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.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

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

Bridgman[158] 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 feet[183] 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 children[211] 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 (James[216] 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.

Buildings[241] 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 stone[249] 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.