytic) Movement-Play
The simplest and earliest handling of external objects exhibits the
fundamental principle which differentiates the forms of our conscious
activity, showing them to be such as make for division or for concentration.
Play which separates or analyzes easily acquires a special character which
allies it with the fighting instincts and concerts it into wild destructiveness.
The veriest infant shows its beginnings in his desire to tear paper, pull the
heads off of flowers, rummage in boxes, and the like; and as the child grows
older he displays more clearly this analytic impulse—boys as a rule more

than girls, be it noted. They are constantly taking their toys to pieces,
dissecting tools, weapons, clocks, toys, etc.; and since the child, like the
savage, has not our clear perception of the difference between what is living
and the lifeless, he will pull to pieces a beetle, a fly, or a bird with the same
serenity which accompanies his demolition of a flower. Perez tells this of a
child hardly ten months old. “His nurse put him on the grass and gave him a
turtle to play with, and as he seemed to be absorbed in watching it, left him
for a moment. When she came back one of the creature’s legs was torn half
off, and the zealous investigator was applying his powers to another.”212 As
far back as Fischart’s time this was known to be different from actual
cruelty, and Keller in his Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe gives us a classic
instance. The boy and girl were playing together with a doll which he
suddenly jerked away from the little girl and mischievously tossed up in the
air. The doll came to grief in his hands, for a little hole appeared in one of
her knees and some bran was escaping. The little girl did not seem to notice
the hole, so the boy kept quite still busily making it larger with his finger
and increasing the flow of bran. His silence at last aroused her suspicion,
and she came closer and beheld his wickedness with horror. “Just look at
that!” he cried, holding the leg so that some bran fell in her face; and when
she tried to reach the doll, he leaped away, and would not stop until the
whole leg hung limp and empty as a husk. Then follows a description of
how the offended child was finally won over to join the boy in the work of
destruction, helping to bore hole after hole in the body of the martyr. Other
examples of the workings of the destructive impulse will be adduced under
fighting plays.

3. Constructive (Synthetic) Movement-Play
Constructive play bears about the same relation to imitation that analytic
play bears to the fighting instinct. Circumstances under which this relation
can not be traced are comparatively rare and very primitive. However, it is
important to bear in mind that back of the μίμησις, in which Aristotle finds
the essence of artistic effort, and back of the overflow of dammed-up
energies which the new psychology emphasizes, there is still something
primeval. Ribot calls it “Le besoin de créer,” or a demand for some external
result of our instinctive movements, which is, after all, but a specialized
form of joy in being a cause.213 Pleasure in the work of our own hands,
which takes a negative form in destructive sport, here becomes positive

creation, the instinct for building, for uniting scattered elements into a new
whole. Its simplest form is found in the child’s moulding new forms from
some suitable material, their chief charm being their newness. Moist sand is
heaped up or dug away, snow tunnelled through or rolled into a great ball,
sticks of wood piled, water collected in a pond, etc. Such things are always
going on where there are children. “I have a boy in mind,” says Michelet,
“hardly eighteen months old, who claps his hands joyously when he
succeeds in laying one little stick upon another. He admires his work, and,
like a small creator, seems to say: ‘See that? It is very good.’”214 Marie G
—— affords the following pretty instance: One day, when she was about
three, she sat on the floor in great distress, with tears pouring down her
cheeks. Soon she noticed that the drops rolled down like silver balls on her
woollen dress, and at once began to collect the transparent pearls in a fold,
and so accumulated as she sobbed a little “heap of woe” in her lap.
We readily see how imitation brings about great variety in the
manifestations of the constructive tendency. The fun is not at its height until
the sand is converted into mountains, tunnels, moats, and walls, the snow
into the figure of a man, the mud to a similitude of dolls, the woodpile to
buildings, water to lakes, streams to waterfalls, etc. Arranging the same or
similar objects in rows is a more advanced and yet primitive kind of
constructiveness. Preyer reports such arrangement of shells, pebbles, and
buttons in the twenty-first month.215 Where this is not imitation of elders it
may be regarded as the forerunner of that preference for regular succession
which is so prominent in decoration.
Closely connected with all this is the disposition to make collections. The
disposition to appropriate and cling to whatever attracts the attention
(James216 makes it a special instinct, which he calls appropriation or
acquisitiveness) is a feature of constructive activity. Animals as well as
children try to accumulate whatever pleases them. Viscachas, woodrats,
various members of the crow family, and many other birds, have the habit
of hoarding especially bright objects. The inclination first shows itself in
children in their collecting in one place various things of only ordinary
interest, as in the pockets of a small boy,217 or a girl’s bureau drawers; and
adults too often retain this habit. G. Keller, whose metier for the grotesque
is well known,218 gives exaggerated instances of the mania for collecting, as
in the case of the lacquered cabinet belonging to Züs Bünzlin, one of his

heroines. It contained a gilded and painted Easter egg, a half dozen silver
teaspoons, the Lord’s Prayer printed in gold on a red transparent substance
which she said was human skin, a cherry stone on which a crucifix was
carved, a broken ivory box lined with red silk and containing a small mirror
and a thimble, another cherry stone inside of which a miniature game of
skittles was going on, a nut with a Madonna in it under glass and a silver
heart inside, and so on. But the passion for collecting reaches its height only
when some particular kind of thing forms its object. It is natural to us all to
get together as many things as we can of a kind which especially attracts us.
When the four-year-old girl who never tires of picking flowers ties those
she had plucked into a bouquet to carry home, we have the beginning of
discriminating collection; when she searches for and hoards shells or
coloured pebbles of unusually perfect shape, she is really within the
charmed circle. Munkacsy tells us of his childhood: “Strange as it may
seem, my chief enjoyment was in gathering stones on the street, and many a
box on the ear has the habit earned for me. I stuffed my pockets so full that
the integrity of my trousers was seriously threatened; and besides, my father
had frequently forbidden it.”219 Boys will collect anything, says James,
which they see other boys collect, “from pieces of chalk and peach pits up
to books and photographs.”220 Of the hundred students whom he
questioned, only four or five had never collected anything. The words
“which they see other boys collect” intimate that imitation and rivalry have
much to do with this impulse. Any boy is admired and envied who has very
rare butterflies, beetles, eggs, stamps, etc., or a large number of them; as
indeed is any man, for the same principle applies to adults. There are other
manifestations, too, of the combative emulative spirit which is active in
almost all play. The search for more specimens often leads to contests
which place even those who are otherwise honourable in an attitude of open
hostility, and admits the practice of deceit, treachery, and robbery.
Kleptomania is frequently nothing else than an overwhelming and
imperative impulse for collecting. Yet the fact that adults collect things
which have no intrinsic value shows that imitation and the combative spirit
are here only incidental, in spite of their seeming weight. In impulsive
insanity the patient carefully saves the refuse from his own body, hair that
has been cut off, finger nails, bits of skin, and even more unpleasant things.
This must have its origin in a deep-rooted demand for synthetic activity.

4. Playful Exercise of Endurance
The play which we have been considering gains, as other kinds do, a further
charm when difficulties are associated with it, and it becomes more like
fighting play. When Strümpell’s little daughter learned to grasp easily she
was no longer satisfied with holding ordinary things, and took to picking up
objects so small as to be difficult to get hold of.221 When she was two and a
half years old she enjoyed opening the door of a little clock, and never tired
of fitting the small snap into its slot; she could also thread the finest needle.
Animals, too, seem to enjoy overcoming difficulties. Parrots like to take out
screws, and Miss Romanes says that her monkey tried with indefatigable
perseverance to put back the handle on a hearth brush which he had taken
apart, and turned away from it at once as soon as he succeeded.222 There are
all sorts of puzzles which indulge this fancy, such as untying apparently fast
knots with a single jerk, disentangling intertwined rings, taking balls or
rings off an endless cord, taking two corks, held between the thumb and
forefinger of one hand, with the thumb and forefinger of the other without
leaving the hands joined, and many such things. The Greek χαλκισμός is
explained for the first time by Becker in the fifth scene of his Charikles: “It
was an attempt to bring a coin spinning on its edge to a standstill by
touching it from above with the finger.” Rochholz thus describes the Swiss
“Fadmen”: “A boy sitting in a basket which is swung to and fro in the air
gets a prize if he succeeds in threading a needle during the process.... In
Aargau the contestants sit on a stout bottle with their feet crossed.”223 Strutt
gives two English examples from the fourteenth century. A youth standing
on a light flexible pole stretched over water, attempted to put out one candle
with another.224 The familiar Chinese game which we call jackstraws was
mentioned by Amaranthus in 1715.225 The Berlin Museum has many such
puzzles from remote parts of the world. O. Finsch mentions two (probably
imported) much used in India: the Chut-jueh-mudra, in which a cube is put
together from tiny bits, and the “five-horse game,” where two wooden rings
strung on a cord are to be removed without loosening the knot, and other
such sports as are common among ourselves.226 The difficult task of
forming various figures with a string held stretched between the two hands
(cat’s cradle) affords entertainment for hours at a time to the Eskimos in
Baffin Land. They call the game ajarorpoq.227 It is found also in Australia,
Borneo, New Guinea, New Zealand, and Java, where, Schmetz says, the

children play it too. Finally, I may add that von Hartmann classes much of
the ladies’ fancy work with such play, inasmuch as it does not possess
artistic value, and its intrinsic worth is out of all proportion to the effort
expended.228

5. Throwing Plays
Whereas the forms of movement-play which we have been considering are
more or less connected, throwing is regarded by many as a special instinct.
Preyer says that it is “undoubtedly instinctive.” When monkeys get excited
they throw anything they can get hold of; and a five-year-old idiot whose
brain structure was much like that of a monkey did the same thing when he
was teased.229 In any case, throwing is certainly an interesting phenomenon,
which, if monkeys did not indulge in it, we should claim as a prerogative of
the human race. At first it was defensive, the missile serving at a distance as
a substitute for one of the bodily members, and consequently first gave the
idea of a machine, if we take the word μηχανή in its more general sense.
The next step, and one which monkeys can not attain, is the fashioning of
the projectile into a work of art.
Accidental dropping of objects seems to introduce the idea of throwing to
the infant mind, and what we have called visual play furthers its
development, since the child from watching the falling object comes to
repeat the process intentionally, and so learns to throw. The following report
of Preyer’s traces this progression: “Thirtieth week: Frequent dropping, but
still not noticed. Thirty-fourth week: The child looks after the object
dropped, but indifferently. Forty-seventh week: The child throws down
anything that is given him after playing with it a little, and often looks after
it. On one occasion he threw a book on the floor eight times in succession,
and his pursed-up lips indicated serious determination.”230 Further
developments were hampered by the interference of his parents. Sigismund,
too, gives valuable notes, and adds some luminous remarks on the
biological and psychological significance of such play. “All children like to
throw,” he says, “and are often blamed for it very unjustly. We should
remember that although some window panes may be endangered by such
play, it lays the foundation for man’s supremacy over the other animals, and
that by means of it muscles are gradually developed and strengthened. We
should rejoice, then, with the children when a stone goes a long way or

bounds into the water with a splash. When children get out of doors the
desire to throw something takes possession of them; even the yearling picks
up pebbles and delights to roll them. The older boys stand on the coping or
carriage block, and are engrossed in testing the force and directness of their
aim. They are trying the power of will over matter.”231 This is the correct
designation of the peculiar satisfaction derived from throwing. It is that
which comes from sending the object from us and, as it were, projecting our
individuality into a wider sphere of action. Souriau says: “We take a special
interest in the extension of motion originated by ourselves. It becomes a
part of us. The force which we behold at work outside of us is our own.”232
If we include rolling or sliding in our definition of throwing, we are
confronted by a bewildering variety of games;233 but since the ends of a
general psychology of play would not be furthered by an enumeration of
these, we will try to single out such as illustrate the varied forms of
satisfaction which throwing in general affords. First of all let us keep in
mind our principle, that inventive play presupposes a complication of
instinctive tendencies through the satisfaction of which enjoyment is greatly
enhanced. Usually it is impulses for fighting and imitation which ally
themselves with that toward movement and render the play more varied and
pleasurable. There are, indeed, very few throwing plays that have not
culminated in contests of one kind or another, and many are at the same
time imitative, though whether they were originated by children or adults it
is difficult or even impossible to say. Our study of primitive acoustic
instruments showed that the child is sometimes actively inventive. Trying,
then, to keep clear as much as possible of fighting and imitative play, we
distinguish several kinds of throwing plays which we may briefly
characterize as follows: (a) Simple throwing, upward, downward, or
horizontally; (b) propulsion by means of a blow (c) rolling, spinning,
shoving, and skipping; (d) throwing at a target.

(a) Simple Throwing
Downward throwing is, as already said, the easiest and most natural
movement of the kind to a child, from the fact that he learns it by letting
things fall. It appeals at the same time to his sight, and quite as much
perhaps to his hearing. To send toys, spoons, trays, and books rattling,
crashing, and slamming on the floor is a pastime which children will keep

up as long as they dare, as the young Goethe tossed the dishes and pots out
of the window into the street and enjoyed the clatter. A friend of mine was
one day holding his two-year-old nephew in his arms near an open window,
and gave the child a silver cigarette case to play with. He hurled it to the
street below, to the alarm of passers-by, and called out a loving farewell
after it. Older children enjoy throwing something down from a bridge or
tower, and sometimes in default of other ammunition make use of Nature’s
supply of saliva, as many of us perhaps remember from having our ears
boxed for such indulgence. The fascination of sending stones over a
precipice appeals to adults as well. Throwing forward is learned almost as
early as the other; as soon as he can toddle every child tries to throw
pebbles across a brook or into a neighbour’s yard, the larger the shot the
greater his satisfaction. Most of the toys, borrowed from long-disused
practices of adults, which cater to this impulse belong under another head—
Throwing at a target.
Among the earliest of these were the catapult, the ancient discus, something
like the English quoit, and the sling. We often find grown men testing their
strength and skill in throwing. Once when I was on the banks of the
Lünersee a young traveller used to try to throw stones into the lake, which
appeared to be but a few paces from the house but was in reality much
farther. Following his example, other tourists would join in the game in
spite of their fatigue, though generally with but little success. At Swiss
festivals the herdsmen keep up an ancient Aelplerspiel, which consists in
throwing heavy stones as far as possible.234
That wonderful passage in the Odyssey where the godlike sufferer threw the
discus, the stone hummed loudly as the spectators bent to the earth under
the force of the blow, is a classic example of instinctive æsthetic
appreciation, and serves as a match for Gretchen’s remark, “Then quivered
at every throat the blade which I felt at mine.” Upward throwing is acquired
somewhat later, perhaps, because children easily lose sight of the missile
which goes far above them. Their first efforts are usually to toss a ball a
very little way up, but boys soon acquire the uncomfortable but effective
method of bending backward before making the throwing motion. Homer
refers to this too: “Behold! He has hurled it [the ball] aloft to the shadowy
clouds, bending backward.” As a little fellow I often tried to throw over tall
trees, and my grandfather used to tell me how, when he was a young painter

in Rome, he used to vie with the street urchins in throwing stones over the
Arch of Titus. A favourite game of this kind is played by placing a ball or
pebble in a sling which is whirled so rapidly that it hums. In Heidelberg,
where many grounds are planted with plane trees, autumn invites the
children to a game with the long fruits which hang by threads from their
branches, a natural toy which the little ones are quick to take advantage of.
Among toys originating in imitation the bow is sometimes used for sending
arrows aloft for the simple pleasure of watching their upward flight, though,
of course, its chief use is for aiming at a target.

(b) Throwing with the Help of a Stroke or Blow
Here we must consider the transference of motion to the missile by means
of a sudden blow, a method closely allied to simple throwing, though in
some of its modifications, as, for instance, when the radius of the bodily
movements is artificially lengthened and the communicated force
correspondingly increased, introducing a large circle of new plays in most
of which the arms are the only bodily organs employed. I notice first the
various games of skill played with rubber balls, principally by girls. The
descending ball is met and again impelled upward by the open palm, the
closed fist, or even one stiffened outstretched finger. There are similar
games requiring more powerful strokes and better suited to masculine taste.
Thus the Romans had two kinds of balls, one very large, the follis, and the
other smaller, the folliculus, which were struck, the former with the forearm
protected with bandages or a wooden ring, and the latter with the fist.235
The first is still much liked in Italy under the name of giuoco del ballon
grosso, the player sheathing his arm in a sort of muff; the other game is
preserved in the English handball.236 For an ethnological example we may
turn to the Gilbert Islands; in their game for men, “Oreanne,” they use a
cocoanut shell bound with cords, tossing it lightly into the air and
propelling it by a blow from the hand.237 And we may also cite the game
carried to perfection in China, and called by the Greeks κωρυκοβολία, in
which a huge suspended ball is kept in motion by blows from a number of
players. A pretty contrast to this is found in the Samoan game, where an
orange instead of a ball is hung in the middle of a room, about sixty
centimetres from the floor. The players sit in a circle around it, each being

provided with a small pointed stick with which in his turn he gives the
orange a blow as it circles past.238
The human leg, with its fine muscular development and its long radius, is a
favourite and variously used propelling implement. Kicking is a primitive
method of fight which children make early use of, and the famous incident
in the French Council Chamber is sufficient to establish its adaptability to
the requirements of the highest culture. The game of football proclaims its
triumph as an instrument for play, where, too, the value of movement-play
is obvious. This game, which Anglo-Saxons are wont to regard as their
peculiar property, is claimed by Mosso to have originated in Italy in the
time of the Renaissance, when physical exercise was a fad with high and
low. It is true that such a game was described in great detail in 1555 by
Scaino in his celebrated Trattato della Palla under the name of giuoco del
calcio, and the writer insists that shoes with soles of buffalo hide are
indispensable for the players. While our game of football is a hotly fought
contest, Forbes describes a form of it popular in Sumatra which is nothing
more than a skilful movement-play. During the dance festivals, which last
for several days, “the young people amuse themselves on the village green
with a ball game called Simpak, in which they vie with one another in the
display of measured and elegant movements in the presence of the girls and
the public generally. About twenty youths arrange themselves in a circle
and keep a large hollow ball skilfully wrapped with ratan in the air by
hitting it as it descends with the side of the foot; they are not allowed to
touch it with anything else. In delivering the blow the leg is thrown almost
perpendicularly into the air, while the body assumes a horizontal position,
and the beauty of the movement consists in the fine swing which restores
the body to an upright position without upsetting the player.”239
An innumerable variety of games depend on the principle of increasing the
arm radius, including many of the favourite amusements of young and old.
Golf,240 cricket, tennis, and croquet may be mentioned as types.
Buildings241 put up especially to play in, witness how much such exercise
—which, by the way, develops the body much more systematically than any
regular gymnastics can—was formerly valued in Germany. In these
buildings games using rackets and bats were most common; one, which was
hardly more than mere knocking the ball back and forth was very popular
and was called “Pelotieren.”242

The citation of primitive examples is more to our purpose, and I select first
two games in which bits of wood are employed in lieu of balls. One in the
Holstein Klink- or Klischspiel. A chip of a peculiar shape is balanced on the
end of a stake driven diagonally into the ground and then hit from below
with a sort of club. The other is simpler still: it is called Porscheck in the
game books.243 A cigar-shaped bit of wood is so placed that one end is free,
and a blow on this free end sends it whirling in the air. In Heidelberg, where
this game is much cultivated, and is dignified by frequent contests, the man
about to strike asks “Tenez?” whereupon his antagonist answers “Oui,”
neither party having the slightest suspicion that they are speaking French—
a proof of the power of tradition.244 Similar games are played by children,
one being accompanied by singing as the piece of wood or arrow is shot
into the air, and Rochholz suspects that this is a survival of a religious
ceremony symbolic of the flight of winter before the fiery darts of spring. If
so, it is one of many games which originated in this way. But how did the
religious custom arise? Does not tracing its origin lead us in a circle back to
playful experimentation, as we found to be in all probability the case with
the discovery and application of some musical instruments? It is most
likely.

(c) Rolling, Spinning, Shoving, and Skipping Foreign Bodies
In this division I group together such plays as lend a special character to the
movement of the object, including them all, however, in the general class of
throwing play, since it would unnecessarily complicate matters to make a
separate class of them. In all plays with rolling balls, such as tenpins and
billiards, pleasure in motion as such forms the undercurrent of the
satisfaction afforded, even when they develop into important contests. The
thundering roll and crash of the heavy wooden ball, and the noiseless,
lightning-quick motion of the elastic ivory one, each has its charm. In a
billiard room it is amusing to note how irresistible is the impulse to most
players to take the balls from their pockets and roll them on the green
surface after the game is over. Primitive forms of such games no doubt
originated in experimentation with the round or disc-shaped stones found in
every river or brook bed. Many fruits, too, are used in the same way—the
horse chestnut, for example, being a favourite plaything wherever it grows.
Yet the manufacture of artificial balls is no doubt very ancient, but inquiry
into that must not detain us here. After the first years of life, when rolling in

itself is an object, such balls are used in relation to some goal, perhaps
partly because they are constantly getting lost when knocked aimlessly
about, and the children do not wish to risk their precious possessions.
Other rolling toys, such as wheels and hoops, whose motion is kept up by
means of continuous striking, offer a very different kind of amusement. The
violent running, combining as it does something of the zest of the chase
with the pleasure of overcoming a difficulty, forms a delightful compound
with the enjoyment of the rolling as such. The Greeks called the hoop
τροχός or κρίκος. They were rather large, and made of metal studded with
tinkling bells and propelled by a metal rod. Ganymede is often represented
with such a hoop. The Romans had an extraordinary fondness for this sport,
and Ovid, who refers to a teacher of the art of hoop rolling, says in one of
his enumerations of the spring games:

“Usus equi nunc est, levibus nunc luditur armis,
Nunc pila, nunc celeri volvitur orbe trochus.”

Fouquières cites a passage from Martial about youths rolling hoops on
frozen streams. Another play with wheels consists of whirling a small one
on a string passed through its axis, a practice both ancient and modern; and,
too, there is the beautiful sport of rolling blazing wheels downhill at night,
as is the custom with many mountaineers. Here, of course, the element of
pursuit is wanting.
Single discs, such as coins, are used for the spinning of which we have
already spoken. Sometimes it was spun horizontally on a peg fixed at its
axis, forming the toy called by the Greeks στρόβιλος, and by the Romans
turben. But much more important is the conical top, whose dance can be
indefinitely prolonged by skilful whipping. There are few plays which
foster the illusion of our having a living thing at our pleasure as effectually
as this does. H. Wagner tells of a small boy who liked to keep several tops
spinning together. “Each had its name, and he talked to them all. The one
which spun longest was his favourite, and he tested them by setting them all
in violent motion and leaving them while he ran down in the yard. When he
came back he rejoiced over those that were still spinning.”245 This is a good
deal like a little girl’s behaviour to her dolls, though the boy’s relation to his
toys is rather that of a teacher than parent. This difference comes out
strongly when the children play with a puppy: the girl wants to wash and
pet it, while the boy will teach it tricks. The widespread popularity of the
top is an indication of its importance, and its variety of names among the
ancients witnesses to its high favour with them (βέμβηξ, βέβιξ, ῥόμβος,
στρόμβος, etc.). It was found in the third city in the Trojan excavations.
Boys threw their tops in the courts and streets by a leather string, and
accompanied with a monotonous cry τὴν κατὰ σαυτὸν ἔλα, or στρέφου, μὴ
ἴστασαι.246 Tibullus likens his lovesick heart to a top “which a restless child
spins on smooth ground with a jerk of the cord.”247 Its German names are
even more numerous than are the antique (Ganzknopf, Topf, Topsch,
Triesel, Drudelmadam, Habergais, Krüselding, Schnurrprusel, etc.). In early
writings a top humming on ice was used as a figure of rapid motion, and
such comparisons are quite frequent with old German poets. This one,
which incidentally proves that top cords were used at the time, is
particularly striking:

“Ez gewan ine topfe
Vor geiseln solhen umbeswanc,
Als sî mich âne minen danc
Mit slegen umb und umle treip.”248

In the Indian archipelago many stone249 as well as wooden tops are used.
Ten Kate gives illustrations of massive yellow painted wooden ones from
there. The conical shape is about the same as with our own tops, but it lacks
the horizontal grooves.250 We have Andrée’s authority for the statement that
children in Egypt, China, Siam, and Burmah are fond of spinning tops,251
some Indians having top cords with three thongs.252
Skipping stones on ice, as all boys love to do, is dignified in Bavaria and
Austria into a game called “Eisschiessen,” in which heavy and carefully
polished stone discs with a handle on top are slid over the frozen surface.
Gutsmuths says:253 “This game is played zealously in town and village, and
the sturdy sportsmen allow no stress of weather, no untoward circumstance,
to interfere with this their winter’s fun. Even the boys have their ice sticks
to beguile the way to school. High and low take part in the healthful sport;
and as in the Tyrol the village pastor must not fail in archery, so here he
enters the lists as a matador of the icy course.” The Scotch use for the same
purpose semispherical curling stones from twenty to thirty kilogrammes in
weight, and provided with an iron or wooden handle.254
Skipping and bouncing, which again call forth the impression of life
depending on our own exertions, are prominent in the two very popular and
primitive games in which the ball and disc show us another side of their
Protean adaptability. One consists of throwing the ball to the floor with such
force that it rebounds, and meeting it with a blow as it comes up so that it is
struck back again, and the process is repeated indefinitely. Swiss girls sing a
little verse in time with the strokes:
“Bälleli ufe, Bällile abe
Gump mir nit in nasse Grabe!
Gump mir an en trockne Fleck,
Gump mir nit in nasse Dreck,” etc.255

Niebuhr saw the children on the Euphrates playing the same game. The
other amusement of this kind is skipping stones on water; the Greeks called
it ἐποστρακισμός. Minucius Felix describes it graphically and with
sympathetic insight: “Is lusus est: testam teretem jactatione fluctuum

levigatam, legere de litore; eam testam plano situ digitis, comprehensam,
inclinem ipsum atque humilem, quantum potest, super undas inrotare; ut
illud jaculum vel dorsum maris raderet; vel enataret, dum leni impetu
labitur; vel summis fluctibus tonsis emicaret dum assiduo saltu sublevatur.
Is se in pueris victorem ferebat, cujus testula et procurreret longius et
frequentibus exsiliret.”256 As many as fifty German names for this sport
might be enumerated, some of them showing pretty fancies and æsthetic
personification. Fischart, of course, makes his Gargantua a master in this art
too. He says in his quaint German, “Gargantua warff breyde Kiesestein am
Gastaden schlimms aufs Wasser, dass es ob dem Wasser weiss nicht wie
viel Sprung thaten.”257

(d) Throwing at a Mark
If throwing is, as many believe, an inherited impulse at bottom, then it must
belong with the fighting instincts, since it gives a man the power to slay his
enemy or his prey without actual contact with either. However that may be,
throwing at a mark must have originated in such hostile use of the ability to
throw at all, and it is significant that by far the most numerous and popular
games of the kind require a target, and belong essentially to the male. Thus
it may be questioned whether the whole subject would not better be treated
in connection with fighting play; but it seems to me that consciousness of
the fact that the target is a symbol of an opponent or of prey hardly forms
any considerable element in the satisfaction derived from the sport, and for
that reason I deem it fitting to notice it briefly in this connection. Moreover,
its biological significance is more extensive than is that of mere
belligerence, for it promotes to a higher degree than almost any other play
the concentration of attention and the capacity of the organism for swift and
sure reaction.
It is easy to see how, with children, throwing at a mark naturally follows
simple forward throwing. Perhaps we get a hint of how this comes about
from their intentional throwing of objects to the floor with a view to
producing a noise, for the floor is then in some sense a goal, though there is
as yet no specialization. From my own observation I should say that the
first suggestion of the possibility of striking intentionally often arises from
the pretence of some older person that he is badly hurt by the falling or
rolling object, whereupon the heartless little creature at once tries to repeat

the attack, this time with malice aforethought. Further development of this
capacity is rather hindered than furthered by the child’s learning to run
about; indeed, it is commonly the sixth year or later before he begins to be
interested in such games, a manifold variety of which is handed down by
tradition.
In this case, too, I can but touch upon a few principal groups, and illustrate
them with examples chosen from the wealth of material at hand. In many
games the object is to hit a comrade with a ball. In one very popular at
Heidelberg all the boys’ caps are placed in a straight row on the ground, and
the chosen king throws his ball on one of them, whereupon its owner must
instantly seize the ball and hurl it after his fleeing comrades. This comes
very near to fighting play, as does another game, which takes the form of
pelting some object set or hung up for the purpose, or something in
motion.258 Many games are founded on this principle, from throwing stones
at a flowerpot or fruit hanging on a tree up to tenpins, which has been
introduced of late into Egypt, and shooting at a target with blowpipe, lance,
bow, crossbow, or rifle. An early developed, though, it is true, not purely
playful, form of this sport is set forth in a beautiful Greek epigram called
the Plaint of the Fruit Tree, which may be thus paraphrased: “Truly they
have planted me here by the roadside as an unhappy target for all the
playful boys to throw stones at! And how the destroying shower has rained
down and torn my blooming crown and broken all my branches! The tree
can be of no more use to you with all its harvest ruined. Alas! here have I,
most miserable one, borne all this fruit to my own undoing.”259
A modification of such plays consists in throwing one missile after another
of the same kind, as a ball after a ball, a quoit after a quoit, etc. Thus
Burmese children play Tschapieh-Kasah by throwing flat seeds on one
another,260 and many of our own games are essentially the same, especially
those played with marbles. These little toys are very generally used, and are
quite ancient. Bastian saw them in Burmah and Siam, where the game is
called Leu Thoi-Kong.261 It is popular all through the Orient, and extends to
Africa. In old German burial urns, “with the bones of children are found
polished round stones, such as modern children play with.”262 The Romans
called marbles ocellata. They are frequently mentioned, too, in old German
literature,263 one instance being of pedagogical interest. In the sixteenth

century the sumptuary laws of Zurich included one forbidding marbles
among other plays, under penalty of the “Gätterei.” And what was this
punishment? The youthful criminal was placed in a revolving wooden
machine and whirled until the crisis of dizziness and nausea was
reached!264
Very common, too, are the games in which small discs are thrown one after
another. The Greek στρεπτίνδα was an attempt to propel a quoit or coin
lying on the floor by means of another thrown toward it. Forbes describes a
peculiar form of the game as practised in Sumatra: “All day long the boys
under my window amused themselves with a game called Lepar, which
interested me very much.... Each player had a sort of quoit made of
cocoanut shell, which he threw from a special stand and tried to hit one or
more (according to the number of players) of the other quoits lying at a
distance of forty or fifty feet.... The manner of propelling the missiles was
remarkable. The player turned his back to the goal, laid his quoit flat on the
ground, seized it firmly between his heels, and with a rotary motion of his
legs shot it forward so that its rim described a cycloidal curve. It was
amazing to see with what certainty the best players reckoned on the amount
of force necessary for perfecting such a curve as would pass in among the
quoits and hit the ones aimed at.”265
In the Greek game κυνδαλισμός the object was to dig up with one pointed
stick another which was fixed in the ground, and to do it in such a manner
that the first stick was left standing up where the other had been. Fischart
and Rabelais mention this game.
Still another kind of play belonging to this class (and at this point all
connection with fighting play is severed) consists in rolling or throwing the
projectile into or through a hole. The familiar game of marbles with holes
was known to Greek children, and was called τρόπα. The same principle,
too, is employed in the old-fashioned billiards in those games requiring a
ring into which the ball is rolled. For other games the ring is made on the
ground, as in this described by Nordenskiöld: “Several stand in a circle and
take turns at throwing a short tapering iron rod, the object being to cause the
iron to fall on its sharp end within the circle and stand upright.”266 In
croquet the balls must roll through wickets. Throwing balls through the
open mouth of a figure carved in wood was a mediæval diversion, and

Eneas Silvius wrote in 1438 that the youths of Basel hung an iron ring on
their playground and amused themselves with batting balls through it.267 In
Genf, little metal balls were tossed through holes bored in the head of a
cask.268 We have a classic description of such a game in Storm’s Schimmel-
reiter, where Hauke Haien wins the victory under the eyes of his beloved:
“Then it flew like lightning to Hauke’s arms. He stooped a little, turning the
ball two or three times in his hand, and as he took aim deathlike silence
reigned. All eyes followed the flying ball as it hummed along, cutting the
air. Suddenly, far away, the silvery wings of a seagull gleamed, and her
thrilling cry sounded from the dikes, but in the same instant the ball crashed
into the cask, and all the people cried out ‘Hurrah for Hauke!’ while the
word ran through the crowd, ‘Hauke Haien has won the game.’ But he, as
they all crowded toward him, reached out for but one hand. She cried,
‘What is the matter, Hauke? The ball is in the cask!’ He only nodded, and
did not stir from the spot. It was not till he felt the little hand fast clasped in
his own that he spoke. ‘You must be right,’ he said, ‘I do believe I have
won.’” Finally, I will recall Ulysses’s marvellous feat in the presence of the
drunken suitors, when on his return home he sent an arrow through the ears
of twelve oxen standing in a row.
In our last division of this class of games the projectile must cling to the
target. Everybody has tried to throw his cap on his head or a peg, and
jugglers and clowns give us numberless examples of feats belonging here.
One game is played with rings hung on a stick, or caught with a hook, or
thrown on an upright stake. At fairs the lucky player gets a prize for tossing
rings on knives. Play of this kind has been used by a brilliant American
journal to point a satire on American bidding for European titles. The
ambitious damsels stand in front of a brightly lighted booth, in which
numerous manikins of repulsive appearance, with their armorial bearings
suspended round their necks, are ranged on exhibition, and attempt to throw
engagement rings over the heads of these figures.

6. Catching
Catching and holding moving objects is the direct opposite of throwing, and
the two are best understood by being contrasted. Catching, too, is the
complement of throwing; the object which has been set in motion,
animated, as it were, by human power, comes to our hand to get new life. In

no way can our supremacy over matter find more satisfactory expression. It
is with difficulty that children learn to catch, for the direction of their
necessary motions by means of sight requires so much time that the moving
object passes to another place before the hand is ready to seize it. The child
usually practises catching a ball rolling on the floor first, then holds up its
dress or apron or two hands placed together to form a cup into which the
ball thrown skilfully through the air will drop. Many such attempts are
required before the art is acquired of controlling the muscular innervation to
meet the still distant moving object.
While there are various objects employed in such play—as, for instance, in
the Greek πενταλιθίζειν there were five pebbles, bits of china, or what we
call jack-stones, thrown up with one hand and caught on its back, and in the
beautiful game of magic rings, and trials of skill with sticks, knives,
watches, etc.269—still the ball is the most perfect and suitable plaything,
partly because it is easy to grasp from any direction and partly on account
of its lightness and elasticity. It is equally well adapted to solitary or social
play. When alone, the player throws it with a view to its return to the
starting point, whether its course be perpendicular or a rebound. A game of
skill popular with girls consists in throwing the ball, and before it has time
to descend taking another ball from a table, then catching the first one with
the same hand.270 In bilboquet, which was played by Henry III of France,
and is known to many primitive peoples, as, for instance the Eskimos, the
ball is caught in a cup, to which it is attached by a string. The games are
much more varied when two or more play together at throwing and
catching, though in that case experimentation is usually transformed into a
contest. The kadokadoka of the Gilbert Islanders illustrates a simple and
universally known form. Women play it by standing in two opposing lines
and throw the ball, which must never be allowed to drop, back and forth.271
In the Greek οὐφρανία σφᾶιρα the ball was thrown as high as possible, and
the contest was over who should catch it, or, if only two were playing, in
the agility of the leap for it, as in the Odyssey. The victor must throw the
ball aloft again before his feet touch the earth. A game practised by the
Indians is apparently of a similar character. “The beginner of the game
holds a rather hard ball in his hand, throws it directly up, and attempts to
catch it. This is by no means an easy task, for around him stands an eager
circle each with hands outstretched to seize the ball. The successful one

rushes to an appointed goal, while the others try to hinder him.”272 The
game in which one boy rides on another’s back to throw the ball is
illustrated in an Egyptian wall picture, and Bastion saw it also in Burmah.
In this, imitation becomes prominent, as does the element of rivalry, where
the boys vie with one another in clapping, kneeling, and going through
various motions before catching the ball. In most games where the ball is
struck the contest develops after it is caught. In playing trapball, the ball is
placed on a springboard and sent aloft. All try to catch it, and the victor
must bounce the ball until he is supplanted by another. In England, trapball
can be traced back to the fourteenth century. Strutt gives an illustration of
the spoon-shaped board then used.273
In closing these remarks on movement-play we will notice briefly the
distinction implied in our use of the word “sport,” since many of the games
which we have been considering are so designated and practised by adults.
What is it that converts play into sport? Preeminently the seriousness, the
stress of earnestness with which it is pursued. Yet this statement is too
general, for children too, as every one knows, are deeply earnest about their
play, which does not on that account become a sport; and a man may play
billiards or chess with such perseverance and zeal that his game becomes
the principal event of his daily life, and yet he is not called a sportsman. We
must evidently find a more specific definition. The fact that in the merest
play all sorts of acts and achievements are involved which are not, as such,
playful, but rather preparatory for play, may help us to this. In the eyes of
adults the interest of a game lies in the construction of a theory for it; they
busy themselves with perfection of form in play, with the rules of the game,
with practice and training, with the proper outfit and suitable costume, etc.
Only he who does so assiduously busy himself is a genuine sportsman,
according to this theory. We may then define sport as play pursued
reflectively, scientifically. This accounts for the fact that children are never
sportsmen, despite the immense importance of their play to them, and that
the mountain climber whose highest ideal is to conquer the heights, or the
chess player who devotes all his spare time to the game, is still not a
sportsman.

III. Playful Use of the Higher Mental Powers

Rousseau, who dwells upon the fact that a man’s education begins at his
birth, illustrates clearly, if somewhat exaggeratedly (being under the
influence of Condillac), the threefold biological significance of youth when
he says in the first volume of Émile that if man came into the world full
grown he would be “un parfait imbécile, un automate, une statue immobile
et presque insensible.” These words exactly fit into our subject and its
classification. Having treated of the sensor and motor aspects of
experimentation, we now proceed to examine its value to the higher mental
life, where by its help man is rescued from the danger of remaining “un
parfait imbécile.”
The influence of experimentation is felt in the activity of intellect, feeling,
and will alike. Of course all play, including the limited group which we
have been considering, is of great importance to the whole mental make-up,
since it acts in all directions, sharpening the intellect, exercising the will,
and furnishing occasion for the discharge of emotion. But the special aim of
the present discussion lies in the investigation of how far these powers of
the mind are themselves the subjects of experimental play, and accordingly
in what follows we shall not inquire as to the advantageous effect of play on
attention, imagination, reason, etc., but will examine cases where these
capacities are directly experimented with.

A. EXPERIMENTATION WITH THE MENTAL POWERS
If we ask ourselves what aspects of intellectual activity are most
conspicuously subjects of playful experimentation we naturally turn to
memory, imagination, attention, and reason. Our first subject for
consideration, then, is memory, where again we must distinguish between
simple recognition and reflective recollection.

1. Memory

(a) Recognition
Recognition is the link which connects the present with what we have
known in the past. The new psychology repudiates the common idea that
the present impression is compared with a memory picture of the past and

the two recognised as identical, since it is not borne out by the facts.
Neither the emergence of a genuine memory picture nor its comparison
with the present object is demonstrable. When I select my own from a
number of hats I simply recognise it, and can tell no more about it. But a
careful study of cases in which the recognition is hesitating clearly
distinguishes the two following stages. First there is the simple knowledge:
I have seen this before, the recognition having been accomplished by the
“Coefficient of Recognition”274 (Höffding) without our necessarily
knowing why we recognise the object. It is difficult to say what grounds
this feeling. Physiologically there may be special reasons for the
accompanying nervous processes. Speaking psychologically, there seem to
be certain shadowy feelings of warmth and intimacy. In any case the
content of the memory picture is genuine, though it does not stand alone,
but blends with the impression of the moment by the process of
assimilation.275 A second stage is reached through the fact that we are able
to place the object suitably; we know that we have had something to do
with it, and this is often facilitated by a hasty reversion to its earlier psychic
milieu of space and time relations, as well as of word and idea connections.
When not too mechanical, as sometimes when dressing we put on
everything in its right relation but without attention, recognition is pre-
eminently pleasurable. Even the mere coefficient of recognition is
accompanied with a mild satisfaction such as Faust experienced when after
a foreign sojourn he found himself once more in his study. “Ah, when in
one’s own narrow cell the friendly lamp is burning.” But much more intense
is the effect of the second stage, for here comes in joy in accomplishing a
task, in overcoming some difficulty, however slight. A short time ago I
found on my table a fragment of porcelain decorated with gold. I knew it at
once; the pattern was one I had often seen, but where? My glance
accidentally fell on the curtain cord, and immediately I felt that the scrap
must be from one of the porcelain knobs which it was looped on. The result
was lively, almost triumphant satisfaction. The act of recognition being so
pleasurable, we would naturally expect man to make use of it for its own
sake—that is, experimentally. Aristotle, indeed, grounds appreciation of art
in pleasurable recognition, and, while not going to that length, we must
admit that the idea deserves consideration.

We have already spoken of visual recognition, which is a prominent
division, and will now consider play connected with it. The earliest
manifestations of pleasure in the perception of form recorded by child
psychologists are no other than acts of recognition. In its second quarter the
infant begins to recognise its mother and nurse. There is nothing playful
about this, of course, but very soon experimentation becomes prominent as
the same form appears in changed conditions with consequent uncertainty
involving the stimulus of difficulty to be overcome. At six months Preyer’s
baby saw his father’s reflection in a mirror, and made a sudden motion
toward it.276 The little girl observed by Pollock at thirteen months
recognised pictures in a newspaper, calling out “Wah, wah” to the animals,
trees, etc.277 In Sully’s beautiful experiment, made in the seventeenth
month, the playful character is more evident. “The young thinker,” he says
in the diary, “achieved his first success in geometric abstraction, or the
consideration of pure form, when just seventeen months old. He had learned
the name of his rubber ball. Having securely grasped this, he went on
calling oranges ‘Bo.’ This left the father in some doubt whether the child
was attending exclusively to form, as a geometrician should, for he was
wont to make a toy of an orange, as when rolling it on the floor. This
uncertainty was, however, soon removed. One day C—— was sitting at
table beside his sire, while the latter was pouring out a glass of beer.
Instantly the ready namer of things pointed to the bubbles on the surface,
and exclaimed ‘Bo!’ This was repeated on many subsequent occasions. As
the child made no attempt to handle the bubbles, it was evident that he did
not view them as possible playthings. As he got lost in contemplation,
muttering ‘Bo, bo!’ his father tells us that he had the satisfaction of feeling
sure that the young mind was already learning to turn away from the
coarseness of matter and fix itself on the refined attribute of form.”278 At
this time, too, the child begins to enjoy recognising things from their mere
outline. Sigismund records progress in this direction at about the end of the
second year. “They already know many things by the simple outline. My
boy, who, by the way, has seen few pictures, recognised my shadow in his
twenty-first month, being frightened for the first moment, then clearly
delighted, calling out ‘Papa!’ and has probably not been afraid of any
shadow since. On the contrary, he, like other children of his age, likes to
watch shadow pictures,279 especially moving ones.” They soon learn to
know the outlines of their own. How deeply must the essence of

individuality be impressed upon them when these meagre outlines of a
figure which they are accustomed to seeing filled out are sufficient for
recognition! Perhaps for children who do not see pictures early, shadows
serve to introduce the latter and explain them, just as, according to the
Greek fable, they led to the art of drawing. Children are so fond of looking
at pictures that they often enjoy the representation more than the reality. “A
house!” exclaims the little picture gazer delightedly when he comes to one,
while he would hardly notice the real thing. Does this pleasure arise from
the solving of a riddle, as Aristotle seems to say?280 This would make the
enjoyment of recognition identical with that derived from overcoming
difficulties, and there can be no doubt that this is an important element in all
art appreciation, if it be not, indeed, the very kernel of æsthetic enjoyment.
In the enjoyment of a landscape, it is safe to say that for nine tenths of the
observers the chief satisfaction comes from recognising the various peaks,
villages, castles, etc., in the panorama. There is one more point. As soon as
anything like a contest is involved, a stronger shock, a sturdier resistance to
the act of recognition, a comic colouring is given to the enjoyment. Marie G
——, who from the time she was two years old had a veritable passion for
having things drawn for her, considered it a great joke when she could not
make out what was meant without some effort. For older children and
adults puzzle pictures are skilfully prepared with a view to rendering
recognition difficult, and success is followed by triumphant laughter.
Finally, it may be added that primitive folk are sometimes unable to see the
meaning of photographs and other pictures,281 a fact which makes their
early recognition by children the more wonderful. On the other hand, I
recall Charles de Lahitte’s observation of an imprisoned Guayaké, (a little-
known and utterly uncivilized tribe of southern Paraguay) which proves that
the very lowest savage may recognise a photograph and be overjoyed with
it. “He recognised his picture after some instruction, and broke out with
expressions of pleasure and astonishment, crying repeatedly as he slapped
his body, ‘Gon, gon!’ which equals ‘me!’”282
Acoustic recognition, too, is more important and significant for art than one
might at first suppose. We find even in children who repeat a simple melody
indefatigably that pleasure in repetition forms a psychological basis for a
physiological impulse, and in the musical pleasures of adults this feeling is
much stronger.283 The playful feature is emphasized when acoustic

conditions vary, as in changed pitch or some other modification, so that
overcoming difficulty enters. Potpourri and variations are instances. In
Wagner’s music there is a peculiar satisfaction in the emergence of a
leading motive from the overwhelming mass of tones; like a friendly island
rising in the midst of surging seas. All modern music, indeed, is evolved
from the intricacies and modifications of such acoustic play; to follow them
and identify the unity in variety is a pleasure which grows with the hearer’s
technical appreciation, until at last, in fuguelike movements, actual beauty
is subordinated to the artfully ordered formal features of the composition.
In poetry, playful repetition takes manifold forms,284 such as rhyme,
alliteration, and that chainlike reiteration of words referred to earlier. But
still more ingenious and charming is the device of bringing the repetition so
close on its own heels that the first impression still dwells in the mind when
the second demands attention. Pure enjoyment of repetition as such is
simplest when the same or similar forms are separated by a long interval,
allowing the first impression to sink below the threshold of consciousness
before its analogue appears. A passage of this kind occurs in Goethe’s poem
quoted above, “O gieb vom weichen Pfuhle,” etc., and is still better
illustrated by the similarity of the second and eighth verses of a triolet. Take
this of Gleims:
“Ein Triolet soll ich ihr singen?
Ein Triolet ist viel zu klein,
Ihr grosses Lob hineinzubringen.
Ein Triolet soll ich ihr singen?
Wie sollt ich mit der Kleinheit ringen,
Es müsst’ ein grosser Hymnus sein!
Ein Triolet soll ich ihr singen?
Ein Triolet ist viel zu klein!”285

It is but a step from this to the familiar and primitive refrain.286 To serve
this purpose, interjections, single sounds, words, and sentences are repeated
after so long an interval that there can be no question of sensuous
enjoyment; it becomes mere repetition. As the soothing satisfaction of a
melody is produced by dwelling on the keynote, so with the refrain. This
principle is even more strongly brought out in the turn, which is so
prominent a feature in much lyric poetry, and also in the form originating in
Spain and Portugal in which a single verse of a familiar stanza is made the
keynote of a new poem. This is play to the producer and hearers as well.

Such analogy of lyric form to musical variation as is shown in the “freien
Glosse” actually deserves to be called variation itself.287
In the imitation of particular sounds poetry offers further indulgence to the
enjoyment of repetition, to the amusement of adults and delight of children.
This is really imitative play and as such belongs to a later division of our
subject; yet for the listener it is also an exercise in repetition, and is
conspicuous in many refrains. Minor says: “The imitation of musical
instruments by means of articulate or nondescript sounds is common in folk
songs. The shepherd’s pipe, the horn, trumpet, and drum are introduced in
pastoral, hunting, and military pieces.”288 Children are especially partial to
the mimicry of animals, and some of the formulæ have become traditional.
The German robin sings, it seems,
“Buble witt witt witt,
I will dir e Krüi-zerrle gean.”

The sparrow says “Twitter, twitter”; the quail “Bob White, peas ripe?” the
cackling hen in English, “Cut, cut, cadahcut,” and in German “Duck di
duck Alli Stuck Unter mî Ruck.”
Finally, we must not forget a very popular game founded on recognition. A
whole company will dance around a blindfolded person until he hits on the
floor with a stick, whereupon they all stand still, and he touches one and
attempts to identify him by the sound of his voice, having three trials.
Sometimes the sense of touch is allowed to assist the recognition, as in
blind-man’s-buff and the Greek μυίνδα.289

(b) Reflective Memory
Playful exercise of the recollective faculty, dependent on the enjoyment of
reproduction as such rather than on any quality of the memory picture, is
confined almost exclusively to children, and indeed to those not yet of the
school age. From about the third year290 to the end of the sixth, when
enforced mental exercise is begun, we find in children outspoken
satisfaction in the voluntary exercise of reproduction. During this time
mental feats almost unachievable by adults are performed, such as learning
by heart thick books of nursery rhymes, long poems, interminable stories—
acquirements which stir the proud parents with hope and mistaken
conclusions as to the extraordinary mental endowments of their offspring.

That children of this age often burden their minds with lists of unconnected
and meaningless words and take pride in reciting them, proves that
enjoyment of the mere ability to do it is the chief incentive. Thus, when she
was in her sixth year, Marie G—— learned to count in French from one to
one hundred, and enjoyed going over the numbers when she supposed
herself to be unobserved, as when lying in bed in the morning. Carl
Stumpf’s report of the prodigy Otto Poehler,291 who at two years of age had
learned to read fluently without teaching, is highly interesting in this
connection. Stumpf says of the boy, then four years old and in other
respects normal, having, indeed, a decided disinclination for systematic
education when others tried to impose it on him: “Reading is his greatest
passion, and the most important thing in his life. He knows the birth and
death year of every German Kaiser from Charles the Great, as well as of
many poets, philosophers, etc., and can tell the birthday and place of most
of them. Besides, he knows the capitals of most countries, and the rivers on
which they are situated, etc. He knows all about the Thirty Years’ War from
beginning to end, with the leading battles of this and other wars. According
to his mother’s statement, he has acquired all this without aid, and by
diligent study of a patriotic almanac and similar literature about the house,
and from deciphering monumental inscriptions in the city, an amusement
which he dotes on. I myself can witness to the lasting impression which
such facts make on his mind. At the Seminary I showed him pictures of
Fechner, Lotze, and Helmholtz, mentioning their full names. Of each he
asked at once when and where he was born and died, and some days later
could give not only name and surname of every one, but the full date of
birth and death, mentioning day, month, year, and place.” Since Stumpf tells
us that there was no trace of vanity or a desire to show off, we must explain
these accomplishments as the result of the child’s desire to experiment
playfully with his own mental powers.
In assigning such play chiefly to the period between the third and sixth
years, I did not by any means intend to imply that it is suspended thereafter.
It is, indeed, often seriously impeded by the compulsory methods common
in our schools, yet it does not entirely vanish. Lessing is a brilliant example
of the scholar by whom even erudition may be turned to playful account,
and who is able to assimilate every kind of pabulum that falls in the way of
his omnivorous brain. When the teacher is able to direct his pupils to the
discharge of their tasks with interest and pleasure, there may still be

something playful about the mental exercise of school work. Subordination
to authority does not exclude play so long as the obedience is voluntary.
Children never submit so absolutely to any one else as to a leader among
their playfellows. Fénelon was not far wrong when he said: “The common
way of educating is very mistaken—to place everything that is pleasant on
one side and all that is disagreeable on the other, connecting the latter with
industry and study and regarding the former as waste of time. How can we
expect anything else than that the child will grow impatient of the restraint
and run to his play with the greatest eagerness?”292 Those who, on the other
hand, protest against making play of instruction are mistaken in supposing
that it is thereby turned into a jest, for we well know that play can be
prosecuted with great zeal and earnestness. Yet they are not altogether
wrong, for it is most important to impress the necessity for doing what is
repugnant to us, and for this merely playful study, even if it accomplished
all else that we want, would always be inadequate. Finally, with regard to
the adult: it does occasionally happen even in our rushing times that some
one commits a poem to memory with the avowed intention of giving
exercise to his mind. Were this practical end the only one, play, indeed,
would not be involved; but, as a rule, pleasure in acquisition as such is
combined with the other motive. Such exercise was formerly much more
common, and at a time when few could read surprising feats were
performed. A survival of this may be found now in the Balkan countries,
where the heroic songs are still orally preserved. In mental exercise of this
kind it is difficult to draw the line between the emotions aroused by the
content of the piece and what pleasure is derived from the act of learning,
and we will not here go into that phase of the subject, only mentioning, in
closing the section, that conjuring up one’s own past is another form of
memory-play with the feelings.

2. Imagination
The phenomena which the exigencies of language compel us to include
under the words imagination or fantasy naturally fall into two quite clearly
differentiated groups, namely, illusion, either playful or serious, and the
voluntary or involuntary transformation of our mental content. Considerable
controversy has arisen as to which of these groups shall be taken as the
basis of a definition, and it is in opposition to the prevailing view that I
have designated the capacity for illusion as my choice for that purpose. Yet

on reflection I consider it more prudent not to attempt a comprehensive
definition, but rather to keep separate the two distinct departments of
mental life which the usages of language too closely associate, and which,
while they are closely interwoven in some of their aspects, are yet of so
heterogeneous a character that we may hope to distinguish between them in
all essentials.

(a) Playful Illusion
This heading includes all those manifold cases in which mental presentation
is accepted as actual, whether they are concerned with genuine memory
pictures or merely some mental content worked up for the occasion. When a
fever patient sees an absent friend bodily before him, we call this
imagination as well as when he seems to see absurd or grotesque things.
The distinguishing feature is whether the illusion appears as a substitute for
reality, as in dreams, delirium, hypnosis, and insanity, or as the product of
conscious self-deception (K. Lange’s “bewusste Selbsttäuschung,” P.
Souriau’s “illusion volontaire”), where the knowledge that we have
ourselves produced the illusion prevents actual substitution, as in play and
art. Transition from one to the other of these states is easy. The dreamer or
fever patient may have the feeling that the fantasy in which he lives and
suffers is, after all, an unreal thing; and, on the other hand, illusion is often
so strong for playing children and artists that it forms a perfect substitute for
reality. Just now we are concerned with conscious illusion only. In inquiring
how far experimentation is involved in it we must bear in mind that there
are two sides to all illusion, one which has reference to an internal image,
and the other blending with external phenomena. It is a distinction similar
to that between hallucination and illusion in the narrower pathological
sense.
The illusion which depends on internal images can, as we have seen,
elevate actual memories as well as convertible mental contents to the
appearance of reality. So we see that the two kinds of mental activity
included under the name imagination are intimately and variously related,
while neither alone covers the entire ground. Enjoyment of play with
memory pictures which are more than ordinarily faithful to fact is practised
almost exclusively by adults, and more especially by the aged. The
psychological condition of this is that by means of strong concentration of

attention on the mental picture (we are reminded again of hypnosis) the
actual present is thrown very much into the background, and the past thus
conjured up loses many of the usual characteristics of a past, since the
memory picture, from lacking the usual projection, assumes the expression
of reality. The following is a beautiful example of this distinction between
mere reflective memory and playful illusion where the differentiation was
gradually built up. When Goethe as a mature man took up his Faust
manuscript, he said to himself, “I thought over this subject a great deal ten
years ago; but that would be only a memory.” Yet as he lost himself in the
joyful or painful memories connected with that period, he came to ignore
the fact that they were long past, and more and more substituted them for
the present, which in its turn became gradually submerged. These words
reveal the play of his imagination:
“My pulses thrill, tears flow without control,
A tender mood my steadfast heart o’ersways;
What I possess as from afar I see,
What I have lost is the reality to me.”
Miss Swanwick’s translation.

A strange characteristic of these playful reminiscences is that what
displeased us at the time of its occurrence may give pleasure when revived
by memory. When, for instance, a traveller recounts his adventures on a
mountain tour he takes pleasure in dwelling on the hardships which he
endured. Is this entirely due to the knowledge that it is all over now? I think
not. First comes self-congratulation on having borne such grievous
difficulties, i.e., the feeling of power which we find to be the chief source of
satisfaction in almost all play.
Playful pretence293 that the personified and elaborated mental contents are
real is psychologically important to productive artists, and still more so to
the enjoyment of poetic creations. Artists often refer to their as yet
unembodied conceptions as to very real things, and frequently these assume
the rôle of relentless taskmasters or of veritable demoniacal possessions.
Then, of course, they cease to be playful. A. Feuerbach writes: “If it were
not for this Gastmahl I would be happy; but it pervades everything and gets
in my way. It haunts my thoughts. It feeds on my heart’s blood and saps my
inmost life.”294 Yet the artist often exults in the fact that he has a self-
created world all his own—he plays with the illusion. “It would concern the
reader little, perhaps,” says Dickens about his David Copperfield, “to know

how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two years’
imaginative task; or how an author feels as if he were dismissing some
portion of himself into the shadowy world when a crowd of the creatures of
his own brain are going from him forever. Yet I have nothing else to tell,
unless, indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment still) that
no one can ever believe this narrative, in the reading, more than I have
believed it in the writing.” This sort of illusion is essential to æsthetic
enjoyment in hearing or reading poetic creations. The child who listens
absorbedly to a fairy story,295 the boy for whom the entire external world
sinks and vanishes while he is lost in a tale of adventure, or the adult who
follows with breathless attention the development of a captivating romance;
all allow the authors’ creations to get possession of their consciousness to
the exclusion of reality, and yet not as an actual substitute for it.
In a second kind of conscious illusion the mental content blends with actual
external phenomena and shares in their reality. Here, according to Wundt’s
terminology, we have a kind of simultaneous association which is very like
the imagination that transforms reality. Each of our ordinary concepts is a
mixture of sensuous impression with its associated memory picture, and it
first becomes illusion when the association assumes the character of
hallucination, and is susceptible of correction by an appeal to common
experience. When a white spot dimly revealed by the moonlight appears to
me as unmistakably a towel, I see more than sense-perception warrants; but
when I firmly believe that it is a white-robed figure, then I have fallen into
an illusion, and, as they say, my imagination has played me a trick. Yet
there are degrees of difference between serious illusion and the playful kind
which concerns us here. When I had fever, as a boy, I saw on the bright
coverlet the most marvellous feast spread out, and at the same time had an
amused consciousness that it was all an illusion caused by my illness. Von
Bibra’s experiences from hasheesh-smoking were quite similar to this, as he
tells us in his book previously cited. In this are two distinct kinds of play,
first the substitution of an image for its original, and second the lending, as
it were, of our own personality. The first has been treated exhaustively by
K. Lange in his study of conscious illusion. Not only the little girl who
makes a favourite baby of a knotted handkerchief or some other formless
object, and the boy who calls a stick a horse, a pile of sand a mountain, a
collection of chairs a railroad train, etc., but also the adult in his enjoyment
of plastic art and scenic effect, using his own mental content to verify the

appearance, is making playful use of his capacity for illusion, and he, too,
takes pleasure in so doing. Lending one’s own personality reveals illusion
as operative in another direction; here we impart our own mental states to
the object under consideration; we “lend” to it the emotions which we
conceive would be ours under like conditions (the shoe is made to fit the
last). From our feeling of sympathy or inner imitation we then experience
all the resulting states of mind, cheerfulness and brightness from what is
attractive, or solemnity from the sublime. In speaking of imitation we shall
have occasion to refer to this again.

(b) Playful Transformation of the Memory-Content
Simple recollective processes by no means give an adequate picture of
reality. In the tenth chapter of his book on illusions Sully gives such a list
and description of important mental illusions as is calculated to shake our
faith in the trustworthiness of memory. It seems that our recollections are
often mere fragments of a formerly well-known whole (we may recall, for
example, only one or two features of an acquaintance), and as a result of
this analytic process we are prone to make new combinations of the
detached elements. Thus, a short time ago I thought that I could clearly
picture to myself the house of my brother-in-law by the power of
association, but I afterward discovered that I had conceived the bricks to be
far too bright a red, and had evidently substituted the colour of some other
house. What we call constructive imagination then turns out to be
constantly renewed manipulation of previously verified impressions. We
need not here touch upon the wide field of involuntary productive
imagination, since it is only play directed by the will that is engaging us; yet
before going on to concrete cases, it should be stated that in constructive
imagination as well the pictures formed are to a considerable extent
involuntary, the will aiding more by its influence in concentrating the
attention on the trend of the internal processes and in discriminating
between them, than in forming the picture itself. This is why the efforts of
great artists are so often like inspirations.
Building air castles is the simplest exercise of constructive imagination.296
It most commonly manifests itself as voluntary playful forming of cheerful
and ambitious images of ourselves or our friends amid the most fortunate
surroundings.297 We may see how it is done by watching little children who

have enjoyed a new kind of treat at a birthday party or some such occasion
—how they will remember and repeat it in their future plays. All the details
will be copied sometimes just as in the model, sometimes in new
combinations, or turned into a joke. The inestimable value of such play for
making life worth living is self-evident. It veils the sordidness of everyday
existence with a double illusion, the first being our conception of the air
castle as a reality, and so getting immediate possession of this radiant dream
(here the two kinds of imagination converge). Such illusion supplies the
psychological interest in Faust’s bargain; he enjoys the “schönsten
Augenblick,” although his present satisfaction is merely premonitory. The
second illusion is exemplified in our implicit trust that the future will verify
our hope,298 that buoyant and vivifying emotion which accompanies us all
through life.
Conjuring up all sorts of hindrances, difficulties, and dangers is a
modification of this castle building, and gives more play to the intellectual
faculties as we weigh the varying possibilities of success or failure, develop
the probable consequences of a proposed step, and try to find the best and
easiest road to success. By such processes the crude picture is moulded into
shape. Here, again, the capacity for illusion is of importance in connection
with imaginative combination, since each possibility that is considered has
the appearance of reality in its turn, but such mental activity is playful only
when the combinations as such are enjoyable. Every creative artist,
statesman, writer, or scholar must often work on an imaginative basis which
he knows he can never verify. Many persons like to take, with the help of a
Baedeker, long journeys which they can never hope to indulge in in any
other way, and to solve complicated problems based on hypothetical games
of chess.
Leaving castle building, let us see what other forms of constructive fantasy
can be practiced playfully. In speaking of illusions we have noticed the
blending of memories with external phenomena, which is so conspicuous in
child play and in æsthetic enjoyment. The process of “assimilation” which
grounds playful self-deception is so closely related to constructive
imagination that it is difficult to locate the boundary between them. The
psychic process which transforms a splinter into a doll’s milk-bottle, a few
chips stuck up into men and trees, a cloud299 into the greatest variety of
faces, animals, etc., which endows lifeless objects with our own spiritual

capacities of desire, emotion, and temper—all this is synthetic activity
which may quite as well be called assimilation as constructive imagination.
Its pleasurable quality is inherent,300 especially where a perfect imitation of
reality would give us so little room for the exercise of imagination as to be
on the whole less satisfactory.
Constructiveness which is concerned purely with ideas, not blending them
with external objects, is quite as important. One of its uses, though one not
clearly defined, may be to direct the attention, when there exists but a vague
idea of the completed picture, to a choice among the multifarious internal
images which make up the material supplied by memory. This process is of
the greatest importance in the origination of artistic compositions, but its
relatively simple beginnings may be clearly traced in the play of children.
While we may not hope to follow the imaginative process into all its
ramifications and refinements, nor to account for individual variations in
memory content, visual, motor, etc., three general, constantly recurring
forms of its constructive activity are distinguishable: 1. The conjunction of
concepts which are not connected, or not so connected in reality. 2. The
abstraction of certain elements from a complex and their transference to
other combinations. 3. Exaggeration and depreciation. It will be readily
seen that these three forms of imaginative activity are useful for playful
experimentation as well as in actual artistic production, which, however,
rarely makes playful use of fantasy.
The first of these activities is often so capricious in children that it can
hardly be called experimentation; it seems a mere disconnected succession
of fancies and self-originated images, very much as in the case of mania
and other abnormal states. Strümpell’s little daughter, aged one and a half
years, is responsible for the following: “Go gramma and buy a pretty doll
gramma for me under the bed for me to play the piano. Bring papa golden
sheep; take mamma’s white sheep too. Go on, there, driver, gramma is
going. Get up, Klinglingling. Gramma comes up the steps. Oh, oh, ah, ah,
lying on the floor, all tied up, no cap on. Theodosia [her doll] lie on the bed,
bring yellow sheep to Theodosia. Run, tap, tap, tap for Lina. Strawberries,
gramma, wolf lie on bed. Go to sleep, darling Theodosia, you are my
dearest; everybody is fast asleep. May makes the trees green—let me—on
the brook violets are blooming—I want to go to walk. A cat came in here,
mamma caught it, it had feet and black boots on—short cap, band on it.

Papa ran—the sky—gramma gone—grampa resting,” etc.301 In this,
attention seems to be entirely lacking, so that there can not be said to be any
aim, however indefinite. Genuine constructive imagination is more apparent
in the attempts of small children to tell stories. I have the following note on
Marie G——, made at the age of three years and one month. She insisted
that I must lie on the lounge after she had gone through the motions of
“making the bed.” Then the little mother warmed the gruel in a heavy cigar
cutter, made me drink at the peril of my teeth, and ordered me to shut my
eyes. Then she seated herself, pretended to sew, and told a story to put me
to sleep: “The other day I went down town. There were beautiful shops and
there were flowers. Anna [her doll] wanted to pick one, and a bear came up.
All my six children were dreadfully scared and hid in the bathroom stove,
and I locked the door and took out the key, and the bear went away; and I
was so frightened!” It was evidently her intention to make a connected
story, although the first situation, the scene down town, was transferred to a
different one without any proper transition. Yet the various processes are
easily traced in spite of their complexity. First, the idea of the city where the
romancer takes her doll, as she was often taken by her mother. The memory
picture of the florists’ shops which led to an overweening desire on the part
of the doll to take a flower. Then judicial wrath appears in the frightful
shape of the bear, and at once the whole situation is changed; there are now
the six children of the familiar tale, who hide. But where? In our bathroom
stove (an improvement on the tale), which develops a lock and key for the
occasion (confusion with the attributes of a closet door). Here, then, are
divisions 1 and 2 clearly defined—namely, the combining of complex
presentations, and the detachment and transposition of some features.
Analogy with artistic methods is too obvious to need enlarging upon.302 An
interesting example of the inventiveness of an older child endowed with
genius is the voluminous romance which the young Goethe used to tell
again and again to his playmates, and has transcribed in his biography. It
will be seen that the imaginative process is much less easily traced in it than
in the earlier instance.303
One important branch of imaginative composition is the picturing of the
fantastic creatures of mythology, such as animals with human heads,
mermaids, and the grotesque blending of animal and vegetable life, yet with
the essential features taken from Nature. As Dickens says of his characters,

that, being made up of many people, they were composite,304 so with these
creations. The following dialogue of Marie G—— with her doll near the
end of her fifth year will illustrate the use of this faculty in the case of
concepts which transcend the limits of actuality. “So, little sister Olga, you
have come in from your walk. Tell me about everything that you saw. A
little lamb, a cow, a dog, a horse. Yes, and what else? Blue bells and green
primroses and red leaves—but that can not be; you are fibbing, my little
sister.” Such playful and grotesque combinations are often introduced in art,
but they no longer appeal to superstitious fear. In the temptations of St.
Anthony, in Oriental tales of strangely deformed men, in the taste for
grotesque gargoyles and other ornaments, we find instances. In some
fantastic creations the imagination is given unbridled license, with the result
that the production acquires more of the characteristics of play.305
The third division of constructive fantasy, comprising exaggeration and
depreciation, is also an object of playful activity. All children delight in
giants and dwarfs, whether because they excite pleasurable emotions by
their disproportionateness, which appeals to the comic sense, or whether it
is the strong stimulus of what is unusual that accounts for the attraction.
Marie G—— improvised a rare tale when she was five and a half years old,
which well illustrates exaggeration, as well as conscious illusion and
imaginative combination. The child was lying in bed in the early morning
with a copy of Grimm’s tales, and pretended to be reading from it. “Once
upon a time there was a king who had a little daughter. She lay in the
cradle. He came in and knew it was his daughter, and they both had a
wedding. As they sat at the table the king said, ‘Please draw me some beer
in a big glass.’ Then they brought a glass that was thirty yards high, and
went to sleep; only the king stayed up as a watchman. And if they are not
dead they are living there yet.” Of course the child had no clear idea of how
high this glass would be, but she evidently pictured one whose size far
transcended the limits of reality—of this I subsequently satisfied myself.
Adults are constantly using this sort of imaginative exercise in a playful
way in verbal exaggeration. The talk of students and of girls abounds in
superlatives, and they are employed by satirists with telling effect—so
much so that the recounter himself is sometimes deceived by his own
extravagance. Schneegans says in his interesting book: “The grotesque
satirist is often carried away by his own work, and gradually loses sight of

his original aim; ... and finally the conclusion is forced upon us that the
writer has yielded to his passion for gross exaggeration.” This is certainly
true of Rabelais, when he says that Pantagruel had but to put out his tongue
to protect his whole army from the rain, or that his arrows were as large as
the beams of the bridge at Nantes, and yet with one of them he could shoot
an oyster from its shell without breaking the latter; or when he describes the
people who needed no tailor, since one of their ears served as hose, doublet,
and vest, while the other was used like a Spanish mantle. This last morsel
recalls some of the folk tales which have amused the masses for more than
two thousand years. While we may not lightly affirm that the grotesque
extravagance of some of these stories is always due to imaginative play, yet
we can trace it in such of them as the Greenland myth of little Kagsagsuk,
whom the men lifted by the nostrils until they grew enormous, while the
rest of his poorly fed body remained as small as ever, and in the account of
his subsequent marvellous strength. Kagsagsuk divided the mob as though
it had been made of little fishes, and ran so vigorously that his heels hit the
back of his neck, and the snow flying up around him made shining
rainbows.306
Playful lying should be mentioned along with other forms of exaggeration.
Children’s lies have been studied carefully of late years, and the conclusion
is general that they are usually playful. Untruthfulness must be playful
when it is indulged in merely to tease others or to get amusement from their
credulity, or to heighten the recounter’s sense of the marvellous.307 Only
such examples are useful for our purpose as find their chief incentive in the
enjoyment of invention. Compayré rightly calls this experimentation, and
says that children play with words as they do with sand or blocks.308 The
real stimulus which lying affords to imaginative activity is best
demonstrated in the progressive lie: “I have thirty marbles; no, fifty; no, a
hundred; no, a thousand!” or “Je viens de voir un papillon grand comme le
chat, grand comme la maison.”309 One of my nephews, Heinrich, was a
great romancer, and the same peculiar, almost divergent fixing of his eyes
characterized him then as when listening to a marvellous tale. At three and a
half years north Berlin was the scene310 of his inventions, a name which the
little Stuttgarter had in some way picked up. There he had seen fish
resembling sharks with boots on their feet. On one occasion he related the
following: “In north Berlin hares and hounds are on the roofs; they climb up

on ladders and play together, and then—and then—comes a telephone, a
long wire, you know, and on that they come to Stuttgart. That’s the way
they get here.”311 It is easy to see the connection between this and
rudimentary artistic production. Guyan says:312 “The lying of children is
usually the first exercise of their imagination, the first evidence of the germ
of art.” Such playful experimentation is, of course, quite different from
actual deception. Perhaps nowhere is finer discrimination in this direction
shown than in Goethe’s remarks on his boyish story-telling: “It greatly
rejoiced the other children when I was the hero of my own story. They were
delighted to know that such wonderful things could befall one of their
playfellows, and yet they did not seem to marvel that I could play such
tricks with time and space as these adventures implied, for they were well
aware of my goings and comings and how I was occupied all day long.
None the less I must choose the scenes of these adventures, if not in another
world, at least in a distant place, and yet tell all as having taken place to-day
or yesterday. They therefore made for themselves greater illusions than any
I could have palmed off on them. If I had not gradually learned from my
natural bent to work up these visions and conceits into artistic forms, such a
vainglorious beginning could not have been without injurious consequences
to me.” Even when the playful lie becomes artistic production there is
always a leaning toward genuine deception. Goethe says: “I took good care
not to alter the circumstances much, and by the uniformity of my narrative I
converted the fable into reality in the minds of my auditors. Yet,” he adds—
and this is proof that the deceit was playful—“I was averse to falsehood and
dissimulation, and would by no means lightly indulge in them.”313 The
same remarks apply to the corresponding amusements of adults, such as
fishing and hunting stories, and Munchausen tales generally.
In concluding this subject the temptation is strong to go into some of the
special forms of fantasy, such as, for instance, the association of sensuous
impressions with abstract ideas. Poetry has the task of justifying such
combination, and this quatrain affords a simple instance:
“Woher kommt der Blutegel?
Aus der Reisfeld treibt er in den Fluss.
Woher kommt die Liebe?
Aus dem Auge senkt sie sich in’s Herz.”

“Whence comes the leech, then?
Out of the rice field it turns to the stream.
Whence comes love, then?
From the eye it sinks down to the heart.”

From this doggerel to “Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch,” suggested by a
view of wooded hills standing in evening quiet, is but a matter of
development. Metaphor ensues when abstract form is superseded by
sensuous impression. The designer and novelist Töpffer gives a beautiful
instance of such materializing of the spiritual in this interesting contribution
to child psychology when he tells us how he always conceived of
conscience in the form of his teacher. “For a long time I did not distinguish
between the inner voice of conscience and the admonitions of my instructor.
When I felt the stirrings of the former I pictured the latter before me in his
black robes, with his scholarly air, and his spectacles on his nose.”314

3. Attention
As I have attempted to set forth in former efforts,315 attention is probably in
its earliest manifestations rather a means for the furtherance of the struggle
for life than a so-called faculty of the mind. The instinct of lying in wait (by
which we must understand not merely holding one’s self in readiness to
seize prey, but also a preparedness for flight) is, as I conceive, the
elementary form of attention. Some sense-perception called forth by the
prey or the enemy, as the case may be, warns the animal to brace his
organism for the utmost swiftness and accuracy of aim in view of what is
coming; secondly, to hold his muscles tense and ready for lightning-quick
reaction to the approaching stimulus; and, thirdly, to keep such restraint on
his whole body as to repress all sounds and movements which might betray
him. Among the higher animals, and especially man, “theoretic” attention
has developed from this motor attention, which reacts to the anticipated
stimulus with special external movements. In the former the reaction is an
internal, brain process, not involving the second of the steps given above; it
is sufficient to seize and master the object—to lie in wait apperceptively, as
it were. The characteristic holding of the powers in check seems to argue
the derivation of this sort of attention from the motor, thus grounding both
on instinct. Expectancy is not then a variation, but rather a fundamental
form of attention, and concentration on an object present before it results
from a succession of constantly renewed expectations.

Both forms of attention are of real importance in the world of play, but we
will note only those cases in which the effort of attending is itself the
subject of playful exercise. Sikorski has asserted forcibly that children
frequently make use in their play of the expectation of a familiar impression
whose memory picture is already present in the mind; what Lewes calls
“preperception,” and Sikorski “reproduction préparatoire.” He says: “It is
very interesting to notice how children use attention in their play. It is one
of the most salient features of all the mental operations of children in all
their busyness and destructiveness. It may be called a sort of mental
auxiliary which gives variety to play.”316 He goes on to instance Preyer’s
son, who opened and closed the cover of a can seventy-nine times in
succession, and evinced the closest attention all the while.317 The
expectation of a resulting sound is no doubt an essential part of such play as
this. Alternate stress and relaxation of attention account for the charm of
hide and seek. Darwin says that his son on the one hundred and tenth day
was delighted when a handkerchief was put over his face or his playfellow’s
and then suddenly withdrawn.318 While surprise was probably the principal
cause of this delight at first, on its repetition expectation and the sudden
revelation must play a part. When a child throws stones in water or at a
mark, batters an old pot, awaits the tossed-up ball or watches a rolling one,
we must reckon with the pleasure which is derived from the exercise of
close attention, as well as that in movement as such, and in this kind of play
the comparison of memory pictures with present reality. “In all such play,”
says Sikorski, after instancing several examples, “a particular result is
expected and awaited as something desirable. The sound of the stone
striking the water, the direction taken by the soap bubble the moment it is
tossed off,319 all such consequences are pictured in advance, and the
essence of the enjoyment consists in the coincidence of reality with the
mental image.”320
At this point we may again take up the process of recollection which is
attended with some difficulty. The progressive power of rhythmical
repetition, especially when musical or poetic, to whose chains we are such
willing captives, is nothing else than attention fixed on what is to come.
Still stronger is the tense expectation aroused by artistic productions which
require time for their presentation. In the drama and recitation especially
must we ascribe value to continuity, for here true art consists not so much in

taking the hearer or reader by surprise—indeed, this is an insignificant
element—as in contriving to make him suspect the coming situation and
await it with intense concentration. On this depends not only the
effectiveness of tragedy (O. Harnack has compared Ibsen’s Ghosts in this
respect with the antique Œdipus), but in large measure that of all narrative
poetry. “The poor satisfaction of a surprise!” exclaims Lessing. “I am far
from thinking that the enjoyment we get from the work of a great artist is
due to concealment of the denouement. I believe, moreover, that it would
not transcend my powers to create a work in which the climax shall be
revealed in the first scene, and from that very circumstance derive its
strongest interest.” Finally, we must notice the interesting phenomena of
attention in its connection with gambling, for the tremendous effects of
which many diverse causes must conspire. Ribot says of it, “C’est la
complexité qui produit l’intensité.”321 The tension of interest in gaming
depends on the two possibilities, winning and losing. It must be one thing or
the other, and this fact differentiates it from our previous examples. Hope of
winning usually looms large in the foreground, the possibility of losing
assuming more the character of an auxiliary, adding intensity to the process.
“Gambling,” says Lazarus justly, “has ruined many, enriched few, yet every
player expects to be of the minority.”322 As games of chance will come up
for more exhaustive treatment later, I merely mention here that the effort of
attention is one ground of their strong effect.
We now take up playful apperception of new impressions. The deep-rooted
impulse to bring everything within the sphere of our own powers is
especially powerful in the presence of novelty, of what is unfamiliar. We
experience an almost irresistible desire to examine closely any strange
object and make ourselves acquainted with its properties. Curiosity is the
name given to the playful manifestation of attention which results from this
tendency. Since I introduced it among the plays in my work on animals I
have been told that curiosity is no play; but if we keep to our principle that
the exercise of an impulse merely for the sake of the pleasure we derive
from it is to be called play, then I am unable to see why curiosity should
form an exception. It stands midway between two kinds of perception as
applied to what is new, but is identical with neither. On one side is the
impulse to inquire into the practical use of the unfamiliar object, whether it
is beneficial or injurious; on the other side is thirst for knowledge, not

entirely with a view to appropriation, but more concerned with placing the
object properly in our system of things known. But curiosity, while it does
depend on the stimulus323 of novelty, concerns itself primarily neither with
the practical value of the thing nor with its theoretic significance. It simply
enjoys the agreeable emotional effects which arise when a new concept
does not readily adjust itself to the beaten track of the habitual, and requires
paths at least partially new to be opened before it. The interest attaching to
scientific investigation is logical and formal, but that excited by curiosity
may be said to be material. The freshness of the untried belongs to this new
mental heritage, and is as exhilarating as the mountain climber’s discovery
of a new path to some coveted summit. Where such pleasure becomes the
ground of activity, that activity is play. For illustrative purposes let us
suppose a landslide. Practical interest would at once apply to the proper
authorities to find out the extent of damage caused by the catastrophe;
scientific and learned curiosity would investigate the causes; while the
simply curious would run from all directions just to see what was
happening, using their powers of attention playfully.
In The Play of Animals I have presented quite a collection of examples, and
I insert another here, which was not at that time available. When Nansen
was on his north polar expedition a valuable gun accidentally fell into the
sea. As the water at that place was but ten metres deep an attempt was made
to recover the weapon. “While we were so engaged a bearded seal
constantly swam around us, regarding us wonderingly, stretching his great
head now to this side and now to that side of us, and drawing nearer and
nearer as if he were making efforts to discern in what sort of nocturnal
labour we were engaged.”324 When we read such reports and see how
widespread these phenomena are in the animal world, we naturally expect
to find them universal among men. Yet it has been maintained by some that
the lowest orders of savages have extremely little or no curiosity at all.
Spencer has published a note in his Data of Sociology to the effect that it is
entirely wanting among such peoples: “Where curiosity exists we find it
among races of not so low a grade.”325 I do not think that this can be
substantiated. The numerous reports of travellers which seem to give colour
to it can, I believe, be explained in two ways: First, the savage is too
suspicious to show his curiosity; and, secondly, many reporters in speaking
of the lack of curiosity refer rather to scientific curiosity, or thirst for

knowledge. The Bakaïri of central Brazil, who are certainly primitive
enough, displayed, according to K. von den Steinen, lively curiosity, while
they had absolutely no desire for knowledge. “Our clothes,” he says, “were
as strange to these good people as their nakedness was to us. I was escorted
to the bath by both men and women, and it was amusing to see with what
interest my clothes were examined. It never seemed to occur to them that I
might resent the inspection. They showed some interest in my Polynesian
tattooing, but were evidently disappointed not to find something marvellous
concealed under all this careful and unheard-of wrapping.”326 Just as
curiously they investigated the contents of his pockets; admired his watch,
which they called “moon,” because it did not sleep at night. A genuine
desire for knowledge was nowhere shown, only a playful curiosity. K. von
den Steinen has also recognised this distinction. “Nothing could be more
mistaken,” he says, “than to suppose that frank curiosity is a genuine desire
for knowledge or a longing to understand the cause of things.”327 He is a
firm upholder of the other view, having lived for some time alone among
the Bakaïri, and says that much which he had observed as characteristic of
them vanished when the larger company arrived; the perfect naïveté
disappeared, and their manner became more and more that of the savage as
usually described to us.328 That the higher standing races are extremely
curious is a familiar fact, admitted and illustrated by Spencer himself. I
instance only Semon’s humorous account of the Ambonese. “A committee
from the village made visits lasting for hours on the ship where he was busy
with his men. All hints that they might be needed on shore were unavailing,
and for two days I bore it uncomplainingly when they crowded into my tiny
cabin. On the third day I thought it best to speak to them plainly, and asked
them in Malay to sit before the cabin door.... And the rest were just as
curious, although they did not come on board ship. My morning dip in the
sea was a treat to the whole village. A crowd of spectators gathered to
witness the show, observing every detail, and not scrupling to express their
criticisms.”329
In children, curiosity is useful as an antidote to instinctive shyness in the
presence of what is new and strange, and as an introduction to the general
desire for knowledge. It is stimulated by surprise, but can be called true
curiosity only when the perception of what is unusual has a directly
pleasurable effect, as, for example, when an infant six months old regards a

veiled face with close attention and signs of delight. Tiedemann reports as
early as the end of the second month: “He makes more and more
unmistakable efforts to add to his store of ideas, for new objects never seen
before are followed longer with the eye.”330 “All little children,” says
Preyer, “make ineffective sympathetic movements of various kinds when
they hear new sounds, music or songs. They like to move their arms up and
down. The child, on hearing, seeing, or tasting something new, directs his
attention toward it, and experiences a pleasant sensation of gratified
curiosity which induces motor discharge.”331 Sully regards curiosity as the
best offset to fear in children, and considers it a fortunate circumstance that
the commonest causes of fear—namely, new and strange phenomena—are
also the originators of a feeling such as curiosity, with its attendant impulses
to follow and to examine. It would indeed be detrimental to intellectual
development if new things roused feelings of fear exclusively. Yet in spite
of these differences, fear and curiosity are probably closely related, since
the caution and suspicion which characterize fear may be the point of
departure for curiosity. Caution impels the animal to examine with careful
attention every unusual object which makes its way into his environment,
with an eye to its possible injurious or useful character. Assuming that this
impulse is emancipated gradually from its double practical aim, we see it
converted into curiosity before our eyes, while ontogenetically it is the
antecedent of the thirst for knowledge, just as the practical aim precedes it
phylogenetically. Perez has described this evolution beautifully. Playful
exercise of the sensor and motor apparatus, which is at first mere obscure
impulse toward sensation and movement, achieves more and more the
clearness of intellectual activity as it becomes associated with curiosity. Yet
all this results “not so much from the necessity for knowing what things are
and what they can do, as from the demand for new and fresh
impressions.”332 Veritable thirst for knowledge, with its unappeasable
questioning, gradually develops from this, making without difficulty the
transition from the realm of play to that of genuine scientific investigation.
This demand for novelty plays a conspicuous rôle in the life of an adult as
well. The masculine half of the race exhibits a praiseworthy self-denial in
ascribing this quality to the other sex exclusively, but the women are about
right when they say that men are quite as curious as themselves. Without
going into the merits of this controversy, we will confine our discussion to

the province of curiosity in æsthetic enjoyment. It is no doubt true that the
highest and most complete æsthetic pleasure is independent of the stimulus
of novelty, as is proved by the fact that our appreciation of a work of art is
undiminished by repeated examination, and it remains “herrlich wie am
ersten Tag.” Yet there is a peculiar charm attaching to a first view of even
the most perfect work of genius, which E. von Hartmann has likened to that
of the first kiss, and which must be at least in part due to novelty. This
advantage depends not entirely on the diminishing of the satisfaction by
use, but also on a positive, independent pleasure in the apperception of a
new thing, and new, original, in the sense of being a revelation, are the
productions of genius. In the development of art, too, a disinclination to get
into ruts, together with positive enjoyment of original work, is a decidedly
progressive force, as opposed to the multiplication of reproductions and
imitations. Before the revolution caused by a new thing has become an
accomplished fact, behold! it is no longer new, and the danger is of
achieving only the pre-classical, as it were, and not the classical. Of
following the prophets, perhaps, but not the Messiah.

4. Reason
We need no chain of reasoning to prove that the logical faculty is involved
in very many plays, even those of simple movement; but now, as heretofore,
we will strictly exclude all uses of it except those in which it is the very
object of the play, those in which it is playfully experimented with. Two
bearings of the subject will engage our attention: first, causality; and,
second, inherence. Both are prominent in the playful use of reason, while
some special forms involve the use of judgment as well, as in the play of
wit, for instance.
How far the gratification afforded by play is dependent on causality is
strikingly shown by the fact that there is not a single form of it which does
not exhibit in one shape or another the joy of being a cause as the germ of
its attractiveness. It is true that this universal fact directs the attention more
to the feeling of being a cause than to the logical idea of causal connection,
yet we find enjoyment of logical activity prominent in the categories which
we have designated as “hustling things about,” and as destructive and
constructive movement play. The tendency toward such play was chosen for
our point of departure, and the indications are that it is of the first

importance to the child, and that only through frequent repetitions of the
post hoc does independent interest in the propter hoc gradually arise. Still,
it can not be denied that the true characteristics of play are in inverse ratio
to the intensity of the desire for knowledge, and it should be clearly stated
that we are now on the frontier territory of play and earnest. The steps by
which we have reached this point can be clearly traced by every reader of
what goes before; therefore, without stopping to recapitulate, I cite this
striking remark of Preyer’s as a fitting climax. He says in reference to the
evolution of a feeling of individuality: “Another important factor is the
perception of change brought about by his own activity, in the familiar
objects by which he is surrounded, and, psychologically speaking, or,
indeed, from any standpoint, a red-letter day in the infant’s life is the one on
which he first grasps the connection between his own movements and the
sense-perceptions caused by them. The sound produced by tearing and
crumpling paper was still unrecognised by this child till in his fifth month
he discovered that it gave him a new sensation, and he repeated the
experiment day after day most energetically until the stimulus of novelty
wore away. Still, there was no clear apprehension of causality, but the child
had now had the experience of being an originator, and of combined sight
and sound perceptions, regular in so far that when he tore paper it became
smaller for one thing, and sound resulted for another. Other such
amusements were shaking keys on a ring, opening and shutting a box or
purse (thirteen months), repeatedly filling and emptying a table drawer,
piling up and scattering sand and gravel, rustling the pages of a book
(thirteenth to nineteenth month), digging in sand, pulling footstools back
and forth, laying stones, shells, and buttons in rows (twenty-one months),
pouring water in and out of bottles, cups, and cans (thirty-first to thirty-third
month) and throwing stones in water.”333 Miss Shinn also gives a pretty
example in the case of her little niece: “In the twentieth month (five
hundred and ninetieth day) I saw her outdoors, especially when driving,
cover her eyes several times with her hands. I thought the sunlight might be
too brilliant, but it is more likely that she was experimenting, for in the
following weeks she would often cover her eyes with her hands, and take
them away, hide her face in a cushion or on her own arms, often saying
‘Dark,’ then look up, ‘Light now.’”334 Tormenting animals is another
direction in which the quest for a causal connection is evident. When André
Theuriet was a four-year-old boy he threw a newborn puppy in the water

just “pour voir,” and then wept bitterly because he could not rescue it.335 As
these demands of reason become prominent we can clearly see that we are
approaching the limits of play.
There are other cases, however, where the search for a causal connection
can more assuredly be called playful. An essential feature of the enjoyment
derived from mental contests is the calculation of the result. Several
possibilities are before the player, and he enjoys the intellectual effort of
testing each and using the most advantageous. In the solution of whist and
chess problems and such like, rivalry becomes an insignificant feature, and
logical experimentation forms the central interest. Just so with the common
and often ancient mechanical and mathematical puzzles. Pleasure in
conquering their logical difficulties is derived from the gratification of a
“general impulse or general instinct to exercise the intelligence as such.”336
Causality plays a prominent part in poetry, too, since we require it to reveal
to us the inner relations of the events set forth and to exhibit cause and
effect in clearer and more orderly sequence than the complexities of reality
admit of.337 Especially is this the case with tragedy. In my Einleitung in die
Aesthetik I expressed the opinion that the treatment of tragical climaxes as
logical necessities is an important means of bracing us for the increasingly
painful inner imitation which is so essential, without weakening or
modifying its effect. “When the course of the tragic tale is so far developed
as to suggest that a catastrophe is imminent, it should also appear
inevitable. Stern necessity must urge the hero toward the fearful goal so
persistently that escape shall be unthinkable, a logical impossibility. This
feeling of necessity is calculated to fix the æsthetic illusion, and
consequently help on the effect by rendering more strenuous the mental
tension and directing it so forcibly toward the climax that consciousness is a
captive to inner imitation until the tragedy has culminated. In other words,
fear of the catastrophe is so absorbing as to create the illusion that the
apprehended event is just at hand, and consequently all sense of the
painfulness of the situation is merged in the stress of this illusion, since it
alone is competent to relieve the tension.”338 I might have continued to the
effect that such manifestations of the law of cause afford us a positive
logical satisfaction, and in spite of the impression forced upon us by the
crushing blows of Fate, weave some threads into the intricate texture of

æsthetic enjoyment, because in them we recognise a proof of the existence
of a universal causal nexus.
A glance over the sphere of inherence, too, will help us to a proper
orientation for this inquiry. By the word inherence we signify the relation of
a thing to its qualities, or, abstractly speaking, the relation of a concept to its
characteristics. A common and well-nigh universal form of play depends on
this principle—namely, the making and solving of riddles. The large
majority of them involve an effort to find the concept whose characteristics
are given, and the task is intentionally rendered difficult, with the result that
the solution is attended with a proud sense of success. The exercise easily
leads to a contest, but it is grounded in experimentation with the logical
faculty, and many persons enjoy the amusement for this reason alone.339
Children as young as four years sometimes indulge in a sort of preliminary
exercise in riddle solving, such as the simple game in which one child,
noticing the peculiar colour of some object in the room, says, “I see
something you don’t see, and it’s yellow,” and his comrade must guess it.
The play here is connected with sense perception by the relations of things
to their qualities, and there are many games for large companies much like
it. In a genuine riddle the enumeration of characteristics must be imperfect
or in some way misleading to render the solution troublesome, and still
sufficiently complete to make it possible; many are made sufficiently
puzzling by the lack of logical ὁριδκός without the introduction of other
means of mystification; such, for example, as—
“Drufg’schloh,
Ufg’ deckt,
Usse g’nô,
Dra gschmöckt,
Und dann wiederum versteckt.”
(Tabakdose.)

“Inside whole,
Outside full of many holes.”
(Thimble.)

“Two legs sits on three legs
And milks four legs.”
(Milkmaid.)

“Oben spitz und unten breit
Durch und durch voll Süssigkeit.”
(Zuckerhut.)

“First white as snow,
Then green as clover,
Then red as blood,
They taste to all children good.”
(Cherries.)

The play is more genuine, however, when the characteristics are more
veiled, as in (1) metaphor and (2) apparent contradiction. The riddles which
follow are evidently calculated to put one on the wrong scent. On the coast
of Malabar two familiar riddles are “Little man, strong voice,” and “A little
pig in the woods.” The answer to the former is Grasshopper, and to the
latter Pediculus cervicalis.
“There is a little man
With a stomach of stone;
He has a red cloak
And a black cap on.”
(Haw.)

“S’itzt etwas amme Rainle,
Es wackelt ihm sein Beinle;
Vor Angst und Noth
Wird ihm sein Köpfle feuerroth.”
(Erdbeere.)

“An iron steed with silken reins,
The faster runs the horse the shorter grow the reins.”
(Needle and thread.)

Apparent contradiction is a favourite means of mystification, as in the
questions “What teaches without speaking?” A book. “What two things are
together early and late, and yet never touch each other?” Parallel lines. The
East African Schamlala have a riddle which is metaphorical. “My
grandfather’s cattle low when they are driven away, and are quiet coming
home.” This refers to the water gourds carried by the women, which clatter
when taken away empty, and are silent as they come back filled.340 A
German riddle of this kind is:
“Ich hab’ einen Rücken und kann nicht liegen;
Ich hab zwei Flügel und kann nicht fliegen;
Ich hab ein Bein und kann nicht stehen;
Ich kann wohl laufen, aber nicht gehen.”
(Nase.)

I can not here examine other forms of logical experimentation with the
exception of the phenomena of wit, which are too important to be omitted
from our review. Primarily wit should be classed with the comic, of which
we shall speak in another connection, but at times it overreaches these
limits, and more general grounds must be assigned for it in logical
experimentation. When wit is free from sarcasm and assumes the form of
playful judgment, as Kuno Fischer says, then its most natural expression is
in the riddle and the proverb. The evolution of such serious wit as Jean
Paul’s is possible only to a highly cultured people, and Nietzsche, the most
brilliant German exponent of modern witticism, displays a certain tendency
to proverb. “To be stiff to his inferiors is wisdom for the hedgehog” has the
true flavour of the terse sayings found among all primitive people. The
satisfaction afforded by true wit is due to the playful conquest of logical
difficulties; some statement is made which confuses by its unusual
conjunction of ideas, and we hail as a victory the sudden emergence of the
hidden meaning. Therefore it would be a mistake to call the pleasure
produced by wit exclusively a play with reason, since constructive
imagination and the formulation of the abstract are also involved. When the
negro produces this—“God keeps the flies off the ox that has no tail”—he
gives us an expression of wit illustrating abstract judgment which may be
accompanied by the stronger emotion.

B. EXPERIMENTATION WITH THE FEELINGS
That a man may play with his emotions is a well-known fact, but one which
has not to my knowledge been adequately investigated in all its
ramifications. While the “luxury of grief” is often referred to, the interesting
distinction of its varying degrees has not been gone into. It can not be
labelled, I think, simple play with pleasurable sensations, partly because the
concentration of attention on the feeling itself instead of on the
accompanying sensations and ideas tends to weaken the very feeling in
question, and also because the division of consciousness which attends such
a survey of one’s own emotional life is less operative in the sphere of
pleasure.341 There must be a distinct recognition that it is genuine pain
which we are enjoying before the sense of being a spectator arises, and we
can become conscious that we are playing with our emotions. The various
feelings which may be involved in this process are physical pain, mental

suffering, surprise, and fear. Besides these four, the mixed feeling of
suspension between pain and pleasure might be mentioned, but as it has
already been referred to it will be included in our treatment of surprise.

1. Physical Pain
I have frequently had occasion to note that we commonly enjoy stimuli
whose effect is distinctly disagreeable because they are calculated to satisfy
our craving for intense impressions. A sensitive tooth is constantly visited
by the tongue, a stiff neck is constantly experimented with, any slight
wound is repeatedly pressed and rubbed, etc. Hall342 and Allin testify that
this is especially the case in childhood. We have already noticed the shock
of a cold bath and the sting of sharp drinks. The pleasure which we derive
from eating pungent horseradish, which brings tears to the eyes, is a
relative, distant and humble it is true, but still unmistakably a relative of our
enjoyment of tragedy. Our satisfaction in strong, self-produced excitement
is so intense as to make physical pain to a great extent enjoyable. It is true
that while these phenomena are so far quite normal, secret but direct paths
connect them with the realm of pathology. While some individuals display
this in a somewhat anomalous desire for taste stimuli, in others pleasure in
petty self-torture develops into a sort of sport, having as its object not
merely a test of their power of endurance (of that we shall speak in the
section on will) but some obscure delight in actual suffering as well.
Cardanus confesses in his autobiography to a diseased condition which
could not dispense with pain, so that if he found himself perfectly
comfortable he was at once moved by an irresistible impulse to torture his
body until tears came. Mantegazza tells of a veteran who took a strange
delight in scratching the inflamed edges of an old wound in his leg.343 In
some forms of insanity the patient maltreats his person, inflicting the most
frightful wounds and mutilations, which would be incredible if his
sensibilities were not to a great degree blunted. In the attempt to explain
these phenomena some have thought them an exception to the rule that
pleasure accompanies only what is in some way useful, but it seems to me
that a sufficient explanation of normal cases is found in the utility of the
experimental impulse, which in seeking strong stimuli takes a certain
amount of pain with the rest. So long as pleasure predominates over pain in
the experience, play is possible. In pathological cases sexual excitement is
often aroused sufficiently to neutralize the suffering, and where this is not

the case we must suppose a perverse directing of the fighting instinct
against one’s own body, furthered by the deadening of sensibility to pain.

2. Mental Suffering
Psychologists have given special attention to the enjoyment which is
derived from contemplating unpleasant images and subjects. Perhaps the
most familiar passage on the subject is that of Spencer’s on the luxury of
grief, yet, as he himself admits, his idea of self-pity does not clear it up, and
he goes on: “It seems possible that the sentiment which makes a sufferer
wish to be alone with his grief, and makes him resist all distraction from it,
may arise from dwelling on the contrast between his own worth as he
conceives it, and the treatment he has received—either from his fellow-
beings or from a power which he is prone to think of anthropomorphically.
If he feels that he has deserved much while he has received little, and still
more if instead of good there has come evil, the consciousness of this evil is
qualified by the consciousness of worth, made pleasurably dominant by the
contrast.... That this explanation is the true one, I feel by no means clear. I
throw it out simply as a suggestion, confessing that this is a peculiar
emotion which neither analysis nor synthesis enables me to understand.”344
This is indeed an unsatisfactory explanation, and the play idea seems to
bring us nearer to one, for here, as in the case of physical pain, it is the
deep-rooted need of our nature for intense stimuli which enables us to enjoy
our own suffering. That unassuageable longing of Faust which had
exhausted the meagre emotional recourses of study, and now dragged him
out in search of life and experience, was a longing for both pleasure and
pain, since both could stir up life’s deep sea, which now lay stagnant:
“Sturzen wer uns in das Rauschen der Zeit,
Ins Rollen der Begebenheit!
Da mag denn Schmerz und Genuss,
Gelingen und Verdruss
Mit einander wechseln, wie es kann
Nur raselos bethätigt sich der Mann.”

Contemplative natures, not given to activity, have a tendency to play with
their suffering, and by a strange division of consciousness stand as on some
rocky height, beholding with pleased appreciation the foaming torrent of
their own feelings. In the closing chapter of my Play of Animals I treated
the subject of divided consciousness at some length, and will not here

repeat what is said there. For a specific instance we need only point to the
artist who brings a tragic tale to a close with real regret, and, in spite of the
suffering it has caused him, is filled with the joy in being a cause, in his
power to create. When Kleist finished Penthesilia in Dresden he went to his
friend Pfuel in tears. “She is dead!” he wailed, and yet, in spite of his deep
and genuine grief over the death of his heroine, in the depths of his soul he
was conscious of joy in his creation. This is a good example of play with
mental suffering, and Marie Bashkirtseff furnishes another illustration
which I have cited in my earlier work. “Can one believe it?” she writes in
her journal, at the age of thirteen; “I find everything good and beautiful,
even tears and pain. I love to weep, I love to despair, I love to be sad. I love
life in spite of all; I wish to live. I must be happy, and am happy to be
miserable. My body weeps and moans, but something in me that is above
me enjoys it all.” By these words she reveals most clearly that division of
consciousness in which, behind the suffering I, another seems to stand,
which has the power to change the grief to bliss. Goethe, too, seems often to
have felt the same. His Werther blames himself because he is prone to
cower before petty ills. Further than this there is such a thing as emotional
pessimism founded on temperament. For Schopenhauer it was an evident
satisfaction to work himself up to a condition of the utmost indignation over
the evils of the world. Kuno Fischer has sharply exposed this playful
characteristic of his pessimism. It is true, he says, that Schopenhauer takes a
serious and even tragic view of the world, but, after all, it is only a view, a
spectacle, a picture. “The world tragedy is played in a theatre; he sits in the
audience on a comfortable divan commanding the stage, using his opera
glass with discretion. Many of the spectators forget the suffering world at
the buffet, none follow the tragedy with such close attention, such deep
earnestness, such a comprehensive glance as his. Then, deeply moved and
soul-satisfied, he goes home and writes down what he has seen.”345
Melancholy, too, in the ordinary sense, not the pathological, belongs here,
the melancholy of lovers, poets, and artists, the condition typified by the
phrase “dégustation complaisante de la tristesse.”346
Finally, pleasure in the tragic, of which we have spoken in another
connection, should be mentioned here. Augustine, the great prober into the
problems of the soul, has set forth this question with inimitable clearness in
the third book of his Confessions. “Why,” says he, “should a man sadden

himself by voluntarily witnessing what is painful? The spectator does
undeniably feel sad, and the very sadness is a pleasure. How can we explain
this sympathy with unreal, theatrical sorrows? The hope of ultimate rescue
is not the only thing that appeals to him—it is the actual accumulation of
misery as well, and he praises the play in proportion as it moves him. When
common woes are so represented as not to affect the hearer, he goes away
dissatisfied and complaining. If he is affected, on the contrary, he listens
attentively, and weeps with delight.” If I understand Augustine aright, he
finds the solution of the puzzle in the idea of a sort of sympathy which he
distinguishes from real or moral sympathy, and which is at bottom nothing
else than the play of inner imitation, that æsthetic feeling of fellowship of
which we shall hear more later. He puts his finger on the real reason why
fellow-feeling for the sufferer has a special charm when he admits that
tragic representation affected him with sharp, creepy sensations, like the
scratching of a finger nail. Thus he concludes, as we have done, that the
foundation of enjoyment of tragedy is the result of intensive stimuli. As Du
Bos347 remarks, we take the pain accompanying the emotion in the bargain
because we like the emotion, the agitation of feeling, so well. This recalls
the Aristotelian dogma of the catharsis, but the objection to this theory lies,
as its name implies, in the fact that it seeks a practical end for the play of
æsthetic pleasure. For Aristotle the question is to establish the purifying
effects of a thunderstorm, not the enjoyment of its grandeur, and for this
reason the doctrine of the catharsis, however clear it may be, does not
directly answer our question. Delight in the tragic element is not concerned
with the lull after the storm, but only with the surging might of the tempest
itself, in which we are playfully involved. Weil and Bernays seem to me to
have the right idea when they speak of the need for violent emotional play,
and of enjoyment of ecstatic conditions. And Lessing also, when he says
that strong passion gives more reality to feeling. But it is doubtful whether
Aristotle considered this side of the question in forming his theory.

3. Surprise
Surprise is connected with fear, and for this reason is in itself a disagreeable
sensation; yet, on account of its strong psychophysical effect—namely, the
shock which it produces—it becomes highly enjoyable in play, and
displays, perhaps more clearly than any of the other cases, the charm of
strong stimuli. Children indulge very early in play involving the shock of

surprise, and its effectiveness as a means of giving pleasure becomes more
and more intense. Darwin relates that his son, from the one hundred and
tenth day, was wildly delighted when a handkerchief was laid over his face
and then suddenly withdrawn, or when his father’s face was hidden and
revealed in this way. “He then uttered a little noise, which was an incipient
laugh.” I referred to this in speaking of expectancy, which, indeed, goes
hand in hand with surprise, however opposed they may appear, since
surprise which is entirely unexpected is of course no part of play. There is
always playful experimentation with the shock when we expect it, but do
not know when or in what form it will appear. It is just this combination
which makes the emotional effect of surprise greater than it would
otherwise be. When, for example, we hold a lighted match over a lamp, we
are the more startled by the slight explosion because we have attentively
awaited it; and there are many games for children in which the combined
effect of expectation and surprise furnish an essential part of the pleasure,
such as those where persons or objects are hidden. The excitement, too,
which is caused by loud and sudden sounds is of the same character. M.
Reischle, in his fine paper on child’s play, distinguishes a special group of
expectation and surprise games, and points out that the little ones peek
while their comrades are hiding, and yet are overjoyed to find them, and
apparently surprised. In many throwing and catching games both elements
are influential in heightening the stimulus, and special plays grow out of
them, such as “Hide-and-Seek,” “Blind-Man’s Buff,” “Drop the
Handkerchief,” as well as many games of chance. Indeed, in the last named
the stimulus of surprise is often of special importance,348 and one of the
chief sources of pleasure is the tension of expectancy followed by the
sudden decision on the fall of dice.
Yet more interesting is the significance of surprise in relation to the comic.
While the latter is more than a play with surprise, this feature becomes a
factor that should by no means be overlooked in studying comic effects,
especially when we reflect that previous efforts to explain this modification
of aesthetic enjoyment have proved abortive, possibly through failure to
give due weight to this very element. E. Hecker advances the theory, it is
true, that laughter from tickling accounts for the origin of enjoyment of the
comic, but in this purely physiological explanation he seems to overlook the
fact that as a rule we laugh only when we are tickled, not when we tickle
ourselves—that is to say, that contact with finger tips becomes tickling only

when the hand is a strange one. Even in physical tickling, then, there must
be some psychic factors, of which surprise may be one, even though it is
inadequate alone to explain the phenomena. The fact that surprise not
carried far enough to frighten is one of the first causes of laughter in
children gives colour to this idea. Zeising has shown conclusively that there
is a double surprise in the comic, the first being the intuitive start at
something unusual, and contrasted with what is normal and typic, be it
occasioned by some anomaly in the object itself or depending only on the
momentary milieu—such, for instance, as the ridiculous appearance of a
tiny cottage in a row of palatial residences.349 This first shock is followed
by a moment of suspense. “When the entirely unexpected happens,” says
Goethe in Tasso, “the mind stands still for a moment,” which again is
interrupted by the new surprise of finding the first one negatived or
reversed.350 Here we have the counter shock, whose pleasurable effect is
strong enough to more than neutralize the first, and render their combined
result agreeable.351 As Kant, with his unrivalled penetration, has remarked,
we play with the error as with a ball, tossing it back and forth and looking
after it each time; in this way we are hurried through a succession of
tensions and relaxations.
While this illustration shows clearly how the essence of comicality is due to
the peculiar character of the double shock, yet it remains true that even in
this case surprise as such is pleasurable, and plays its part in the
complicated effect.

4. Fear
That even fear, the most abject of all affections, may become the object of
playful experimentation is one of the riddles of soul life. Here, too, we can
only apply the theory of pleasure in intense stimulus to that of divided
consciousness. When Lukrez dwells upon the pleasure of gazing on a
stormy sea from the vantage ground of a rocky crag he illustrates this state,
only here the soul is both in the midst of the storm and on the rocks as well.
Apart from and above the terror-stricken personality stands another, safe
and free, and enjoying the fascination of painful excitement. For the power
of fear is fascinating, even benumbing in its effect. Souriau says: “I
remember, as a child, seeing a snake, cut in two by a spade, convulsively
writhing on the garden walk. The sight filled me with terror, which rooted

me to the spot. Fascinated, I stood perfectly still, my eyes following the
agonized twisting of the creature while I felt waves of pain surging through
my own body.”352 Of course, such a condition can be playful only in case of
an æsthetic illusion when the fear is but apparent, and may be dispelled at
will, and when pleasure is stronger than pain in the experience.
Nevertheless, there are transitions between real and apparent fear which are
particularly operative when curiosity becomes the counter irritant. Every
one’s childhood will furnish an example of this. George Sand tells us how
she as a little girl tried with a playmate to get a glimpse into the spirit world
by means of mystic oaths and incantations. The children waited long in fear
and trembling, for blue flames, protruding devil’s horns, etc. This was only
a play, “but a play that set our hearts beating.”353 Although fear in this
instance has more the character of a necessary accompaniment than of an
object of play, real delight in the gruesome is undeniably evident in the
world of art. In the first place, there are legends and stories with horrible
fantasies. The child is wrapped in breathless interest in accounts of ghosts,
wicked magicians, werewolves, etc., and while safe in his own home enjoys
the terrors which these ideas excite. As a small boy I listened with nameless
horror to the crude account of the fate of Faust secretly read to me by our
gardener out of a popular book. I remember how, when the devil led Faust
through the ceiling, his skull was broken and his brains spattered on the
wall. For some time after that I was afraid to pass shady places in the
garden, even in the daytime. With older boys descriptions of battles and
adventures, and, above all, Indian stories, take the place of fairy tales. The
Leather Stocking Tales were my chief delight, especially The Pathfinder,
and I can still recall the rapt attention with which I followed the frightful
perils which threatened my hero, whenever I could get a quarter of an hour
off. How meagre is our capacity for æsthetic enjoyment in later years
compared with the absolute, unconditional surrender to it of a youthful
soul! Adults enjoy the gruesome in poetic creations such as those of
Hoffman and Victor Hugo. When we read of the struggle with the polypus
in Toilers of the Sea the strong stimulus imparted by fear is certainly the
chief source of pleasure. My grandfather in extreme old age liked nothing
better than to read such thrilling tales of hairbreadth escapes, and the strong
preference for detective stories evinced by the masses is based on the same
grounds. Savages, too, like children, always prefer tales which deal with
demons and magic.

Finally, we must notice an æsthetic phase which is related to fear—namely,
exaltation. Since Kant’s thoroughgoing elucidation the principle is fixed
that exaltation is the result of a rebound from fear. First depression, then
exaltation. At first, the object of our reverence oppresses us, and for a
moment we are painfully conscious of our impotence and nothingness; then
comes a reaction; we throw off the oppression and begin to study the
revered object with serious pleasure. In my Einleitung in die Aesthetik I did
not attribute the first part of this process to æsthetic pleasure, because I
found that inner imitation on which I based my investigation only in the
second stage.354 While I still regard it as the highest and most important
element in æsthetics, yet I am aware that my view as there presented was
somewhat one-sided, as is almost unavoidably the case if one attempts to
carry out a theory systematically. As I shall return to this point, let it suffice
to say here that probably the depression itself is pleasurable, and so forms a
part of the æsthetic satisfaction. It is characteristic of our complex natures
that along with our demand to control our surroundings we also feel the
need of the domination of a higher power. When we encounter an
incontestably overpowering force we gladly surrender unconditionally, and
take pleasure in acknowledging that we are insignificant and helpless. The
significance of this spirit for religion is apparent. Schiller has designated
awe as the noblest human trait, and Schleiermacher found the springs of
religion in the feeling of dependence. The first stage in the satisfaction
derived from exaltation is akin to this when we enjoy our self-abasement in
order to render more conspicuous the subsequent expansion of an
individuality, in the second stage when by the exercise of inner imitation we
identify ourselves with the revered object, thus partaking of the greatness
which at first overawed us. While it is true that only the second part of this
process attains the summit of enjoyment, the first, too, is playful. “How felt
I myself so small—so great?” asks Faust, and attributes both sentiments to
the selfsame moment. This play with depression is facilitated by repeating
the whole process frequently. The mind is not only attracted to the object,
but alternately repelled from it, and in this process of repetition depression
assumes more and more the character of play.

C. EXPERIMENTATION WITH THE WILL

Since our inquiry in this closing section is not as to the general use of the
will in play, but rather into playful experimentation with the will itself, we
must direct our attention to the control of movement. Play requires that
those movements which depend on both inherited and acquired brain paths
shall be under voluntary control. The pleasure accompanying this control is
founded on the feeling of freedom and of mastery over self; and it is to be
specially noted that almost all the related phenomena take the form of
contests and appeal to the fighting instincts. The majority of cases require
the suppression of emotional expression or of such reflexes as are
connected with them. Thus, for example, winking is not an expression of
emotion in the ordinary sense, and yet when it follows closely on the
sudden presentation of some object before the eyes it seems to indicate that
the person is startled or even terrified. Children often play with this
refractory reflex, one moving his hand rapidly before the eyes of another,
who makes desperate efforts to keep them open, and a forfeit game is
played as follows: Two persons sit or stand opposite one another; one
moves his hand close to the other’s eyes while the following colloquy takes
place: “Are you going in the woods?” “Yes.” “Going to take some bread
with you?” “Yes.” “And you want some salt on it?” “Yes.” “Are you afraid
of the wolf?” If he holds his eyes open all the time he is not afraid, but if he
winks he must pay a forfeit.355 The attempt is often made, too, to resist the
impulse to laugh while two persons gaze into each other’s eyes. Indeed,
such games are too numerous to mention. The effort to repress the
expression of pain is still more interesting. Self-control during the suffering
of physical pain is everywhere regarded as a proof of manliness, and is
earnestly cultivated by savages as by our own boys. The quiet submission to
painful tattooing, the endurance displayed by Indian children often in
gruesome ways, the effort of our schoolboys to bear corporal punishment
unflinchingly, the self-control of students who joke while their wounds are
being sewed, and—to carry the struggle against self-betrayal into the field
of mental suffering as well—the apparent indifference of gamblers to the
reverses of fortune; while all of these can by no means be called playful,
still the cases are sufficiently numerous in which there is actual playful
experimentation with the powers of endurance. For example, Rochholz
describes this test: Two persons strike the knuckles of the doubled-up fists
together, and measure their will power by the length of time that they can
endure the pain. Another is to strike the first and middle fingers against

those of the other person. A friend of mine told me that as a boy (probably
after reading some Indian tales) he once wagered with a comrade as to how
long they could hold lighted matches in their fingers. He won the bet, but
had to go with a bandaged hand for a long time.
A playful exercise of the will which suppresses not only every admission of
suffering, but the fighting instinct as well, is related by Goethe of his youth.
After remarking that “very many sports of youth depend on a rivalry in such
endurance, as, for example, when they strike with two fingers or the whole
hand until the limbs are numb,” he goes on: “As I made a sort of boast of
this endurance, the others were piqued, and as rude barbarity knows no
limits, they managed to push me beyond my bounds. Let one instance serve
to illustrate. It happened one morning that the teacher did not appear at the
hour of recitation. As long as all the children were together we entertained
ourselves very well, but when my friends left after waiting the usual time,
the others took it into their heads to torment and shame me and to drive me
away. Leaving the room for a moment, they came back with switches from
a broom. I saw what they meant to do, and, supposing the end of the hour to
be near, I at once resolved to resist them until the clock struck. They lashed
my legs unmercifully, and in a way that was actually cruel. I did not stir, but
soon found that I had miscalculated the time, and that pain greatly
lengthened the minutes. My rage swelled the more I endured, and at the first
stroke of the clock I grasped my most unsuspecting assailant by the hair,
hurled him to the floor in an instant, pressing my knee upon his back. The
second, who was younger and weaker, and who attacked me in the rear, I
held with his head under my arm. The last, and not the weakest, remained,
and only my left hand was free, but I caught hold of his clothes, and by a
dexterous twist on my part and an awkward slip on his, I brought him down
too, striking his face on the floor.”
Another impulse whose suppression is sometimes an end in play is
imitation. Perhaps the most familiar game illustrating it is “All Birds Fly,”
in which one of the children says “Pigeons fly, ducks fly, bears fly,” etc.,
and raises her hands in the air each time, while the others must follow her
example only when a bird is mentioned. The Mufti-comme-ça described by
Wagner is similar. All stand in a circle except the one who is in the centre
making various motions. When he calls out “Mufti,” all stand still; but
when he continues “comme ça,” they imitate him. In the English “Simon

says,” the players make all the gestures that he commands, regardless of
those which he may be making.356
All these examples are concerned with the repression of inborn reflexes,
expressive movements, and instincts, but acquired habits are no less
difficult to withstand. Many games are founded on the assumption that the
ability to do so is a proof of will power, and emphasizes the freedom and
self-control of the subject. It is particularly well illustrated in vocal
exercises. To omit a particular syllable in a familiar rhythmic verse, or
possibly several verses, requires a sudden check to the accustomed
movements. A well-known German example is the song—

“Europa hat Ruhe,
Europa hat Ruh’,
Und wenn Europa Ruhe hat,
So hat Europa Ruh’”—

in which the first, second, or third syllable of the word Europa, or even the
word or all the other words, are omitted. Kreis mentions a similar play for
children. It consists simply in substituting other meanings for the words
(stretching for bending, for example), so that when the order is given
“Bend,” the arm is stretched out, etc.357 There is such a thing, too, as
playful resistance of old habits. How many smokers resolve as a sort of jest
to do without cigars for a week! It is the merest playful experimentation;
they want to see if they are really absolute slaves of the pleasant vice, or
whether the habit is still under the control of their will. If the experiment
succeeds, they contentedly go back to their cigars; it is not at all a serious
effort to reform. Many frivolous persons play thus with their habits, and
take a childish delight in the little conquests achieved by their will, yet
without permanently or seriously altering their manner of living.

PART II

THE PLAYFUL EXERCISE OF IMPULSES OF THE
SECOND OR SOCIONOMIC358 ORDER
I. Fighting Play

Our conception of experimentation includes a large number of phenomena
having the common tendency to bring into action the manifold inborn
predispositions of the organism, but without reference to those instincts by
means of which the relation of the individual to other living creatures is
regulated. In experimentation only the more general needs, such as are
indubitably grounded in the nature of the organism, are allowed expression,
in such a manner as to bring into action the sensor and motor apparatus as
well as the higher mental faculties. The individual would exhibit similar
qualities in isolation; he plays with himself, not with his relations to others,
and even when association exists, as, for instance, in ball-catching, he
recognises at the same time that experimental play is involved. Now,
however, we enter on the consideration of such play as is intentionally
directed toward other beings, and first on our list is the inborn impulse to
fight. Walther von der Vogelweide has shown the power of this instinct in
the impressive lines:
“Des Stromes Wellen rauschten kühl;
Ich sah darin der Fische Spiel.
Ich sah, was ringsum in der Welt:
Den Wald, das Laub, Rohr, Gras und Feld,
Und was da alles kriecht und fliegt
Und seine Bein’ zur Erde biegt.
Dis sah ich, und ich sag’ Euch das
Keins lebt von ihnen ohne Hass.”

“The stream’s waves murmured oolly;
I saw the fishes playing there;
I saw all that was in the whole round world;
In wood, and bower, and marsh and mead, and field,
All things which creep and fly,
And put a foot to earth.
All these I saw, and say to you,
That nothing lives among them without hate.”

In our common speech, too, life is referred to as a battle, and is in reality
too often a general struggle for money or power. It is but natural, then, to
find the fighting impulse developed early in childhood and practised in
play. Indeed, the demand for its exercise is so strong that there is scarcely
any form of play which may not take on the character of a contest.
Especially is this the case when there is any difficulty to overcome or
danger to be encountered. “Both danger and difficulty,” says Lazarus,
“appear as incarnated opponents over whom it is possible to gain a
victory.”359 In the same way play with lifeless objects is easily converted
into a contest by the force of æsthetic illusion. As numerous examples of
such intensive stimulation of the fighting impulse have already been given,
I shall here mention only the mountain climber’s struggle with lofty peaks.
In this chapter such collateral themes must be avoided, as we shall find our
immediate problem very wide. In order to discriminate as to the relative
importance of the various fighting plays the following division of the
subject will prove convenient: First, there are direct fighting plays in which
the contestants immediately measure their strength, whether mental or
physical. The second group is composed of indirect fighting plays where the
victory is sought through means of conducting the contest. Among the
mental phases of this we find betting and gambling. In the third group we
place merely offensive sports in which no defence is possible or availing,
such as playful destructiveness, teasing, and the enjoyment of the comic (so
far as it is connected with fighting at all). After disposing of all these, two
subdivisions yet remain: first, playful chasing, fleeing, and hiding (hunting
plays); and, second, the enjoyment of witnessing a contest.

1. Direct Physical Fighting Play
Any one who takes the hand of a two-year-old child and strikes himself
with it, pretending to be much hurt, can not doubt after seeing the delight
displayed by the little creature, the pleasurable effect of the discharge of this

impulse so deeply seated in human nature. Yet the fighting instinct seems to
be comparatively late in assuming the form of regular independent playful
contests. Unprovoked tussling merely for the fun of the thing seldom
appears earlier than the third year, while young bears, dogs, and other
animals begin such play almost at once. In this youthful tussling the chief
aim is to throw one’s opponent to the ground and to hold him in this
helpless position. So far as my observation goes in this little-investigated
sphere, very small boys seldom stand for their combats. Usually one already
seated seizes his comrade, who may be standing near, by the foot, pulls him
down, and they fight, rolling over on the floor, and each seeking to keep the
upper hand. The effort is constantly made to keep the enemy’s head down, a
position so distasteful to the party concerned that the scene threatens to end
in noisy and serious strife. As the children grow older they gradually
formulate rules for their contests partly through imitation of their elders and
partly as the result of their own experience. As with adults, the proper grip
of the opponent’s body is an important point. “He caught him by the waist,
where he was weakest” is quoted as far back as the Hildebrandslied. For
throwing, it is often necessary to slip the hand through the other’s arms and
give him a sudden twist, or to place one arm on his neck and push him
backward. The legs, too, have their part to do. Sometimes a boy is thrown
across a projected knee, or a leg is thrust outward to check the fall when the
attempt is made to throw sideways by lifting. Or the method adopted by
Odysseus in an extremity may be employed—a sudden blow dealt at the
bend of his opponent’s knee being the cause of his overthrow. Usually the
fight ends at this point,360 but sometimes the tussling is continued on the
ground, as described above, and the playful character is very apt to be lost.
Sometimes it happens, on the contrary, that the fight is over before either
contestant is thrown. I saw two boys wrestling, when one of them was lucky
enough to get a good grip on his opponent’s body, but the latter could bend
his head back, whereupon they desisted and called it a tie. There is often an
effort to take the enemy unawares, as when a boy leaps unexpectedly on his
opponent’s back, gives him a violent push, or runs against him forcibly.
Suddenly dousing one another with water is another favourite if not very
pleasant youthful sport.
Prize fighting by adults seems to have been generally practised in Europe as
well as in other parts of the world from remote antiquity. The ancient
Egyptians were zealous wrestlers. Among the Greeks, where the art was

extraordinarily developed, it often became brutal; breaking the fingers and
throttling were allowed, and a familiar sculptured group shows a cruel
twisting of the arms to hold down the thrown wrestler. Ring fighting was
practised by both boys and men among early Germans, as numerous
ethnological remains demonstrate. In Japan, prize fighting is as much a
national sport as is bull baiting in Spain. Bastian saw it in Burma, Ratzel
among the Eskimos, Indians, Hawaiians, etc., and other observers in remote
parts of the earth. Among the Brazilian Bororó friendly contests are
governed by the following rules: “To seize a man by his right wrist is a
challenge. The two contestants face one another, and each places his hands
on the other’s shoulders or on the small of the back. In this position they
must stand with bodies perfectly erect,361 their feet wide apart, and each
looking toward the other’s back. They maintain a good-humoured silence
for some time, and then suddenly become very much in earnest, and make
desperate efforts to throw one another by tripping. One usually opens the
attack by thrusting one of his heels into the knee hollow of his opponent
and trying to bend it, but the other is prepared, and sets his sturdy leg so far
back that the effort is fruitless. Attack and resistance on both sides follow in
rapid succession until one of the contestants falls.”362
Here, too, is opportunity for the application of the wiles practised by
Odysseus when the mighty Ajax lifted him off his feet.
“... Still his craft not deserted Odysseus:
He dealt a blow from the back and loosened the joint of his knee
So that backward he fell and Odysseus sank down above him
Right on his broad chest. And the people around were amazed.”

In von den Steinen’s description of the Brazilian customs, the effort to pull
down the head, mentioned above in connection with childish wrestling, is
dwelt upon as the chief aim instead of the grip on the waist. “The
contestants, representatives of different tribes, come forward in pairs, their
bodies smeared with yellowish red uruku, and with black. They stoop, catch
up a handful of sand, and in a crouching position, with hands hanging
down, they rapidly circle round each other, casting angry glances at their
opponents, and calling out threateningly, ‘Húuha! húuha!’ Then one touches
his right hand to his adversary’s left, and at this signal they all leap to the
attack, springing up and down as fast as possible on the same spot, not
unlike angry apes, each seeking to seize and bend down the other’s head.

This violent exercise goes on for some time without any direct attempt to
throw one another. They are very friendly after it is over, and may be seen
walking about with their arms around each other’s shoulders.”
As a last example I quote Berlepsch’s graphic description of the Schwingen
as practised in the Swiss Alps. Shirt and trunks are the only articles of
clothing allowed, and the latter expose half the thigh, and must be made of
stout, strong drilling. Every man grasps with his right hand the waistband of
his opponent, and with his left the rolled-up trouser leg, and now begin,
either standing or kneeling, violent efforts to overthrow one another. For a
complete conquest this must be accomplished twice.363 The struggle is
especially exciting when the contestants represent different valleys, and on
them rests the responsibility of maintaining the honour of their native place.
“As soon as the two athletes have taken the proper grip they sink on their
right knees and withdraw the lower part of the body as far as a good hold
will permit. If one has reason to fear that he is about to be lifted, he lies flat
down on his stomach and the other must follow suit. In this unnatural
position they torment one another for half an hour at a time, writhing on the
ground like snakes, and stretching sinews and muscles until their faces
grow dark with the strain. If neither can manage to overcome his opponent
by endurance, superior strength, or strategy, they at last voluntarily abandon
the conflict, utterly exhausted, and shake hands on their prowess, but
neither can claim a victory.”364 So-called tests of strength are similar to
this.365 In pulling contests the attempt is made to draw the opponent toward
one, sometimes by the hands—in the Bavarian mountains it is done by
hooking the middle fingers together—sometimes by seizing a stick at its
ends or across, sometimes with a rope, as the Greek boys did, sometimes by
a band around the neck, which serves to strengthen the muscles of the
back,366 and sometimes by hooking one knee of each together, so that the
contestants can only hop about on one foot until the contest is decided.
Another test of strength is the pushing which children usually take up of
themselves, as many schoolroom benches could testify. In Japanese contests
pushing across a line seems to be a leading feature. Zettler gives the
following description of it: “Japanese prize fighters are trained to their
profession through centuries of inheritance from father to son, and by every
conceivable means calculated to produce perfect specimens of their kind. In
stature they are veritable giants, not only in height but in the development

of all the limbs and masses of fat, which would not lead one to expect
special adroitness or muscular force. In their ring contests the effort is made
either to throw or to push one another off the arena, which is an elevated
circular platform thickly strewn with sand and surrounded with a double
ring of straw. Whoever makes one step over the edge is lost. Weight is of
great use in this contest.” Children frequently make use of a combination of
pulling and pushing, which is really imitative play. One child, for instance,
takes his position on a sand heap and defends himself against another who
represents the enemy storming his castle. From the well-nigh innumerable
tests of strength we may select the following as typical: The players stand
with outstretched arms opposite one another, seize hands and pull, or one
stands firm with stiffened arms while the other tries to stir him, or they sit in
such a way that the knees of one are caught between those of the other, and
the effort is made to force the legs apart; or sometimes it is to open the
rolled-up fist, etc.367
Fighting with fists leads the way to fighting with weapons, though the
rolled-up fist is used by the angry child as a weapon earlier than the open
hand. In playful fighting, however, the blow with the fist is not much used.
Sometimes a little playful boxing is indulged in, but it is difficult to keep
within the bounds of play in a fisticuff. Gymnastic exercises of this kind as
practised by the Greeks and English are more important. Among the former
blows were aimed at the head, and, “to strengthen the blow,” says Fedde,
“the fist and forearm were wrapped with thongs of oxhide, which left the
fingers free to double up the fist. Later a strip or ring of hard leather was
added, which, as it was held around the ball of the fist, inflicted severe
wounds, being sometimes studded with nails or lead knobs. The soft leather
thongs of earlier times were called friends (μείλιγαι), while the dangerous
knobs in later use received the name of bullets (σφαῖραι), and a specially
cruel kind of gloves were ants (μύρμηκες).”368 That not only practised
athletes used these, and that they were donned in the playful contests of
mere boys, is proved by the speech of Lucien’s Scythian, Anacharsis. “And
those standing so straight there,” he says as he is observing the youthful
sports, “beat one another and kick with the feet. There is one who has been
hit on the chin, and his mouth is full of blood and sand, and his teeth almost
knocked out, poor fellow, and yet the archon does not separate them and
end the strife. On the contrary, he urges them on and praises the one who

gives the blow.”369 Raydt says of English boxing: “An English specialty in
physical exercise is boxing, practised methodically and with all possible
skill. The fists are incased in thickly wadded gloves, which render the blows
harmless, and a distinction is made between extreme severity and lighter
strokes, the tactics admitting of felling an opponent by the former or
exhausting him with the latter. The boxing which I have seen was carried on
in an orderly and decorous manner, and still I was convinced that it is a very
severe exercise, and should not be introduced into the schools.”370 Regular
boxing matches, requiring seconds and an umpire, as they are given by the
students, are fought either to settle some dispute—“Fighting with fists is the
natural and English way for English boys to settle their quarrels,” is said in
Tom Brown’s School Days—or as a spectacle for a large audience to
witness. In both cases it is fighting play only when the belligerent instinct
as such forms the chief motive, and when, too, the quarrel in one case, or
the prize offered and desire for self-display in the other, gives occasion for
the exercise of the fighting instinct. There can be no doubt that this is often
the case. Like our own students, English youths often fight, not because
they have any quarrel, but because they seek one, because they want to
fight, and the struggle thus becomes not the means but actually the end. The
case is frequently the same with prize fighting. Professional boxers at the
beginning of the nineteenth century were to a great extent rough fellows,
who were only after money, or at best notoriety. But Conan Doyle has
recently given us in his Rodney Stone a masterly description of a
blacksmith who was a good husband and a skilful workman, yet even in his
old age could not resist an invitation to take part in a public prize fight.
What primarily influenced this man was a deep-rooted manly enjoyment of
fighting for the fight’s sake, and many Greek and English athletes have felt
as he did.
Another primitive method of fighting is by throwing missiles; even
monkeys throw stones, dry branches, and fruit. Miss Romanes’s ape was
very sensitive to ridicule. One day the tailoress came into the room, and a
nut was given to the monkey to open with his hammer, as he knew how to
do. The nut proved to be empty, and the woman could not help laughing at
the monkey’s blank expression. “He then became very angry, and threw at
her everything he could lay his hands on—first the nut, then the hammer,
then a coffee-pot, which he seized out of the grate, and lastly all his own

shawls. He threw things with great force and precision by holding them in
both hands and extending his long arms well back over his head before
projecting the missile, standing erect the while.”371
The child begins very early to throw things to the ground, as we have seen,
and seems to delight in watching their motion as well as in the noise. Later
the child turns the skill thus acquired to the account of his fighting instinct,
and in this way genuine offensive throwing begins as soon as he is able to
tumble about alone. The enjoyment is doubled when it becomes not only a
question of hitting the enemy, but of dodging his missiles as well. The
prettiest and most harmless form of such sport is snowballing; but also fruit,
cherry stones, clods of earth, pebbles, hay in the meadows, pillows from the
beds, etc., all serve the same purpose. Some games of ball, too, are of a
similar character. K. Weinhold tells us how he as a boy played against his
comrades with a six-pound cannon ball. The wonder is that no bones were
broken. “Less fortunate,” he continues, “were the islanders who indulged in
this mad folly, for in their case it was punished. On a holiday the contest
between boatmen and landsmen was begun, and after several days the latter
retired as victors. The boatmen, stung by the taunts of their conquerors,
took counsel with their friend Hard Grimkelssohn, who advised them to
make balls of horn and challenge the shore people to another game. That
evening six of the latter lay dead, while the boatmen lost not a single
man.”372 In many ball games, however, the players do not themselves catch
the ball, which is sent to a base or home, as in the English game of football.
Behind each party is a base consisting of two upright posts and a connecting
rod, and each side endeavours to get the ball over the other’s base or to
prevent such a result when it threatens their own. This is a specialized form
of reciprocal mass contest, since the enemy is not attacked in person, but
the effort is made to wrest from him a symbolic stronghold, as is common
in mental contests. There are many similar ball games—for instance,
baseball—where the ball is thrown by hand and its analogue found among
the North American Indians; and cricket, where a single player, armed with
a bat, defends the easily approached wicket. The idea is carried further
when the ball which is thrown becomes the goal as well, so that the same
instrument is at once weapon and symbol of the enemy. Playful pelting is
indulged in in carnival times, when berries and confetti are thrown about
promiscuously; in former times there were many occasions for this lively

sort of play. Travellers experience the primitive impulse which makes it
hard for them to resist the temptation to throw when in midsummer they
stand in a little snow field, and students are universally given to throwing
beer mugs, in spite of its being occasionally dangerous. The principle of
returning offensive missiles is not much applied in play, and yet I remember
that as a boy I enjoyed shooting with bow and arrow at another boy
similarly armed. We stood about fifteen feet apart and tried to hit each other
with light and harmless cane arrows. A still more innocent battle was fought
with popgun and berries.
It is doubtful whether children really play with thrusting weapons; they
rather exercise than fight with their wooden swords and spears, but when it
comes to an offensive use of the weapons play turns to earnest, and, as with
the young Goethe, ends disastrously in quarrelling and blows. Boys who are
much older engage in actual fighting plays with such weapons, but it is left
to the students’ duels to exhibit its highly developed form. Some years ago
the half-grown sons of a professor in a university town went to a fencing
hall and fought out a regular contest in a perfectly friendly spirit, although it
was by no means bloodless. Many readers will no doubt recall such
incidents. Such contests between boys and young men are very interesting,
and in Germany we distinguish between them and real duels in that they are
playful, while the latter are brought about by some serious offence. That
serious wounds sometimes result from these fencing matches is no
argument against their playful character, for many games are dangerous,
and these contests certainly come within our definition of a play, the
satisfaction afforded by them being not in conquest but in fighting as such.
When, indeed, one student provokes another intentionally from dislike or
anger, the fighting which results is not a play; but the elaborately arranged
appointments and the fencing matches which result from some remarks
made, perhaps, in all courtesy, though it may end in injury to one or both
parties, undoubtedly is of this character.373 In the same way must have been
managed the jousts and tourneys of the middle ages, the knightly combats
of ancient Teutons, and youthful trials at arms and many similar contests as
practised by various peoples374 where, so long as there is no evidence of a
quarrel, but only a natural demand to satisfy an inborn impulse to fight, it is
all playful. We must not forget, however, that the desire for self-exhibition,
to display one’s skill and courage, is also conspicuous.

This subject brings us to a question which I touched upon in The Play of
Animals. In reviewing the fighting plays of animals we found that many
mammals and birds fight hotly in youth who seldom beard an enemy in
later life, habitually taking to flight when attacked. The supposition in such
cases must be that fighting play serves as practice for the mating contest,
since even the peaceful ruminants engage in bitter combat with rivals. This
supposition granted, we may further assume that the fighting plays of the
fiercer animals are also connected with the sexual life, and may it not be
true with men as well? It is indisputable, of course, that human combat with
wild beasts and other enemies is often a struggle for food and ownership,
and accordingly, in considering play as preparatory for serious fighting, its
aim must be considered as only partially sexual. Still, the connection is
sufficiently close to deserve a few words of mention.375 A great difference
is observable in the tussling of boys as they approach maturity. While the
games of six-year-olds are uniformly harmless, and proceed amid laughter
and fun, as the age of puberty approaches fighting play assumes a much
more serious character, and even when only play is intended the whole
bearing of the participants is greatly modified. Genuine make-believe, the
innocent measuring of strength, is no longer practised; the youth desires to
prove that he can play with danger, too; he assumes an offensive and
boastful air, and regards each of his contemporaries as a rival. The inward
restlessness which characterizes this time of life is directed by instinct
toward belligerence, and every opportunity to fight is welcomed. It is at this
time that the weapons, properly blunted or otherwise rendered less
effective, may still be dangerous, for youths of all vigorous peoples will
engage in some kind of spirited combat. Take, for example, the description
of London boys, by Fitz Stephen, who lived in the time of Henry II. We find
not only the nobility, but the merchant class as well, exercising themselves
at all times of the year in armed contests, which, in spite of their playful
character, often had serious results. In the dead of winter, often on ice, they
assembled for this purpose, with staves for lances, held jousts “from which
they did not always escape uninjured, for many were the legs and arms
broken in the fray. But the youths, in their desire for glory, delighted in such
practice, which served as a preparation for the time when they should go to
war.”376

While we are obliged to attribute a very general significance to such
dangerous indulgence of daring warlike spirit, still we can not fail to trace
its connection with sexual life. Without the youth’s necessarily knowing it,
there is something similar to the bellicose tendency exhibited by animals in
their pairing season, in the feeling of rivalry which possesses him at this
time. The same thing is shown in the spirit of adventure, which at first is
only a general desire for change, and delight in struggle and risk, but in its
manifestations that are most closely connected with play appears in many
mediæval knights in close conjunction with courtship. “The heroic deeds of
adventurous knights,” says Alwin Schultz, “should be included in the
category of fighting plays. Thus Ulrich von Lichtenstein, in his open letter
to all knights, promised to every knight who would break a lance with him
on his homeward journey from Venice to Bohemia a gold ring for his
sweetheart, and to any one who should unhorse him the steed on which he
rode; while in case he himself came out conqueror all he required was that
the vanquished knight should pay homage to his lady.” Another knight,
Waltman von Lättelstedt, took with him on a ride from Merseberg to
Eisenach a damsel on a palfrey, having with her a sparrowhawk and a
hunting dog. “Waltman proclaimed that on his arrival at Eisenach he would
be ready to fight all comers, and that whoever should overcome him could
have the girl, the palfrey, the sparrowhawk, and even the dog and harness,
but must permit the girl to ransom herself if she chose with a guilder and a
gold ring. Whomsoever he should overthrow must give to him, as well as to
the maiden, a ring of equal value. When she came back from Eisenach this
young girl had gold rings enough to bestow one on every maid of high
degree in all the town of Merseberg.”377 Such contests were more
formidable with the North Germans. Among these warriors it was common
for a hero to travel to a distant land, and when a woman there pleased him,
to demand her surrender from husband or father or brother in two weeks’
time, the demand to be supported in the lists.378
And finally it may be mentioned that the tourney, which was at first
practised chiefly as preparatory for war, became later as often a contest for
a woman. In one English tilt the king promised the kiss of an eight-year-old
girl as the reward of success, and Eastern tourneys were often instituted to
win the hand of a princess.379 What was there done with intention may
often unconsciously ground the various contests of young men.

2. Direct Mental Contests
The impulse to opposition is a quality which is usually regarded as a very
unpleasant disposition of mind, but which is in reality, when kept within
proper bounds, the very leaven of human life. We shall see later that rivalry
taken in connection with the imitative impulse is one of the mainsprings of
advance of culture, and the oppositional force connected with the fighting
instinct is also necessary for the mental development of mankind. The great
newcomers in the various departments of learning are almost invariably
either friendly or bitter opponents of long standing authorities, and any
project which meets with no opposition sinks to sleep. For the individual,
too, it is quite as important, since a man without it would be entirely too
hospitable to suggestion; indeed, abnormal suggestibility rests finally on the
suspension of this instinct. Children early show a playful as well as an
earnest resistance to authority. While Sully is right when he says that an
attitude of absolute hostility to law on the part of the child would make
education impossible, still he admits that the best children—from a
biological standpoint—have “most of the rebel” in them.380 The sweetness
of forbidden fruit is imparted largely by the combative instinct. Such a spirit
is manifested playfully, not when disobedience is attended with cries and
struggles or sulky behaviour, but when it is enjoyed for its own sake, as a
source of triumphant satisfaction. When a two-year-old child who has been
told not to throw his spoon under the table repeats the action, not in anger
but with twinkling eyes, he is acting playfully. Some of their speeches,
however, exhibit this spirit most clearly. For instance, a small boy who had
been rather rough with his younger brother and was remonstrated with by
his mother, asked, “Is he not my own brother?” and then cried triumphantly,
when his mother admitted the undeniable fact, “Well, then, you said I could
do what I please with my own things!”381 Another child of three years and
nine months answered his nurse who called him: “I can’t come; I have to
look for a flea!” and pretended to be doing so while he broke out in a
roguish laugh.382 A three-year-old Italian girl said to her grandmother under
similar circumstances, “Non posso venire, la piccolina [her doll] mi
succhia!”383
With children of school age, playful resistance to authority is naturally
directed chiefly against the teacher. As an example I regretfully recall a
piece of mischief of which I myself was guilty. I had looked back during a

recitation to speak to the boy behind me, when the teacher called out to me
to turn around. At that I turned around so completely as to be able to
continue my conversation from the other side. The indulgent teacher was so
amused at my impudence that he did not punish me as I deserved. Hans
Hoffman has shown in his Ivan the Terrible how ill-mannered schoolboys
can take advantage of a teacher who does not possess the secret of
command; and Carl Vogt says of his school days at the gymnasium: “Study
and work were for the majority secondary considerations. Most of the boys
stayed there for the purpose of tormenting their fellow-students and
enraging their teachers. By studying the peculiarities of character possessed
by our tyrants we soon found a weak side to each of them and tried such
experiments with these weaknesses as their owners could not avenge by
punishment. Thus the whole school was leagued against the professoriat,
and now single combat or skirmishing, now slyly preconcerted mass
operations were for the time in favour, and there were occasional truces, but
no lasting peace.”384 E. Eckstein’s humorous sketches, too, are especially
popular because of their celebration of this warfare against the teachers.
We have yet to notice adult opposition to political, scientific, artistic, social,
and religious authority. It is of course usually serious, and yet it seems to
me that in spite of its practical side there is often something playful in it,
something of enjoyment of the conflict for its own sake. The obstructionist
in legislation, the opponents of time-honoured regulations, customs,
doctrines, rules of art and dogmas, all take, if they are born fighters, a
peculiar pleasure in the excitement of resistance to authority. They like to
blend their voices in the war cries of spiritual combat. It is one of the
pleasures of life.
Contradiction is another form of opposition. I once snapped the fingers of
my four-year-old nephew, Heinrich K., for some misbehaviour. After he had
been quiet for a while, as was his habit, this dialogue passed between us,
evidently soon becoming playful to the child: “Uncle, I’ll shut you up in a
room so you can never get out.” “Oh, I’ll climb out of a window.” “Then I
will shut the blinds.” “But I will open them.” “But I’ll nail them shut.”
“Then I’ll saw a hole in the door.” “But I’ll have an iron door, very strong.”
“Then I’ll make a hole in the floor.” “But I will go underneath and make
iron walls to the whole house.” And so it went on until I gave up the
struggle with childish inventiveness. Enjoyment of such playful dispute

often lasts a lifetime. As a fourteen-year-old boy I once argued for hours
with a friend as to whether the beauty of colour was relative or absolute.
One of us contended that a blue embroidered chair might be positively ugly,
however attractive the colour, while the other maintained that the beauty of
the blue would make the chair admirable. I mention this trivial example
only because it shows so plainly the playful character of such talk, for
without any personal interest in the matter we waxed warm over our
respective views and presented them with great energy. The heated
discussion gave us quite as much satisfaction as solving the problem could
have done; in fact, the charm of conversation is largely to be attributed to
the enjoyment of disputation. On examining closely into what constitutes
the attraction of such entertainment for us we find that besides relating and
listening to anecdotes and gossip about acquaintances (this is also play) our
chief pleasure is in more or less playful combating of opposite opinion.
People who have no interest or talent for these three things are at a loss in
society.
We now take up such intellectual contests as are commonly included in the
lists of fighting plays, including the solution of riddles, to which we alluded
under experimentation. The measuring of mental readiness between
individuals when the problem is given orally by a third person, and this is
the original and natural method, is a genuine intellectual duel. It was a
favourite entertainment of the ancient Germans which Rückert has
celebrated in his beautiful poem. Another form is the putting of difficult
questions alternately to opposed parties, as in our modern spelling bee.
There are examples of this in the Eddas, such as the intellectual duels
between Odin and a giant, and between Thor and the dwarf Alvis. Romantic
troubadour songs belong here too. Uhland and Rückert once engaged in a
metrical debate as to whether it is worse to find one’s lover dead or
faithless. Uhland preferred death, while Rückert attempted to sustain the
thesis “better false than dead.”385 Rivalry is conspicuous in such contests,
as we shall have occasion to note later.
In our common forfeit games, too, mental contest often forms the basis of
the fun. For instance, it is a distinct attack and parry when a handkerchief is
thrown to a player and a word pronounced to which he must find a rhyme.
In English, where the spoken and written words are so unlike, the spelling
of unfamiliar words is turned into a game; and another idea is to introduce

into a story some object or incident suggesting the name of one of the
players, whereupon he must continue the recital, passing it on to another in
the same way. Or a passage from some great author may be cited and his
name guessed, and many similar devices. Finally, we mention the important
group of plays for which the stimulus is partly intellectual experimentation,
but is primarily attributable to the combative instinct, such as board and
card games, both of which are symbolic of physical contests in which the
players appear as leaders of opposing forces and originators of strategic
operations. A genuine battle ground is afforded by the board, and the great
object is to have the right man in the right place at the right time. In cards
strategy is exhausted in the choice of the right champion at the right
moment, but is rendered much more difficult by the fact that the former
contestants have disappeared from view, while the reserve is concealed.
Thus it results that board games afford opportunity for the display of skill in
arrangement and card games especially cultivate memory, while both are
important promoters of the logical faculty and of imaginative foresight.386
An important distinction between them is that in board games the strength
of the contestants is exactly equal at the start, and the material chances are
identical, while in cards inequality is the rule.
Board plays (the name is not very fortunate, for the battlefield is by no
means always a board) are older and more generally distributed than the
others. When Lazarus points out reasoning games in distinction from games
of chance as indicative of a higher state of culture387 he can not be referring
to board games in general, since some of the lowest and most savage tribes
indulge in them. There are three distinct varieties of these plays. In the first
kind one, or possibly two, stand opposed to a large party, but the conditions
are equalized by the rule that all the party must act together while the
smaller side is rendered more formidable by various advantages, such as
greater freedom of motion and capacity for lying in wait and taking
prisoners. The object is to dislodge the single fighter from his stronghold
and cut off his retreat, or to surround him in the open field and take him
captive. The prototype of the former is the beleaguered fortress, and of the
latter combats with dangerous beasts of prey. The Malay Rîman-Riman, or
Tiger-play, is a good example of the latter. The arena is somewhat of this
form and appearance, the figure being simply traced on the sand, or
stamped with red and white on boards or cloth. The single player has

twenty-four stones, the men, ôrang-ôrang. The other players
have a single large one or sometimes two, the tiger, rîman.
The tiger is governed by fixed rules, and the men seek to pen
him up so that he can not move.388
In the second kind the parties, being numerically equal, stand
opposed as in checkers, where a hot struggle goes on to get
three men in a row—at least this is one of the simplest forms
of the game as described by Ovid. Among German antiquities
there is a representation of two men with a board set with stones. Schuster
at least considers this a game similar to checkers.389 And besides, there are
groups engaged in the Damen-Spiele, which was probably known to the
ancient Egyptians as well as the Greeks and Romans, although we can not
be certain as to the rules of these ancient games, πόλις, ludus
latrunculorum. In mediæval times elaborately ornamented boards were used
for this game. “Especially noteworthy,” says Weinhold, “is one that is used
as a reliquary on the altar at Asschaffenburg. It is set with jasper and beryl
crystals, beneath which various figures are inlaid in the Roman manner on a
gold ground.”390 Büttikofer brought with him from Liberia a very
interesting ethnological specimen, almost unique in character. The game
played in that region does not require a board or other flat
surface, but wooden cases into which rods are inserted like
arrows in a quiver. This represents the placing of the men on a
board. Each player has ten rods, of which only four are placed
at the beginning of the game. The dots in the cut show their
position. The object is to get into the enemy’s country by
judicious jumping, the reserve ammunition being placed as occasion
requires until the supply is exhausted.391 Another form of this kind of game
is the Oriental Mangale, which is now becoming quite general.392 In
Damascus, where, according to Petermann, it is constantly played in all the
coffee houses, a board two feet by six inches is used. It is over an inch thick
and has in its upper side two parallel rows of holes, seven in number in
Damascus; other places have six, eight, or nine. In these holes tiny pebbles,
gathered in a particular valley by pilgrims to Mecca, are laid; usually seven
in each. The player removes the stones from the first depression on his
right, and throws them one by one toward the left and into the holes on his
opponent’s side. This play is kept up under certain rules and conditions, of

course, and with the aid of much counting393 of winnings, and whoever gets
the most stones has the game.394 In concluding we must not fail to notice
the noblest of all board games, chess, which, on account of the great variety
of men employed and their complicated moves, is the most difficult of
games, as well as the most entertaining. Many are of the opinion that some
ancient games are of the same character, but it is probable that real chess is
of Indian origin, whence it spread to the Persians and Arabians, and through
them into northern Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. In the last-named
country we hear of it as early as the ninth century, and it appeared in Italy
and Germany certainly not later than the eleventh, soon becoming the
favourite game of the educated classes. This is proved by the fact that in a
book of sermons published in the latter half of the thirteenth century one
Jacobus de Cessoles, a Dominican, attempts to set forth a system of rules
for right living founded on the rules of the ludus scaccorum.395 The game
has naturally undergone many changes in the course of time; for instance,
the Arabians originally had elephants in the place of our bishops; but it has
always preserved the character of a battle, and is so represented in old
Arabian manuscripts.396
Our third group of board plays is comprised of those which add the
attraction of chance to intellectual enjoyment of the contest. It is true that to
a certain degree chance is an element in the purest games of reason, since
the most skilful player can not foresee all the consequences of a move, and
various uncontrollable influences397 may interfere with the best-laid plans;
but in the games which we are now considering there is a blending of risk
with calculation, which has a peculiar charm. Perhaps the most familiar
game of this kind is backgammon, which was certainly known to the
Greeks and Romans, and possibly to the Egyptians and Phœnicians. In this
game and kindred ones the object is to throw away men whose value is
determined chiefly by chance, while the advance to advantageous points is
a matter of calculation, thus affording a combination of direct and indirect
fighting. Backgammon is of peculiar ethnologic interest because of the
prominent part it plays in the controversy as to whether Asiatic influence is
traceable in primitive American civilization. E. B. Tylor has stated in
several passages398 that a kind of backgammon played on a cruciform board
is a favourite amusement of the East Indians, and is called by them
Patschisi (in Burmah: Patschit), and a very similar form of the game was

known to the pre-Columbian Mexicans under the name of Patolli. Tylor
considers the complicated nature of the game as a sufficient disproof of its
independent origin, and from this, and a certain kinship to chess which is
apparent in it, he concludes that the whole group of games furnishes an
important argument in favour of Asiatic influence on American life before
the time of Columbus.
Dominoes may serve as the connecting link between such games as we
have been considering and card games, since the lack of a prescribed field,
the concealed store of each player, and the chance distribution at the
beginning, as well as the acquisition of new ammunition during the game
are common features. Playing cards are supposed to be a comparatively
recent invention of the Chinese, which, like chess, was carried into Spain by
the Saracens, and thence spread all over Europe in the fourteenth century.
Many are of the opinion that they are a modification of chess, and in fact
the oldest game known to be played with them is one of the most
complicated that we have—namely, Taroc, which requires seventy-eight
cards. It was played in Bologna in the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Since the victory in card games is not won by virtue of the position of the
cards, but by their succession and value, the faculty of memory is largely
concerned, as victor and vanquished at once disappear and the men yet
unengaged are concealed. This and the inequality of the players’ forces at
the beginning constitute the distinguishing feature of cards. Lazarus’s
penetrating glance has descried the point which differentiates the various
games, placing them in the varying relation of accident and calculation.
“Not all games,” he says, “are alike in this. There are some in which chance
is predominant—as poker, for example, or the new game of bluff, so
popular in America, where so much depends on the dealing, and the play is
not so much a calculation as an attempt to exhaust one’s opponent.... The
stronger games, however, such as whist, Boston, l’hombre, solitaire, piquet,
Skat, euchre, etc., depend on the sustained influence of both chance and
calculation. After the cards are once distributed calculation begins, but
chance continues to be powerful,399 for at every play a new card enters into
the combination and must be given its due weight, whether from the hand
of friend or enemy. This is more obvious in the cases where the original
force is recruited by drawing from the pack; yet even here attentive
following of the progress of the game will furnish data for determining the

probable situation of a third card, and thus, after all, skill has as much to do
with it as chance. And in such a game as whist en deux in which all the
cards are dealt, and each player knows exactly the strength of his opponent,
the whole thing depends on calculation, and consequently is not so
attractive. It would be a game of chess with cards but for its inferiority in
variety and combination.”400 Lazarus goes on to say why chance is
indispensable in card games—namely, because, as there is no such thing as
space combination, the monotony would be wearisome, and continued
playing well-nigh impossible. Without Fortune’s reverses, too, the games
would necessarily be begun with equal forces, and it is easy to see how little
enthusiasm such games would excite. Only in connection with chance, then,
can Reason find in cards a task worthy of her powers, and, indeed, a small
prize is a stimulus sometimes needed to keep up our interest. This may be a
suitable place to mention that it was formerly the custom to play for money
or some stake with all games of chance and even with chess.
I close this review of contests which are purely intellectual with two brief
remarks, the first of which concerns the invention of board games. It is
difficult to find a perfectly satisfactory answer to the question of their
origin. However, their complication points to adults rather than children as
their probable inventors, and to me the following consideration seems
important: The primitive races, who find it difficult to convey their thoughts
in speech, naturally take to marking on the sand, and hence the figures
might arise.401 If the leader of one of the more intelligent peoples wished to
instruct them concerning some past or future combat, it would be a simple
method of illustrating his meaning to draw an outline on the ground and
represent the position of the hostile forces by small stones or similar objects
whose movements would symbolize the manœuvres of the forces or the
advances of knights for single combat. This would, no doubt, be
exceedingly interesting to those conducting it, and also to the spectators,
and might easily be repeated for the sake of the amusement afforded until
some inventive genius turned it into a veritable play with board and men. To
show that there is nothing improbable in this supposition we may point to
the fact that such play is actually carried on by our own officers (Italian,
manovra sulla carta).
The second remark relates to the pleasurable quality of games involving use
of the reasoning faculty. We have already shown that play with reason takes

the form of experimentation with imagination and the other intellectual
faculties in their capacity of illusion workers as well as in their more
constructive activity; now we find further that its recreative effect is much
greater than is realized during the progress of the game, and that the
consciousness of standing voluntarily in a world of our own creation may
be a feature in the interest excited by the game.402 The chief source of
satisfaction, however, is enjoyment of the fight, in the playful intellectual
duel, where bold attack and skilful parry, systematic advance and stubborn
resistance, crafty manœuvring and direct assault, single combat and the
general skirmish, as well as pursuit and demolition, succeed one another in
ever-renewed combinations. In those games which add the charm of
uncertainty to the mental contest the effect is of course still more
complicated. As I shall have occasion later to speak exhaustively of games
of chance, I confine myself here to Lazarus’s significant conclusion from
the union of these contrasted forces. “That men, and, indeed, the same man
can take pleasure in such opposite and absolutely contradictory principles
of play seems wonderful, and yet it is most natural, for both are elements of
human nature grounded in the very essence of his being and the normal
manner of using his powers. In his serious, moral life, directed by the
mandates of duty, he is also controlled by two contrary forces, freedom and
necessity. He must bow to Fate and yet strive and struggle for what is his
own. He expends his energies according to his own behests, and must then
await success and reward till the turn of Fortune’s wheel. Both
disappointment and struggle, receiving and expending, suffering and
toiling, are woven into the texture of his life and character, and become the
sources of his volition as well as the arbiters of his fortune. He obeys both
forces; to pursue and hold to what is good is his dual impulse, both in life
and in play.”403

3. Physical Rivalry
In playful competition indirect conquest of an opponent is aimed at, since
the effort is to show that one can perform the task better than another. In it
the fighting instinct assumes the form of rivalry. “No entreaties or
commands,” says Lazarus, “nor even tips, could arouse our coachman to
such a display of skill and speed as could another coachman who showed a
disposition to race with him. Apart from the fighting instinct itself, jealousy

is the prime cause of rivalry”. Spinoza defines it as “the desire for a thing
aroused in us by the belief that others want it.” One of the first
manifestations of jealousy in children is with regard to the love and caresses
of its parents; we all know at what an early age the infant expresses his
disapproval when his mother pets another child—sometimes as early as the
second quarter. If he shows it simply as anger he is plainly jealous, as older
children are; but if (as a dog often does when the hand he loves strokes
another) he tries to win to himself by all sorts of cajoleries the maternal
tenderness, then he enters upon a sort of rivalry. True emulation, however,
is first developed when the aim is to win approbation and admiration when
praise rather than love is the alluring reward—in short, when the child
becomes ambitious. Say to a three- or four-year-old boy, “Your friend Otto
can draw beautifully,” and it is ten to one that he will answer, “But I can
draw better.” This desire to surpass others is what leads to the indirect
contest which we call rivalry.
Imitation, too, plays the part of a first cause here, as Spinoza points out in
pursuance of his definition of emulation. As, however, this subject will
come up for discussion later, let it suffice to say here that imitation is
exceedingly important for all mental and physical development, and is
accordingly especially conspicuous in the play of children. The effort to say
“I can, too,” easily takes on a certain hostile character when there is
difficulty in attainment, and so imitation becomes actual rivalry as soon as
the effort is for “I can do better,” and the struggle becomes sharper in
proportion to the consciousness of a desire to surpass. Thus we are justified
in regarding the impulse of jealousy which is related to the fighting instinct
as the foundation of rivalry as well.
Before going on to investigate this playful rivalry it may be useful to
inquire into its social significance. G. Tarde, in his interesting sociological
study, Les lois de l’imitation,404 attempts to prove that imitation is the
mainspring of social evolution. But along with the peaceful operations of
imitation, the fighting instinct, too, makes itself felt in manifold ways, as a
principle of progress (as I remarked above in discussing combativeness), in
conjunction it is true with imitation and usually under the form of rivalry. It
is evident that social progress would be slow indeed if men only imitated
and never opposed what is done in their presence. Rivalry in ownership,
power, and authority is the force which urges each to do his utmost in the

struggle for life, and which has produced the most advanced civilizations. A
people without ambition is lost; not merely stationary, but actually
decadent. As in art bald imitation of even the best models results in
weakness, so in society. Men must will to do better in order to do as well.
In spite of their variety we can very quickly review the physical imitative
games, since under movement-plays we have already noticed a considerable
number belonging to this class, and since it is their psychological side alone
that chiefly appeals to us. The following examples, then, are merely chosen
to show by means of their variety the great importance of imitation in
human play.405 Children learn most of their bodily movements by such play
in a way which clearly illustrates the mingled effects of imitation and
emulation. When one child jumps off the second step, another child who
sees him immediately tries to cover three; and when boys are practising
their leaps each makes a mark in the sand beyond the others as his goal. To
lift a heavier weight, to throw farther, to run faster, to jump higher, to make
a top spin longer, to stay longer under water, to shoot higher, farther, and
with better aim than his comrades can, is the burning wish of every childish
heart. In order to see the same enthusiastic rivalry in physical prowess
exhibited by adults, we must turn to the half-civilized peoples to whom
such acquirements are of surpassing value in the struggle for life. Among
the ancient Germans, for example, such contests were carried to the highest
degree of perfection, and, in spite of their avowedly playful character,
conducted with such seriousness that they often became matters of life and
death. Skill, prowess, and endurance in leaping, running, lifting and
throwing huge stones, the use of bow and arrow, diving and swimming,
riding and rowing, were all the subjects of contest, and each victor sought to
surpass the achievements of the former one. All warlike peoples of whom
ethnology is cognizant show much the same picture, and highly civilized
nations, too, accord an important position to athletic contests, as the Greek
and Roman games bear witness, as well as the championships and records
of our own day. Rivalry enters, too, into such games as tenpins, billiards,
croquet, golf, etc., all of which are favourite amusements. The pleasure they
afford is complicated, including display of one’s own strength and skill, the
pleasure of watching others, the stimulus of rivalry and the satisfaction of
overcoming an opponent. Sometimes, and especially in croquet and
billiards, the contest closely approaches fighting play, since the participants

not only try to attain the object of the game, but are apt to engage in direct
hostilities.
We now turn to some examples that are better calculated to exhibit the
many-sidedness of rivalry, which is, of course, an element in all the games
of skill which we have mentioned. We are not so well prepared to find it in
games requiring patient effort, yet even the Eskimos, in their Fadenfiguren,
indulge in fierce emulation,406 and a play as peaceful as kite-flying is not
exempt. “The Hervey Islanders believe that once the god Tane challenged
the god Rongo to a kite-flying contest, in which the latter won because his
cord was longer.”407 In drinking there is rivalry in the effort to withstand
the power of alcohol, and students have a time-honoured tradition that the
man is a fine fellow and worthy of all respect who can drink the rest of the
company under the table. It is more charitable to attribute this practice to
rivalry rather than to love of drunkenness.408 The instance of the two boys
holding burning matches illustrates how readily the ability to suppress any
manifestation of pain lends itself to rivalry. The old Germans tested their
endurance by sitting at feasts after their battles, and when they were
covered with wounds. In a grotesquely exaggerated saga it is related of the
wounded sons of Thorbrand: “Thorodd got such a blow in the neck that his
head hung sideways; his hose were all bloody and would not meet. Snorri
could see and feel that a sword was sticking in his thigh, but Thorodd said
nothing. Among the gayest of the gay is Snorri, son of Thorbrand, who sits
with the others at table, but eats little and looks white. When asked what
ails him he says, ‘When the vulture has won the fight he is not in haste to
eat.’ Then Gode looks at his neck and finds an arrow head at the root of his
tongue.”409 The jeering of Walthar and Hagen, who vie with one another in
mocking at their wounds, is another case in point. Finally, the passion for
making collections, which is so strong in both children and adults, may be
considered as a form of competitive rivalry which reaches its climax in the
miser.

4. Mental Rivalry
The space devoted to the more general kinds of emulation has purposely
been curtailed in order to devote more to the special case of gaming, as
much of the ground has been covered already.

Children are fond of displaying their mental acquirements even before they
are old enough to go to school, but it is there, of course, that the best
opportunity is afforded them. Colozza tells us how the Italian children use
their recess time for contests over the multiplication table.410 During school
hours recitation is easily transformed to emulation which can be turned to
account by the judicious teacher with better results than are attained by one
who tries to draw the line too rigidly between work and play.
The intellectual rivalries of adults are exceedingly varied. Music offers
unlimited opportunities when people are far enough advanced to have any
sort of society, and even primitive tribes indulge in this sort of
entertainment. Among the Eskimos the contestants compete in public for
the prize for singing, and then fall into actual combat, thus combining the
two forms of rivalry. Grosse quotes from Rink the following musical
dialogue between two East Greenlanders. “Savdlat: ‘The south, the south,
oh, the south over there! As I stood on the headland I saw Pulangitsissok,
who had grown fat upon halibut. The people of this land know not how to
speak. Therefore they are ashamed of their language. They are dumb over
there; their speech is not like ours. In the north we speak in one way,
different from those in the south. Therefore we can not understand their
talk.’” To this challenge Pulangitsissok responds: “‘There was a time, as
Savdlat knows, when I was a good sledger, when I could take a heavy load
on my kajak. Four years ago he found this out. That was the time when
Savdlat bound his kajak to mine for fear he might capsize. Then he could
carry a good load on his kajak, too. As I was tugging along you cried out
pitifully, and were afraid and almost overturned. I had to hold on to my
ropes to keep us up.’”411 Such sarcastic dialogue often leads to direct
contests, in which the singers try to rout one another by means of their witty
improvisations. A later form is the contest in oratory and song on an
assigned theme, opening with a direct challenge between the contestants.
The poem of Wartburg-Krieg is especially famed, while Plata’s symposium
may be instanced as a fine example of competitive oratory on a given
theme.
Other kinds of rivalry frequently arise in social gatherings, such as
recounting experiences in love, hunting, and battle, as was pre-eminently
the custom among the ancient Germans. “One after another,” says
Weinhold,412 “boasted of his prowess and sought to prove it by tales of his

wonderful deeds. To heighten the effect, each chose an opponent worthy of
his mettle. Thus it happened that Eystein and Sigurd, the crusader, both
Norwegian kings, once had a controversy in court. Eystein advanced the
proposition that it was impossible to live aright in society, and called on his
brother to sustain the contrary. Then the travelled warrior Sigurd, who had
filled all lands with the fame of his deeds, and the peace-loving, home-
staying Eystein, each related what he had done and could do: the one his
battles, his fame in the East; the other that he had built huts for poor fishers,
made roads over rugged mountains, opened harbours, widened
Christendom, and strengthened the Church—in short, extended his kingdom
by every peaceable method. The talk became warm, and the silence which
followed was ominous, but as they were both noble-hearted no harm came
of it.” Very characteristic, too, is the Harbardhslied in the Edda, where the
gods Wotan (under the name Harbardh) and Donar emulously recount their
achievements:
Donar: “Do you ask what I did to Rungner,
The giant with sturdy heart and head of stone?
I felled him then, he lies at my feet.
And what did you, Harbardh, the while?”

Harbardh: “For more than five full winters
Was I on an island that is called Allgrün;
There I found men to fight and enemies to fell,
Many things to prove, and many maids to free,” etc.

Singing the praise of one’s future deeds is another form of such boasting. A
company of carousing men have need of a wild boar or some other sin
offering to go through their midst as they perjure themselves with oaths
concerning the hazardous and difficult deeds which they mean to perform.
Before taking up games of chance again I mention once more the fact that
many reasoning games are also rivalries—dominoes, for example, and
backgammon413—since the chief effort is to reach a certain goal first and
direct efforts are made to embarrass and retard the adversary, so that
genuine fighting play results.
In chance games proper, however, the contestants do not attack one another
directly, but seek to conquer by the better solution of some problem, the
point of departure from other rivalries being that the reward of solution, at
least in games of pure chance, is entirely accidental, and not dependent on

the player’s strength or skill. We will now attempt to review the more
important phenomena connected with such games, and later study the
question in its psychological bearings.
The wager is akin to play with chance and arises from the holding of
opposite opinions, which can only be settled by future events. Even if the
bet concerns something which is past or present, still the decision must be
in the future, and the fighting element comes in in the striving of each to
prove his superiority, the interest being much enhanced by pooling the
stakes. The bettor’s conviction as to the correctness of his opinion may be
strong or weak414—absolute certainty destroys the validity of the bet, while
absolute uncertainty makes it a mere game of chance, whereas it should
depend, like the best card games, on a union of reasoning and hazard. For
this reason future events are the proper subjects of the wager, and we will
confine ourselves for brevity’s sake to such bets. Schaller says rightly: “The
future is pre-eminently the object of conjecture, of the reckoning of
probabilities. Even when present circumstances seem to tend inevitably to a
certain result, there are still infinite possibilities that other results may
transpire. Therefore the wager should concern something yet to come.”415
One of the earliest forms of betting was on physical or mental superiority,
and the stakes formerly so common in reasoning games may be regarded in
the same light. There was much betting on the victor in the old German
riddle contests and life itself was sometimes staked, if we may depend on
the ancient accounts. More often, though, physical prowess was the subject
of the wager. “Indeed, Tacitus may be right,” says Schuster, “when he
records that the Germans disdained to be praised for ordinary physical
vigour, yet they gave prizes to the victors in their contests and liked to claim
the glory when it set them above others. Reputation with them must not be
mere empty words; one must work for it to the full extent of his powers.
Many examples illustrate this spirit; for instance, Welent and Amilias, the
smiths, each boasted that he could not be surpassed in his art. The latter
offered to bet on it, and Welent replied, ‘I have not much property, but I will
stake it all.’ Then said Amilias, ‘If you have nothing else, stake your head,
and I will stake mine, and whichever of us is the better man shall cut the
other’s head off.’ Two of Olaf Trygvason’s retainers boasted of being
superior mountain climbers, one wagering his ring on it, and the other his

head.”416 Schuster cites, too, the famous contest in the Nibelungenlied, to
which Brunhild thus challenges King Gunther:
“She said: If he is your lord and you are in his hire,
Tell him that I have sworn that whoever can resist my play,
And prove himself my master there, him will I wed,
While if I win you must go alone from hence.”

Fable makes animals wager in the same way; the old tale of the hare and the
hedgehog is found even in Africa, although there the hedgehog has become
a tortoise.417
The stakes are not always, however, on one’s own ability, but quite as often
on the performances of others, or on the speed and endurance of animals.
This is indeed the most popular form of the sport, doubtless because the
agreeable tension of expectation is thus prolonged until the very moment of
the dénouement, as it is not likely to be in the more personal contests. In
riding, rowing, sailing, and running contests spectators, as well as
participants, bet on the result.418 “Betting on races,” says E. v. Hartmann,
“is the most dangerous and exciting form of gambling, being dependent
purely on chance, and yet offering a false appearance of being essentially
influenced by intelligence and judgment. The custom is fostered of raising
the stakes at the last moment under the influence of artificial stimulation to
interest during the race itself. Immature boys, sons of respectable labourers,
are thus initiated in the fascinations of the passion for gaming who would
otherwise have little inclination for it.”419 In various parts of the world
wagers are laid on the result of fights between animals. In ancient Greece
gamecocks were bred with special care, and Tanagra, Rhodes, Chalcis, and
Delos were famous for the achievements of their respective breeds. The
birds were fed with garlic before the fight to augment their excitement, and
were armed with artificial spurs. The stakes were often enormous.420 Cock-
fights in which betting seemed to be the principal feature were held during
the middle ages in most European cities, and in some localities have
survived to the present day. Malays are especially devoted to this sport. It
only remains to add in conclusion that lifeless things, too, may be the
subject of bets. The Gilbert Islanders set two sailboats, about four feet long,
afloat, and bet as to which will sail fastest.421 This is very near to being play
with pure chance, and the wager of Canning with an English duke is even

more so. They staked a hundred pounds on the question of who should meet
most cats on a certain road.
There is but one opinion as to the origin of games of pure chance—namely,
that they grew out of the serious questioning of Fate in the form of oracles,
and colour is given to the theory by the custom of jesting with the oracle.
The Greek custom of pouring wine into a metal cup and from the sound it
made reading one’s prospects in love, drawing straws—a practice which
Walther von der Vogelweide has made famous—the various flower oracles,
counting the cuckoo calls, observing the flight of birds—as, for example,
how many times the kite circles—and many other such customs422 were
originally conducted seriously, with a view to gaining some knowledge of
the future, and even when playfully practised smack of superstition. Tylor
says, in his admirable study of this subject: “Soothsaying and games of
chance are so closely allied that the instruments of each are used
interchangeably, as among the clever Polynesian magicians cocoanuts are
skilfully rolled about in a circle. In the Tonga Islands the chief use made of
a holiday is to inquire whether the sick will be cured. They offered loud
prayers to the family deity that he would place the nuts aright, then spun
them, and from their position judged of the god’s will. Under other
circumstances, when the cocoanuts are rolled simply for amusement, no
prayer is offered and no significance attached to the result. The Rev. G.
Turner found the same custom in the Samoan Islands in another stage of
development. There a company sits in a circle, the nuts are rolled about
among them, and the oracle’s answer depends on whether the monkey face
of the nut is turned toward the questioner when it stops rolling. The
Samoans formerly used this method to detect a thief, but now it is a forfeit
game.”423 In this sort of play with chance there is nothing special at stake,
yet it is no doubt closely connected with those forms which have this
feature.
Another of the earliest of the manifold forms of chance games is the casting
of lots. New Zealand wizards decide the fortunes of war by throwing staffs.
If the stick which represents their own tribe falls on that of another, then a
favourable outcome may be confidently expected to the battle. The Zulus
have a similar ceremony, and the Hindus cast lots before the temple and
supplicate the gods for victory. In the Iliad the crowd prayed with
outstretched hands while the dice in Agamemnon’s helmet decided who

should be the first to fight Hector. Tacitus tells us that the German priests
tossed three dice on a white cloth before they attempted to reveal the
future.424 The origin, then, of the use of dice in games of chance is
indubitable. The ancient form of backgammon common in India and
Mexico was played with lots instead of dice, as was also the case with the
Arabian Tâb. Some Indian tribes use the simple casting of lots for gambling
purposes. The Arabian does not throw, but draws lots as a substitute for the
Meisir forbidden in the Koran.425 The complicated Chinese game lotto is
well known, and Bastian found a similar one used in Siam.426 E. von
Hartmann refers repeatedly in his Tagesfragen to our European lottery,
combating the popular idea that it is reprehensible, and should not be
fostered by the state. He sees in a well-conducted state lottery the best
means of directing the ineradicable tendency to play games of chance into
harmless channels. Money speculation is, as a rule, little different from a
lottery, since the great majority of speculators have no more intimation of
the outcome than is furnished by the law of probabilities which governs
pure games of chance. Returning now to simpler manifestations, we find
many which are closely related to the use of lots. North American Indians,
who are zealous gamblers, use marked or coloured stones, seeds, and teeth,
and stake their clothing, furniture, weapons, and, in fact, all that they
possess. In Burmah a favourite game is played with beans, and in many of
the villages a thrashing floor is erected for the express purpose of supplying
the demand.427 In Siam the children play with shells, and everything
depends on whether the opening falls up or down.428 A similar game was
known to the Greeks, and in Rome a coin was tossed with the cry, “Caput
aut navis!” equal to our “Heads or tails!” We must suppose that such play
by children is derived from adult games of chance.
Astragalus and dice were the implements used in many such games. The
former are peculiarly shaped bones from the ankles of sheep, goats, or
calves, and their use for such purposes is very ancient. They are capable of
resting on any one of four sides which may vary in value, as the six sides of
dice. The Schliemann collection in the Berlin Museum contains some of
them which were found in the “second city.” In ancient Greece four
astragali were used in the games of adults, and were thrown either from the
free hand or from a cup. Special names were given to the various throws,
such as Aphrodite, Midas, Solon, Euripides, etc., and the worst throw was

called, there as in Rome, the dog. The children of antiquity also played with
these bones a game partly of chance and partly of skill, and Hellenic
children use them to this day. Ulrichs saw them at Arachola on Parnassus.
“The children there,” he says, “play with the astragalus, which is a small
four-sided bone rounded at the end and so shaped as to be capable of resting
on any of its sides. In the game the uppermost side is read, the commonest
throw being that which brings the round end up and is called the baker or
the donkey. Then follow the thief, the vizier, and, rarest of all, the king, the
side which looks like an ear and is opposite the vizier.”429
The name vizier seems to point to Mohammedan influence, and indeed the
children of Damascus have a special game of chance with astragalus in
which the terms vizier and thief are both used.430 Some think that ordinary
dice are derived from the astragalus, but it would be difficult to prove,
though their imitation in other materials seems to suggest it, as in the case
of the oblong dice used by the Romans with cubical ones, and several
hundred prehistoric dice found in Bohemia are of similar form. The Berlin
Museum, too, has oblong dice from India and China, showing that they
were widely used in the Orient, and Hyde points out in his history of games
of chance that the Greek word κύβος is related to the Arabic Kab, which
meant simply made of lamb’s bones. On the other hand, cubical dice with
spots like ours are found in Theban graves, so that we can not be positive as
to the priority of the astragalus.
Possibly cocoanut rolling was the primitive form of roulette as we have
seen it used in half-religious, half-playful manner by the South Sea
Islanders. The Berlin Museum has Chinese rolling dice through which a peg
passes, projecting on each side or with the peg on one side only, and the ball
tapering to a point on the other. According to Egede, Greenlanders have a
sort of roulette, an oblong ball about which the players sit with the stake
before them.431 Another form of chance game is the morra, which was
probably known to the ancient Egyptians, and was in all likelihood at first a
clever method of calculating.432 As a play the hands of all the players are
thrown simultaneously into the air, and each must guess at the number of
outstretched fingers without taking time to count. This amusement, still
very popular among Italian peasants, was called by the Achæans “micare
digitis.” In China, where it is zealously cultivated, it bears the name of
“tsoey-moey.”433 The North American Indians have a modification of it in

their cane guessing—namely, the effort to locate a small object passed
quickly about in a company. It is used for gambling purposes, the Indians
staking all that they have, even to their wives sometimes.434 The
“Kyohzvay” play is taken quite as seriously in Burmah. For this a stick is
fixed among the folds of a tightly wrapped cord, and the game is won or
lost435 according as it is or is not successfully concealed.436 The various
games of cards afford by far the most important instances of play with
chance, and their name is legion. We have not time even to glance at such
games as faro, lansquenet, rouge et noir, trente et quarante, etc., except to
say that they all depend on a combination of reason with chance, and so
more speedily put an end to suspense as to who is the victor than do purely
chance plays. We are now confronted by the difficult question of what it is
that constitutes the demoniacal charm of gaming, whose power is
demonstrated by the value of the stakes with which a man will tempt Fate.
Every one is familiar with Tacitus’s description of the ancient Germans
who, when they had lost everything else, staked their freedom and their life
on the last throw. H. M. Schuster gives a long list of examples of Germans
staking freedom, wife, and children, the clothes on their backs, life itself,
yes, even their souls’ salvation when their passion for play was at its height.
That this is a universal Aryan trait is shown by the Indian poem of Nala and
Damayanti. The former, under the power of a hostile demon, loses at play
with Pushkara his ornaments, jewelry, horses, wagons, and clothes. In vain
his wife and followers seek to restrain his madness; for many months the
ruinous play goes on until Nala has lost all his property and even his
kingdom. Then as Pushkara, with loud laughing at the unlucky fellow, cried
out that now he must put up his wife Damayanti, Nala rose from the table
and walked away with his faithful wife, stripped as he was of all else. The
Chinese, Siamese, and Burmese, too, are all passionate gamblers, and the
Malays are famous for their wagers on animal fights. This is sufficient to
show that the wonderfully strong attractive power of gaming, “le jeu-
passion, dont le rôle tragique est vieux comme l’humanité,”437 is the result
of numerous causes whose aggregate, according to Fechner’s principle, is
far greater than their numerical sum. Taking account of the essentials only,
we still have a threefold phenomenon; these are, desire to win the stake, the
stimulus of strong effects, and the impulse given by the fighting instinct.

Winning the stake is so important that without it games of chance become
very flat and most unimpressive, as forms of entertainment. How is this to
be explained? Sometimes it appears as veritable cupidity, the “fascination
d’acquérir d’un bloc, sans peine, en un instant.”438 The seductive chink of
gold pieces is heard and visions of new names of wealth open before us,
promising to deliver us from all burdens and dangers which in spite of their
distance and vagueness we strive to get possession of by a single turn of
Fortune’s wheel; the gold fever is at home in gambling dens. Yet—and I
think this is important—as a rule, it is not mere greed for gain as such, but a
feeling more refined. It is boundless delight in sudden good fortune that
makes the unearned winnings so enticing. That inward striving after the
absolute, which is so deeply rooted in the human breast, is concerned in the
longing to experience at least one moment of exhilarating joy with which a
single stroke of Fortune’s wand sets our hearts aflame:
“From the clouds it must fall,
Such is the gift of the gods;
And the strongest power of all
Is that which belongs to the moment.”

It would be misleading to suppose that all wagers in a game of chance are
attributable to a desire to win, even in this refined sense. In so far as it is the
chief motive, there is no real play at all, for it constitutes a serious aim
wholly outside the sphere of play. There must be some other meaning to the
intense delight in winning, and Lazarus, as usual, puts his finger on it.
“Even for an onlooker, not pecuniarily interested, the charm increases with
the value of the stake.”439 The stake serves not only to enhance the thought
of winning the game, but intensifies the decisive moment.440 A gambler
must have excitement at any price, and he also wants to risk something;
betting satisfies both demands.
The need for intense stimuli which we are so constantly encountering in the
course of this inquiry appears as the second motive in our classification, and
it is met by a storm of effects which betting excites. Consequently gambling
is pre-eminently suited to supply this demand. I have already pointed out
that betting on the performances of others is an especially popular form of
gambling, since in this way alone can the excitement be enjoyed
unimpaired by personal considerations. So, too, in games of pure chance,
which relegate the player to comparative inactivity and impart a feeling of

externality among its other effects. By far the most important of these
effects is the contrast of the emotions of hope and fear, and often this
simultaneous action of opposing passions is sufficient to stir the soul to its
depths, since, as Lazarus penetratingly remarks, the result is in either case
positive; the question is not, winning or not winning, it is winning or losing.
This is another point which renders games of chance peculiarly fit for the
production of exciting effects. Also besides fear and hope there is the
tension of expectation and the shock of surprise to render the mental
agitation more intense and varied. This explains why gambling is the last
resort of the dissipated, worn-out man who needs sharp stimuli to arouse his
exhausted powers.441
Gambling is, moreover, a fighting play, and this is doubtless one of its most
important phases. There is no other form of play which displays in so many-
sided a fashion the combativeness of human nature and with so slight
expenditure of time and strength. There is the charm of danger as such,
enjoyment of bold betting which in the changing course of the game is
constantly renewed, and further indirect as well as direct battle with an
opponent, for he who makes the best throw gets the best card. Besides all
this there is the desire to win his wager, and by means of the steady
augmenting of stakes it differs from all other fighting plays in affording at
the last moment, when all seems lost, an opportunity of retrieving
everything by a sudden overwhelming victory. And finally there is the
defiance of the power of chance, or rather, if a religious rearing makes one
scruple to put it in this form, we may call it a struggle with the powers of
darkness.
The question now arises whether this is properly called a fight when the
player can not influence the outcome, but must submit absolutely to the
incalculable hazards of fortune. What right has he to congratulate himself
on a victory for which he is in no way responsible? To this it may be
answered that in addition to this subjective, psychological condition there is
an active contest; for an illusion exists in connection with every game of
chance that in some way the outcome is dependent on the capacity of the
player, and a little reflection will show that this is characteristic of human
nature. How else arises our naïve sense of worth or of shame? Are we not
vain of physical beauty, of inherited advantages, and of riches which we
have not earned? Does not the consciousness of deformity, stupidity,

weakness, awkwardness, or even a lowly origin impart a feeling of shame
and a sense of responsibility for our own shortcomings? We feel as if we
had had a voice in the fashioning of our bodies and souls and a choice of
our position in life—in short, as the vulgar saying has it, as if we had not
been careful enough in the choice of our parents. Just in the same way we
are proud of our luck in play. Luck is genius, and he whom it smiles upon is
a hero.442 This failure to discriminate between fortunate circumstance and
personal merit is shown in a striking manner in popular poetry. Its heroes
are often armed with magic weapons or directly assisted by higher powers
who lend them supernatural strength or work ruin to their enemies. Such
advantage is thus given them that the reflecting person has some difficulty
in regarding their exploits as especially praiseworthy, yet the average hearer
is undisturbed by such considerations. For instance, consider the
invulnerability of Achilles and Siegfried’s Tarnkappe, which gave him in
the fight with Brunhild “the strength of twelve men.”
In the case which we are considering, however, this habit of mind has a
twofold significance: First, there is the personification of chance as fate,
with whom the player struggles. Lazarus says: “Instead of blind chance, he
pictures before him a reasoning intelligence whose laws he tries to fathom,
and in the face of many failures and mistaken conclusions he persists in
attempting to calculate his chances and to count on them, forgetting that the
reckoning of probabilities is useful only in generalities and is practically
worthless when applied to a single case. By and bye he endows luck with
moral qualities as well. He will risk everything on a single card, and either
can not believe that Fate will be inexorable, that his faith and perseverance
must at last be rewarded, or else assumes an attitude of defiance to a hostile
being.”443 In the second place, the gambler regards the implements of his
trade as does the magician among primitive peoples the means of
performing his incantations. It is actual fetich worship in which
personification assumes proportions quite different from those it bears in
the general idea of fate. Demons who sometimes obey the player’s will, and
sometimes mockingly defy him, seem to dwell in the dice and cards,
transforming play into a contest in magic arts. This is perhaps not so
strongly felt by cultivated people of the present day as I have represented it,
yet it is present in a more or less rudimentary form in all devotees of the
game. While some scoff at it, even they avoid those things which are

traditionally supposed to bring ill luck. Thus, when I was a student, in our
games with dice which were very popular, the following rules were rigidly
observed: In order to throw double sixes, the player took the dice cup in his
right hand, placed the left over it and shook it solemnly three times up and
down before making the final throw. If low numbers were desired, the
inverted cup was held slantingly and drawn carefully back on the table so
that the dice glided out rather than rolled. For medium throws there was a
choice between two methods over whose comparative efficacy there was
serious controversy: either to rise from the table and empty the cup from a
height, or to propel the dice suddenly by a sidelong movement from the
cup, held at a slant. Was all this mere joking? To a certain extent certainly it
was, yet the boys half believed in it and had a poor opinion of beginners
who did not know how to handle the dice. Among the lower classes,
however, and among peoples of less advanced civilization this fetichism is
much stronger. Konrad von Haslan, says Schuster, testifies to having seen
and heard “how on the one hand dice are honoured, greeted, and kissed, and
have offerings of booty made to them, while on the other they were beaten
and abused as if they possessed life. Often the player who has lost by them
takes revenge by picking out the spots or smashing the dice with a stone or
biting them in two to make them suffer.”444 All these circumstances
combine to make gaming a fighting play not alone with men, but also with
supernatural powers whose inscrutable decisions possess a peculiar power
and whose favour lends to the fortunate player a special nimbus, while the
vanquished does not suffer in his own esteem as if he had been conquered
by a human foe.
Finally, we should note that gaming has various mental connections with
experimentation, since enjoyment of the excitation of hope and fear and the
feeling of suspense as well as the shock of surprise is experimental in every
case. With this is combined great activity of attention and imagination to
whose agency the personification of which we have spoken must be
ascribed; reason’s part in the process is displayed in the complex calculation
of probabilities, and that of the will most conspicuously in the effort to
appear outwardly calm while the wildest excitement reigns within, and hope
and despair surge in alternate waves across the soul.
It is difficult to say which of these stimuli ought to be placed at the head of
the list, but two appear to me to be rather more important than the others.

First, the combative impulse, whose influence is particularly strong here;
and, second, pleasure in intense effects, as when the “gold fever” takes the
form of longing for a supreme moment which shall fill the soul to the brim,
something which will transcend all other transporting agents. Both find
their satisfaction at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and
importance of its revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the
extraordinary persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the
table, as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of
repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of the game.
The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated action tends to
lead to the production of the first part again.

5. The Destructive Impulse
Turning our attention now to the third of our principal groups of fighting
plays, the first subject—namely, the destructive impulse—will not occupy
us long, as we have already given some consideration to it in the section on
analytic movement-play. There we were chiefly concerned with the
experimental element as manifested in the desire to take things to pieces.
Here we shall emphasize the fighting instinct which is so easily aroused
even toward a lifeless object, and frequently becomes a sort of delirium
which is only appeased by the entire destruction of the object, as if it were a
vanquished foe. And here, too, belongs the inquiry under what
circumstances the discharge of this impulse, whether directed against a
living or a lifeless object, may be considered as playful. As soon as rage
ceases to be the chief influence, and the destruction is continued simply for
the sake of its intoxicating effects, it takes on more or less of a playful
character, though it is inexpedient to attempt to set clearly defined limits to
what is earnest and what is play.445 When children tear paper or overturn
structures laboriously erected by themselves, how often the interest is
cumulative, developing finally into passionate eagerness from action which
was at first indifferent! The paper is seized in the teeth, the building kicked
to bits, objects which are breakable entirely destroyed, flowers pulled to
pieces, etc. Education should interfere at this point and direct the play,
imposing proper checks. Madame Necker de Saussure relates of a
previously gentle and tractable girl of eighteen months that “one day when
she was alone with her mother, who was confined to her bed from illness,

the child, without the least provocation, broke into open rebellion. Clothes,
hats, fans, and every movable object that she could lay her hands on were
piled in the middle of the floor, and she danced around the pile and sang
with the greatest delight. Her mother’s serious displeasure had no
restraining effect.”446 “A girl three years old,” says Paolo Lombroso, “was
left alone for a few moments, and proved her ability to improve the time.
She at once began most energetically, and with full consciousness of what
she was doing, to pull to pieces a basket of vegetables. She reduced all
these to fragments, and then emptied an inkstand in her lap, amusing herself
by smearing it on the wall and floor with her fingers. When that palled she
took a corkscrew and punched her apron as full of holes as a sieve.”447 A
little later in life the impulse leads to more violent misdemeanours. The
destruction of garden borders, smashing of furniture in public parks, and
many other acts of vandalism which we prosecute, are practised by half-
grown lads, and sometimes even by students.448 Some may object to calling
such roughness play, but play it surely is if there is no malicious intention,
as is usually the case. Such mischief is often reprehensible, and deserves to
be checked, yet such antics as those of the subalterns as described by Eugen
Thossan can not be taken seriously. He says: “Suddenly a beer mug flew
across the table and hit Sergeant Putz square in the face. This was the signal
for a general free fight. Steins flew through the air like cannon balls. Four
lamps borrowed from the officers’ rooms were on the table; one was struck
and the chimney fell off. Somebody called out ‘When the chimney is gone
the lamp may as well follow,’ and a blow from a fist shattered the lamp. A
mad rage for destruction was kindled, and with anything that came to hand
all the lamps were beaten to pieces. In the general hullabaloo no one
noticed the wounds that he received from the splinters and blows. When
every vestige was demolished, a frightful war whoop rose to the hall
above.” It is more than probable that such orgies as this often have a certain
connection with the sexual life. We find among animals—deer, buffalo, etc.
—a similar rage for destruction during their breeding season.
My last example refers to mature men. It is the vigorous description in
Vischer’s Auch Einer of the argument of two friends in an inn about the
china displayed around them. “At last Auch Einer called out: ‘That is
enough; they are condemned.’ He bought the whole collection from the
innkeeper and then let himself loose. He handed me the pitcher with the

remark that I should have the honour of opening the ball. I was not slow to
obey, and as a massive granite block stood opposite the window I sent the
pitcher crashing against it. Auch Einer was delighted, and, seizing a vinegar
cruet, followed suit. Then we took turns with plates, dishes, glasses, and
whatever came to hand. A crowd of villagers soon collected outside and
cheered the rare sport; loud laughter and cries of ‘Go it, there!’ greeted each
act of justice.”
Injurious treatment of living creatures, too, is often due to the same instinct.
In the desire to investigate, the principle of the golden rule is forgotten. It
would be too optimistic, however, to assume that such things are never done
from cruelty. Fischart says that even well-disposed children reveal the
demon of fighting and destruction when there is a beetle or a broken-
winged bird or a wounded cat to torment. Most readers will recall some
reminiscence of their own youth when they really enjoyed inflicting injury
on some living thing. It may assume a dangerous form when directed
against other persons. Some years ago a number of children at play
intentionally drowned a comrade; and Fr. Scholz tells us, “An eight-year-
old girl with an angelic face secretly put some pins in her little brother’s
food, and calmly awaited the catastrophe, which fortunately was averted.”
“A girl twelve years old pushed a child of three, with whom she was
playing, into a pile of paving stones for no other reason than that she might
have the opportunity to tickle him cruelly.”449 Among criminals murders
may sometimes result from following this impulse. Some time ago three
peasants were tried for the murder, with incredible cruelty, of a servant.
They were father, son, and mother. After the old man had throttled his
victim he said to his accomplices, “Now he is dead enough.” But the
woman, to make sure, dealt a hard blow on the poor fellow’s head. “Now I
think he has had enough, this fine rabbit that we have caught.”450 Here the
bounds between play and earnest are hard to place, but probably belong at
the point where the prearranged plan is no longer the leading thought, it
having given place to mad delight in inflicting injury. These matters are,
after all, only on the threshold of play, and we will now turn our attention to
subjects more important to our inquiry.

6. Teasing451

The fighting instinct of mankind is so intense that all the playful duels,
mass conflicts, single combats, and contests which we have described, do
not satisfy it. When there is no occasion for an actual testing of their
powers, children and adults turn their belligerent tendencies into a means of
amusement, and so arise those playful attacks, provocations, and challenges
which we class together under the general name of teasing. The roughest if
not the earliest form of such play is that of bodily attack, such as is often
observed among animals. A female ape which Brehm brought to Germany
loved to annoy the sullen house dog. “When he had stretched himself as
usual on the greensward, the roguish monkey would appear and, seeing
with satisfaction that he was fast asleep, seize him softly by the tail and
wake him by a sudden jerk of that member. The enraged dog would fly at
his tormentor, barking and growling, while the monkey took a defensive
position, striking repeatedly on the ground with her large hand and awaiting
the enemy’s attack. The dog could never reach her, though, for, to his
unbounded rage, as he made a rush for her, she sprang at one bound far over
his head, and the next moment had him again by the tail.”452 We all know
how children delight in just such teasing. To throw an unsuspecting
comrade suddenly on his back, to box him or tickle and pinch him, to knock
off his cap, pull his hair, take his biscuit from his hand, and if he is small
hold it so high that the victim leaps after it in vain—all this gives the
aggressor an agreeable feeling of superiority, and he enjoys the anger or
alarm of his victim. When I was in one of the lower gymnasium classes our
singing on one occasion was suddenly broken into by a shrill scream. One
of the pupils had found a pin which he energetically pushed into an inviting
spot in the anatomy of the boy in front of him. The culprit could only say in
palliation of his offence that he did it “without thinking,” which excuse was
received rather incredulously. Schoolboys often pull out small handfuls of
one another’s hair, and it is a point of honour not to display any feeling
during the process. Becq de Fouquières records an ancient trick of this kind,
consisting of a blow on the ear in conjunction with a simultaneous fillip of
the nose. Cold water is a time-honoured instrument of torture. To duck the
timid bather who is cautiously stepping into the pond, to empty a pitcher on
a heedless passer-by, to place a vessel full of water so that the inmate of a
room will overturn it on opening the door—these are jokes familiar
wherever merry young people are found. The lover of teasing naturally
seeks such victims as are defenceless against him, especially those who are

physically weak or so situated as to be incapable of revenge. Yet there are
ways of annoying the strong and capable. A good-natured teacher is apt to
be the subject of his pupils’ pranks, though in this case they seldom take the
form of physical assaults. It is not an unheard-of thing, however, for a paper
ball to hit his head or for his seat to be smeared with ink or perhaps with
glue as in Messerschmidt’s Sapiens Stultitia.453
Youths and grown men are little behind the children in such jests. There is,
for instance, the christening on board ship in honour of crossing the line
which Leopold Wagner thinks is derived from the ancient religious
ceremony celebrated on passing the pillars of Hercules.454 Tossing in a
blanket, which made such a lasting impression on Sancho Panza, was
known to the Romans by the name of sagatio. Such rough sports were
practised in the time of the Roman emperors by noble youths. Suetonius
relates of Otho that the future emperor as a young man often seized, with
his companions, upon weak or drunken fellows at night, and tossed them on
a soldier’s mantle (distento sago impositum in sublime jactare).455 In
popular festivities fighting with pigs’ bladders is a fruitful source of
amusements to which tickling with a peacock’s feather is a modern
addition, and lassoing with curled strips of paper which cling about the
neck. Students make a specialty of such pranks. A favourite one was
crowding, when the streets had only a narrow pavement for pedestrians,
while in bad weather the rest of the road was a mass of unfathomable mud;
another was to deal a hard blow on the high hat of some worthy Philistine,
plunging him suddenly into hopeless darkness, or tracing a circle on the
bald head of a toper asleep over his wine, etc. In an inn in Giessen there is
still in existence a bench through whose seat a nail projects when a hidden
cord is pulled—a pleasant surprise for the unsuspecting guest who reclines
upon it. On entering the gymnasium I was initiated in an æsthetic little
practice which is of ancient date and serves as an instance of the coarse
jesting that is so common there. One of the company secretly fills his mouth
with beer and reclines on two chairs. With a handkerchief spread over his
face he plays the part of The Innkeeper’s Daughter. They all sing the
familiar song, and two accomplices play the rôle of two of the peasants
while the novice is asked to be the third. The veil is thus twice withdrawn
from the daughter’s face, and twice replaced without any suspicious
revelations, but when the innocent third lover arrives he is greeted with the

stream of stale beer full in the face. A suitable companion-piece to this
decidedly disgusting trick is this incident related by Joest as occurring
among the Bush negroes of Guayana: “As I was tending the wound of a
young negress whose breast was badly cut, she wearied of the operation,
and suddenly seizing it in both hands she sent a stream of warm milk into
my face and fled laughing away.”456
The most harmless teasing is the obvious kind which forms the basis of
much social play, such as games for a company like “Blind-Man’s Buff,”
“Fox Chase,” “Copenhagen,” and similar diversions. A striking instance
occurs in The Sorrows of Werther. During a violent storm Lotta attempts to
cheer the frightened company; she places chairs in a circle and seats
everybody in them—many acceding in the hope of being rewarded with a
sweet forfeit or two, and getting their lips all ready. “We are going to play
counting,” said Lotta. “Now, attention! I am going round the circle from
right to left, and you must count, each taking the number that comes to him;
and we are going like lightning, and whoever hesitates or blunders gets a
box on the ear, and we are going on to thousands.” She then stretched out
her arms and flew around the circle, faster and faster. If any one missed,
bang! came a box on his ear, and in the laugh that followed, bang! came
another, and always faster and faster. Werther, however, noticed with
inward satisfaction that the two blows which he received were somewhat
harder than Lotta gave the others. When the company is still less refined
than this, joking sometimes becomes so rough as to lose its playful
character. The ancient Thracians were celebrated for this sort of thing.
Gutsmuth says truly that from this circumstance much could be inferred
concerning the state of civilization among them, if we had no other sources
of information. “A man stands on a round stone holding a sickle in his hand
and having his head through a noose suspended from above. When he is not
expecting it a bystander pushes the stone away and there hangs the poor
wretch who has been chosen by lot for this fate. If he has not sufficient skill
and presence of mind to cut the knot at once with the sickle he flounders
there until he dies, amid the laughter of the spectators.”457
Turning now to other forms of teasing than direct bodily annoyance, we
find again that children very early understand it. When the pretence is made
of great alarm at his beating with a spoon or banging a book or at a sudden
cry, a child as young as two years old shows great delight, and will repeat

the performance with a roguish expression. From this time on, to cause
sudden fright is a favourite method of gratifying the taste for teasing. The
ghostly manifestations which terrify each generation in turn can often be
traced to some mischievous urchins.
I remember a joke played on a geographical professor at the gymnasium
who, as he carelessly opened a closet door, was confronted by a skeleton
which had been used in the previous lecture. Students could hardly subsist
without the ancient trick of stuffing the clothes of a “suicide,” and placing
the figure on the floor of their victim’s room with a pistol lying near, or
hanging it by a rope to the window frame, to give the late home-comer a
genuine scare. In Athenäus we find a beautiful instance of readiness to meet
such a trick. King Lysimachus, who took delight in teasing his guests, one
day at a banquet threw a skilfully made artificial scorpion on to the dress of
one Bithys, who recoiled; but, quickly recovering himself, said to the rather
penurious king: “My lord, it is now my turn to frighten you; I beseech you
give me a talent.”458 Such sport with fear, though harmless in these
instances, becomes a passion with all narrowminded, tyrannous natures, and
leads to cruelty which is anything but playful. Slatin’s dramatic work, Fire
and Sword in the Soudan, gives an instance of such traits in the character of
the Caliph Abdullah. Indeed, Abdullah had a part in, or rather was the
occasion of, Slatin’s first experience during the life of the Mahdi. Slatin was
taken prisoner by the Mahdi’s army before the gates of Khartoum. The
morning after the city was taken, alarming rumours reached him; half
incredulous, he looked out of his tent. “A mob had collected before the
quarters of the Mahdi and his caliphs; it seemed to be getting into motion
and making toward me, and I soon saw clearly that they were coming in the
direction of my tent. I could now distinguish single persons. First walked
the negro soldiers, one of whom, whose name was Shetta, carried a bloody
burden on his head. Behind him howled the mob. The slaves entered my
tent and stood glowering before me, and Shetta opened the roll of cloth and
showed me—Gordon’s head! I grew faint and dizzy at the sight, my breath
stopped, and it was only by the greatest effort that I commanded myself
sufficiently to gaze upon that pallid face.” The Mahdi and his caliphs had
ordered this hideous cruelty.459
A common and early developed form of teasing is the deception which
imparts to the perpetrator a feeling of intellectual superiority. Children

display this in their tender years principally by pretending that they are
going to do forbidden or improper things, as revolt against authority. When
the little girl observed by Pollock was twenty-three months old she often
declined to kiss her father good-night. She turned from him as if annoyed or
indifferent, to make a fausse sortie, and then called him back and gave the
kiss.460 Sigismund’s boy often exhibited a “kind of humorous defiance of
authority,” such as grasping at a light standing near him, but not so that it
could burn him, and looking slyly at his father.461
Older children have innumerable tricks of this kind. A sort of game is to
strike on a table with a spoon or on the floor with a card and repeat the
formula “He can do little who can’t do this, this,” and pass the stick or
spoon to the next neighbour with the left hand. The uninitiated who attempt
to do this usually pass it with the right hand and are much puzzled when
told that they are wrong. There is much of this element, too, in the games of
magic which children are so fond of. For examples of it among adults it is
only necessary to turn again to the old jokes of students. In a university
town a merchant, Karl Klingel, was roused in the middle of the night by a
ring at the bell. The visitor was a student named Karl, who pretended to
think that the name on the sign was a signal for him. “Mystification,” says
Goethe in Wahrheit und Dichtung, “is and ever will be amusement for idle
people who are more or less intelligent. Indolent mischievousness, selfish
enjoyment of doing some damage is a resource to those who are without
occupation or any wholesome external interests. No age is entirely free
from such proclivities.” Moreover, one whole day in every year is given
over to this jesting deception. The civilized world over the first of April is
fool’s day. Wagner thinks that this custom arose from the change of the new
year from the vernal equinox to January 1st, thus giving to the customary
exchange of New Year’s gifts the character of jests, and to those who should
forget the change of time the appearance of fools. So they are called
Aprilnarren, poisson d’Avril, April fools, and in Scotland gowks.462
Memory forms another important division of our subject. The child’s
natural impulse is easily aroused by new and striking peculiarities—for
instance, he soon learns by example to stammer, to talk through his nose, or
imitate any other defect without at first intending to tease. When his
mimicry is laughed at he attempts intentional caricature, yet we are not to
suppose from this that he would never do so alone. As a rule, though, it is

the amusement of adults which stimulates him to improve on his former
efforts. And as soon as he perceives that his victim is annoyed his mimicry
becomes teasing.463 At school this sort of teasing attacks unmercifully any
little weakness or peculiarity, such as a halting or limping gait, stammering
or lisping speech, a strange accent or foreign pronunciation. All these
become the objects of ridiculous exaggeration even in the presence of older
persons if they show no signs of disapproval.464 In our club in the high
school there was a boy who ran his words together in a comical fashion, and
from imitating his manner of speech we constructed a formal language,
some words of which still survive in the memories of his contemporaries.
The most important sphere of this sort of imitation is that of pictorial art,
where the caricaturist seeks to amuse by his exaggerated representations of
familiar peculiarities. Children attempt this too. Their efforts are at first, of
course, the grossest deformities with projecting ears, huge noses, etc.,
which they label with the name of some comrade whom they wish to annoy,
but later when they have learned to draw they achieve some creditable
caricaturing. I well remember our portrait of a French teacher who had two
deep lines from the base of his nose to the corners of his mouth, forming
with his long nose the letter M. Such pictures are, of course, not to be
classed with methods of teasing unless the intention is to show them to the
subject, which is by no means always the case, and unless their raison
d’être is something less than serious malice or hatred. There is always a
charm in wielding, under the safe refuge of anonymity, these effective
weapons against the mighty of the earth. What has not the nose of Napoleon
III, for instance, suffered in this way!
Political caricatures were known to the early Egyptians;465 and in
Venezuela, besides pre-Columbian figures, a statuette with a gigantic nose
has been found which is supposed to represent the Spanish invader.466
Indirect satire forms a poetic analogue to these creations of the pictorial art,
as it is an ironical form of teasing which imitates in an exaggerated manner,
and makes the most of awkwardness and weakness, to raise a laugh against
their possessor. Here play and earnest are frequently mingled, the poet
usually setting out with the serious intention of annoying his victim, and yet
taking such pleasure in the effort that the attack becomes genuine play.
Indeed, we may say that the happiest and most effective satires are usually
those which reveal such playfulness. The epistolæ obscurorum virorum

afford brilliant examples as well as many passages in Rabelais’s immortal
work.
Finally, we must note the kind of teasing which is implied in provocative
words and actions. Children often have the desire to use insulting and
abusive language to their elders, but, not quite daring to utter it, they
assume an impertinent air which sometimes seems partly playful. Thus
Compayré tells of a child who said to his mother, “Vilaine!” but added
immediately, “poupée vilaine”; and Marie G—— in her third year said to
her father, “Papa, you are a—stove, you are a—tray,” while the expression
of her face plainly showed that she had a more offensive epithet in mind.
There can be no doubt that the fighting instinct often finds expression in the
direct effort to excite others to anger by provoking words. Such taunts are
frequently thrown into rhythmical form, and so constitute a primitive lyric
in which the musical element is not wanting. This is especially the case
when there are several participants, who chant them in a sort of recitative,
and usually adopt, as far as my observation goes, that fundamental
stereotyped measure which forms the basis of all467 primitive German
child-song, and which in its simplest form is this:

In this measure the street urchins call mockingly after a teamster:
“’S hängt eener hinde dran,
’S hängt eener hinde dran,”

or when they wittily compare a tipsy man with an over-loaded and toppling
wagon:
“Er hot, er hot,
Er hot zu scheppe gelade,”

or taunt a young Englishman with
“Beefsteak, Wasserweck
Auf dem Kopf e grosse Schneck?”

or scoff at a tale-bearing comrade:
“Angeber, geb mich an
Kriegst ’n hohle Backezahn.”

This same motive is always used for such songs now as it was in the days of
our pagan forefathers, who doubtless gave it a wider application.
Grosse points out that the derisive songs of savages have a strong similarity
to such childish taunts. He cites one which Grey heard Australians sing in
scorn of one of their own number:
“Oh, what a leg he has!
Oh, what a leg he has!
The old kangaroo jumper”—

and compares it to a scene before the door of a school in Berlin where a
troop of children followed a little lame girl, calling out:
“Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch,
Anna has a crooked leg,
Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch.”468

Scornful speech among the common people is more than teasing. I must
confine myself to only one or two examples of this important group. The
above will suffice as an instance of the common jeering at physical
infirmity.
Banter between the sexes begins even in childhood. In
Alsace the little girls sing a rhyme which recalls the English
“Girls are made of sugar and spice
And all that’s nice;
Boys are made of rats and snails
And puppy dogs’ tails.”

“Räge, Räge, Tropfe!
D’Buäwe muess mä klopfe,
D’Maidle kummen in Hommelbett,
D’Buäwe kummen in Knotensäck!”

While in Bohemia the boys have it—

“Zeisig, Zeisig,
Die Buben sind fleissig.
Stieglitz, Stieglitz,
Die Mädeln sind gar nichts nütz.”469

“Boys are the busy ones,
Goldfinch, goldfinch.
Girls are no use at all.”

At the festivals, and especially the weddings of mountain folk, the youths
and maidens carry on a veritable poetic warfare, which sometimes becomes
pretty severe.
Ten different German tribes too had champions who sang in scornful
contests like that of the two Greenland poets.470 In trade rivalry the tailor
suffers most. Religious differences have given rise to such jargon as this:
“Franz Willwanz
Willwippke Kadanz,
Willwippke Kadippke
Katholischer Franz!”471

As it is not expedient to dwell on the higher forms of satire here,472 I will
close this section with some remarks on the provocative manner and
bearing. Like all other teasing, a scornful manner results from a feeling of
superiority, and is always calculated to depreciate its object. When serious,
such scornful behaviour constitutes a challenge to actual combat, but when
playful it becomes the sort of teasing in which the perpetrator enjoys
annoying others. The gesture which naturally accompanies it is pointing
with the finger, and children usually add laughter. Even dogs understand
this laughter, as their half-angry, half-depressed demeanour well proves.
Sticking out the tongue, which with some children only means
awkwardness and embarrassment, is sometimes employed in the same way.
Sittl thinks that it was unknown to the Greeks and early Romans473 (?); yet
the Gauls made use of it as a means of expressing contempt, as did also the
Jews. I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation of this or for the
“turned-up nose.” In Romeo and Juliet this passage occurs: “I will bite my
thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it”; and Persius
refers to the same thing as expressing scornful depreciation of one’s
opponent. Italians and Greeks place the thumb nail on the front teeth and

snap it forward with like intent.474 Minimo digito provocare, which may be
freely interpreted as “I can manage you with my little finger,” serves the
same purpose as does snapping the fingers also. Tylor remarks that in the
language of deaf-mutes the rubbing together or snapping of small objects
signifies contempt, depreciation, etc.475 Many scornful gestures are obscene
in character, and some such have been perpetuated in plastic art, especially
during the middle ages (as, for instance, on the door of the Schwäbisch
Hall). They all no doubt originated in the desire to express contempt in a
forcible manner,476 though the appropriateness of some of them is not
apparent, as, for instance, jeering challenges to some degrading act, direct
accusations, symbolic threats of defilement, where the idea seems to be that
the assailant wishes to prove himself not only fearless in the presence of his
foe, but shameless as well.
While on one side teasing is an expression of the fighting impulse, on the
other it seems to be of considerable value as a promoter of sociability. The
educational quality of school comradeships and students’ clubs depends in
no small degree on the hardening of the super-sensitive by teasing, and thus
preparing them for the future buffetings of fortune. It is useful, too, in
stirring up heavy and phlegmatic natures. Bastian writes from Siam: “When
a boy misses his aim and stands like a whipped poodle, his comrades mock
him with ‘Kui, kui,’ which is very provoking. Some poor fellows are so
sensitive to this blame and jeering, and so emulous of praise that they are
quite beside themselves, and beat their heads against a wall. They are then
said to be ‘Ba-Jo,’ or mad from shame. When, on the contrary, they meet
such scorn with indifference, they are regarded as fearless.”477

7. Enjoyment of the Comic
There are two theories of the comic—that of the feeling of superiority and
that of contradiction; the one being more subject to the will and the other to
reasoning processes. That which Hobbes sets forth and which is perpetuated
in modern psychology by Bain, Kirchmann, Neberhorst, and others,
emphasizes the connection between laughter and ridicule. As the latter is a
pleasure, “orta ex eo, quod aliquid, quod contemnimus in re quam odimus
ei inesse imaginamu” (Spinoza), so too our appreciation of the comic is
derived from our own powers of exaggeration over and above the

contradictions inherent in the object of our depreciation. Erdmann says that
we never think of Christ’s laughing, because we have an innate feeling that
there is something malicious in unrestrained laughter.478 The other theory,
which also has many supporters, lays most stress on the intellectual side of
the phenomenon, on the idea of contradiction, of inconsequence, of
incongruity as displayed by the comic object. This startles us at first by its
unexpectedness, and then appeals agreeably to our sense of the ridiculous.
These two theories are by no means exclusive the one of the other, and are
only opposed in that each accuses the other of failure to cover all the facts.
Sully and Ribot479 attempt to unite them by deriving the more refined sense
of incongruity from the first exaggeration, progressively excluding the latter
by mental play with contraries. We will be satisfied with the undeniable fact
that pleasure derived from the comic is usually not only experimentation
with attention, the shock of surprise, and a more or less logical enjoyment
of the incongruities involved, but also an agreeable pharisaical feeling of
being superior to the occasion. So far, then, as such pleasure can be referred
at all to reason it does consist in this sense of superiority, and belongs in the
category of fighting plays.
It is a familiar remark that we find something not altogether disagreeable in
hearing of the misfortunes of even our best friends. From the standpoint of
social science it is evident that humanity is not entirely dominated by the
social and sympathetic instincts since even when these are most strongly
manifested there is always a remnant of the fighting impulse in ambush,
which greets with joy any damage to a friend as to a foe. This is the
principle of competition. We know that untutored savages make violent
demonstrations of joy over the misfortunes of an enemy, their fiendish
laugh of triumph has been often described, and childhood recollections
furnish most of us with striking data in the same line. “A ten-year-old boy
who had daubed a comrade with filthy mud from the street danced around
his victim and screamed with laughter.”480 Sometimes scornful and
contemptuous laughter serves as a weapon, for it is not always a mere
expression of feeling, being frequently used to infuriate an opponent much
as a provoking manner is employed. We find, too, that in numerous cases it
originates in a triumphant feeling, as when the teasing we have been
considering is successful, and also when spectators applaud such success.
Then, too, there is laughter at the artistic representation of such scenes,

pictorial, plastic, and poetic. Yet we are far from exhausting the list. As a
result of the struggle for life, every inferiority calls forth a triumphant
feeling in the observer, be it in physical or mental fitness or in opportunity
or ability. Thence comes, too, the opposition among gregarious animals to
anything which menaces the social norm or its usages, anything which is
too small or too great to be reduced to the general average, provided the
greatness is not sufficient to inspire awe or fear. And inferiority, too, in the
courtship contest is often subject for ridicule. In all these cases, embracing
as they do a large proportion of things comic, the instinct for fighting enjoys
a triumph, and this enjoyment forms a large part of the general sense of
satisfaction.
Yet we rightly hesitate to identify enjoyment of the comic with mere
maliciousness. There is evidently something more. But what? Is Aristotle’s
explanation, that the misfortune to another which excites our mirth is really
a harmless thing, sufficient? By no means. While this may be quite true
considered subjectively, it does not bear on our special question. It is at this
point, I think, that the other theory becomes applicable, especially in a
connection which has not been sufficiently brought forward. In all the
relations of the comic with which we have so far had to do, only a small
part of the stimulus of contrast has come from the object itself and from the
relief of tension. By far the most significant feature of the process is the fact
that the observer alternates between æsthetic feeling or inner imitation and
the external sense of triumph. Hereby alone does the comic win the right to
a place in the sphere of æsthetics. It is a psychological law that sufficient
observation of any object stirs the imitative impulse to such a degree as to
cause us inwardly to sympathize with the object, and the law holds good
with regard to what we consider inferior if it impresses us as amusing as
well. Our feeling, then, is so far from being pure malice that we actually
spend an interval in inward participation in the inferiority, though at the
next moment, it is true, exulting triumphantly in our own superiority. All
this is a play grounded on the instinctive indulgence of our fighting
impulse, aided and enlarged by the idea of contrast, the two together
constituting appreciation of the comic. Mere mischief is not æsthetic, and
the mere idea of contrast does not necessarily produce laughter; but, then,
synthesis does call forth this characteristic effect of the comic.481 The
mischievous factor is sometimes of much less importance, and the laugh not
at all like ridicule, yet in the vast majority of cases the idea of resistance

mingles, if for nothing else, then to overcome the shock which is apt to
stagger us at first, but is finally conquered. I proceed now to adduce some
instances to which, in spite of their diversity, this explanation is applicable.
We have seen that surprise is one of the first causes for laughter in children.
They thoroughly enjoy the moment of recognition of a picture which has
puzzled them, and adults have the same feeling when they have wrestled
with almost illegible handwriting and at last decipher it. There is a slight
shock of it, too, when we hear a child express precocious sentiments or see
an animal act like a man. Then arises what Kries calls a state of false
psychic disposition, from which we escape in the next instant. We may test
this sensation by turning from a comic sheet to some serious reading. We
are apt to conceive of the first sentences as if they were meant to be
ironical, and find the recognition and correction of the misapprehension a
pleasure in itself. Such a stimulus is also mildly operative in the amusement
we derive from masquerades and other pretences. The charm of juggling
and sleight-of-hand tricks is dependent on the unexpected performance of
an apparently impossible task or the solution of an apparently
insurmountable difficulty. As an instance of the surprise whose conquest
forms a part of our amusement and which at first gives us a shock which
has something of superstition in it, I will mention that which I felt on
receiving “in the very nick of time,” as it were, the article of Hall and
Allin’s, to which I have so often referred, just as I was about to begin my
attempt to analyze the comic.
Punning, the introductory step to wit, is enjoyed by children too young to
appreciate true wit. It consists in an incongruous association of ideas which
at first amazes and then delights. Wit presents ideas in unexpected
associations full of suggestion which prove either to be illusory or to
conceal some jesting or serious meaning. Finally, we may include in his list
some lying tales and extravagances which are too grotesque to represent
any intention to deceive.
In all these instances we can trace the combination of fighting play with the
contrast of ideas. The former, however, possesses here a deeper and more
subjective significance, since it is no longer inspired by external inferiority,
but by the necessity for overcoming the shock which at the first blush
staggers and overwhelms us, but which it enables us to shake off
immediately. We can thus speak of an offensive and a defensive triumph; in

the former the laugh has something of the character of an attack, while in
the latter we are warding off surprise. Yet the contrast of ideas coming in
here makes it difficult to maintain this distinction clearly. Inner imitation
falls in many cases into the background or entirely out of view, indicating
that we are no longer dealing with æsthetic enjoyment. In the simpler cases
contrast between stressed attention and its sudden unexpected release
becomes the most prominent feature, while in others it is the contrast of
opposing qualities which the object really possesses or has ascribed to it.
Summing up now the important data we find that enjoyment of the comic
depends in the large majority of cases, though not in all, on the union of
fighting play with the idea of contrast. This kind of fighting play naturally
falls into two distinct groups, involving everything comic. The one is
essentially composed of aggressive fighting plays, and makes prominent the
contrast between inner imitation and the triumphant feeling of superiority.
In the other group we find more defensive fighting play, and the idea of
contrast takes the form primarily of sudden relaxation of the stressed
attention and the impression of contradiction. That the first group represents
an earlier stage of development from which the second is evolved, as Sully
and Ribot intimate, is not easily proved. Children exhibit both very early.
Are there cases which do not exhibit fighting play in any form? I do not
deny the possibility, though up to this time I have not been able to discover
any such. The first difficulty to surmount in trying to establish this
possibility would, it seems to me, be the laughter of children when they
mimic anything (for example, the cries or movements of animals), which is
not in itself amusing, nor is their intention mischievous. Can this be a case
where the idea of contrast works alone and there is no fighting play? I think
not, for I am convinced that the child’s first impression of the comic
depends on his æsthetic sympathy with the model and on his conscious
shaking off of this feeling; and, furthermore, the idea of contrast is in this
instance connected with the conquest of difficulty, an association which
always indicates an approach to fighting play, and is especially significant
in this case, since mimicry singles out the salient and individual
characteristics of the model.482

8. Hunting Play

Having learned to recognise the three principal groups of fighting plays we
turn now to a special application of the fighting instinct. The name “hunting
play” will include, for the sake of brevity, playful pursuit, flight, and hiding.
The chase is, in connection with the collecting of fruits, the oldest and most
primitive method of obtaining a food supply known to us. It is not
impossible that in some more primitive stage than that of modern savages
human beings subsisted entirely (with the exception of some insects, young
birds, and eggs) on vegetable food, as monkeys do. But we have no definite
knowledge of this, and, however it may be, the facts justify the deduction
that the impulse to pursue a fleeing creature, or, on the other hand, to flee
and hide from approaching danger, is as much an inborn instinct in man as
in the lower animals. It is true, indeed, that the arts of the chase are of vast
service to evolution in other ways than in the pursuit of and escape from
wild beasts, for it is often enough his fellow-man from whom the fugitive
flees and must escape by speed or guile. In the case of animals the
instinctiveness of the impulse is proved by their play. The kitten treats a ball
of yarn exactly as an adult carnivorous animal does its prey, and that before
she takes note of a living mouse; and young dogs show their wolfish nature
in their chasing of one another when there is no real game to pursue. In the
life of man, too, phenomena are not wanting which point to an instinctive
basis for the hunting instinct, and they all belong to the sphere of play.
First, then, we must consider actual hunting of animals, which is not for the
purpose of securing food. Small children display a disposition to chase
animals. G. H. Schneider considers that this fact points directly to the
inheritance of the habits of primitive man, but it is not necessary to call in
the principle of inheritance of acquired characters, since simple succeeding
to inborn instincts is sufficient to produce this result. “In the same way,”
says Schneider, “the impulse for hunting, fishing, slaughtering animals and
plundering birds’ nests in so cruel a manner is inherited, and is to-day quite
common in young men accustomed to an outdoor life. The boy never eats
the butterflies, beetles, flies, and other insects which he eagerly pursues and
possibly dismembers, nor does he suck the eggs which he gets from nests in
high trees, often at the risk of his life. But the sight of these creatures
awakens in him a strong impulse to plunder, hunt, and kill, apparently
because his savage ancestors obtained their food chiefly by such acts.”483
Schneider goes too far, I think, in assuming that there is a special

connection between the sight of a certain animal and the inherited impulse,
yet it is quite probable that there is a general tendency to seek and pursue
moving living creatures over and above what can be accounted for by fear.
And perhaps the children of savages possess this tendency in a higher
degree than do our own. Semon tells us of young Australians: “Any one
who observes the children, and especially the boys, will see how in their
play all the exercise is directed to the perfection of their skill in the chase.
They are constantly occupied with throwing pieces of wood and little clubs
at any possible target, killing squirrels and bringing down birds and small
animals with these missiles. On the march, while the women and girls carry
the baggage, the boys amuse themselves with various throwing plays.” The
cylindrical nests of Australian birds are favourite hiding places of poisonous
snakes, “and children who give promise of becoming zealous scientific
investigators are often, as well as their elders, bitten in this way. My little
friends in Coonambula were eager collectors of all sorts of insects and
every creeping thing, and I have to thank them for many of my choicest
specimens.”484
The chase as practised for sport by adults also argues for an instinctive basis
of such play. Civilized man, who no longer makes hunting a direct means of
replenishing his larder, still feels the force of this powerful impulse, and
playfully reverts to the practices of his progenitors. The passion which this
sport excites in its votaries is so strong as to leave little doubt that the
impulse is an inherited one. “In our time,” says Johann von Salisbury in the
twelfth century, “the chase is regarded by the nobility as the most
honourable of employments, and its pursuit the highest virtue. They
consider it the summit of earthly bliss to excel in this exercise, and
consequently they ride to the chase with greater pomp and pageantry than to
war. From pursuing habitually this manner of life they lose their humanity
to a great degree, and become almost as savage as the beasts they hunt.
Peasants peacefully tending their flocks are torn from their well-tilled
fields, their meadows, and pastures, in order that wild beasts may take
possession.”485
King Edward III had such a passion for hunting that he took a large pack of
dogs with him when he was making war on France, and on French soil and
every day he followed the chase in some form. The priestly Nimrods whose
tastes belie their calling have been subjects of derision from the time of

Chaucer to C. F. Meyer’s Shots from the Chancel, and the opposite extreme
is found in Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, where he accuses his
contemporaries of disturbing the worship of God by bringing their dogs and
falcons into the churches. In modern times the passion for hunting is
strongest in mountaineers, whose free outdoor life affords every opportunity
to indulge the taste. No one who has seen the face of an old mountaineer as
he catches sight of a likely goat has any further doubt that inherited instinct
is at the bottom of the hunting impulse. Bismarck well described the charm
of field sports at the time (1878) when, his health being threatened, he left
the business of his office to younger diplomats, and refused to be consulted
except on the most vital questions. Rudolf Lindau has given, too, in a
parliamentary speech of Bismarck a half-humorous and yet striking picture
of a tired hunter: “When a man starts off on a hunt in the morning he is
quite willing to tramp over miles of heavy ground to get a shot at birds. But
after he has wandered about all day, has his game bag full, and is about
ready to go home, being tired, hungry, and covered with mud, he shakes his
head if the game-keeper says that there are partridges in the next field. ‘I
have enough,’ he says. But if a messenger comes with the news that there is
a wild boar in the woods below, this tired man with hunter’s blood in his
veins forgets his fatigue, and hastens to the woods, not satisfied until he has
found the game and captured it.”
The most rigidly conducted chase has something of the character of play,
and there is a whole cycle of games in which flight and pursuit are the main
features. To begin with the pursuit of our own kind: suppose one taking a
two-year-old child in his arms and springing toward another person, who
runs away in pretended fright. The child will manifest delight, which is
much too strong to be attributed to mere pleasure in the movement, and
must be connected with the hunting impulse. It is shown, too, quite as
plainly by boys playing on the street. James is right when he says, “A boy
can no more help running after another boy who runs provokingly near him
than a kitten can help running after a rolling ball.”486 In 1894 I had an
opportunity to observe a scene which displayed the power of this instinct in
a manner which was almost terrible; the boys irresistibly reminded me of
dogs or wolves pursuing their prey in a hot chase. At that time a racer came
to Giessen, and to attract attention ran through the streets at midday attired
in rose-coloured tights, fantastically decorated, and carrying a large bell in
his hand. He moved with incredible rapidity, now disappearing round some

corner, and now emerging from a side street. When school was out a crowd
of homeward-bound boys filled the streets, and, catching sight of the
runner, chased after him, so that soon a mob of from fifty to one hundred
children were on his heels, chasing him like a pack of hounds with the
wildest excitement and loud cries. The man carried a whip which he laid
about him well, otherwise the children would doubtless have tried to catch
and beat him.
The number of plays which employ such chasing is extraordinarily great,
and I will confine myself to a few examples which display the characteristic
points of difference. One of the simplest forms of it is the “Zeck,” which is
described in a seventeenth century collection. Another is the Greek
ὀστρακίνδα, for which the boys used bits of pottery or a shell, one side of
which was smeared with pitch and called night, while the other side was
day. The children were divided into parties of the day and night, and the
token thrown up in the air. The side lying uppermost on its fall determined
which party should flee and which pursue. Whoever was caught was called
a donkey487 and must sit on the ground to await the end of the game. This
may have been the origin of our coin tossing. In most chasing plays there
are special pre-arranged conditions which avert danger from the fugitive
and facilitate bringing the play to a close, and most of these conditions can
be traced to some ancient superstition. In one game the pursued is safe
while standing on or touching iron, and in another sudden stooping makes
him immune, while others again appoint bases as cities of refuge. These
were used by the Greeks, and a great variety of designation indicates how
general they are among the Germans. In the Greek σχοινοφιλίνδα the
participants formed in a circle, around which one went with a stick which
he secretly hid behind one of the players, who has the privilege of chasing
the depositor; or, in case he fails to discover in time what an honour has
been conferred upon him, he must run around the circle exposed to the
blows of all its numbers.488 It is like our “Drop the Handkerchief,” and also
the game where the boy, whose cap the ball falls in, must throw it after the
others. Finally, I will mention two games in which this element has
developed into complex imitation of genuine combat. “Fox chasing”
furnishes a perfect picture of battle. Two hostile parties stand opposed and
attempt to conquer one another and to free their imprisoned allies, and yet,
since each capture is made by pursuit and not by fighting, the principle of

the chase is the controlling one. “Hare and Hounds” is another imitation of
the chase. Adults usually play it on horseback, though there is a notice in
Ueber Land und Meer (1880, No. 27) of such a chase on foot, in America.
Two specially good runners are given fifteen minutes’ start, and the rest of
the company take the part of hounds.
But it is not essential that the thing pursued shall be a living creature. Just
as kittens and puppies chase lifeless objects, such as rolling balls, sticks,
etc., so do human beings also find substitutes for the proper objects of their
sportiveness. Catching a swiftly moving ball is sometimes of this nature;
there is attending it a feeling of triumphant mastery much the same as that
which excites the boy who seizes and holds a fleeing comrade or the clown
who obstructs the course of a scorching wheelman. This is especially the
case with professional ball players, who allow the ball to pass their hands
and then seize it by a quick movement as it is about to touch the ground.
There are other games in which the ball is not caught in the air, but is
allowed to fall to the ground and roll away while the players must pursue
and catch it. Football and cricket are examples of this, and consequently can
be classed either with chase or fighting plays, though they have more of the
characteristics of the latter. Another form of hunting play which should not
be overlooked is the seeking for hidden persons or things. H. Lemming
refers to a process belonging to the child’s first quarter as a kind of hiding
play. “The child’s aunt had him on her lap, his little head resting on her
right shoulder, while she played hide with him. ‘Where is he?’ she would
cry while she hid his head between her arm and breast; then, as she
suddenly drew the arm away, ‘There he is.’ She had not done it many times
before the little fellow understood perfectly. As soon as his aunt made the
motion he turned his head in the right direction and laughed softly. Several
days passed, and the game had been repeated two or three times, when one
morning early, as he was lying on my bed, I smiled at him and he laughed
back; then his face took on a roguish expression, and he buried his head in
the pillow for an instant and suddenly raised it with the same mischievous
look. He repeated this several times.”489 Becq de Fouquières restores a
beautiful antique picture of a Greek hiding play. One little fellow presses
his eyes shut while two others hurry to hide themselves. In Siam “Hide-and-
Seek” is called “Looking for the Axe,” and is oftenest played in the twilight
because dark, impenetrable corners are more abundant then.490 There is

added weirdness, too, in the half light, and the shock of surprise on
suddenly coming upon the hidden object is stronger, bringing the players
more in touch with the emotional life. The objects to be hidden are of
various kinds. This is a use to which children love to put Easter eggs, and
much interest is added to the search by the cries of “Cold,” “Freezing,”
“Getting warm,” “Hot, hot, burning,” etc. Very common, too, are games like
“Button, button, who’s got the button?” where a small object is passed from
hand to hand and kept concealed. A curious forfeit game like this was very
popular in former years, and is thus described by Amaranthes: “The whole
company sit close together in a circle on the ground while a shoe belonging
to one of them is slipped along and hidden beneath their legs, while one
person tries to find it.”491 Fleeing and hiding occur in all hunting plays, but
are specially prominent in some forms—in games like “Going to
Jerusalem,” for instance, where many attempt to make use of the same
chair, “Stagecoach,” “Change Kitchen Furniture,” “Cats and Mice,” etc. In
many the pursuers are restricted by certain conditions and prohibitions
which are in favour of the fleeing ones, and furnish occasion for evasions
and all sorts of byplay. For one thing the “catcher” may be hooded or
blindfold. Bastian saw a game played in Siam in which the bandage over
his eyes was so arranged that it hung down like an elephant’s trunk.492
Another handicap is to require the pursuer to hop on one foot and hit those
whom he overtakes with his knotted handkerchief. When in his excitement
he changes to the other foot they all cry out and beat him with theirs. The
Greek ἀσκωλιασμός was apparently much like this.

9. Witnessing Fights and Fighting Plays. The Tragic
Æsthetic observation belongs more properly to imitative play, but we have
been compelled to notice it already in several connections and must not
overlook its influence on fighting play. Thanks to inner imitation we can
take part in fights without objective participation, and actually enjoy attacks
and defence, strategy and risk, victory and defeat as if they were our
veritable experience. As we found in games of rivalry, this internal
sympathetic fighting has a great advantage over objective fighting in the
more varied and lasting excitement which it effects (for example, the
tension of expectation which in one’s own quarrels soon vanishes); yet, on

the other hand, it lacks the element of pleasure peculiarly associated with
one’s own achievements.
In considering the observation of actual fighting we must distinguish
between combat with an enemy and the conquest of difficulty. Inner
imitation is prominent in both. When we see a company of labourers trying
to lift a heavy stone or beam with pulleys, or driving piles in the water, or a
man pulling his boat up on the beach, or a smith beating the hot iron with
heavy blows of his hammer, or a hunter scaling mountain crags to reach an
eagle’s nest, we take part in the struggle with difficulty and enjoy success as
if it were our own. The sympathetic interest is even greater in witnessing a
fight between two combatants; indeed, it can be playful only when the
onlooker can restrain his emotions and regard the struggle going on before
him as a theatrical representation, as is often enough the case. When two
boys are tussling, when adults quarrel with high words, when a rider
attempts to control his vicious horse, when a man defends himself with a
stick against a brutal dog, when the champions of opposing parties fight in
the presence of their backers, the spectators may take such impersonal
interest in the combat.
Much more to our purpose, however, is the witnessing of playful fights
where the contestants engage merely for amusement or to test their
prowess, whether or not they are in playful mood. In this case, overcoming
difficulties is the leading feature. Then, too, there are myriad forms of
juggling, contortionism, prestidigitating, etc., in which the spectator, at least
in part, inwardly joins; and the wild excitement of animal and ring fights,
bull baiting, fencing matches, racing on foot, wheel, and horse. Even for the
fighting plays which are not intended as an exhibition, such as football and
cricket games, there is usually collected a crowd of intensely sympathetic
spectators, and the players themselves, when not in action, are entirely out
of the game, yet they still take part through inner imitation which has
frequent outward manifestations. Moreover, whoever sees a difficult piece
of work accomplished feels a desire to test his own skill with a like task.
The merest onlooker at a prize fight will assume belligerent postures, as
Defregger says, and savages are often so wrought upon by witnessing a war
dance that serious brawls ensue.
These facts lead us insensibly to the realm of art, of which I merely remark
in passing that certain echoes of the fray may be detected in architecture

and music, and that the representative arts and especially painting devote a
wide field to combat, but that the real domain of internal fighting play is
found in poetry. Fighting and love plays493 contribute most largely to the
enjoyable element in poetry, and the latter is less effective when divorced
from combat. Even in lyrics, which would seem to afford the least
opportunity for exploiting such themes, the tourney is a fruitful inspiration,
and the triumphant note of victory is conspicuous. A verse of Heyse’s
illustrates in mocking wise, and perhaps more forcibly than any other, how
great is the importance to the poetic art of its connection with the fighting
instinct. In dilating upon the literary status of the abode of bliss he says:
“Für Drame, Lustspiel und Novelle
Ist leider hier Kein günst’ner Boden;
Die kultivirt man in der Hölle.
Hir giebt es Hymnen nur und Oden.”

“For drama, stage play, and novel
There is, alas! no public here;
These things are practised down in hell.
Here hymns and odes are de rigueur.”

In studying epic poetry we are struck by the frequency with which the
excitement of fighting furnishes the motive. This is the case with almost the
whole cycle of primitive epics and folk stories, down to our modern
romance; and when an epic is produced, like the Messias, for example,
without such stimulus to interest, it falls irretrievably under the reproach of
dulness. In the drama war is all-important. A short time ago an unnamed
author published an article on dramatic conflict to which I fully
subscribe.494 Since the time of Aristotle the idea of acting has been
prominent495 in any conception of the drama, though there have been some
writers like Lenz, Otto Ludwig, and lately Gartelmann, who have stressed
the delineation of character. Both theories easily lead to a one-sided view.
“Not character as such, but character in conflict it is which lays claim to our
interest in the drama, and only such acting is dramatic as reveals the
conflict.... The essence of the dramatic consists in the presence of an
overwhelming catastrophe which forms the central point of the poem, and
its culmination is the writer’s chief task.” It strikes me that this is
incontestable, though it may be urged that the conflict is only a means of
bringing out the essential features of the character. Thus Wetz strikingly
says: “If a poet wishes to portray his hero realistically, then must his

environment contrast with his character. He must be put in trying
circumstances, and thus be brought out of himself and reveal his utmost
depths. Comedy as well as tragedy furnishes such situations; where the
amusing complications or fatal passion have once been intimated they must
be pursued to their final consequences.”496 For refined connoisseurs it may
be true that in perfect drama497 conflict is but a means of unveiling
character, yet even their interest is deepened by psychological
considerations. With naïve spectators, who are to me the more important, it
is quite otherwise. The conflict itself is the important thing to them, and the
fact that it may afford insight into character is only noteworthy as making
the fight more interesting. In any case we are safe in averring that the
pleasure afforded by the drama has one very essential feature in common
with ring contests, animal fights, races, etc.—namely, that of observing a
struggle in which we may inwardly participate.
Tragedy is the highest poetic representation of a contest which is pursued to
the bitter end, usually violent defeat.498 Here we again encounter the
question of enjoyment in relation to what is tragic. Volkelt explains it as a
result of (1) the exalted character of the excitement; (2) sympathy; (3)
strong stimuli; and (4) appreciation of artistic form. The third point, which
is also one of ours, he considers subordinate. His first point, however, is not
universally applicable, and his second is limited to those cases in which the
sufferer is regarded as worthy, and even then pain predominates and only
serves to weigh the balance further down on that side. Thus only the last
two points remain for universal application. While we grant that
appreciation of artistic form is an element in the explanation, the third
point, pleasure in intense stimuli, seems to me more important. Volkelt’s
view is not a little influenced by Vischu’s contention that “a general
disturbance of the emotions constitutes a satisfaction for barbaric crudeness
and ennui.” We have already had occasion to show that the enjoyment of
strong stimuli is of great significance in all departments of play, but I fail to
see anything barbaric about it, and consider this word unworthy to be
applied to æsthetic pleasure. Is it not a noble pleasure to stand on a
mountain summit or a ship’s prow and watch an approaching storm? And
how much more elevated still is the storm of effects which tragedy awakens
in us!

In considering fighting play in this connection we must notice a further
point which is a corollary to those which have gone before, and is
illustrated by some of the examples already given. The man standing on a
ship and contemplating the force of a storm (I do not refer to his struggle
with it) enjoys more than mere excitement. His soul partakes of the raging
of the elements, the seething waves which break on the vessel’s prow, the
furious gusts of wind, all this outward strife is inwardly imitated by him,
and he is filled with jubilant delight in exercising all his fighting instincts.
So also with tragedy. Not only joy in the storm of emotions, but also joy in
the contest, is an important means of subduing what is unavoidably painful.
While this relation, too, has been appreciated in other spheres, its
application to the tragic has not hitherto been made. Indeed, this instinct is
usually referred to in a narrow sense as a sort of bloodthirstiness, an idea
not always far wrong. Ribot has formulated the following progression:
“Pleasure in manslaughter, pleasure in judicial execution, pleasure in
witnessing death (murder, gladiatorial combat, and the like), pleasure in
seeing the blood of animals gush out (bull and cock fights), pleasure in
witnessing violent and gory melodrama [this is only imitation, since the
illusion of reality is but momentary], and finally, pleasure in reading bloody
romances and following imaginary murder trials.”499 We can hardly deny
that even the cultured spectator feels something of the murderous impulse
when, for instance, Hamlet springs with the agility of a tiger toward the
king to fix him with a dagger. Yet as a whole this exposition of the theory of
tragedy is defective even if we make the murderous impulse cover every
variety of injurious conduct. The impulse to inflict injury has nothing to do
with the final overthrow of the hero of our sympathies (and we do
sympathize often with the very criminals in tragedy), and in the instances
cited by Ribot it is usually less the bloodiness of the episode than its
character as a fight which attracts us. The feeling of power in combat, not
the cruelty of destructiveness, is most prominent. The reason that spectators
of an animal fight are not satisfied until one of the fighters is either killed or
disabled is surely not because they delight in injury as such, but because the
fight can not be decisive until some injury is done.
While, then, we can not adopt this theory of the destructive impulse, yet we
can learn from it, especially on one point to which we have given too little
attention. We do take a certain pleasure in the catastrophe involving the
personages of a drama which differs from our satisfaction in a fighting play;

we sympathize with the sufferer, and yet experience feelings of pleasure. So
long as the crisis delays, the case is indistinguishable from all other fighting
plays; but how can we take part by inner imitation in the general collapse
and yet enjoy the spectacle? In answer to this I must say that I am extremely
doubtful whether the moment of the catastrophe is always enjoyable; I am
inclined to think that quite often the sources of pleasure are insufficient to
outweigh genuine grief. In this case inner imitation persists because the
spectator is hypnotized by the extraordinary tension, and is unable to desist.
I think, for example, that no one experiences lively feelings of delight while
Wallenstein is being murdered behind the scenes, in spite of the intense
stimulus, importance of the interests involved, etc. It is not essential that
every instant of æsthetic contemplation should be filled with unadulterated
pleasure. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly instances in which the
catastrophe is actually enjoyed; and since we are not prepared to accept the
explanation of this given above, let us inquire whether we can find one
more satisfactory from the standpoint which we have adopted—namely,
that of fighting play strictly speaking. An example will make my view clear,
and one which may be explained in two ways. Let us picture to ourselves a
Roman amphitheatre with the spectators assembled to witness a fight
between a “bestarius” and a lion, and suppose that the man, in spite of
wonderful agility, receives more and more serious wounds and is finally
slain by the maddened brute. Suppose, further, that inner imitation on the
part of the spectators is engaged by the man, as is natural, so that their
pleasure can not be referred to triumph in the lion’s victory. To us the most
conspicuous feature of the whole thing is the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of
the spectators, and reading modern descriptions of these old Roman
customs only strengthens this idea. The barbarity was undoubtedly there,
but was it the ground of their enjoyment? I think not, for thousands of the
breathless spectators. On the contrary, that which moves these people is one
of the strongest and most stirring stimuli known to us, sympathy with the
courage and persistence of fighters to the death. For the best and probably
the most of the spectators the satisfaction is not in mere witnessing cruel
horrors, but first in the invincible courage which is undaunted in their
presence, or in case of the hero’s defeat it consists in a victory over their
own sympathetic terror. How clearly this passage from Cicero indicates
this! “When you see the boys in Sparta, the lads in Olympia, or barbarians
in the arena suffer the severest blows and bear them silently, will you wail

like a woman when you feel pain? Boxers never lament when they are
beaten from the ring, and what wounds they get! Can you not put up with a
single hurt from the buffetings of life? What fighter, even an ordinary one,
ever sighs or groans or goes about with a downcast face? Which of them
has tamely submitted to death?”
In a similar way the sight of misfortune in tragedy may give pleasure
because the outward undoing of the hero is calculated to awaken in us a
feeling of triumph in which imitation gives us a part. As I have said, I do
not believe that this is always the case, but rather that while the tragedy as a
whole gives pleasure the supreme moment may be painful; and in still other
circumstances the storm of emotion, one of all-conquering Fate, etc., may
cause feelings of satisfaction when there is no inner victory. It is never so
intense, however, as when this is present—a proof of the importance of
fighting play. The utmost triumph for a fighter is the victory over his fear of
defeat, and such victory is afforded by our playful sympathy with a tragic
incident. Then fighting play becomes a source of such pleasure as is
attributed ordinarily to exalted influences. Such side lights on a subject are
seldom without important significance, and our problem is now thrown into
somewhat this form. Tragedy most perfectly represents combat when it is
pursued to a catastrophe. Since we habitually sympathize with the human
element, the contradiction ensues of our experiencing pleasure in the
suffering which we deplore and are involved in. We explain this apparent
contradiction by assuming that the catastrophe becomes the foundation for
an inner victory which converts it into a triumph. An examination of the
various elevating effects which Volkelt’s analysis discloses reveals much
that is irrelevant from our standpoint. The most salient of these points is his
tragic opposition, whereas we have found that the catastrophe is in itself
enjoyable only when exultation in the triumph of desolation is based on
dread of that very thing. When the exhilaration depends merely on the
overwhelming nature of Fate or when a moment of respite is snatched for
the doomed hero, the poignancy of our sympathy with the final suffering is
softened. Independent satisfaction in the catastrophe is present only where
there is an element of fighting play, and herein lies the essence of our theory
—that is, when inner imitation transforms defeat into victory. “Courage and
self-possession in the presence of a powerful enemy, of threatened danger
or calamity, or of difficult and anxious questions—this is what the tragic

artist displays. All that is martial in us holds saturnalia in the presence of
tragedy.”500
The study of fighting play has thus led us from its rough and cruel
manifestations to the culminating point of tragedy. What Volkelt says in a
general way of the supreme moment we may apply to our own position:
“Even in suffering and grief, in fear and defeat, must the tragic personage, if
he would not fall below the requirements of his art, always appear great.
When a man quails in the hour of extreme suffering or wavers before the
severest test, however superior he may have appeared previously, there is an
end of tragic effect. But let him display greatness of soul at the crucial
moment, he then makes an elevating impression which is subverting to
pessimism and encouraging to the idea that the severest and most
outrageous attacks of Fortune can not make a man small, that the human
spirit bears within itself a principle of growth and of supremacy which is
able to cope with the might of Fate itself.”501
I close with the remark that this study of the tragic is advanced with a full
sense of its inadequacy. My main intention is to indicate the scope of my
conception of fighting play. The general idea of play has been developed by
others and applied advantageously in the treatment of contrast of ideas in
the tragic. Tragedy, like all other sources of higher æsthetic pleasure,
extends beyond the sphere of play because, to put it briefly in the words of
Schiller, we can descry through the veil of beauty the majestic form of truth.

II. Love Play

Is there such a thing as playful application of the sexual impulse? Views of
this subject differ widely, and the remarks on it of animal observers show
that many hesitate to use the term “play” in this connection. Wundt says:
“The distinction has been made between fighting play and love play, and
such actions and expressions as, for instance, the cooing of doves, the calls
of singing birds, etc., have been interpreted as wooings. But these wooings
are quite seriously intended by the bird, and I do not think that we can
regard them as in any sense playful.”502 On the other hand, others can be
cited who assure us that most observers agree in ascribing to singing birds,
besides their regular courtship arts of song and flight, actions which have all
the marks by which Wundt himself characterizes play—namely, enjoyment,

repetition, and pretence. However, we shall find that it is in man that play
with the function in question is most clearly exhibited, and, as its
connection with art has already been referred to, it will be sufficient to
dwell on one aspect of it here—namely, its relation to poetry. However
derogatory it may be considered to condition poetic art on such stimuli, the
fact is incontestable that, deprived of their influence, the tree of poetry
would be stripped of its verdant living dress.
On the other hand, we must avoid the older and more common error of
speaking about the “sweet sportiveness of love” without distinguishing
between what is really playful and what is quite seriously meant. It is true
that such popular usages of speech have not become general without some
foundation in fact, and it may prove interesting to inquire how this one
arose. We find the element of truth in the popular feeling by comparing the
subject under discussion with eating and drinking, which are also sensuous
pleasures. Why do we not hear so much of play in their exercise? Evidently
there is a difference. While in eating and drinking, so far as directed by
hunger, the real end, the preservation of life, is always in view, while the
real end of lovers’ dalliance, namely, the preservation of the species, is far
in the background. It is true that we sometimes eat and drink for the
enjoyment it gives, as well as to satisfy hunger and renew our strength, yet
the practical bearing of the act is so closely and inseparably connected with
it that only under very special circumstances can we speak of it as playful.
It is quite otherwise with the caresses and the traffic of love. Here the
practical results are so far removed and the things in themselves are so
enjoyable that such language is quite justified.
Still, while there is analogy there is not perfect identity with play, and we
must carefully inspect various aspects of the subject to select those which
are unmistakably of this character. The subjoined examples are therefore
selected advisedly and with care, in view of possibly unexpected readers of
this chapter. A glance over the field discloses the following suitable
divisions: 1, Natural courtship play; 2, sex and art; 3, sex and the comic.

1. Natural Courtship Play
Birds have many familiar courtship arts which are hereditary (the isolated
adult bird displays almost as much capacity in this direction as does one

reared with his kind), but mammals exhibit much less of it. In relation to
man there is a theory that sex grounds all art (of this we shall speak later),
but a scientific system of comparative courtship of the various human races
does not exist; nor, indeed, have we systematic observations of any one
people. It is therefore impossible to affirm whether there are such things as
instinctive gestures, expressions, caresses, etc., which all human beings
recognise as sexual stimuli. From the little that is known it seems probable
that the number of such tokens is not great—even the kiss is by no means
general! We can only be sure of a universal tendency to approach and to
touch one another, and of a disposition to self-exhibition and coquetry as
probably instinctive and of the special forms which these tendencies take
under the influence of imitation and tradition as secondary causes.
Caressing contact may then be regarded as a play when it is an end in itself,
which is possible under two conditions: First, when the pursuance of the
instinctive movements to their legitimate end is prevented by incapacity or
ignorance; and, second, when it is prevented by an act of will on the part of
the participants. Children exhibit the first case, adults often enough the
second.
It is generally known that children are frequently very early susceptible to
sexual excitement, and show a desire for contact with others as well as
enjoyment of it, without having the least suspicion of its meaning. Keller
gives a beautiful and touching example of this in his Romeo und Julia auf
dem Dorfe: “On a tiny plot of ground all covered with green herbs the little
lass lay down upon her back, for she was tired, and began to croon some
words in a monotonous way, while the boy sat near her and joined in the
song, almost wishing to follow her example, so weary and languid he felt.
The sun shone into the open mouth of the singing girl, gleaming on her
teeth so dazzlingly white and shining through the full red lips. The boy
noticed this, and taking her head in his hands he examined the little teeth
curiously and cried, ‘Guess how many teeth you have?’ She reflected for a
moment, as though making a careful calculation, and then said with
conviction, ‘A hundred.’ ‘No; thirty-two,’ he answered; ‘but wait till I count
again.’ Then he counted aloud, but as he did not make thirty-two he had to
begin over several times. The little girl kept still for some time, but as the
zealous enumerator seemed never to get any nearer the end of his task she
shook him off at last and cried, ‘I will count yours.’ So the boy stretched
himself on the grass with the girl above him, throwing his head back while

she counted 1, 2, 7, 5, 2; but the task was too hard for the little beauty, and
the boy had to teach and correct her, so she too had to begin over and over
again. This play seemed to please them better than any they had had that
day. But at last the little girl slid down by the side of her small instructor,
and the children slept together in the bright sunshine.” From such tender,
unconscious premonitions we pass to more strongly marked love plays, for
which the services of a special instructor are usually necessary, as in the
somewhat peculiar relation of the boy Rousseau to the little Goton who
played the part of teacher in their private interviews: “Elle se permettait
avec moi les plus grandes privautés, sans jamais m’en permettre aucune
avec elle; elle me traitait exactement en enfant: ce qui me fait croire, ou
qu’elle avait déjà cessé de l’être ou qu’au contraire elle l’était encore assez
elle-même pour ne voir qu’un jeu dans le péril auquel elle s’exposait.”
Often, too, children show the same sort of preference, all unconscious of its
import, toward particular favourites among their grown-up friends, enjoying
the pleasure of contact for its own sake. “The pretty girl,” says Mantegazza,
“whom Nature has endowed with the power to awaken longings and sighs
at her every step, often does not realize that in the swarm of her admirers
there are boys scarcely yet past their childhood, who secretly kiss any
flower on which she may chance to look, who are happy if they may steal
like a thief into the room where the beauty has slept and may kiss the carpet
that her foot has pressed; ... and how seldom does she suspect, as her
fingers play with the locks of the little fellow whose head rests on her knee,
that his heart is beating audibly under her caressing touch!”503 Perez cites
Valle’s account of a ten-year-old boy who was in love with his older cousin.
“Elle vient quelquefois m’agacer le cou, me menacer les côtes de ses doigts
longs. Elle rit, me caresse, m’embrasse; je la serre en me défendant et je l’ai
mordue une fois. Elle m’a crié: Petit méchant! en me donnant une tape sur
la joue un peu fort, etc.”504
This feeling may be involved in some of the positions and movements of
tussling boys. Schaeffer has remarked in a short paper that in the belligerent
plays of boys, especially ring fighting,505 “the fundamental impulse of
sexual life for the utmost extensive and intensive contact, with a more or
less clearly defined idea of conquest underlying it,” plays a most
conspicuous part. I do not believe that this is the rule, yet I am convinced
that Schaeffer’s view is more often correct than would appear at a first

glance, and especially so when the contestants are on the ground and
laughingly struggle together.
Lastly, we must notice the absorbing friendships between children of the
same sex. Here, too, the instinct, robbed of its proper aim, may assume a
sportive, playful air. Even among students, friendships are not rare in which
the unsatisfied impulse plays its part all unknown to the subjects. I content
myself in this connection with the citation of a little-known passage of the
highest poetic beauty, and evidently inspired by personal reminiscence. In it
a light touch of sexuality is imparted with a delicacy equal to that of Keller.
Wilhelm Meister writes to Natalie of his suddenly formed and tragically
ended friendship with a village lad. The two boys, who had just become
acquainted, were fishing together on the river bank. “As we sat there
leaning together he seemed to grow tired, and called my attention to a flat
rock which projected into the water from one side of the stream. It made the
loveliest place to bathe. Pretty soon he sprang up, declaring that he could no
longer withstand it, and before I knew it he was down there undressed and
in the water. As he was a good swimmer he soon left the shallows, yielding
his form to the water and coming toward me. I too began to be interested.
Grasshoppers danced around me, ants swarmed about, bright-coloured
insects hung from the boughs overhead, and gold gleaming sunbeams
floated and glanced fantastically at my feet, and just then a huge crab
pushed up between the roots to his old stand whence he had been driven by
the necessity of hiding from the fishers. It was so warm and damp that one
longed to get out of the sun into the shade, and then from the cool shade to
the cooler water. So it was easy for my companion to lure me in with him. I
found a mild invitation irresistible and, notwithstanding some fear of
parental displeasure, and a vague terror of the unknown element, I was soon
making active preparations. Quickly undressing on the rock I cautiously
stepped into the water, but did not go far from the gently sloping bank. Here
my friend let me linger, going off by himself in the buoyant waves. When
he came back he stood upright to dry his body in the warm sunshine. I
thought the glory of the sun was eclipsed by the noble manly figure which I
had never seen nude before. He too seemed to regard me with equal
attention. Though quickly dressed again, we now stood forever revealed to
one another, and with the warmest kisses we swore eternal friendship.”