PART II

_THE PLAYFUL EXERCISE OF IMPULSES OF

THE SECOND OR SOCIONOMIC[358] ORDER_

I. FIGHTING PLAY

Our conception of experimentation includes a large number of phenomena

having the common tendency to bring into action the manifold inborn

predispositions of the organism, but without reference to those

instincts by means of which the relation of the individual to other

living creatures is regulated. In experimentation only the more general

needs, such as are indubitably grounded in the nature of the organism,

are allowed expression, in such a manner as to bring into action the

sensor and motor apparatus as well as the higher mental faculties. The

individual would exhibit similar qualities in isolation; he plays with

himself, not with his relations to others, and even when association

exists, as, for instance, in ball-catching, he recognises at the same

time that experimental play is involved. Now, however, we enter on

the consideration of such play as is intentionally directed toward

other beings, and first on our list is the inborn impulse to fight.

Walther von der Vogelweide has shown the power of this instinct in the

impressive lines:

“Des Stromes Wellen rauschten kühl;

Ich sah darin der Fische Spiel.

Ich sah, was ringsum in der Welt:

Den Wald, das Laub, Rohr, Gras und Feld,

Und was da alles kriecht und fliegt

Und seine Bein’ zur Erde biegt.

Dis sah ich, und ich sag’ Euch das

Keins lebt von ihnen ohne Hass.”

“The stream’s waves murmured oolly;

I saw the fishes playing there;

I saw all that was in the whole round world;

In wood, and bower, and marsh and mead, and field,

All things which creep and fly,

And put a foot to earth.

All these I saw, and say to you,

That nothing lives among them without hate.”

In our common speech, too, life is referred to as a battle, and is

in reality too often a general struggle for money or power. It is

but natural, then, to find the fighting impulse developed early in

childhood and practised in play. Indeed, the demand for its exercise is

so strong that there is scarcely any form of play which may not take on

the character of a contest. Especially is this the case when there is

any difficulty to overcome or danger to be encountered. “Both danger

and difficulty,” says Lazarus, “appear as incarnated opponents over

whom it is possible to gain a victory.”[359] In the same way play with

lifeless objects is easily converted into a contest by the force of

æsthetic illusion. As numerous examples of such intensive stimulation

of the fighting impulse have already been given, I shall here mention

only the mountain climber’s struggle with lofty peaks. In this chapter

such collateral themes must be avoided, as we shall find our immediate

problem very wide. In order to discriminate as to the relative

importance of the various fighting plays the following division of the

subject will prove convenient: First, there are direct fighting plays

in which the contestants immediately measure their strength, whether

mental or physical. The second group is composed of indirect fighting

plays where the victory is sought through means of conducting the

contest. Among the mental phases of this we find betting and gambling.

In the third group we place merely offensive sports in which no defence

is possible or availing, such as playful destructiveness, teasing, and

the enjoyment of the comic (so far as it is connected with fighting at

all). After disposing of all these, two subdivisions yet remain: first,

playful chasing, fleeing, and hiding (hunting plays); and, second, the

enjoyment of witnessing a contest.

1. _Direct Physical Fighting Play_

Any one who takes the hand of a two-year-old child and strikes himself

with it, pretending to be much hurt, can not doubt after seeing the

delight displayed by the little creature, the pleasurable effect of the

discharge of this impulse so deeply seated in human nature. Yet the

fighting instinct seems to be comparatively late in assuming the form

of regular independent playful contests. Unprovoked tussling merely

for the fun of the thing seldom appears earlier than the third year,

while young bears, dogs, and other animals begin such play almost

at once. In this youthful tussling the chief aim is to throw one’s

opponent to the ground and to hold him in this helpless position. So

far as my observation goes in this little-investigated sphere, very

small boys seldom stand for their combats. Usually one already seated

seizes his comrade, who may be standing near, by the foot, pulls him

down, and they fight, rolling over on the floor, and each seeking to

keep the upper hand. The effort is constantly made to keep the enemy’s

head down, a position so distasteful to the party concerned that the

scene threatens to end in noisy and serious strife. As the children

grow older they gradually formulate rules for their contests partly

through imitation of their elders and partly as the result of their

own experience. As with adults, the proper grip of the opponent’s

body is an important point. “He caught him by the waist, where he was

weakest” is quoted as far back as the Hildebrandslied. For throwing,

it is often necessary to slip the hand through the other’s arms and

give him a sudden twist, or to place one arm on his neck and push him

backward. The legs, too, have their part to do. Sometimes a boy is

thrown across a projected knee, or a leg is thrust outward to check

the fall when the attempt is made to throw sideways by lifting. Or the

method adopted by Odysseus in an extremity may be employed—a sudden

blow dealt at the bend of his opponent’s knee being the cause of his

overthrow. Usually the fight ends at this point,[360] but sometimes

the tussling is continued on the ground, as described above, and the

playful character is very apt to be lost. Sometimes it happens, on the

contrary, that the fight is over before either contestant is thrown.

I saw two boys wrestling, when one of them was lucky enough to get a

good grip on his opponent’s body, but the latter could bend his head

back, whereupon they desisted and called it a tie. There is often an

effort to take the enemy unawares, as when a boy leaps unexpectedly

on his opponent’s back, gives him a violent push, or runs against him

forcibly. Suddenly dousing one another with water is another favourite

if not very pleasant youthful sport.

Prize fighting by adults seems to have been generally practised in

Europe as well as in other parts of the world from remote antiquity.

The ancient Egyptians were zealous wrestlers. Among the Greeks, where

the art was extraordinarily developed, it often became brutal; breaking

the fingers and throttling were allowed, and a familiar sculptured

group shows a cruel twisting of the arms to hold down the thrown

wrestler. Ring fighting was practised by both boys and men among early

Germans, as numerous ethnological remains demonstrate. In Japan, prize

fighting is as much a national sport as is bull baiting in Spain.

Bastian saw it in Burma, Ratzel among the Eskimos, Indians, Hawaiians,

etc., and other observers in remote parts of the earth. Among the

Brazilian Bororó friendly contests are governed by the following rules:

“To seize a man by his right wrist is a challenge. The two contestants

face one another, and each places his hands on the other’s shoulders

or on the small of the back. In this position they must stand with

bodies perfectly erect,[361] their feet wide apart, and each looking

toward the other’s back. They maintain a good-humoured silence for some

time, and then suddenly become very much in earnest, and make desperate

efforts to throw one another by tripping. One usually opens the attack

by thrusting one of his heels into the knee hollow of his opponent

and trying to bend it, but the other is prepared, and sets his sturdy

leg so far back that the effort is fruitless. Attack and resistance

on both sides follow in rapid succession until one of the contestants

falls.”[362]

Here, too, is opportunity for the application of the wiles practised

by Odysseus when the mighty Ajax lifted him off his feet.

“... Still his craft not deserted Odysseus:

He dealt a blow from the back and loosened the joint of his knee

So that backward he fell and Odysseus sank down above him

Right on his broad chest. And the people around were amazed.”

In von den Steinen’s description of the Brazilian customs, the effort

to pull down the head, mentioned above in connection with childish

wrestling, is dwelt upon as the chief aim instead of the grip on the

waist. “The contestants, representatives of different tribes, come

forward in pairs, their bodies smeared with yellowish red _uruku_,

and with black. They stoop, catch up a handful of sand, and in a

crouching position, with hands hanging down, they rapidly circle round

each other, casting angry glances at their opponents, and calling out

threateningly, ‘Húuha! húuha!’ Then one touches his right hand to his

adversary’s left, and at this signal they all leap to the attack,

springing up and down as fast as possible on the same spot, not unlike

angry apes, each seeking to seize and bend down the other’s head. This

violent exercise goes on for some time without any direct attempt to

throw one another. They are very friendly after it is over, and may be

seen walking about with their arms around each other’s shoulders.”

As a last example I quote Berlepsch’s graphic description of the

Schwingen as practised in the Swiss Alps. Shirt and trunks are the

only articles of clothing allowed, and the latter expose half the

thigh, and must be made of stout, strong drilling. Every man grasps

with his right hand the waistband of his opponent, and with his left

the rolled-up trouser leg, and now begin, either standing or kneeling,

violent efforts to overthrow one another. For a complete conquest this

must be accomplished twice.[363] The struggle is especially exciting

when the contestants represent different valleys, and on them rests

the responsibility of maintaining the honour of their native place.

“As soon as the two athletes have taken the proper grip they sink on

their right knees and withdraw the lower part of the body as far as a

good hold will permit. If one has reason to fear that he is about to

be lifted, he lies flat down on his stomach and the other must follow

suit. In this unnatural position they torment one another for half an

hour at a time, writhing on the ground like snakes, and stretching

sinews and muscles until their faces grow dark with the strain. If

neither can manage to overcome his opponent by endurance, superior

strength, or strategy, they at last voluntarily abandon the conflict,

utterly exhausted, and shake hands on their prowess, but neither can

claim a victory.”[364] So-called tests of strength are similar to

this.[365] In pulling contests the attempt is made to draw the opponent

toward one, sometimes by the hands—in the Bavarian mountains it is done

by hooking the middle fingers together—sometimes by seizing a stick

at its ends or across, sometimes with a rope, as the Greek boys did,

sometimes by a band around the neck, which serves to strengthen the

muscles of the back,[366] and sometimes by hooking one knee of each

together, so that the contestants can only hop about on one foot until

the contest is decided. Another test of strength is the pushing which

children usually take up of themselves, as many schoolroom benches

could testify. In Japanese contests pushing across a line seems to

be a leading feature. Zettler gives the following description of it:

“Japanese prize fighters are trained to their profession through

centuries of inheritance from father to son, and by every conceivable

means calculated to produce perfect specimens of their kind. In stature

they are veritable giants, not only in height but in the development

of all the limbs and masses of fat, which would not lead one to expect

special adroitness or muscular force. In their ring contests the effort

is made either to throw or to push one another off the arena, which is

an elevated circular platform thickly strewn with sand and surrounded

with a double ring of straw. Whoever makes one step over the edge is

lost. Weight is of great use in this contest.” Children frequently make

use of a combination of pulling and pushing, which is really imitative

play. One child, for instance, takes his position on a sand heap and

defends himself against another who represents the enemy storming his

castle. From the well-nigh innumerable tests of strength we may select

the following as typical: The players stand with outstretched arms

opposite one another, seize hands and pull, or one stands firm with

stiffened arms while the other tries to stir him, or they sit in such

a way that the knees of one are caught between those of the other, and

the effort is made to force the legs apart; or sometimes it is to open

the rolled-up fist, etc.[367]

Fighting with fists leads the way to fighting with weapons, though the

rolled-up fist is used by the angry child as a weapon earlier than the

open hand. In playful fighting, however, the blow with the fist is not

much used. Sometimes a little playful boxing is indulged in, but it is

difficult to keep within the bounds of play in a fisticuff. Gymnastic

exercises of this kind as practised by the Greeks and English are more

important. Among the former blows were aimed at the head, and, “to

strengthen the blow,” says Fedde, “the fist and forearm were wrapped

with thongs of oxhide, which left the fingers free to double up the

fist. Later a strip or ring of hard leather was added, which, as it

was held around the ball of the fist, inflicted severe wounds, being

sometimes studded with nails or lead knobs. The soft leather thongs

of earlier times were called friends (μείλιγαι), while the dangerous

knobs in later use received the name of bullets (σφαῖραι), and a

specially cruel kind of gloves were ants (μύρμηκες).”[368] That not

only practised athletes used these, and that they were donned in the

playful contests of mere boys, is proved by the speech of Lucien’s

Scythian, Anacharsis. “And those standing so straight there,” he says

as he is observing the youthful sports, “beat one another and kick

with the feet. There is one who has been hit on the chin, and his

mouth is full of blood and sand, and his teeth almost knocked out,

poor fellow, and yet the archon does not separate them and end the

strife. On the contrary, he urges them on and praises the one who gives

the blow.”[369] Raydt says of English boxing: “An English specialty

in physical exercise is boxing, practised methodically and with all

possible skill. The fists are incased in thickly wadded gloves, which

render the blows harmless, and a distinction is made between extreme

severity and lighter strokes, the tactics admitting of felling an

opponent by the former or exhausting him with the latter. The boxing

which I have seen was carried on in an orderly and decorous manner, and

still I was convinced that it is a very severe exercise, and should not

be introduced into the schools.”[370] Regular boxing matches, requiring

seconds and an umpire, as they are given by the students, are fought

either to settle some dispute—“Fighting with fists is the natural and

English way for English boys to settle their quarrels,” is said in Tom

Brown’s School Days—or as a spectacle for a large audience to witness.

In both cases it is fighting play only when the belligerent instinct

as such forms the chief motive, and when, too, the quarrel in one

case, or the prize offered and desire for self-display in the other,

gives occasion for the exercise of the fighting instinct. There can be

no doubt that this is often the case. Like our own students, English

youths often fight, not because they have any quarrel, but because they

seek one, because they want to fight, and the struggle thus becomes not

the means but actually the end. The case is frequently the same with

prize fighting. Professional boxers at the beginning of the nineteenth

century were to a great extent rough fellows, who were only after

money, or at best notoriety. But Conan Doyle has recently given us in

his Rodney Stone a masterly description of a blacksmith who was a good

husband and a skilful workman, yet even in his old age could not resist

an invitation to take part in a public prize fight. What primarily

influenced this man was a deep-rooted manly enjoyment of fighting for

the fight’s sake, and many Greek and English athletes have felt as he

did.

Another primitive method of fighting is by throwing missiles; even

monkeys throw stones, dry branches, and fruit. Miss Romanes’s ape was

very sensitive to ridicule. One day the tailoress came into the room,

and a nut was given to the monkey to open with his hammer, as he knew

how to do. The nut proved to be empty, and the woman could not help

laughing at the monkey’s blank expression. “He then became very angry,

and threw at her everything he could lay his hands on—first the nut,

then the hammer, then a coffee-pot, which he seized out of the grate,

and lastly all his own shawls. He threw things with great force and

precision by holding them in both hands and extending his long arms

well back over his head before projecting the missile, standing erect

the while.”[371]

The child begins very early to throw things to the ground, as we have

seen, and seems to delight in watching their motion as well as in the

noise. Later the child turns the skill thus acquired to the account

of his fighting instinct, and in this way genuine offensive throwing

begins as soon as he is able to tumble about alone. The enjoyment is

doubled when it becomes not only a question of hitting the enemy, but

of dodging his missiles as well. The prettiest and most harmless form

of such sport is snowballing; but also fruit, cherry stones, clods

of earth, pebbles, hay in the meadows, pillows from the beds, etc.,

all serve the same purpose. Some games of ball, too, are of a similar

character. K. Weinhold tells us how he as a boy played against his

comrades with a six-pound cannon ball. The wonder is that no bones

were broken. “Less fortunate,” he continues, “were the islanders who

indulged in this mad folly, for in their case it was punished. On a

holiday the contest between boatmen and landsmen was begun, and after

several days the latter retired as victors. The boatmen, stung by

the taunts of their conquerors, took counsel with their friend Hard

Grimkelssohn, who advised them to make balls of horn and challenge

the shore people to another game. That evening six of the latter lay

dead, while the boatmen lost not a single man.”[372] In many ball

games, however, the players do not themselves catch the ball, which

is sent to a base or home, as in the English game of football. Behind

each party is a base consisting of two upright posts and a connecting

rod, and each side endeavours to get the ball over the other’s base

or to prevent such a result when it threatens their own. This is a

specialized form of reciprocal mass contest, since the enemy is not

attacked in person, but the effort is made to wrest from him a symbolic

stronghold, as is common in mental contests. There are many similar

ball games—for instance, baseball—where the ball is thrown by hand

and its analogue found among the North American Indians; and cricket,

where a single player, armed with a bat, defends the easily approached

wicket. The idea is carried further when the ball which is thrown

becomes the goal as well, so that the same instrument is at once weapon

and symbol of the enemy. Playful pelting is indulged in in carnival

times, when berries and confetti are thrown about promiscuously; in

former times there were many occasions for this lively sort of play.

Travellers experience the primitive impulse which makes it hard for

them to resist the temptation to throw when in midsummer they stand in

a little snow field, and students are universally given to throwing

beer mugs, in spite of its being occasionally dangerous. The principle

of returning offensive missiles is not much applied in play, and yet I

remember that as a boy I enjoyed shooting with bow and arrow at another

boy similarly armed. We stood about fifteen feet apart and tried to hit

each other with light and harmless cane arrows. A still more innocent

battle was fought with popgun and berries.

It is doubtful whether children really play with thrusting weapons;

they rather exercise than fight with their wooden swords and spears,

but when it comes to an offensive use of the weapons play turns

to earnest, and, as with the young Goethe, ends disastrously in

quarrelling and blows. Boys who are much older engage in actual

fighting plays with such weapons, but it is left to the students’

duels to exhibit its highly developed form. Some years ago the

half-grown sons of a professor in a university town went to a fencing

hall and fought out a regular contest in a perfectly friendly spirit,

although it was by no means bloodless. Many readers will no doubt

recall such incidents. Such contests between boys and young men are

very interesting, and in Germany we distinguish between them and real

duels in that they are playful, while the latter are brought about by

some serious offence. That serious wounds sometimes result from these

fencing matches is no argument against their playful character, for

many games are dangerous, and these contests certainly come within

our definition of a play, the satisfaction afforded by them being

not in conquest but in fighting as such. When, indeed, one student

provokes another intentionally from dislike or anger, the fighting

which results is not a play; but the elaborately arranged appointments

and the fencing matches which result from some remarks made, perhaps,

in all courtesy, though it may end in injury to one or both parties,

undoubtedly is of this character.[373] In the same way must have been

managed the jousts and tourneys of the middle ages, the knightly

combats of ancient Teutons, and youthful trials at arms and many

similar contests as practised by various peoples[374] where, so long as

there is no evidence of a quarrel, but only a natural demand to satisfy

an inborn impulse to fight, it is all playful. We must not forget,

however, that the desire for self-exhibition, to display one’s skill

and courage, is also conspicuous.

This subject brings us to a question which I touched upon in The

Play of Animals. In reviewing the fighting plays of animals we found

that many mammals and birds fight hotly in youth who seldom beard

an enemy in later life, habitually taking to flight when attacked.

The supposition in such cases must be that fighting play serves as

practice for the mating contest, since even the peaceful ruminants

engage in bitter combat with rivals. This supposition granted, we

may further assume that the fighting plays of the fiercer animals

are also connected with the sexual life, and may it not be true

with men as well? It is indisputable, of course, that human combat

with wild beasts and other enemies is often a struggle for food and

ownership, and accordingly, in considering play as preparatory for

serious fighting, its aim must be considered as only partially sexual.

Still, the connection is sufficiently close to deserve a few words

of mention.[375] A great difference is observable in the tussling

of boys as they approach maturity. While the games of six-year-olds

are uniformly harmless, and proceed amid laughter and fun, as the

age of puberty approaches fighting play assumes a much more serious

character, and even when only play is intended the whole bearing of the

participants is greatly modified. Genuine make-believe, the innocent

measuring of strength, is no longer practised; the youth desires to

prove that he can play with danger, too; he assumes an offensive and

boastful air, and regards each of his contemporaries as a rival. The

inward restlessness which characterizes this time of life is directed

by instinct toward belligerence, and every opportunity to fight is

welcomed. It is at this time that the weapons, properly blunted or

otherwise rendered less effective, may still be dangerous, for youths

of all vigorous peoples will engage in some kind of spirited combat.

Take, for example, the description of London boys, by Fitz Stephen,

who lived in the time of Henry II. We find not only the nobility, but

the merchant class as well, exercising themselves at all times of the

year in armed contests, which, in spite of their playful character,

often had serious results. In the dead of winter, often on ice, they

assembled for this purpose, with staves for lances, held jousts “from

which they did not always escape uninjured, for many were the legs and

arms broken in the fray. But the youths, in their desire for glory,

delighted in such practice, which served as a preparation for the time

when they should go to war.”[376]

While we are obliged to attribute a very general significance to such

dangerous indulgence of daring warlike spirit, still we can not fail to

trace its connection with sexual life. Without the youth’s necessarily

knowing it, there is something similar to the bellicose tendency

exhibited by animals in their pairing season, in the feeling of rivalry

which possesses him at this time. The same thing is shown in the spirit

of adventure, which at first is only a general desire for change,

and delight in struggle and risk, but in its manifestations that are

most closely connected with play appears in many mediæval knights in

close conjunction with courtship. “The heroic deeds of adventurous

knights,” says Alwin Schultz, “should be included in the category of

fighting plays. Thus Ulrich von Lichtenstein, in his open letter to

all knights, promised to every knight who would break a lance with him

on his homeward journey from Venice to Bohemia a gold ring for his

sweetheart, and to any one who should unhorse him the steed on which

he rode; while in case he himself came out conqueror all he required

was that the vanquished knight should pay homage to his lady.” Another

knight, Waltman von Lättelstedt, took with him on a ride from Merseberg

to Eisenach a damsel on a palfrey, having with her a sparrowhawk and

a hunting dog. “Waltman proclaimed that on his arrival at Eisenach he

would be ready to fight all comers, and that whoever should overcome

him could have the girl, the palfrey, the sparrowhawk, and even the dog

and harness, but must permit the girl to ransom herself if she chose

with a guilder and a gold ring. Whomsoever he should overthrow must

give to him, as well as to the maiden, a ring of equal value. When she

came back from Eisenach this young girl had gold rings enough to bestow

one on every maid of high degree in all the town of Merseberg.”[377]

Such contests were more formidable with the North Germans. Among these

warriors it was common for a hero to travel to a distant land, and when

a woman there pleased him, to demand her surrender from husband or

father or brother in two weeks’ time, the demand to be supported in the

lists.[378]

And finally it may be mentioned that the tourney, which was at first

practised chiefly as preparatory for war, became later as often a

contest for a woman. In one English tilt the king promised the kiss of

an eight-year-old girl as the reward of success, and Eastern tourneys

were often instituted to win the hand of a princess.[379] What was

there done with intention may often unconsciously ground the various

contests of young men.

2. _Direct Mental Contests_

The impulse to opposition is a quality which is usually regarded as

a very unpleasant disposition of mind, but which is in reality, when

kept within proper bounds, the very leaven of human life. We shall

see later that rivalry taken in connection with the imitative impulse

is one of the mainsprings of advance of culture, and the oppositional

force connected with the fighting instinct is also necessary for the

mental development of mankind. The great newcomers in the various

departments of learning are almost invariably either friendly or

bitter opponents of long standing authorities, and any project which

meets with no opposition sinks to sleep. For the individual, too, it

is quite as important, since a man without it would be entirely too

hospitable to suggestion; indeed, abnormal suggestibility rests finally

on the suspension of this instinct. Children early show a playful as

well as an earnest resistance to authority. While Sully is right when

he says that an attitude of absolute hostility to law on the part of

the child would make education impossible, still he admits that the

best children—from a biological standpoint—have “most of the rebel”

in them.[380] The sweetness of forbidden fruit is imparted largely

by the combative instinct. Such a spirit is manifested playfully,

not when disobedience is attended with cries and struggles or sulky

behaviour, but when it is enjoyed for its own sake, as a source of

triumphant satisfaction. When a two-year-old child who has been told

not to throw his spoon under the table repeats the action, not in

anger but with twinkling eyes, he is acting playfully. Some of their

speeches, however, exhibit this spirit most clearly. For instance,

a small boy who had been rather rough with his younger brother

and was remonstrated with by his mother, asked, “Is he not my own

brother?” and then cried triumphantly, when his mother admitted the

undeniable fact, “Well, then, you said I could do what I please with

my own things!”[381] Another child of three years and nine months

answered his nurse who called him: “I can’t come; I have to look for

a flea!” and pretended to be doing so while he broke out in a roguish

laugh.[382] A three-year-old Italian girl said to her grandmother under

similar circumstances, “Non posso venire, la piccolina [her doll] mi

succhia!”[383]

With children of school age, playful resistance to authority is

naturally directed chiefly against the teacher. As an example I

regretfully recall a piece of mischief of which I myself was guilty. I

had looked back during a recitation to speak to the boy behind me, when

the teacher called out to me to turn around. At that I turned around

so completely as to be able to continue my conversation from the other

side. The indulgent teacher was so amused at my impudence that he did

not punish me as I deserved. Hans Hoffman has shown in his Ivan the

Terrible how ill-mannered schoolboys can take advantage of a teacher

who does not possess the secret of command; and Carl Vogt says of his

school days at the gymnasium: “Study and work were for the majority

secondary considerations. Most of the boys stayed there for the purpose

of tormenting their fellow-students and enraging their teachers. By

studying the peculiarities of character possessed by our tyrants we

soon found a weak side to each of them and tried such experiments with

these weaknesses as their owners could not avenge by punishment. Thus

the whole school was leagued against the professoriat, and now single

combat or skirmishing, now slyly preconcerted mass operations were for

the time in favour, and there were occasional truces, but no lasting

peace.”[384] E. Eckstein’s humorous sketches, too, are especially

popular because of their celebration of this warfare against the

teachers.

We have yet to notice adult opposition to political, scientific,

artistic, social, and religious authority. It is of course usually

serious, and yet it seems to me that in spite of its practical side

there is often something playful in it, something of enjoyment of the

conflict for its own sake. The obstructionist in legislation, the

opponents of time-honoured regulations, customs, doctrines, rules

of art and dogmas, all take, if they are born fighters, a peculiar

pleasure in the excitement of resistance to authority. They like to

blend their voices in the war cries of spiritual combat. It is one of

the pleasures of life.

Contradiction is another form of opposition. I once snapped the fingers

of my four-year-old nephew, Heinrich K., for some misbehaviour. After

he had been quiet for a while, as was his habit, this dialogue passed

between us, evidently soon becoming playful to the child: “Uncle,

I’ll shut you up in a room so you can never get out.” “Oh, I’ll climb

out of a window.” “Then I will shut the blinds.” “But I will open

them.” “But I’ll nail them shut.” “Then I’ll saw a hole in the door.”

“But I’ll have an iron door, very strong.” “Then I’ll make a hole

in the floor.” “But I will go underneath and make iron walls to the

whole house.” And so it went on until I gave up the struggle with

childish inventiveness. Enjoyment of such playful dispute often lasts

a lifetime. As a fourteen-year-old boy I once argued for hours with a

friend as to whether the beauty of colour was relative or absolute.

One of us contended that a blue embroidered chair might be positively

ugly, however attractive the colour, while the other maintained that

the beauty of the blue would make the chair admirable. I mention this

trivial example only because it shows so plainly the playful character

of such talk, for without any personal interest in the matter we waxed

warm over our respective views and presented them with great energy.

The heated discussion gave us quite as much satisfaction as solving the

problem could have done; in fact, the charm of conversation is largely

to be attributed to the enjoyment of disputation. On examining closely

into what constitutes the attraction of such entertainment for us we

find that besides relating and listening to anecdotes and gossip about

acquaintances (this is also play) our chief pleasure is in more or less

playful combating of opposite opinion. People who have no interest or

talent for these three things are at a loss in society.

We now take up such intellectual contests as are commonly included

in the lists of fighting plays, including the solution of riddles,

to which we alluded under experimentation. The measuring of mental

readiness between individuals when the problem is given orally by a

third person, and this is the original and natural method, is a genuine

intellectual duel. It was a favourite entertainment of the ancient

Germans which Rückert has celebrated in his beautiful poem. Another

form is the putting of difficult questions alternately to opposed

parties, as in our modern spelling bee. There are examples of this in

the Eddas, such as the intellectual duels between Odin and a giant, and

between Thor and the dwarf Alvis. Romantic troubadour songs belong here

too. Uhland and Rückert once engaged in a metrical debate as to whether

it is worse to find one’s lover dead or faithless. Uhland preferred

death, while Rückert attempted to sustain the thesis “better false than

dead.”[385] Rivalry is conspicuous in such contests, as we shall have

occasion to note later.

In our common forfeit games, too, mental contest often forms the

basis of the fun. For instance, it is a distinct attack and parry

when a handkerchief is thrown to a player and a word pronounced to

which he must find a rhyme. In English, where the spoken and written

words are so unlike, the spelling of unfamiliar words is turned into

a game; and another idea is to introduce into a story some object or

incident suggesting the name of one of the players, whereupon he must

continue the recital, passing it on to another in the same way. Or a

passage from some great author may be cited and his name guessed, and

many similar devices. Finally, we mention the important group of plays

for which the stimulus is partly intellectual experimentation, but is

primarily attributable to the combative instinct, such as board and

card games, both of which are symbolic of physical contests in which

the players appear as leaders of opposing forces and originators of

strategic operations. A genuine battle ground is afforded by the board,

and the great object is to have the right man in the right place at

the right time. In cards strategy is exhausted in the choice of the

right champion at the right moment, but is rendered much more difficult

by the fact that the former contestants have disappeared from view,

while the reserve is concealed. Thus it results that board games afford

opportunity for the display of skill in arrangement and card games

especially cultivate memory, while both are important promoters of

the logical faculty and of imaginative foresight.[386] An important

distinction between them is that in board games the strength of the

contestants is exactly equal at the start, and the material chances are

identical, while in cards inequality is the rule.

Board plays (the name is not very fortunate, for the battlefield is

by no means always a board) are older and more generally distributed

than the others. When Lazarus points out reasoning games in distinction

from games of chance as indicative of a higher state of culture[387]

he can not be referring to board games in general, since some of the

lowest and most savage tribes indulge in them. There are three distinct

varieties of these plays. In the first kind one, or possibly two,

stand opposed to a large party, but the conditions are equalized by

the rule that all the party must act together while the smaller side

is rendered more formidable by various advantages, such as greater

freedom of motion and capacity for lying in wait and taking prisoners.

The object is to dislodge the single fighter from his stronghold and

cut off his retreat, or to surround him in the open field and take

him captive. The prototype of the former is the beleaguered fortress,

and of the latter combats with dangerous beasts of prey. The Malay

Rîman-Riman, or Tiger-play, is a good example of the latter. The arena

is somewhat of this form and appearance, the figure being simply traced

on the sand, or stamped with red and white on boards or cloth. The

single player has twenty-four stones, the men, ôrang-ôrang. The other

players have a single large one or sometimes two, the tiger, _rîman_.

The tiger is governed by fixed rules, and the men seek to pen him up so

that he can not move.[388]

[Illustration:]

[Illustration]

In the second kind the parties, being numerically equal, stand opposed

as in checkers, where a hot struggle goes on to get three men in a

row—at least this is one of the simplest forms of the game as described

by Ovid. Among German antiquities there is a representation of two men

with a board set with stones. Schuster at least considers this a game

similar to checkers.[389] And besides, there are groups engaged in the

Damen-Spiele, which was probably known to the ancient Egyptians as well

as the Greeks and Romans, although we can not be certain as to the

rules of these ancient games, πόλις, _ludus latrunculorum_.

In mediæval times elaborately ornamented boards were used for this

game. “Especially noteworthy,” says Weinhold, “is one that is used as

a reliquary on the altar at Asschaffenburg. It is set with jasper and

beryl crystals, beneath which various figures are inlaid in the Roman

manner on a gold ground.”[390] Büttikofer brought with him from Liberia

a very interesting ethnological specimen, almost unique in character.

The game played in that region does not require a board or other flat

surface, but wooden cases into which rods are inserted like arrows in a

quiver. This represents the placing of the men on a board. Each player

has ten rods, of which only four are placed at the beginning of the

game. The dots in the cut show their position. The object is to get

into the enemy’s country by judicious jumping, the reserve ammunition

being placed as occasion requires until the supply is exhausted.[391]

Another form of this kind of game is the Oriental Mangale, which is

now becoming quite general.[392] In Damascus, where, according to

Petermann, it is constantly played in all the coffee houses, a board

two feet by six inches is used. It is over an inch thick and has in its

upper side two parallel rows of holes, seven in number in Damascus;

other places have six, eight, or nine. In these holes tiny pebbles,

gathered in a particular valley by pilgrims to Mecca, are laid; usually

seven in each. The player removes the stones from the first depression

on his right, and throws them one by one toward the left and into the

holes on his opponent’s side. This play is kept up under certain rules

and conditions, of course, and with the aid of much counting[393]

of winnings, and whoever gets the most stones has the game.[394] In

concluding we must not fail to notice the noblest of all board games,

chess, which, on account of the great variety of men employed and their

complicated moves, is the most difficult of games, as well as the most

entertaining. Many are of the opinion that some ancient games are of

the same character, but it is probable that real chess is of Indian

origin, whence it spread to the Persians and Arabians, and through them

into northern Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. In the last-named

country we hear of it as early as the ninth century, and it appeared

in Italy and Germany certainly not later than the eleventh, soon

becoming the favourite game of the educated classes. This is proved

by the fact that in a book of sermons published in the latter half of

the thirteenth century one Jacobus de Cessoles, a Dominican, attempts

to set forth a system of rules for right living founded on the rules

of the _ludus scaccorum_.[395] The game has naturally undergone many

changes in the course of time; for instance, the Arabians originally

had elephants in the place of our bishops; but it has always preserved

the character of a battle, and is so represented in old Arabian

manuscripts.[396]

[Illustration:]

Our third group of board plays is comprised of those which add the

attraction of chance to intellectual enjoyment of the contest. It

is true that to a certain degree chance is an element in the purest

games of reason, since the most skilful player can not foresee all the

consequences of a move, and various uncontrollable influences[397]

may interfere with the best-laid plans; but in the games which we are

now considering there is a blending of risk with calculation, which

has a peculiar charm. Perhaps the most familiar game of this kind is

backgammon, which was certainly known to the Greeks and Romans, and

possibly to the Egyptians and Phœnicians. In this game and kindred

ones the object is to throw away men whose value is determined chiefly

by chance, while the advance to advantageous points is a matter of

calculation, thus affording a combination of direct and indirect

fighting. Backgammon is of peculiar ethnologic interest because of

the prominent part it plays in the controversy as to whether Asiatic

influence is traceable in primitive American civilization. E. B. Tylor

has stated in several passages[398] that a kind of backgammon played

on a cruciform board is a favourite amusement of the East Indians, and

is called by them Patschisi (in Burmah: Patschit), and a very similar

form of the game was known to the pre-Columbian Mexicans under the

name of Patolli. Tylor considers the complicated nature of the game as

a sufficient disproof of its independent origin, and from this, and a

certain kinship to chess which is apparent in it, he concludes that

the whole group of games furnishes an important argument in favour of

Asiatic influence on American life before the time of Columbus.

Dominoes may serve as the connecting link between such games as we

have been considering and card games, since the lack of a prescribed

field, the concealed store of each player, and the chance distribution

at the beginning, as well as the acquisition of new ammunition during

the game are common features. Playing cards are supposed to be a

comparatively recent invention of the Chinese, which, like chess, was

carried into Spain by the Saracens, and thence spread all over Europe

in the fourteenth century. Many are of the opinion that they are a

modification of chess, and in fact the oldest game known to be played

with them is one of the most complicated that we have—namely, Taroc,

which requires seventy-eight cards. It was played in Bologna in the

beginning of the fifteenth century.

Since the victory in card games is not won by virtue of the position

of the cards, but by their succession and value, the faculty of memory

is largely concerned, as victor and vanquished at once disappear and

the men yet unengaged are concealed. This and the inequality of the

players’ forces at the beginning constitute the distinguishing feature

of cards. Lazarus’s penetrating glance has descried the point which

differentiates the various games, placing them in the varying relation

of accident and calculation. “Not all games,” he says, “are alike in

this. There are some in which chance is predominant—as poker, for

example, or the new game of bluff, so popular in America, where so much

depends on the dealing, and the play is not so much a calculation as

an attempt to exhaust one’s opponent.... The stronger games, however,

such as whist, Boston, l’hombre, solitaire, piquet, Skat, euchre, etc.,

depend on the sustained influence of both chance and calculation. After

the cards are once distributed calculation begins, but chance continues

to be powerful,[399] for at every play a new card enters into the

combination and must be given its due weight, whether from the hand of

friend or enemy. This is more obvious in the cases where the original

force is recruited by drawing from the pack; yet even here attentive

following of the progress of the game will furnish data for determining

the probable situation of a third card, and thus, after all, skill has

as much to do with it as chance. And in such a game as whist _en deux_

in which all the cards are dealt, and each player knows exactly the

strength of his opponent, the whole thing depends on calculation, and

consequently is not so attractive. It would be a game of chess with

cards but for its inferiority in variety and combination.”[400] Lazarus

goes on to say why chance is indispensable in card games—namely,

because, as there is no such thing as space combination, the monotony

would be wearisome, and continued playing well-nigh impossible. Without

Fortune’s reverses, too, the games would necessarily be begun with

equal forces, and it is easy to see how little enthusiasm such games

would excite. Only in connection with chance, then, can Reason find

in cards a task worthy of her powers, and, indeed, a small prize is

a stimulus sometimes needed to keep up our interest. This may be a

suitable place to mention that it was formerly the custom to play for

money or some stake with all games of chance and even with chess.

I close this review of contests which are purely intellectual with

two brief remarks, the first of which concerns the invention of board

games. It is difficult to find a perfectly satisfactory answer to

the question of their origin. However, their complication points to

adults rather than children as their probable inventors, and to me

the following consideration seems important: The primitive races, who

find it difficult to convey their thoughts in speech, naturally take

to marking on the sand, and hence the figures might arise.[401] If the

leader of one of the more intelligent peoples wished to instruct them

concerning some past or future combat, it would be a simple method

of illustrating his meaning to draw an outline on the ground and

represent the position of the hostile forces by small stones or similar

objects whose movements would symbolize the manœuvres of the forces

or the advances of knights for single combat. This would, no doubt,

be exceedingly interesting to those conducting it, and also to the

spectators, and might easily be repeated for the sake of the amusement

afforded until some inventive genius turned it into a veritable play

with board and men. To show that there is nothing improbable in this

supposition we may point to the fact that such play is actually carried

on by our own officers (Italian, _manovra sulla carta_).

The second remark relates to the pleasurable quality of games involving

use of the reasoning faculty. We have already shown that play with

reason takes the form of experimentation with imagination and the other

intellectual faculties in their capacity of illusion workers as well

as in their more constructive activity; now we find further that its

recreative effect is much greater than is realized during the progress

of the game, and that the consciousness of standing voluntarily in a

world of our own creation may be a feature in the interest excited

by the game.[402] The chief source of satisfaction, however, is

enjoyment of the fight, in the playful intellectual duel, where bold

attack and skilful parry, systematic advance and stubborn resistance,

crafty manœuvring and direct assault, single combat and the general

skirmish, as well as pursuit and demolition, succeed one another in

ever-renewed combinations. In those games which add the charm of

uncertainty to the mental contest the effect is of course still more

complicated. As I shall have occasion later to speak exhaustively

of games of chance, I confine myself here to Lazarus’s significant

conclusion from the union of these contrasted forces. “That men, and,

indeed, the same man can take pleasure in such opposite and absolutely

contradictory principles of play seems wonderful, and yet it is most

natural, for both are elements of human nature grounded in the very

essence of his being and the normal manner of using his powers. In

his serious, moral life, directed by the mandates of duty, he is also

controlled by two contrary forces, freedom and necessity. He must bow

to Fate and yet strive and struggle for what is his own. He expends

his energies according to his own behests, and must then await success

and reward till the turn of Fortune’s wheel. Both disappointment and

struggle, receiving and expending, suffering and toiling, are woven

into the texture of his life and character, and become the sources of

his volition as well as the arbiters of his fortune. He obeys both

forces; to pursue and hold to what is good is his dual impulse, both in

life and in play.”[403]

3. _Physical Rivalry_

In playful competition indirect conquest of an opponent is aimed at,

since the effort is to show that one can perform the task better than

another. In it the fighting instinct assumes the form of rivalry. “No

entreaties or commands,” says Lazarus, “nor even tips, could arouse our

coachman to such a display of skill and speed as could another coachman

who showed a disposition to race with him. Apart from the fighting

instinct itself, jealousy is the prime cause of rivalry”. Spinoza

defines it as “the desire for a thing aroused in us by the belief

that others want it.” One of the first manifestations of jealousy in

children is with regard to the love and caresses of its parents; we

all know at what an early age the infant expresses his disapproval

when his mother pets another child—sometimes as early as the second

quarter. If he shows it simply as anger he is plainly jealous, as

older children are; but if (as a dog often does when the hand he loves

strokes another) he tries to win to himself by all sorts of cajoleries

the maternal tenderness, then he enters upon a sort of rivalry.

True emulation, however, is first developed when the aim is to win

approbation and admiration when praise rather than love is the alluring

reward—in short, when the child becomes ambitious. Say to a three- or

four-year-old boy, “Your friend Otto can draw beautifully,” and it is

ten to one that he will answer, “But I can draw better.” This desire

to surpass others is what leads to the indirect contest which we call

rivalry.

Imitation, too, plays the part of a first cause here, as Spinoza

points out in pursuance of his definition of emulation. As, however,

this subject will come up for discussion later, let it suffice to

say here that imitation is exceedingly important for all mental and

physical development, and is accordingly especially conspicuous in

the play of children. The effort to say “I can, too,” easily takes on

a certain hostile character when there is difficulty in attainment,

and so imitation becomes actual rivalry as soon as the effort is for

“I can do better,” and the struggle becomes sharper in proportion to

the consciousness of a desire to surpass. Thus we are justified in

regarding the impulse of jealousy which is related to the fighting

instinct as the foundation of rivalry as well.

Before going on to investigate this playful rivalry it may be useful

to inquire into its social significance. G. Tarde, in his interesting

sociological study, Les lois de l’imitation,[404] attempts to prove

that imitation is the mainspring of social evolution. But along

with the peaceful operations of imitation, the fighting instinct,

too, makes itself felt in manifold ways, as a principle of progress

(as I remarked above in discussing combativeness), in conjunction

it is true with imitation and usually under the form of rivalry. It

is evident that social progress would be slow indeed if men only

imitated and never opposed what is done in their presence. Rivalry in

ownership, power, and authority is the force which urges each to do

his utmost in the struggle for life, and which has produced the most

advanced civilizations. A people without ambition is lost; not merely

stationary, but actually decadent. As in art bald imitation of even the

best models results in weakness, so in society. Men must will to do

better in order to do as well.

In spite of their variety we can very quickly review the physical

imitative games, since under movement-plays we have already noticed

a considerable number belonging to this class, and since it is their

psychological side alone that chiefly appeals to us. The following

examples, then, are merely chosen to show by means of their variety

the great importance of imitation in human play.[405] Children learn

most of their bodily movements by such play in a way which clearly

illustrates the mingled effects of imitation and emulation. When

one child jumps off the second step, another child who sees him

immediately tries to cover three; and when boys are practising their

leaps each makes a mark in the sand beyond the others as his goal.

To lift a heavier weight, to throw farther, to run faster, to jump

higher, to make a top spin longer, to stay longer under water, to

shoot higher, farther, and with better aim than his comrades can, is

the burning wish of every childish heart. In order to see the same

enthusiastic rivalry in physical prowess exhibited by adults, we

must turn to the half-civilized peoples to whom such acquirements

are of surpassing value in the struggle for life. Among the ancient

Germans, for example, such contests were carried to the highest degree

of perfection, and, in spite of their avowedly playful character,

conducted with such seriousness that they often became matters of

life and death. Skill, prowess, and endurance in leaping, running,

lifting and throwing huge stones, the use of bow and arrow, diving

and swimming, riding and rowing, were all the subjects of contest,

and each victor sought to surpass the achievements of the former one.

All warlike peoples of whom ethnology is cognizant show much the

same picture, and highly civilized nations, too, accord an important

position to athletic contests, as the Greek and Roman games bear

witness, as well as the championships and records of our own day.

Rivalry enters, too, into such games as tenpins, billiards, croquet,

golf, etc., all of which are favourite amusements. The pleasure they

afford is complicated, including display of one’s own strength and

skill, the pleasure of watching others, the stimulus of rivalry and the

satisfaction of overcoming an opponent. Sometimes, and especially in

croquet and billiards, the contest closely approaches fighting play,

since the participants not only try to attain the object of the game,

but are apt to engage in direct hostilities.

We now turn to some examples that are better calculated to exhibit the

many-sidedness of rivalry, which is, of course, an element in all the

games of skill which we have mentioned. We are not so well prepared to

find it in games requiring patient effort, yet even the Eskimos, in

their Fadenfiguren, indulge in fierce emulation,[406] and a play as

peaceful as kite-flying is not exempt. “The Hervey Islanders believe

that once the god Tane challenged the god Rongo to a kite-flying

contest, in which the latter won because his cord was longer.”[407]

In drinking there is rivalry in the effort to withstand the power of

alcohol, and students have a time-honoured tradition that the man

is a fine fellow and worthy of all respect who can drink the rest

of the company under the table. It is more charitable to attribute

this practice to rivalry rather than to love of drunkenness.[408]

The instance of the two boys holding burning matches illustrates how

readily the ability to suppress any manifestation of pain lends itself

to rivalry. The old Germans tested their endurance by sitting at

feasts after their battles, and when they were covered with wounds.

In a grotesquely exaggerated saga it is related of the wounded sons

of Thorbrand: “Thorodd got such a blow in the neck that his head hung

sideways; his hose were all bloody and would not meet. Snorri could

see and feel that a sword was sticking in his thigh, but Thorodd said

nothing. Among the gayest of the gay is Snorri, son of Thorbrand, who

sits with the others at table, but eats little and looks white. When

asked what ails him he says, ‘When the vulture has won the fight he is

not in haste to eat.’ Then Gode looks at his neck and finds an arrow

head at the root of his tongue.”[409] The jeering of Walthar and Hagen,

who vie with one another in mocking at their wounds, is another case in

point. Finally, the passion for making collections, which is so strong

in both children and adults, may be considered as a form of competitive

rivalry which reaches its climax in the miser.

4. _Mental Rivalry_

The space devoted to the more general kinds of emulation has purposely

been curtailed in order to devote more to the special case of gaming,

as much of the ground has been covered already.

Children are fond of displaying their mental acquirements even before

they are old enough to go to school, but it is there, of course, that

the best opportunity is afforded them. Colozza tells us how the Italian

children use their recess time for contests over the multiplication

table.[410] During school hours recitation is easily transformed to

emulation which can be turned to account by the judicious teacher with

better results than are attained by one who tries to draw the line too

rigidly between work and play.

The intellectual rivalries of adults are exceedingly varied. Music

offers unlimited opportunities when people are far enough advanced to

have any sort of society, and even primitive tribes indulge in this

sort of entertainment. Among the Eskimos the contestants compete in

public for the prize for singing, and then fall into actual combat,

thus combining the two forms of rivalry. Grosse quotes from Rink the

following musical dialogue between two East Greenlanders. “Savdlat:

‘The south, the south, oh, the south over there! As I stood on the

headland I saw Pulangitsissok, who had grown fat upon halibut. The

people of this land know not how to speak. Therefore they are ashamed

of their language. They are dumb over there; their speech is not like

ours. In the north we speak in one way, different from those in the

south. Therefore we can not understand their talk.’” To this challenge

Pulangitsissok responds: “‘There was a time, as Savdlat knows, when I

was a good sledger, when I could take a heavy load on my kajak. Four

years ago he found this out. That was the time when Savdlat bound his

kajak to mine for fear he might capsize. Then he could carry a good

load on his kajak, too. As I was tugging along you cried out pitifully,

and were afraid and almost overturned. I had to hold on to my ropes

to keep us up.’”[411] Such sarcastic dialogue often leads to direct

contests, in which the singers try to rout one another by means of

their witty improvisations. A later form is the contest in oratory and

song on an assigned theme, opening with a direct challenge between the

contestants. The poem of Wartburg-Krieg is especially famed, while

Plata’s symposium may be instanced as a fine example of competitive

oratory on a given theme.

Other kinds of rivalry frequently arise in social gatherings, such

as recounting experiences in love, hunting, and battle, as was

pre-eminently the custom among the ancient Germans. “One after

another,” says Weinhold,[412] “boasted of his prowess and sought to

prove it by tales of his wonderful deeds. To heighten the effect, each

chose an opponent worthy of his mettle. Thus it happened that Eystein

and Sigurd, the crusader, both Norwegian kings, once had a controversy

in court. Eystein advanced the proposition that it was impossible

to live aright in society, and called on his brother to sustain the

contrary. Then the travelled warrior Sigurd, who had filled all lands

with the fame of his deeds, and the peace-loving, home-staying Eystein,

each related what he had done and could do: the one his battles, his

fame in the East; the other that he had built huts for poor fishers,

made roads over rugged mountains, opened harbours, widened Christendom,

and strengthened the Church—in short, extended his kingdom by every

peaceable method. The talk became warm, and the silence which followed

was ominous, but as they were both noble-hearted no harm came of it.”

Very characteristic, too, is the Harbardhslied in the Edda, where the

gods Wotan (under the name Harbardh) and Donar emulously recount their

achievements:

_Donar_: “Do you ask what I did to Rungner,

The giant with sturdy heart and head of stone?

I felled him then, he lies at my feet.

And what did you, Harbardh, the while?”

_Harbardh_: “For more than five full winters

Was I on an island that is called Allgrün;

There I found men to fight and enemies to fell,

Many things to prove, and many maids to free,” etc.

Singing the praise of one’s future deeds is another form of such

boasting. A company of carousing men have need of a wild boar or some

other sin offering to go through their midst as they perjure themselves

with oaths concerning the hazardous and difficult deeds which they mean

to perform.

Before taking up games of chance again I mention once more the fact

that many reasoning games are also rivalries—dominoes, for example,

and backgammon[413]—since the chief effort is to reach a certain

goal first and direct efforts are made to embarrass and retard the

adversary, so that genuine fighting play results.

In chance games proper, however, the contestants do not attack one

another directly, but seek to conquer by the better solution of some

problem, the point of departure from other rivalries being that the

reward of solution, at least in games of pure chance, is entirely

accidental, and not dependent on the player’s strength or skill. We

will now attempt to review the more important phenomena connected with

such games, and later study the question in its psychological bearings.

The wager is akin to play with chance and arises from the holding of

opposite opinions, which can only be settled by future events. Even

if the bet concerns something which is past or present, still the

decision must be in the future, and the fighting element comes in in

the striving of each to prove his superiority, the interest being

much enhanced by pooling the stakes. The bettor’s conviction as to

the correctness of his opinion may be strong or weak[414]—absolute

certainty destroys the validity of the bet, while absolute uncertainty

makes it a mere game of chance, whereas it should depend, like the

best card games, on a union of reasoning and hazard. For this reason

future events are the proper subjects of the wager, and we will confine

ourselves for brevity’s sake to such bets. Schaller says rightly: “The

future is pre-eminently the object of conjecture, of the reckoning of

probabilities. Even when present circumstances seem to tend inevitably

to a certain result, there are still infinite possibilities that other

results may transpire. Therefore the wager should concern something yet

to come.”[415]

One of the earliest forms of betting was on physical or mental

superiority, and the stakes formerly so common in reasoning games may

be regarded in the same light. There was much betting on the victor

in the old German riddle contests and life itself was sometimes

staked, if we may depend on the ancient accounts. More often, though,

physical prowess was the subject of the wager. “Indeed, Tacitus may

be right,” says Schuster, “when he records that the Germans disdained

to be praised for ordinary physical vigour, yet they gave prizes to

the victors in their contests and liked to claim the glory when it set

them above others. Reputation with them must not be mere empty words;

one must work for it to the full extent of his powers. Many examples

illustrate this spirit; for instance, Welent and Amilias, the smiths,

each boasted that he could not be surpassed in his art. The latter

offered to bet on it, and Welent replied, ‘I have not much property,

but I will stake it all.’ Then said Amilias, ‘If you have nothing else,

stake your head, and I will stake mine, and whichever of us is the

better man shall cut the other’s head off.’ Two of Olaf Trygvason’s

retainers boasted of being superior mountain climbers, one wagering

his ring on it, and the other his head.”[416] Schuster cites, too, the

famous contest in the Nibelungenlied, to which Brunhild thus challenges

King Gunther:

“She said: If he is your lord and you are in his hire,

Tell him that I have sworn that whoever can resist my play,

And prove himself my master there, him will I wed,

While if I win you must go alone from hence.”

Fable makes animals wager in the same way; the old tale of the hare and

the hedgehog is found even in Africa, although there the hedgehog has

become a tortoise.[417]

The stakes are not always, however, on one’s own ability, but quite as

often on the performances of others, or on the speed and endurance of

animals. This is indeed the most popular form of the sport, doubtless

because the agreeable tension of expectation is thus prolonged until

the very moment of the _dénouement_, as it is not likely to be in

the more personal contests. In riding, rowing, sailing, and running

contests spectators, as well as participants, bet on the result.[418]

“Betting on races,” says E. v. Hartmann, “is the most dangerous and

exciting form of gambling, being dependent purely on chance, and

yet offering a false appearance of being essentially influenced by

intelligence and judgment. The custom is fostered of raising the stakes

at the last moment under the influence of artificial stimulation to

interest during the race itself. Immature boys, sons of respectable

labourers, are thus initiated in the fascinations of the passion for

gaming who would otherwise have little inclination for it.”[419] In

various parts of the world wagers are laid on the result of fights

between animals. In ancient Greece gamecocks were bred with special

care, and Tanagra, Rhodes, Chalcis, and Delos were famous for the

achievements of their respective breeds. The birds were fed with garlic

before the fight to augment their excitement, and were armed with

artificial spurs. The stakes were often enormous.[420] Cock-fights

in which betting seemed to be the principal feature were held during

the middle ages in most European cities, and in some localities have

survived to the present day. Malays are especially devoted to this

sport. It only remains to add in conclusion that lifeless things,

too, may be the subject of bets. The Gilbert Islanders set two

sailboats, about four feet long, afloat, and bet as to which will sail

fastest.[421] This is very near to being play with pure chance, and

the wager of Canning with an English duke is even more so. They staked

a hundred pounds on the question of who should meet most cats on a

certain road.

There is but one opinion as to the origin of games of pure

chance—namely, that they grew out of the serious questioning of Fate in

the form of oracles, and colour is given to the theory by the custom of

jesting with the oracle. The Greek custom of pouring wine into a metal

cup and from the sound it made reading one’s prospects in love, drawing

straws—a practice which Walther von der Vogelweide has made famous—the

various flower oracles, counting the cuckoo calls, observing the

flight of birds—as, for example, how many times the kite circles—and

many other such customs[422] were originally conducted seriously, with

a view to gaining some knowledge of the future, and even when playfully

practised smack of superstition. Tylor says, in his admirable study of

this subject: “Soothsaying and games of chance are so closely allied

that the instruments of each are used interchangeably, as among the

clever Polynesian magicians cocoanuts are skilfully rolled about in

a circle. In the Tonga Islands the chief use made of a holiday is to

inquire whether the sick will be cured. They offered loud prayers

to the family deity that he would place the nuts aright, then spun

them, and from their position judged of the god’s will. Under other

circumstances, when the cocoanuts are rolled simply for amusement, no

prayer is offered and no significance attached to the result. The Rev.

G. Turner found the same custom in the Samoan Islands in another stage

of development. There a company sits in a circle, the nuts are rolled

about among them, and the oracle’s answer depends on whether the monkey

face of the nut is turned toward the questioner when it stops rolling.

The Samoans formerly used this method to detect a thief, but now it is

a forfeit game.”[423] In this sort of play with chance there is nothing

special at stake, yet it is no doubt closely connected with those forms

which have this feature.

Another of the earliest of the manifold forms of chance games is the

casting of lots. New Zealand wizards decide the fortunes of war by

throwing staffs. If the stick which represents their own tribe falls on

that of another, then a favourable outcome may be confidently expected

to the battle. The Zulus have a similar ceremony, and the Hindus

cast lots before the temple and supplicate the gods for victory. In

the Iliad the crowd prayed with outstretched hands while the dice in

Agamemnon’s helmet decided who should be the first to fight Hector.

Tacitus tells us that the German priests tossed three dice on a white

cloth before they attempted to reveal the future.[424] The origin,

then, of the use of dice in games of chance is indubitable. The

ancient form of backgammon common in India and Mexico was played with

lots instead of dice, as was also the case with the Arabian Tâb. Some

Indian tribes use the simple casting of lots for gambling purposes. The

Arabian does not throw, but draws lots as a substitute for the Meisir

forbidden in the Koran.[425] The complicated Chinese game lotto is

well known, and Bastian found a similar one used in Siam.[426] E. von

Hartmann refers repeatedly in his Tagesfragen to our European lottery,

combating the popular idea that it is reprehensible, and should not

be fostered by the state. He sees in a well-conducted state lottery

the best means of directing the ineradicable tendency to play games of

chance into harmless channels. Money speculation is, as a rule, little

different from a lottery, since the great majority of speculators

have no more intimation of the outcome than is furnished by the law

of probabilities which governs pure games of chance. Returning now to

simpler manifestations, we find many which are closely related to the

use of lots. North American Indians, who are zealous gamblers, use

marked or coloured stones, seeds, and teeth, and stake their clothing,

furniture, weapons, and, in fact, all that they possess. In Burmah a

favourite game is played with beans, and in many of the villages a

thrashing floor is erected for the express purpose of supplying the

demand.[427] In Siam the children play with shells, and everything

depends on whether the opening falls up or down.[428] A similar game

was known to the Greeks, and in Rome a coin was tossed with the cry,

“Caput aut navis!” equal to our “Heads or tails!” We must suppose that

such play by children is derived from adult games of chance.

Astragalus and dice were the implements used in many such games. The

former are peculiarly shaped bones from the ankles of sheep, goats,

or calves, and their use for such purposes is very ancient. They are

capable of resting on any one of four sides which may vary in value, as

the six sides of dice. The Schliemann collection in the Berlin Museum

contains some of them which were found in the “second city.” In ancient

Greece four astragali were used in the games of adults, and were thrown

either from the free hand or from a cup. Special names were given to

the various throws, such as Aphrodite, Midas, Solon, Euripides, etc.,

and the worst throw was called, there as in Rome, the dog. The children

of antiquity also played with these bones a game partly of chance and

partly of skill, and Hellenic children use them to this day. Ulrichs

saw them at Arachola on Parnassus. “The children there,” he says, “play

with the astragalus, which is a small four-sided bone rounded at the

end and so shaped as to be capable of resting on any of its sides. In

the game the uppermost side is read, the commonest throw being that

which brings the round end up and is called the baker or the donkey.

Then follow the thief, the vizier, and, rarest of all, the king, the

side which looks like an ear and is opposite the vizier.”[429]

The name vizier seems to point to Mohammedan influence, and indeed the

children of Damascus have a special game of chance with astragalus

in which the terms vizier and thief are both used.[430] Some think

that ordinary dice are derived from the astragalus, but it would be

difficult to prove, though their imitation in other materials seems to

suggest it, as in the case of the oblong dice used by the Romans with

cubical ones, and several hundred prehistoric dice found in Bohemia are

of similar form. The Berlin Museum, too, has oblong dice from India

and China, showing that they were widely used in the Orient, and

Hyde points out in his history of games of chance that the Greek word

κύβος is related to the Arabic _Kab_, which meant simply made of lamb’s

bones. On the other hand, cubical dice with spots like ours are found

in Theban graves, so that we can not be positive as to the priority of

the astragalus.

Possibly cocoanut rolling was the primitive form of roulette as we

have seen it used in half-religious, half-playful manner by the South

Sea Islanders. The Berlin Museum has Chinese rolling dice through

which a peg passes, projecting on each side or with the peg on one

side only, and the ball tapering to a point on the other. According

to Egede, Greenlanders have a sort of roulette, an oblong ball about

which the players sit with the stake before them.[431] Another form

of chance game is the morra, which was probably known to the ancient

Egyptians, and was in all likelihood at first a clever method of

calculating.[432] As a play the hands of all the players are thrown

simultaneously into the air, and each must guess at the number of

outstretched fingers without taking time to count. This amusement,

still very popular among Italian peasants, was called by the Achæans

“micare digitis.” In China, where it is zealously cultivated, it

bears the name of “tsoey-moey.”[433] The North American Indians have

a modification of it in their cane guessing—namely, the effort to

locate a small object passed quickly about in a company. It is used

for gambling purposes, the Indians staking all that they have, even

to their wives sometimes.[434] The “Kyohzvay” play is taken quite as

seriously in Burmah. For this a stick is fixed among the folds of a

tightly wrapped cord, and the game is won or lost[435] according as it

is or is not successfully concealed.[436] The various games of cards

afford by far the most important instances of play with chance, and

their name is legion. We have not time even to glance at such games as

faro, lansquenet, rouge et noir, trente et quarante, etc., except to

say that they all depend on a combination of reason with chance, and so

more speedily put an end to suspense as to who is the victor than do

purely chance plays. We are now confronted by the difficult question

of what it is that constitutes the demoniacal charm of gaming, whose

power is demonstrated by the value of the stakes with which a man will

tempt Fate. Every one is familiar with Tacitus’s description of the

ancient Germans who, when they had lost everything else, staked their

freedom and their life on the last throw. H. M. Schuster gives a long

list of examples of Germans staking freedom, wife, and children, the

clothes on their backs, life itself, yes, even their souls’ salvation

when their passion for play was at its height. That this is a universal

Aryan trait is shown by the Indian poem of Nala and Damayanti. The

former, under the power of a hostile demon, loses at play with Pushkara

his ornaments, jewelry, horses, wagons, and clothes. In vain his wife

and followers seek to restrain his madness; for many months the ruinous

play goes on until Nala has lost all his property and even his kingdom.

Then as Pushkara, with loud laughing at the unlucky fellow, cried out

that now he must put up his wife Damayanti, Nala rose from the table

and walked away with his faithful wife, stripped as he was of all else.

The Chinese, Siamese, and Burmese, too, are all passionate gamblers,

and the Malays are famous for their wagers on animal fights. This

is sufficient to show that the wonderfully strong attractive power

of gaming, “le jeu-passion, dont le rôle tragique est vieux comme

l’humanité,”[437] is the result of numerous causes whose aggregate,

according to Fechner’s principle, is far greater than their numerical

sum. Taking account of the essentials only, we still have a threefold

phenomenon; these are, desire to win the stake, the stimulus of strong

effects, and the impulse given by the fighting instinct.

Winning the stake is so important that without it games of chance

become very flat and most unimpressive, as forms of entertainment. How

is this to be explained? Sometimes it appears as veritable cupidity,

the “fascination d’acquérir d’un bloc, sans peine, en un instant.”[438]

The seductive chink of gold pieces is heard and visions of new names

of wealth open before us, promising to deliver us from all burdens and

dangers which in spite of their distance and vagueness we strive to get

possession of by a single turn of Fortune’s wheel; the gold fever is

at home in gambling dens. Yet—and I think this is important—as a rule,

it is not mere greed for gain as such, but a feeling more refined. It

is boundless delight in sudden good fortune that makes the unearned

winnings so enticing. That inward striving after the absolute, which is

so deeply rooted in the human breast, is concerned in the longing to

experience at least one moment of exhilarating joy with which a single

stroke of Fortune’s wand sets our hearts aflame:

“From the clouds it must fall,

Such is the gift of the gods;

And the strongest power of all

Is that which belongs to the moment.”

It would be misleading to suppose that all wagers in a game of chance

are attributable to a desire to win, even in this refined sense. In so

far as it is the chief motive, there is no real play at all, for it

constitutes a serious aim wholly outside the sphere of play. There must

be some other meaning to the intense delight in winning, and Lazarus,

as usual, puts his finger on it. “Even for an onlooker, not pecuniarily

interested, the charm increases with the value of the stake.”[439] The

stake serves not only to enhance the thought of winning the game, but

intensifies the decisive moment.[440] A gambler must have excitement at

any price, and he also wants to risk something; betting satisfies both

demands.

The need for intense stimuli which we are so constantly encountering

in the course of this inquiry appears as the second motive in our

classification, and it is met by a storm of effects which betting

excites. Consequently gambling is pre-eminently suited to supply this

demand. I have already pointed out that betting on the performances

of others is an especially popular form of gambling, since in this

way alone can the excitement be enjoyed unimpaired by personal

considerations. So, too, in games of pure chance, which relegate the

player to comparative inactivity and impart a feeling of externality

among its other effects. By far the most important of these effects

is the contrast of the emotions of hope and fear, and often this

simultaneous action of opposing passions is sufficient to stir the soul

to its depths, since, as Lazarus penetratingly remarks, the result is

in either case positive; the question is not, winning or not winning,

it is winning or losing. This is another point which renders games of

chance peculiarly fit for the production of exciting effects. Also

besides fear and hope there is the tension of expectation and the shock

of surprise to render the mental agitation more intense and varied.

This explains why gambling is the last resort of the dissipated,

worn-out man who needs sharp stimuli to arouse his exhausted

powers.[441]

Gambling is, moreover, a fighting play, and this is doubtless one

of its most important phases. There is no other form of play which

displays in so many-sided a fashion the combativeness of human nature

and with so slight expenditure of time and strength. There is the charm

of danger as such, enjoyment of bold betting which in the changing

course of the game is constantly renewed, and further indirect as well

as direct battle with an opponent, for he who makes the best throw gets

the best card. Besides all this there is the desire to win his wager,

and by means of the steady augmenting of stakes it differs from all

other fighting plays in affording at the last moment, when all seems

lost, an opportunity of retrieving everything by a sudden overwhelming

victory. And finally there is the defiance of the power of chance, or

rather, if a religious rearing makes one scruple to put it in this

form, we may call it a struggle with the powers of darkness.

The question now arises whether this is properly called a fight when

the player can not influence the outcome, but must submit absolutely to

the incalculable hazards of fortune. What right has he to congratulate

himself on a victory for which he is in no way responsible? To this

it may be answered that in addition to this subjective, psychological

condition there is an active contest; for an illusion exists in

connection with every game of chance that in some way the outcome is

dependent on the capacity of the player, and a little reflection will

show that this is characteristic of human nature. How else arises our

naïve sense of worth or of shame? Are we not vain of physical beauty,

of inherited advantages, and of riches which we have not earned? Does

not the consciousness of deformity, stupidity, weakness, awkwardness,

or even a lowly origin impart a feeling of shame and a sense of

responsibility for our own shortcomings? We feel as if we had had a

voice in the fashioning of our bodies and souls and a choice of our

position in life—in short, as the vulgar saying has it, as if we had

not been careful enough in the choice of our parents. Just in the same

way we are proud of our luck in play. Luck is genius, and he whom

it smiles upon is a hero.[442] This failure to discriminate between

fortunate circumstance and personal merit is shown in a striking manner

in popular poetry. Its heroes are often armed with magic weapons or

directly assisted by higher powers who lend them supernatural strength

or work ruin to their enemies. Such advantage is thus given them that

the reflecting person has some difficulty in regarding their exploits

as especially praiseworthy, yet the average hearer is undisturbed by

such considerations. For instance, consider the invulnerability of

Achilles and Siegfried’s Tarnkappe, which gave him in the fight with

Brunhild “the strength of twelve men.”

In the case which we are considering, however, this habit of mind has

a twofold significance: First, there is the personification of chance

as fate, with whom the player struggles. Lazarus says: “Instead of

blind chance, he pictures before him a reasoning intelligence whose

laws he tries to fathom, and in the face of many failures and mistaken

conclusions he persists in attempting to calculate his chances and to

count on them, forgetting that the reckoning of probabilities is useful

only in generalities and is practically worthless when applied to a

single case. By and bye he endows luck with moral qualities as well.

He will risk everything on a single card, and either can not believe

that Fate will be inexorable, that his faith and perseverance must at

last be rewarded, or else assumes an attitude of defiance to a hostile

being.”[443] In the second place, the gambler regards the implements

of his trade as does the magician among primitive peoples the means

of performing his incantations. It is actual fetich worship in which

personification assumes proportions quite different from those it bears

in the general idea of fate. Demons who sometimes obey the player’s

will, and sometimes mockingly defy him, seem to dwell in the dice and

cards, transforming play into a contest in magic arts. This is perhaps

not so strongly felt by cultivated people of the present day as I

have represented it, yet it is present in a more or less rudimentary

form in all devotees of the game. While some scoff at it, even they

avoid those things which are traditionally supposed to bring ill luck.

Thus, when I was a student, in our games with dice which were very

popular, the following rules were rigidly observed: In order to throw

double sixes, the player took the dice cup in his right hand, placed

the left over it and shook it solemnly three times up and down before

making the final throw. If low numbers were desired, the inverted cup

was held slantingly and drawn carefully back on the table so that the

dice glided out rather than rolled. For medium throws there was a

choice between two methods over whose comparative efficacy there was

serious controversy: either to rise from the table and empty the cup

from a height, or to propel the dice suddenly by a sidelong movement

from the cup, held at a slant. Was all this mere joking? To a certain

extent certainly it was, yet the boys half believed in it and had a

poor opinion of beginners who did not know how to handle the dice.

Among the lower classes, however, and among peoples of less advanced

civilization this fetichism is much stronger. Konrad von Haslan, says

Schuster, testifies to having seen and heard “how on the one hand dice

are honoured, greeted, and kissed, and have offerings of booty made

to them, while on the other they were beaten and abused as if they

possessed life. Often the player who has lost by them takes revenge

by picking out the spots or smashing the dice with a stone or biting

them in two to make them suffer.”[444] All these circumstances combine

to make gaming a fighting play not alone with men, but also with

supernatural powers whose inscrutable decisions possess a peculiar

power and whose favour lends to the fortunate player a special nimbus,

while the vanquished does not suffer in his own esteem as if he had

been conquered by a human foe.

Finally, we should note that gaming has various mental connections

with experimentation, since enjoyment of the excitation of hope and

fear and the feeling of suspense as well as the shock of surprise

is experimental in every case. With this is combined great activity

of attention and imagination to whose agency the personification of

which we have spoken must be ascribed; reason’s part in the process is

displayed in the complex calculation of probabilities, and that of the

will most conspicuously in the effort to appear outwardly calm while

the wildest excitement reigns within, and hope and despair surge in

alternate waves across the soul.

It is difficult to say which of these stimuli ought to be placed at

the head of the list, but two appear to me to be rather more important

than the others. First, the combative impulse, whose influence is

particularly strong here; and, second, pleasure in intense effects,

as when the “gold fever” takes the form of longing for a supreme

moment which shall fill the soul to the brim, something which will

transcend all other transporting agents. Both find their satisfaction

at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and importance of its

revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the extraordinary

persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the table,

as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of

repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of

the game. The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated

action tends to lead to the production of the first part again.

5. _The Destructive Impulse_

Turning our attention now to the third of our principal groups of

fighting plays, the first subject—namely, the destructive impulse—will

not occupy us long, as we have already given some consideration to

it in the section on analytic movement-play. There we were chiefly

concerned with the experimental element as manifested in the desire

to take things to pieces. Here we shall emphasize the fighting

instinct which is so easily aroused even toward a lifeless object, and

frequently becomes a sort of delirium which is only appeased by the

entire destruction of the object, as if it were a vanquished foe. And

here, too, belongs the inquiry under what circumstances the discharge

of this impulse, whether directed against a living or a lifeless

object, may be considered as playful. As soon as rage ceases to be the

chief influence, and the destruction is continued simply for the sake

of its intoxicating effects, it takes on more or less of a playful

character, though it is inexpedient to attempt to set clearly defined

limits to what is earnest and what is play.[445] When children tear

paper or overturn structures laboriously erected by themselves, how

often the interest is cumulative, developing finally into passionate

eagerness from action which was at first indifferent! The paper is

seized in the teeth, the building kicked to bits, objects which are

breakable entirely destroyed, flowers pulled to pieces, etc. Education

should interfere at this point and direct the play, imposing proper

checks. Madame Necker de Saussure relates of a previously gentle and

tractable girl of eighteen months that “one day when she was alone

with her mother, who was confined to her bed from illness, the child,

without the least provocation, broke into open rebellion. Clothes,

hats, fans, and every movable object that she could lay her hands on

were piled in the middle of the floor, and she danced around the pile

and sang with the greatest delight. Her mother’s serious displeasure

had no restraining effect.”[446] “A girl three years old,” says Paolo

Lombroso, “was left alone for a few moments, and proved her ability

to improve the time. She at once began most energetically, and with

full consciousness of what she was doing, to pull to pieces a basket

of vegetables. She reduced all these to fragments, and then emptied

an inkstand in her lap, amusing herself by smearing it on the wall

and floor with her fingers. When that palled she took a corkscrew

and punched her apron as full of holes as a sieve.”[447] A little

later in life the impulse leads to more violent misdemeanours. The

destruction of garden borders, smashing of furniture in public parks,

and many other acts of vandalism which we prosecute, are practised by

half-grown lads, and sometimes even by students.[448] Some may object

to calling such roughness play, but play it surely is if there is no

malicious intention, as is usually the case. Such mischief is often

reprehensible, and deserves to be checked, yet such antics as those

of the subalterns as described by Eugen Thossan can not be taken

seriously. He says: “Suddenly a beer mug flew across the table and hit

Sergeant Putz square in the face. This was the signal for a general

free fight. Steins flew through the air like cannon balls. Four lamps

borrowed from the officers’ rooms were on the table; one was struck and

the chimney fell off. Somebody called out ‘When the chimney is gone the

lamp may as well follow,’ and a blow from a fist shattered the lamp.

A mad rage for destruction was kindled, and with anything that came to

hand all the lamps were beaten to pieces. In the general hullabaloo

no one noticed the wounds that he received from the splinters and

blows. When every vestige was demolished, a frightful war whoop rose

to the hall above.” It is more than probable that such orgies as this

often have a certain connection with the sexual life. We find among

animals—deer, buffalo, etc.—a similar rage for destruction during their

breeding season.

My last example refers to mature men. It is the vigorous description

in Vischer’s Auch Einer of the argument of two friends in an inn about

the china displayed around them. “At last Auch Einer called out: ‘That

is enough; they are condemned.’ He bought the whole collection from the

innkeeper and then let himself loose. He handed me the pitcher with the

remark that I should have the honour of opening the ball. I was not

slow to obey, and as a massive granite block stood opposite the window

I sent the pitcher crashing against it. Auch Einer was delighted, and,

seizing a vinegar cruet, followed suit. Then we took turns with plates,

dishes, glasses, and whatever came to hand. A crowd of villagers soon

collected outside and cheered the rare sport; loud laughter and cries

of ‘Go it, there!’ greeted each act of justice.”

Injurious treatment of living creatures, too, is often due to the same

instinct. In the desire to investigate, the principle of the golden

rule is forgotten. It would be too optimistic, however, to assume

that such things are never done from cruelty. Fischart says that even

well-disposed children reveal the demon of fighting and destruction

when there is a beetle or a broken-winged bird or a wounded cat to

torment. Most readers will recall some reminiscence of their own youth

when they really enjoyed inflicting injury on some living thing. It

may assume a dangerous form when directed against other persons. Some

years ago a number of children at play intentionally drowned a comrade;

and Fr. Scholz tells us, “An eight-year-old girl with an angelic face

secretly put some pins in her little brother’s food, and calmly

awaited the catastrophe, which fortunately was averted.” “A girl

twelve years old pushed a child of three, with whom she was playing,

into a pile of paving stones for no other reason than that she might

have the opportunity to tickle him cruelly.”[449] Among criminals

murders may sometimes result from following this impulse. Some time

ago three peasants were tried for the murder, with incredible cruelty,

of a servant. They were father, son, and mother. After the old man

had throttled his victim he said to his accomplices, “Now he is dead

enough.” But the woman, to make sure, dealt a hard blow on the poor

fellow’s head. “Now I think he has had enough, this fine rabbit that we

have caught.”[450] Here the bounds between play and earnest are hard to

place, but probably belong at the point where the prearranged plan is

no longer the leading thought, it having given place to mad delight in

inflicting injury. These matters are, after all, only on the threshold

of play, and we will now turn our attention to subjects more important

to our inquiry.

6. _Teasing_[451]