The fighting instinct of mankind is so intense that all the playful

duels, mass conflicts, single combats, and contests which we have

described, do not satisfy it. When there is no occasion for an actual

testing of their powers, children and adults turn their belligerent

tendencies into a means of amusement, and so arise those playful

attacks, provocations, and challenges which we class together under the

general name of teasing. The roughest if not the earliest form of such

play is that of bodily attack, such as is often observed among animals.

A female ape which Brehm brought to Germany loved to annoy the sullen

house dog. “When he had stretched himself as usual on the greensward,

the roguish monkey would appear and, seeing with satisfaction that

he was fast asleep, seize him softly by the tail and wake him by a

sudden jerk of that member. The enraged dog would fly at his tormentor,

barking and growling, while the monkey took a defensive position,

striking repeatedly on the ground with her large hand and awaiting the

enemy’s attack. The dog could never reach her, though, for, to his

unbounded rage, as he made a rush for her, she sprang at one bound far

over his head, and the next moment had him again by the tail.”[452]

We all know how children delight in just such teasing. To throw an

unsuspecting comrade suddenly on his back, to box him or tickle and

pinch him, to knock off his cap, pull his hair, take his biscuit from

his hand, and if he is small hold it so high that the victim leaps

after it in vain—all this gives the aggressor an agreeable feeling of

superiority, and he enjoys the anger or alarm of his victim. When I was

in one of the lower gymnasium classes our singing on one occasion was

suddenly broken into by a shrill scream. One of the pupils had found a

pin which he energetically pushed into an inviting spot in the anatomy

of the boy in front of him. The culprit could only say in palliation

of his offence that he did it “without thinking,” which excuse was

received rather incredulously. Schoolboys often pull out small handfuls

of one another’s hair, and it is a point of honour not to display any

feeling during the process. Becq de Fouquières records an ancient

trick of this kind, consisting of a blow on the ear in conjunction

with a simultaneous fillip of the nose. Cold water is a time-honoured

instrument of torture. To duck the timid bather who is cautiously

stepping into the pond, to empty a pitcher on a heedless passer-by, to

place a vessel full of water so that the inmate of a room will overturn

it on opening the door—these are jokes familiar wherever merry young

people are found. The lover of teasing naturally seeks such victims as

are defenceless against him, especially those who are physically weak

or so situated as to be incapable of revenge. Yet there are ways of

annoying the strong and capable. A good-natured teacher is apt to be

the subject of his pupils’ pranks, though in this case they seldom take

the form of physical assaults. It is not an unheard-of thing, however,

for a paper ball to hit his head or for his seat to be smeared with ink

or perhaps with glue as in Messerschmidt’s Sapiens Stultitia.[453]

Youths and grown men are little behind the children in such jests.

There is, for instance, the christening on board ship in honour

of crossing the line which Leopold Wagner thinks is derived from

the ancient religious ceremony celebrated on passing the pillars

of Hercules.[454] Tossing in a blanket, which made such a lasting

impression on Sancho Panza, was known to the Romans by the name

of _sagatio_. Such rough sports were practised in the time of the

Roman emperors by noble youths. Suetonius relates of Otho that the

future emperor as a young man often seized, with his companions, upon

weak or drunken fellows at night, and tossed them on a soldier’s

mantle (distento sago impositum in sublime jactare).[455] In popular

festivities fighting with pigs’ bladders is a fruitful source of

amusements to which tickling with a peacock’s feather is a modern

addition, and lassoing with curled strips of paper which cling about

the neck. Students make a specialty of such pranks. A favourite

one was crowding, when the streets had only a narrow pavement for

pedestrians, while in bad weather the rest of the road was a mass of

unfathomable mud; another was to deal a hard blow on the high hat of

some worthy Philistine, plunging him suddenly into hopeless darkness,

or tracing a circle on the bald head of a toper asleep over his wine,

etc. In an inn in Giessen there is still in existence a bench through

whose seat a nail projects when a hidden cord is pulled—a pleasant

surprise for the unsuspecting guest who reclines upon it. On entering

the gymnasium I was initiated in an æsthetic little practice which is

of ancient date and serves as an instance of the coarse jesting that

is so common there. One of the company secretly fills his mouth with

beer and reclines on two chairs. With a handkerchief spread over his

face he plays the part of The Innkeeper’s Daughter. They all sing the

familiar song, and two accomplices play the rôle of two of the peasants

while the novice is asked to be the third. The veil is thus twice

withdrawn from the daughter’s face, and twice replaced without any

suspicious revelations, but when the innocent third lover arrives he

is greeted with the stream of stale beer full in the face. A suitable

companion-piece to this decidedly disgusting trick is this incident

related by Joest as occurring among the Bush negroes of Guayana: “As I

was tending the wound of a young negress whose breast was badly cut,

she wearied of the operation, and suddenly seizing it in both hands she

sent a stream of warm milk into my face and fled laughing away.”[456]

The most harmless teasing is the obvious kind which forms the basis of

much social play, such as games for a company like “Blind-Man’s Buff,”

“Fox Chase,” “Copenhagen,” and similar diversions. A striking instance

occurs in The Sorrows of Werther. During a violent storm Lotta attempts

to cheer the frightened company; she places chairs in a circle and

seats everybody in them—many acceding in the hope of being rewarded

with a sweet forfeit or two, and getting their lips all ready. “We

are going to play counting,” said Lotta. “Now, attention! I am going

round the circle from right to left, and you must count, each taking

the number that comes to him; and we are going like lightning, and

whoever hesitates or blunders gets a box on the ear, and we are going

on to thousands.” She then stretched out her arms and flew around the

circle, faster and faster. If any one missed, bang! came a box on his

ear, and in the laugh that followed, bang! came another, and always

faster and faster. Werther, however, noticed with inward satisfaction

that the two blows which he received were somewhat harder than Lotta

gave the others. When the company is still less refined than this,

joking sometimes becomes so rough as to lose its playful character.

The ancient Thracians were celebrated for this sort of thing.

Gutsmuth says truly that from this circumstance much could be inferred

concerning the state of civilization among them, if we had no other

sources of information. “A man stands on a round stone holding a sickle

in his hand and having his head through a noose suspended from above.

When he is not expecting it a bystander pushes the stone away and there

hangs the poor wretch who has been chosen by lot for this fate. If he

has not sufficient skill and presence of mind to cut the knot at once

with the sickle he flounders there until he dies, amid the laughter of

the spectators.”[457]

Turning now to other forms of teasing than direct bodily annoyance, we

find again that children very early understand it. When the pretence is

made of great alarm at his beating with a spoon or banging a book or at

a sudden cry, a child as young as two years old shows great delight,

and will repeat the performance with a roguish expression. From this

time on, to cause sudden fright is a favourite method of gratifying

the taste for teasing. The ghostly manifestations which terrify each

generation in turn can often be traced to some mischievous urchins.

I remember a joke played on a geographical professor at the gymnasium

who, as he carelessly opened a closet door, was confronted by a

skeleton which had been used in the previous lecture. Students could

hardly subsist without the ancient trick of stuffing the clothes of a

“suicide,” and placing the figure on the floor of their victim’s room

with a pistol lying near, or hanging it by a rope to the window frame,

to give the late home-comer a genuine scare. In Athenäus we find a

beautiful instance of readiness to meet such a trick. King Lysimachus,

who took delight in teasing his guests, one day at a banquet threw a

skilfully made artificial scorpion on to the dress of one Bithys, who

recoiled; but, quickly recovering himself, said to the rather penurious

king: “My lord, it is now my turn to frighten you; I beseech you give

me a talent.”[458] Such sport with fear, though harmless in these

instances, becomes a passion with all narrowminded, tyrannous natures,

and leads to cruelty which is anything but playful. Slatin’s dramatic

work, Fire and Sword in the Soudan, gives an instance of such traits

in the character of the Caliph Abdullah. Indeed, Abdullah had a part

in, or rather was the occasion of, Slatin’s first experience during

the life of the Mahdi. Slatin was taken prisoner by the Mahdi’s army

before the gates of Khartoum. The morning after the city was taken,

alarming rumours reached him; half incredulous, he looked out of his

tent. “A mob had collected before the quarters of the Mahdi and his

caliphs; it seemed to be getting into motion and making toward me,

and I soon saw clearly that they were coming in the direction of my

tent. I could now distinguish single persons. First walked the negro

soldiers, one of whom, whose name was Shetta, carried a bloody burden

on his head. Behind him howled the mob. The slaves entered my tent and

stood glowering before me, and Shetta opened the roll of cloth and

showed me—Gordon’s head! I grew faint and dizzy at the sight, my breath

stopped, and it was only by the greatest effort that I commanded myself

sufficiently to gaze upon that pallid face.” The Mahdi and his caliphs

had ordered this hideous cruelty.[459]

A common and early developed form of teasing is the deception which

imparts to the perpetrator a feeling of intellectual superiority.

Children display this in their tender years principally by pretending

that they are going to do forbidden or improper things, as revolt

against authority. When the little girl observed by Pollock was

twenty-three months old she often declined to kiss her father

good-night. She turned from him as if annoyed or indifferent, to make

a _fausse sortie_, and then called him back and gave the kiss.[460]

Sigismund’s boy often exhibited a “kind of humorous defiance of

authority,” such as grasping at a light standing near him, but not so

that it could burn him, and looking slyly at his father.[461]

Older children have innumerable tricks of this kind. A sort of game

is to strike on a table with a spoon or on the floor with a card and

repeat the formula “He can do little who can’t do this, this,” and

pass the stick or spoon to the next neighbour with the left hand. The

uninitiated who attempt to do this usually pass it with the right hand

and are much puzzled when told that they are wrong. There is much of

this element, too, in the games of magic which children are so fond

of. For examples of it among adults it is only necessary to turn again

to the old jokes of students. In a university town a merchant, Karl

Klingel, was roused in the middle of the night by a ring at the bell.

The visitor was a student named Karl, who pretended to think that the

name on the sign was a signal for him. “Mystification,” says Goethe in

Wahrheit und Dichtung, “is and ever will be amusement for idle people

who are more or less intelligent. Indolent mischievousness, selfish

enjoyment of doing some damage is a resource to those who are without

occupation or any wholesome external interests. No age is entirely free

from such proclivities.” Moreover, one whole day in every year is given

over to this jesting deception. The civilized world over the first of

April is fool’s day. Wagner thinks that this custom arose from the

change of the new year from the vernal equinox to January 1st, thus

giving to the customary exchange of New Year’s gifts the character of

jests, and to those who should forget the change of time the appearance

of fools. So they are called Aprilnarren, poisson d’Avril, April fools,

and in Scotland gowks.[462]

Memory forms another important division of our subject. The child’s

natural impulse is easily aroused by new and striking peculiarities—for

instance, he soon learns by example to stammer, to talk through his

nose, or imitate any other defect without at first intending to tease.

When his mimicry is laughed at he attempts intentional caricature,

yet we are not to suppose from this that he would never do so alone.

As a rule, though, it is the amusement of adults which stimulates him

to improve on his former efforts. And as soon as he perceives that

his victim is annoyed his mimicry becomes teasing.[463] At school

this sort of teasing attacks unmercifully any little weakness or

peculiarity, such as a halting or limping gait, stammering or lisping

speech, a strange accent or foreign pronunciation. All these become

the objects of ridiculous exaggeration even in the presence of older

persons if they show no signs of disapproval.[464] In our club in the

high school there was a boy who ran his words together in a comical

fashion, and from imitating his manner of speech we constructed a

formal language, some words of which still survive in the memories of

his contemporaries. The most important sphere of this sort of imitation

is that of pictorial art, where the caricaturist seeks to amuse by

his exaggerated representations of familiar peculiarities. Children

attempt this too. Their efforts are at first, of course, the grossest

deformities with projecting ears, huge noses, etc., which they label

with the name of some comrade whom they wish to annoy, but later when

they have learned to draw they achieve some creditable caricaturing. I

well remember our portrait of a French teacher who had two deep lines

from the base of his nose to the corners of his mouth, forming with

his long nose the letter M. Such pictures are, of course, not to be

classed with methods of teasing unless the intention is to show them

to the subject, which is by no means always the case, and unless their

_raison d’être_ is something less than serious malice or hatred. There

is always a charm in wielding, under the safe refuge of anonymity,

these effective weapons against the mighty of the earth. What has not

the nose of Napoleon III, for instance, suffered in this way!

Political caricatures were known to the early Egyptians;[465] and

in Venezuela, besides pre-Columbian figures, a statuette with a

gigantic nose has been found which is supposed to represent the

Spanish invader.[466] Indirect satire forms a poetic analogue to

these creations of the pictorial art, as it is an ironical form of

teasing which imitates in an exaggerated manner, and makes the most of

awkwardness and weakness, to raise a laugh against their possessor.

Here play and earnest are frequently mingled, the poet usually setting

out with the serious intention of annoying his victim, and yet taking

such pleasure in the effort that the attack becomes genuine play.

Indeed, we may say that the happiest and most effective satires are

usually those which reveal such playfulness. The _epistolæ obscurorum

virorum_ afford brilliant examples as well as many passages in

Rabelais’s immortal work.

Finally, we must note the kind of teasing which is implied in

provocative words and actions. Children often have the desire to use

insulting and abusive language to their elders, but, not quite daring

to utter it, they assume an impertinent air which sometimes seems

partly playful. Thus Compayré tells of a child who said to his mother,

“Vilaine!” but added immediately, “poupée vilaine”; and Marie G—— in

her third year said to her father, “Papa, you are a—stove, you are

a—tray,” while the expression of her face plainly showed that she had a

more offensive epithet in mind.

There can be no doubt that the fighting instinct often finds expression

in the direct effort to excite others to anger by provoking words. Such

taunts are frequently thrown into rhythmical form, and so constitute a

primitive lyric in which the musical element is not wanting. This is

especially the case when there are several participants, who chant them

in a sort of recitative, and usually adopt, as far as my observation

goes, that fundamental stereotyped measure which forms the basis of

all[467] primitive German child-song, and which in its simplest form is

this:

[Illustration: music]

In this measure the street urchins call mockingly after a teamster:

“’S hängt eener hinde dran,

’S hängt eener hinde dran,”

or when they wittily compare a tipsy man with an over-loaded and

toppling wagon:

“Er hot, er hot,

Er hot zu scheppe gelade,”

or taunt a young Englishman with

“Beefsteak, Wasserweck

Auf dem Kopf e grosse Schneck?”

or scoff at a tale-bearing comrade:

“Angeber, geb mich an

Kriegst ’n hohle Backezahn.”

This same motive is always used for such songs now as it was in

the days of our pagan forefathers, who doubtless gave it a wider

application.

Grosse points out that the derisive songs of savages have a strong

similarity to such childish taunts. He cites one which Grey heard

Australians sing in scorn of one of their own number:

“Oh, what a leg he has!

Oh, what a leg he has!

The old kangaroo jumper”—

and compares it to a scene before the door of a school in Berlin where

a troop of children followed a little lame girl, calling out:

“Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch,

Anna has a crooked leg,

Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch.”[468]

Scornful speech among the common people is more than teasing. I must

confine myself to only one or two examples of this important group. The

above will suffice as an instance of the common jeering at physical

infirmity.

Banter between the sexes begins even in childhood. In Alsace the

little girls sing a rhyme which recalls the English

“Girls are made of sugar and spice

And all that’s nice;

Boys are made of rats and snails

And puppy dogs’ tails.”

“Räge, Räge, Tropfe!

D’Buäwe muess mä klopfe,

D’Maidle kummen in Hommelbett,

D’Buäwe kummen in Knotensäck!”

While in Bohemia the boys have it—

“Zeisig, Zeisig,

Die Buben sind fleissig.

Stieglitz, Stieglitz,

Die Mädeln sind gar nichts nütz.”[469]

“Boys are the busy ones,

Goldfinch, goldfinch.

Girls are no use at all.”

At the festivals, and especially the weddings of mountain folk, the

youths and maidens carry on a veritable poetic warfare, which sometimes

becomes pretty severe.

Ten different German tribes too had champions who sang in scornful

contests like that of the two Greenland poets.[470] In trade rivalry

the tailor suffers most. Religious differences have given rise to such

jargon as this:

“Franz Willwanz

Willwippke Kadanz,

Willwippke Kadippke

Katholischer Franz!”[471]

As it is not expedient to dwell on the higher forms of satire

here,[472] I will close this section with some remarks on the

provocative manner and bearing. Like all other teasing, a scornful

manner results from a feeling of superiority, and is always calculated

to depreciate its object. When serious, such scornful behaviour

constitutes a challenge to actual combat, but when playful it becomes

the sort of teasing in which the perpetrator enjoys annoying others.

The gesture which naturally accompanies it is pointing with the finger,

and children usually add laughter. Even dogs understand this laughter,

as their half-angry, half-depressed demeanour well proves. Sticking

out the tongue, which with some children only means awkwardness and

embarrassment, is sometimes employed in the same way. Sittl thinks

that it was unknown to the Greeks and early Romans[473] (?); yet the

Gauls made use of it as a means of expressing contempt, as did also the

Jews. I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation of this

or for the “turned-up nose.” In Romeo and Juliet this passage occurs:

“I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they

bear it”; and Persius refers to the same thing as expressing scornful

depreciation of one’s opponent. Italians and Greeks place the thumb

nail on the front teeth and snap it forward with like intent.[474]

_Minimo digito provocare_, which may be freely interpreted as “I can

manage you with my little finger,” serves the same purpose as does

snapping the fingers also. Tylor remarks that in the language of

deaf-mutes the rubbing together or snapping of small objects signifies

contempt, depreciation, etc.[475] Many scornful gestures are obscene

in character, and some such have been perpetuated in plastic art,

especially during the middle ages (as, for instance, on the door of the

Schwäbisch Hall). They all no doubt originated in the desire to express

contempt in a forcible manner,[476] though the appropriateness of some

of them is not apparent, as, for instance, jeering challenges to some

degrading act, direct accusations, symbolic threats of defilement,

where the idea seems to be that the assailant wishes to prove himself

not only fearless in the presence of his foe, but shameless as well.

While on one side teasing is an expression of the fighting impulse,

on the other it seems to be of considerable value as a promoter of

sociability. The educational quality of school comradeships and

students’ clubs depends in no small degree on the hardening of the

super-sensitive by teasing, and thus preparing them for the future

buffetings of fortune. It is useful, too, in stirring up heavy and

phlegmatic natures. Bastian writes from Siam: “When a boy misses his

aim and stands like a whipped poodle, his comrades mock him with ‘Kui,

kui,’ which is very provoking. Some poor fellows are so sensitive to

this blame and jeering, and so emulous of praise that they are quite

beside themselves, and beat their heads against a wall. They are then

said to be ‘Ba-Jo,’ or mad from shame. When, on the contrary, they meet

such scorn with indifference, they are regarded as fearless.”[477]

7. _Enjoyment of the Comic_

There are two theories of the comic—that of the feeling of superiority

and that of contradiction; the one being more subject to the will

and the other to reasoning processes. That which Hobbes sets forth

and which is perpetuated in modern psychology by Bain, Kirchmann,

Neberhorst, and others, emphasizes the connection between laughter

and ridicule. As the latter is a pleasure, “orta ex eo, quod aliquid,

quod contemnimus in re quam odimus ei inesse imaginamu” (Spinoza), so

too our appreciation of the comic is derived from our own powers of

exaggeration over and above the contradictions inherent in the object

of our depreciation. Erdmann says that we never think of Christ’s

laughing, because we have an innate feeling that there is something

malicious in unrestrained laughter.[478] The other theory, which

also has many supporters, lays most stress on the intellectual side

of the phenomenon, on the idea of contradiction, of inconsequence,

of incongruity as displayed by the comic object. This startles us at

first by its unexpectedness, and then appeals agreeably to our sense of

the ridiculous. These two theories are by no means exclusive the one

of the other, and are only opposed in that each accuses the other of

failure to cover all the facts. Sully and Ribot[479] attempt to unite

them by deriving the more refined sense of incongruity from the first

exaggeration, progressively excluding the latter by mental play with

contraries. We will be satisfied with the undeniable fact that pleasure

derived from the comic is usually not only experimentation with

attention, the shock of surprise, and a more or less logical enjoyment

of the incongruities involved, but also an agreeable pharisaical

feeling of being superior to the occasion. So far, then, as such

pleasure can be referred at all to reason it does consist in this sense

of superiority, and belongs in the category of fighting plays.

It is a familiar remark that we find something not altogether

disagreeable in hearing of the misfortunes of even our best friends.

From the standpoint of social science it is evident that humanity is

not entirely dominated by the social and sympathetic instincts since

even when these are most strongly manifested there is always a remnant

of the fighting impulse in ambush, which greets with joy any damage

to a friend as to a foe. This is the principle of competition. We

know that untutored savages make violent demonstrations of joy over

the misfortunes of an enemy, their fiendish laugh of triumph has been

often described, and childhood recollections furnish most of us with

striking data in the same line. “A ten-year-old boy who had daubed a

comrade with filthy mud from the street danced around his victim and

screamed with laughter.”[480] Sometimes scornful and contemptuous

laughter serves as a weapon, for it is not always a mere expression

of feeling, being frequently used to infuriate an opponent much as a

provoking manner is employed. We find, too, that in numerous cases

it originates in a triumphant feeling, as when the teasing we have

been considering is successful, and also when spectators applaud such

success. Then, too, there is laughter at the artistic representation

of such scenes, pictorial, plastic, and poetic. Yet we are far from

exhausting the list. As a result of the struggle for life, every

inferiority calls forth a triumphant feeling in the observer, be it

in physical or mental fitness or in opportunity or ability. Thence

comes, too, the opposition among gregarious animals to anything which

menaces the social norm or its usages, anything which is too small or

too great to be reduced to the general average, provided the greatness

is not sufficient to inspire awe or fear. And inferiority, too, in the

courtship contest is often subject for ridicule. In all these cases,

embracing as they do a large proportion of things comic, the instinct

for fighting enjoys a triumph, and this enjoyment forms a large part of

the general sense of satisfaction.

Yet we rightly hesitate to identify enjoyment of the comic with

mere maliciousness. There is evidently something more. But what? Is

Aristotle’s explanation, that the misfortune to another which excites

our mirth is really a harmless thing, sufficient? By no means. While

this may be quite true considered subjectively, it does not bear on

our special question. It is at this point, I think, that the other

theory becomes applicable, especially in a connection which has not

been sufficiently brought forward. In all the relations of the comic

with which we have so far had to do, only a small part of the stimulus

of contrast has come from the object itself and from the relief of

tension. By far the most significant feature of the process is the

fact that the observer alternates between æsthetic feeling or inner

imitation and the external sense of triumph. Hereby alone does the

comic win the right to a place in the sphere of æsthetics. It is a

psychological law that sufficient observation of any object stirs

the imitative impulse to such a degree as to cause us inwardly to

sympathize with the object, and the law holds good with regard to

what we consider inferior if it impresses us as amusing as well. Our

feeling, then, is so far from being pure malice that we actually spend

an interval in inward participation in the inferiority, though at the

next moment, it is true, exulting triumphantly in our own superiority.

All this is a play grounded on the instinctive indulgence of our

fighting impulse, aided and enlarged by the idea of contrast, the two

together constituting appreciation of the comic. Mere mischief is not

æsthetic, and the mere idea of contrast does not necessarily produce

laughter; but, then, synthesis does call forth this characteristic

effect of the comic.[481] The mischievous factor is sometimes of much

less importance, and the laugh not at all like ridicule, yet in the

vast majority of cases the idea of resistance mingles, if for nothing

else, then to overcome the shock which is apt to stagger us at first,

but is finally conquered. I proceed now to adduce some instances to

which, in spite of their diversity, this explanation is applicable.

We have seen that surprise is one of the first causes for laughter in

children. They thoroughly enjoy the moment of recognition of a picture

which has puzzled them, and adults have the same feeling when they

have wrestled with almost illegible handwriting and at last decipher

it. There is a slight shock of it, too, when we hear a child express

precocious sentiments or see an animal act like a man. Then arises

what Kries calls a state of false psychic disposition, from which we

escape in the next instant. We may test this sensation by turning

from a comic sheet to some serious reading. We are apt to conceive of

the first sentences as if they were meant to be ironical, and find

the recognition and correction of the misapprehension a pleasure in

itself. Such a stimulus is also mildly operative in the amusement we

derive from masquerades and other pretences. The charm of juggling

and sleight-of-hand tricks is dependent on the unexpected performance

of an apparently impossible task or the solution of an apparently

insurmountable difficulty. As an instance of the surprise whose

conquest forms a part of our amusement and which at first gives us a

shock which has something of superstition in it, I will mention that

which I felt on receiving “in the very nick of time,” as it were, the

article of Hall and Allin’s, to which I have so often referred, just as

I was about to begin my attempt to analyze the comic.

Punning, the introductory step to wit, is enjoyed by children too young

to appreciate true wit. It consists in an incongruous association of

ideas which at first amazes and then delights. Wit presents ideas in

unexpected associations full of suggestion which prove either to be

illusory or to conceal some jesting or serious meaning. Finally, we may

include in his list some lying tales and extravagances which are too

grotesque to represent any intention to deceive.

In all these instances we can trace the combination of fighting play

with the contrast of ideas. The former, however, possesses here a

deeper and more subjective significance, since it is no longer inspired

by external inferiority, but by the necessity for overcoming the shock

which at the first blush staggers and overwhelms us, but which it

enables us to shake off immediately. We can thus speak of an offensive

and a defensive triumph; in the former the laugh has something of

the character of an attack, while in the latter we are warding off

surprise. Yet the contrast of ideas coming in here makes it difficult

to maintain this distinction clearly. Inner imitation falls in many

cases into the background or entirely out of view, indicating that we

are no longer dealing with æsthetic enjoyment. In the simpler cases

contrast between stressed attention and its sudden unexpected release

becomes the most prominent feature, while in others it is the contrast

of opposing qualities which the object really possesses or has ascribed

to it.

Summing up now the important data we find that enjoyment of the comic

depends in the large majority of cases, though not in all, on the union

of fighting play with the idea of contrast. This kind of fighting play

naturally falls into two distinct groups, involving everything comic.

The one is essentially composed of aggressive fighting plays, and makes

prominent the contrast between inner imitation and the triumphant

feeling of superiority. In the other group we find more defensive

fighting play, and the idea of contrast takes the form primarily of

sudden relaxation of the stressed attention and the impression of

contradiction. That the first group represents an earlier stage of

development from which the second is evolved, as Sully and Ribot

intimate, is not easily proved. Children exhibit both very early.

Are there cases which do not exhibit fighting play in any form? I do

not deny the possibility, though up to this time I have not been able

to discover any such. The first difficulty to surmount in trying to

establish this possibility would, it seems to me, be the laughter of

children when they mimic anything (for example, the cries or movements

of animals), which is not in itself amusing, nor is their intention

mischievous. Can this be a case where the idea of contrast works alone

and there is no fighting play? I think not, for I am convinced that the

child’s first impression of the comic depends on his æsthetic sympathy

with the model and on his conscious shaking off of this feeling; and,

furthermore, the idea of contrast is in this instance connected with

the conquest of difficulty, an association which always indicates an

approach to fighting play, and is especially significant in this case,

since mimicry singles out the salient and individual characteristics of

the model.[482]

8. _Hunting Play_

Having learned to recognise the three principal groups of fighting

plays we turn now to a special application of the fighting instinct.

The name “hunting play” will include, for the sake of brevity, playful

pursuit, flight, and hiding.

The chase is, in connection with the collecting of fruits, the oldest

and most primitive method of obtaining a food supply known to us.

It is not impossible that in some more primitive stage than that of

modern savages human beings subsisted entirely (with the exception of

some insects, young birds, and eggs) on vegetable food, as monkeys do.

But we have no definite knowledge of this, and, however it may be,

the facts justify the deduction that the impulse to pursue a fleeing

creature, or, on the other hand, to flee and hide from approaching

danger, is as much an inborn instinct in man as in the lower animals.

It is true, indeed, that the arts of the chase are of vast service to

evolution in other ways than in the pursuit of and escape from wild

beasts, for it is often enough his fellow-man from whom the fugitive

flees and must escape by speed or guile. In the case of animals the

instinctiveness of the impulse is proved by their play. The kitten

treats a ball of yarn exactly as an adult carnivorous animal does its

prey, and that before she takes note of a living mouse; and young dogs

show their wolfish nature in their chasing of one another when there

is no real game to pursue. In the life of man, too, phenomena are not

wanting which point to an instinctive basis for the hunting instinct,

and they all belong to the sphere of play.

First, then, we must consider actual hunting of animals, which is not

for the purpose of securing food. Small children display a disposition

to chase animals. G. H. Schneider considers that this fact points

directly to the inheritance of the habits of primitive man, but it

is not necessary to call in the principle of inheritance of acquired

characters, since simple succeeding to inborn instincts is sufficient

to produce this result. “In the same way,” says Schneider, “the

impulse for hunting, fishing, slaughtering animals and plundering

birds’ nests in so cruel a manner is inherited, and is to-day quite

common in young men accustomed to an outdoor life. The boy never eats

the butterflies, beetles, flies, and other insects which he eagerly

pursues and possibly dismembers, nor does he suck the eggs which he

gets from nests in high trees, often at the risk of his life. But the

sight of these creatures awakens in him a strong impulse to plunder,

hunt, and kill, apparently because his savage ancestors obtained their

food chiefly by such acts.”[483] Schneider goes too far, I think, in

assuming that there is a special connection between the sight of a

certain animal and the inherited impulse, yet it is quite probable that

there is a general tendency to seek and pursue moving living creatures

over and above what can be accounted for by fear. And perhaps the

children of savages possess this tendency in a higher degree than do

our own. Semon tells us of young Australians: “Any one who observes

the children, and especially the boys, will see how in their play

all the exercise is directed to the perfection of their skill in the

chase. They are constantly occupied with throwing pieces of wood and

little clubs at any possible target, killing squirrels and bringing

down birds and small animals with these missiles. On the march, while

the women and girls carry the baggage, the boys amuse themselves with

various throwing plays.” The cylindrical nests of Australian birds are

favourite hiding places of poisonous snakes, “and children who give

promise of becoming zealous scientific investigators are often, as well

as their elders, bitten in this way. My little friends in Coonambula

were eager collectors of all sorts of insects and every creeping thing,

and I have to thank them for many of my choicest specimens.”[484]

The chase as practised for sport by adults also argues for an

instinctive basis of such play. Civilized man, who no longer makes

hunting a direct means of replenishing his larder, still feels the

force of this powerful impulse, and playfully reverts to the practices

of his progenitors. The passion which this sport excites in its

votaries is so strong as to leave little doubt that the impulse is an

inherited one. “In our time,” says Johann von Salisbury in the twelfth

century, “the chase is regarded by the nobility as the most honourable

of employments, and its pursuit the highest virtue. They consider it

the summit of earthly bliss to excel in this exercise, and consequently

they ride to the chase with greater pomp and pageantry than to war.

From pursuing habitually this manner of life they lose their humanity

to a great degree, and become almost as savage as the beasts they

hunt. Peasants peacefully tending their flocks are torn from their

well-tilled fields, their meadows, and pastures, in order that wild

beasts may take possession.”[485]

King Edward III had such a passion for hunting that he took a large

pack of dogs with him when he was making war on France, and on French

soil and every day he followed the chase in some form. The priestly

Nimrods whose tastes belie their calling have been subjects of

derision from the time of Chaucer to C. F. Meyer’s Shots from the

Chancel, and the opposite extreme is found in Sebastian Brant’s

Narrenschiff, where he accuses his contemporaries of disturbing the

worship of God by bringing their dogs and falcons into the churches.

In modern times the passion for hunting is strongest in mountaineers,

whose free outdoor life affords every opportunity to indulge the taste.

No one who has seen the face of an old mountaineer as he catches sight

of a likely goat has any further doubt that inherited instinct is at

the bottom of the hunting impulse. Bismarck well described the charm of

field sports at the time (1878) when, his health being threatened, he

left the business of his office to younger diplomats, and refused to be

consulted except on the most vital questions. Rudolf Lindau has given,

too, in a parliamentary speech of Bismarck a half-humorous and yet

striking picture of a tired hunter: “When a man starts off on a hunt in

the morning he is quite willing to tramp over miles of heavy ground to

get a shot at birds. But after he has wandered about all day, has his

game bag full, and is about ready to go home, being tired, hungry, and

covered with mud, he shakes his head if the game-keeper says that there

are partridges in the next field. ‘I have enough,’ he says. But if a

messenger comes with the news that there is a wild boar in the woods

below, this tired man with hunter’s blood in his veins forgets his

fatigue, and hastens to the woods, not satisfied until he has found the

game and captured it.”

The most rigidly conducted chase has something of the character of

play, and there is a whole cycle of games in which flight and pursuit

are the main features. To begin with the pursuit of our own kind:

suppose one taking a two-year-old child in his arms and springing

toward another person, who runs away in pretended fright. The child

will manifest delight, which is much too strong to be attributed to

mere pleasure in the movement, and must be connected with the hunting

impulse. It is shown, too, quite as plainly by boys playing on the

street. James is right when he says, “A boy can no more help running

after another boy who runs provokingly near him than a kitten can help

running after a rolling ball.”[486] In 1894 I had an opportunity to

observe a scene which displayed the power of this instinct in a manner

which was almost terrible; the boys irresistibly reminded me of dogs or

wolves pursuing their prey in a hot chase. At that time a racer came

to Giessen, and to attract attention ran through the streets at midday

attired in rose-coloured tights, fantastically decorated, and carrying

a large bell in his hand. He moved with incredible rapidity, now

disappearing round some corner, and now emerging from a side street.

When school was out a crowd of homeward-bound boys filled the streets,

and, catching sight of the runner, chased after him, so that soon a mob

of from fifty to one hundred children were on his heels, chasing him

like a pack of hounds with the wildest excitement and loud cries. The

man carried a whip which he laid about him well, otherwise the children

would doubtless have tried to catch and beat him.

The number of plays which employ such chasing is extraordinarily

great, and I will confine myself to a few examples which display the

characteristic points of difference. One of the simplest forms of it

is the “Zeck,” which is described in a seventeenth century collection.

Another is the Greek ὀστρακίνδα, for which the boys used bits of

pottery or a shell, one side of which was smeared with pitch and called

night, while the other side was day. The children were divided into

parties of the day and night, and the token thrown up in the air. The

side lying uppermost on its fall determined which party should flee

and which pursue. Whoever was caught was called a donkey[487] and must

sit on the ground to await the end of the game. This may have been the

origin of our coin tossing. In most chasing plays there are special

pre-arranged conditions which avert danger from the fugitive and

facilitate bringing the play to a close, and most of these conditions

can be traced to some ancient superstition. In one game the pursued

is safe while standing on or touching iron, and in another sudden

stooping makes him immune, while others again appoint bases as cities

of refuge. These were used by the Greeks, and a great variety of

designation indicates how general they are among the Germans. In the

Greek σχοινοφιλίνδα the participants formed in a circle, around which

one went with a stick which he secretly hid behind one of the players,

who has the privilege of chasing the depositor; or, in case he fails to

discover in time what an honour has been conferred upon him, he must

run around the circle exposed to the blows of all its numbers.[488] It

is like our “Drop the Handkerchief,” and also the game where the boy,

whose cap the ball falls in, must throw it after the others. Finally, I

will mention two games in which this element has developed into complex

imitation of genuine combat. “Fox chasing” furnishes a perfect picture

of battle. Two hostile parties stand opposed and attempt to conquer

one another and to free their imprisoned allies, and yet, since each

capture is made by pursuit and not by fighting, the principle of the

chase is the controlling one. “Hare and Hounds” is another imitation

of the chase. Adults usually play it on horseback, though there is a

notice in Ueber Land und Meer (1880, No. 27) of such a chase on foot,

in America. Two specially good runners are given fifteen minutes’

start, and the rest of the company take the part of hounds.

But it is not essential that the thing pursued shall be a living

creature. Just as kittens and puppies chase lifeless objects, such as

rolling balls, sticks, etc., so do human beings also find substitutes

for the proper objects of their sportiveness. Catching a swiftly

moving ball is sometimes of this nature; there is attending it a

feeling of triumphant mastery much the same as that which excites the

boy who seizes and holds a fleeing comrade or the clown who obstructs

the course of a scorching wheelman. This is especially the case with

professional ball players, who allow the ball to pass their hands and

then seize it by a quick movement as it is about to touch the ground.

There are other games in which the ball is not caught in the air, but

is allowed to fall to the ground and roll away while the players must

pursue and catch it. Football and cricket are examples of this, and

consequently can be classed either with chase or fighting plays, though

they have more of the characteristics of the latter. Another form of

hunting play which should not be overlooked is the seeking for hidden

persons or things. H. Lemming refers to a process belonging to the

child’s first quarter as a kind of hiding play. “The child’s aunt had

him on her lap, his little head resting on her right shoulder, while

she played hide with him. ‘Where is he?’ she would cry while she hid

his head between her arm and breast; then, as she suddenly drew the arm

away, ‘There he is.’ She had not done it many times before the little

fellow understood perfectly. As soon as his aunt made the motion he

turned his head in the right direction and laughed softly. Several

days passed, and the game had been repeated two or three times, when

one morning early, as he was lying on my bed, I smiled at him and he

laughed back; then his face took on a roguish expression, and he buried

his head in the pillow for an instant and suddenly raised it with the

same mischievous look. He repeated this several times.”[489] Becq de

Fouquières restores a beautiful antique picture of a Greek hiding play.

One little fellow presses his eyes shut while two others hurry to hide

themselves. In Siam “Hide-and-Seek” is called “Looking for the Axe,”

and is oftenest played in the twilight because dark, impenetrable

corners are more abundant then.[490] There is added weirdness, too, in

the half light, and the shock of surprise on suddenly coming upon the

hidden object is stronger, bringing the players more in touch with the

emotional life. The objects to be hidden are of various kinds. This is

a use to which children love to put Easter eggs, and much interest is

added to the search by the cries of “Cold,” “Freezing,” “Getting warm,”

“Hot, hot, burning,” etc. Very common, too, are games like “Button,

button, who’s got the button?” where a small object is passed from hand

to hand and kept concealed. A curious forfeit game like this was very

popular in former years, and is thus described by Amaranthes: “The

whole company sit close together in a circle on the ground while a shoe

belonging to one of them is slipped along and hidden beneath their

legs, while one person tries to find it.”[491] Fleeing and hiding occur

in all hunting plays, but are specially prominent in some forms—in

games like “Going to Jerusalem,” for instance, where many attempt to

make use of the same chair, “Stagecoach,” “Change Kitchen Furniture,”

“Cats and Mice,” etc. In many the pursuers are restricted by certain

conditions and prohibitions which are in favour of the fleeing ones,

and furnish occasion for evasions and all sorts of byplay. For one

thing the “catcher” may be hooded or blindfold. Bastian saw a game

played in Siam in which the bandage over his eyes was so arranged that

it hung down like an elephant’s trunk.[492] Another handicap is to

require the pursuer to hop on one foot and hit those whom he overtakes

with his knotted handkerchief. When in his excitement he changes to the

other foot they all cry out and beat him with theirs. The Greek

ἀσκωλιασμός was apparently much like this.

9. _Witnessing Fights and Fighting Plays. The Tragic_

Æsthetic observation belongs more properly to imitative play, but we

have been compelled to notice it already in several connections and

must not overlook its influence on fighting play. Thanks to inner

imitation we can take part in fights without objective participation,

and actually enjoy attacks and defence, strategy and risk, victory and

defeat as if they were our veritable experience. As we found in games

of rivalry, this internal sympathetic fighting has a great advantage

over objective fighting in the more varied and lasting excitement which

it effects (for example, the tension of expectation which in one’s own

quarrels soon vanishes); yet, on the other hand, it lacks the element

of pleasure peculiarly associated with one’s own achievements.

In considering the observation of actual fighting we must distinguish

between combat with an enemy and the conquest of difficulty. Inner

imitation is prominent in both. When we see a company of labourers

trying to lift a heavy stone or beam with pulleys, or driving piles

in the water, or a man pulling his boat up on the beach, or a smith

beating the hot iron with heavy blows of his hammer, or a hunter

scaling mountain crags to reach an eagle’s nest, we take part in the

struggle with difficulty and enjoy success as if it were our own. The

sympathetic interest is even greater in witnessing a fight between

two combatants; indeed, it can be playful only when the onlooker can

restrain his emotions and regard the struggle going on before him as

a theatrical representation, as is often enough the case. When two

boys are tussling, when adults quarrel with high words, when a rider

attempts to control his vicious horse, when a man defends himself with

a stick against a brutal dog, when the champions of opposing parties

fight in the presence of their backers, the spectators may take such

impersonal interest in the combat.

Much more to our purpose, however, is the witnessing of playful

fights where the contestants engage merely for amusement or to test

their prowess, whether or not they are in playful mood. In this case,

overcoming difficulties is the leading feature. Then, too, there are

myriad forms of juggling, contortionism, prestidigitating, etc., in

which the spectator, at least in part, inwardly joins; and the wild

excitement of animal and ring fights, bull baiting, fencing matches,

racing on foot, wheel, and horse. Even for the fighting plays which

are not intended as an exhibition, such as football and cricket games,

there is usually collected a crowd of intensely sympathetic spectators,

and the players themselves, when not in action, are entirely out of

the game, yet they still take part through inner imitation which has

frequent outward manifestations. Moreover, whoever sees a difficult

piece of work accomplished feels a desire to test his own skill with a

like task. The merest onlooker at a prize fight will assume belligerent

postures, as Defregger says, and savages are often so wrought upon by

witnessing a war dance that serious brawls ensue.

These facts lead us insensibly to the realm of art, of which I merely

remark in passing that certain echoes of the fray may be detected in

architecture and music, and that the representative arts and especially

painting devote a wide field to combat, but that the real domain of

internal fighting play is found in poetry. Fighting and love plays[493]

contribute most largely to the enjoyable element in poetry, and the

latter is less effective when divorced from combat. Even in lyrics,

which would seem to afford the least opportunity for exploiting such

themes, the tourney is a fruitful inspiration, and the triumphant

note of victory is conspicuous. A verse of Heyse’s illustrates in

mocking wise, and perhaps more forcibly than any other, how great is

the importance to the poetic art of its connection with the fighting

instinct. In dilating upon the literary status of the abode of bliss he

says:

“Für Drame, Lustspiel und Novelle

Ist leider hier Kein günst’ner Boden;

Die kultivirt man in der Hölle.

Hir giebt es Hymnen nur und Oden.”

“For drama, stage play, and novel

There is, alas! no public here;

These things are practised down in hell.

Here hymns and odes are _de rigueur_.”

In studying epic poetry we are struck by the frequency with which the

excitement of fighting furnishes the motive. This is the case with

almost the whole cycle of primitive epics and folk stories, down to

our modern romance; and when an epic is produced, like the Messias,

for example, without such stimulus to interest, it falls irretrievably

under the reproach of dulness. In the drama war is all-important. A

short time ago an unnamed author published an article on dramatic

conflict to which I fully subscribe.[494] Since the time of Aristotle

the idea of acting has been prominent[495] in any conception of the

drama, though there have been some writers like Lenz, Otto Ludwig, and

lately Gartelmann, who have stressed the delineation of character. Both

theories easily lead to a one-sided view. “Not character as such, but

character in conflict it is which lays claim to our interest in the

drama, and only such acting is dramatic as reveals the conflict.... The

essence of the dramatic consists in the presence of an overwhelming

catastrophe which forms the central point of the poem, and its

culmination is the writer’s chief task.” It strikes me that this is

incontestable, though it may be urged that the conflict is only a means

of bringing out the essential features of the character. Thus Wetz

strikingly says: “If a poet wishes to portray his hero realistically,

then must his environment contrast with his character. He must be

put in trying circumstances, and thus be brought out of himself and

reveal his utmost depths. Comedy as well as tragedy furnishes such

situations; where the amusing complications or fatal passion have once

been intimated they must be pursued to their final consequences.”[496]

For refined connoisseurs it may be true that in perfect drama[497]

conflict is but a means of unveiling character, yet even their interest

is deepened by psychological considerations. With naïve spectators,

who are to me the more important, it is quite otherwise. The conflict

itself is the important thing to them, and the fact that it may afford

insight into character is only noteworthy as making the fight more

interesting. In any case we are safe in averring that the pleasure

afforded by the drama has one very essential feature in common with

ring contests, animal fights, races, etc.—namely, that of observing a

struggle in which we may inwardly participate.

Tragedy is the highest poetic representation of a contest which is

pursued to the bitter end, usually violent defeat.[498] Here we again

encounter the question of enjoyment in relation to what is tragic.

Volkelt explains it as a result of (1) the exalted character of the

excitement; (2) sympathy; (3) strong stimuli; and (4) appreciation of

artistic form. The third point, which is also one of ours, he considers

subordinate. His first point, however, is not universally applicable,

and his second is limited to those cases in which the sufferer is

regarded as worthy, and even then pain predominates and only serves

to weigh the balance further down on that side. Thus only the last

two points remain for universal application. While we grant that

appreciation of artistic form is an element in the explanation, the

third point, pleasure in intense stimuli, seems to me more important.

Volkelt’s view is not a little influenced by Vischu’s contention that

“a general disturbance of the emotions constitutes a satisfaction for

barbaric crudeness and _ennui_.” We have already had occasion to show

that the enjoyment of strong stimuli is of great significance in all

departments of play, but I fail to see anything barbaric about it, and

consider this word unworthy to be applied to æsthetic pleasure. Is it

not a noble pleasure to stand on a mountain summit or a ship’s prow and

watch an approaching storm? And how much more elevated still is the

storm of effects which tragedy awakens in us!

In considering fighting play in this connection we must notice a

further point which is a corollary to those which have gone before, and

is illustrated by some of the examples already given. The man standing

on a ship and contemplating the force of a storm (I do not refer to his

struggle with it) enjoys more than mere excitement. His soul partakes

of the raging of the elements, the seething waves which break on the

vessel’s prow, the furious gusts of wind, all this outward strife

is inwardly imitated by him, and he is filled with jubilant delight

in exercising all his fighting instincts. So also with tragedy. Not

only joy in the storm of emotions, but also joy in the contest, is an

important means of subduing what is unavoidably painful. While this

relation, too, has been appreciated in other spheres, its application

to the tragic has not hitherto been made. Indeed, this instinct is

usually referred to in a narrow sense as a sort of bloodthirstiness,

an idea not always far wrong. Ribot has formulated the following

progression: “Pleasure in manslaughter, pleasure in judicial execution,

pleasure in witnessing death (murder, gladiatorial combat, and the

like), pleasure in seeing the blood of animals gush out (bull and cock

fights), pleasure in witnessing violent and gory melodrama [this is

only imitation, since the illusion of reality is but momentary], and

finally, pleasure in reading bloody romances and following imaginary

murder trials.”[499] We can hardly deny that even the cultured

spectator feels something of the murderous impulse when, for instance,

Hamlet springs with the agility of a tiger toward the king to fix him

with a dagger. Yet as a whole this exposition of the theory of tragedy

is defective even if we make the murderous impulse cover every variety

of injurious conduct. The impulse to inflict injury has nothing to

do with the final overthrow of the hero of our sympathies (and we

do sympathize often with the very criminals in tragedy), and in the

instances cited by Ribot it is usually less the bloodiness of the

episode than its character as a fight which attracts us. The feeling of

power in combat, not the cruelty of destructiveness, is most prominent.

The reason that spectators of an animal fight are not satisfied until

one of the fighters is either killed or disabled is surely not because

they delight in injury as such, but because the fight can not be

decisive until some injury is done.

While, then, we can not adopt this theory of the destructive impulse,

yet we can learn from it, especially on one point to which we have

given too little attention. We do take a certain pleasure in the

catastrophe involving the personages of a drama which differs from our

satisfaction in a fighting play; we sympathize with the sufferer, and

yet experience feelings of pleasure. So long as the crisis delays,

the case is indistinguishable from all other fighting plays; but how

can we take part by inner imitation in the general collapse and yet

enjoy the spectacle? In answer to this I must say that I am extremely

doubtful whether the moment of the catastrophe is always enjoyable;

I am inclined to think that quite often the sources of pleasure are

insufficient to outweigh genuine grief. In this case inner imitation

persists because the spectator is hypnotized by the extraordinary

tension, and is unable to desist. I think, for example, that no

one experiences lively feelings of delight while Wallenstein is

being murdered behind the scenes, in spite of the intense stimulus,

importance of the interests involved, etc. It is not essential

that every instant of æsthetic contemplation should be filled with

unadulterated pleasure. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly

instances in which the catastrophe is actually enjoyed; and since we

are not prepared to accept the explanation of this given above, let us

inquire whether we can find one more satisfactory from the standpoint

which we have adopted—namely, that of fighting play strictly speaking.

An example will make my view clear, and one which may be explained

in two ways. Let us picture to ourselves a Roman amphitheatre with

the spectators assembled to witness a fight between a “bestarius”

and a lion, and suppose that the man, in spite of wonderful agility,

receives more and more serious wounds and is finally slain by the

maddened brute. Suppose, further, that inner imitation on the part of

the spectators is engaged by the man, as is natural, so that their

pleasure can not be referred to triumph in the lion’s victory. To us

the most conspicuous feature of the whole thing is the cruelty and

bloodthirstiness of the spectators, and reading modern descriptions of

these old Roman customs only strengthens this idea. The barbarity was

undoubtedly there, but was it the ground of their enjoyment? I think

not, for thousands of the breathless spectators. On the contrary, that

which moves these people is one of the strongest and most stirring

stimuli known to us, sympathy with the courage and persistence of

fighters to the death. For the best and probably the most of the

spectators the satisfaction is not in mere witnessing cruel horrors,

but first in the invincible courage which is undaunted in their

presence, or in case of the hero’s defeat it consists in a victory over

their own sympathetic terror. How clearly this passage from Cicero

indicates this! “When you see the boys in Sparta, the lads in Olympia,

or barbarians in the arena suffer the severest blows and bear them

silently, will you wail like a woman when you feel pain? Boxers never

lament when they are beaten from the ring, and what wounds they get!

Can you not put up with a single hurt from the buffetings of life? What

fighter, even an ordinary one, ever sighs or groans or goes about with

a downcast face? Which of them has tamely submitted to death?”

In a similar way the sight of misfortune in tragedy may give pleasure

because the outward undoing of the hero is calculated to awaken in us

a feeling of triumph in which imitation gives us a part. As I have

said, I do not believe that this is always the case, but rather that

while the tragedy as a whole gives pleasure the supreme moment may be

painful; and in still other circumstances the storm of emotion, one

of all-conquering Fate, etc., may cause feelings of satisfaction when

there is no inner victory. It is never so intense, however, as when

this is present—a proof of the importance of fighting play. The utmost

triumph for a fighter is the victory over his fear of defeat, and such

victory is afforded by our playful sympathy with a tragic incident.

Then fighting play becomes a source of such pleasure as is attributed

ordinarily to exalted influences. Such side lights on a subject are

seldom without important significance, and our problem is now thrown

into somewhat this form. Tragedy most perfectly represents combat when

it is pursued to a catastrophe. Since we habitually sympathize with the

human element, the contradiction ensues of our experiencing pleasure

in the suffering which we deplore and are involved in. We explain this

apparent contradiction by assuming that the catastrophe becomes the

foundation for an inner victory which converts it into a triumph. An

examination of the various elevating effects which Volkelt’s analysis

discloses reveals much that is irrelevant from our standpoint. The

most salient of these points is his tragic opposition, whereas we have

found that the catastrophe is in itself enjoyable only when exultation

in the triumph of desolation is based on dread of that very thing.

When the exhilaration depends merely on the overwhelming nature of

Fate or when a moment of respite is snatched for the doomed hero,

the poignancy of our sympathy with the final suffering is softened.

Independent satisfaction in the catastrophe is present only where

there is an element of fighting play, and herein lies the essence

of our theory—that is, when inner imitation transforms defeat into

victory. “Courage and self-possession in the presence of a powerful

enemy, of threatened danger or calamity, or of difficult and anxious

questions—this is what the tragic artist displays. All that is martial

in us holds saturnalia in the presence of tragedy.”[500]

The study of fighting play has thus led us from its rough and cruel

manifestations to the culminating point of tragedy. What Volkelt

says in a general way of the supreme moment we may apply to our own

position: “Even in suffering and grief, in fear and defeat, must the

tragic personage, if he would not fall below the requirements of his

art, always appear great. When a man quails in the hour of extreme

suffering or wavers before the severest test, however superior he may

have appeared previously, there is an end of tragic effect. But let

him display greatness of soul at the crucial moment, he then makes an

elevating impression which is subverting to pessimism and encouraging

to the idea that the severest and most outrageous attacks of Fortune

can not make a man small, that the human spirit bears within itself a

principle of growth and of supremacy which is able to cope with the

might of Fate itself.”[501]

I close with the remark that this study of the tragic is advanced with

a full sense of its inadequacy. My main intention is to indicate the

scope of my conception of fighting play. The general idea of play has

been developed by others and applied advantageously in the treatment

of contrast of ideas in the tragic. Tragedy, like all other sources of

higher æsthetic pleasure, extends beyond the sphere of play because, to

put it briefly in the words of Schiller, we can descry through the veil

of beauty the majestic form of truth.

II. LOVE PLAY

Is there such a thing as playful application of the sexual impulse?

Views of this subject differ widely, and the remarks on it of animal

observers show that many hesitate to use the term “play” in this

connection. Wundt says: “The distinction has been made between

fighting play and love play, and such actions and expressions as, for

instance, the cooing of doves, the calls of singing birds, etc., have

been interpreted as wooings. But these wooings are quite seriously

intended by the bird, and I do not think that we can regard them as in

any sense playful.”[502] On the other hand, others can be cited who

assure us that most observers agree in ascribing to singing birds,

besides their regular courtship arts of song and flight, actions which

have all the marks by which Wundt himself characterizes play—namely,

enjoyment, repetition, and pretence. However, we shall find that it

is in man that play with the function in question is most clearly

exhibited, and, as its connection with art has already been referred

to, it will be sufficient to dwell on one aspect of it here—namely,

its relation to poetry. However derogatory it may be considered to

condition poetic art on such stimuli, the fact is incontestable that,

deprived of their influence, the tree of poetry would be stripped of

its verdant living dress.

On the other hand, we must avoid the older and more common error of

speaking about the “sweet sportiveness of love” without distinguishing

between what is really playful and what is quite seriously meant. It is

true that such popular usages of speech have not become general without

some foundation in fact, and it may prove interesting to inquire how

this one arose. We find the element of truth in the popular feeling by

comparing the subject under discussion with eating and drinking, which

are also sensuous pleasures. Why do we not hear so much of play in

their exercise? Evidently there is a difference. While in eating and

drinking, so far as directed by hunger, the real end, the preservation

of life, is always in view, while the real end of lovers’ dalliance,

namely, the preservation of the species, is far in the background. It

is true that we sometimes eat and drink for the enjoyment it gives, as

well as to satisfy hunger and renew our strength, yet the practical

bearing of the act is so closely and inseparably connected with it

that only under very special circumstances can we speak of it as

playful. It is quite otherwise with the caresses and the traffic of

love. Here the practical results are so far removed and the things in

themselves are so enjoyable that such language is quite justified.

Still, while there is analogy there is not perfect identity with play,

and we must carefully inspect various aspects of the subject to select

those which are unmistakably of this character. The subjoined examples

are therefore selected advisedly and with care, in view of possibly

unexpected readers of this chapter. A glance over the field discloses

the following suitable divisions: 1, Natural courtship play; 2, sex and

art; 3, sex and the comic.

1. _Natural Courtship Play_

Birds have many familiar courtship arts which are hereditary (the

isolated adult bird displays almost as much capacity in this direction

as does one reared with his kind), but mammals exhibit much less of

it. In relation to man there is a theory that sex grounds all art (of

this we shall speak later), but a scientific system of comparative

courtship of the various human races does not exist; nor, indeed,

have we systematic observations of any one people. It is therefore

impossible to affirm whether there are such things as instinctive

gestures, expressions, caresses, etc., which all human beings recognise

as sexual stimuli. From the little that is known it seems probable that

the number of such tokens is not great—even the kiss is by no means

general! We can only be sure of a universal tendency to approach and to

touch one another, and of a disposition to self-exhibition and coquetry

as probably instinctive and of the special forms which these tendencies

take under the influence of imitation and tradition as secondary

causes. Caressing contact may then be regarded as a play when it is

an end in itself, which is possible under two conditions: First, when

the pursuance of the instinctive movements to their legitimate end is

prevented by incapacity or ignorance; and, second, when it is prevented

by an act of will on the part of the participants. Children exhibit

the first case, adults often enough the second.

It is generally known that children are frequently very early

susceptible to sexual excitement, and show a desire for contact with

others as well as enjoyment of it, without having the least suspicion

of its meaning. Keller gives a beautiful and touching example of this

in his Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe: “On a tiny plot of ground all

covered with green herbs the little lass lay down upon her back, for

she was tired, and began to croon some words in a monotonous way,

while the boy sat near her and joined in the song, almost wishing to

follow her example, so weary and languid he felt. The sun shone into

the open mouth of the singing girl, gleaming on her teeth so dazzlingly

white and shining through the full red lips. The boy noticed this, and

taking her head in his hands he examined the little teeth curiously and

cried, ‘Guess how many teeth you have?’ She reflected for a moment, as

though making a careful calculation, and then said with conviction,

‘A hundred.’ ‘No; thirty-two,’ he answered; ‘but wait till I count

again.’ Then he counted aloud, but as he did not make thirty-two he

had to begin over several times. The little girl kept still for some

time, but as the zealous enumerator seemed never to get any nearer the

end of his task she shook him off at last and cried, ‘I will count

yours.’ So the boy stretched himself on the grass with the girl above

him, throwing his head back while she counted 1, 2, 7, 5, 2; but the

task was too hard for the little beauty, and the boy had to teach and

correct her, so she too had to begin over and over again. This play

seemed to please them better than any they had had that day. But at

last the little girl slid down by the side of her small instructor, and

the children slept together in the bright sunshine.” From such tender,

unconscious premonitions we pass to more strongly marked love plays,

for which the services of a special instructor are usually necessary,

as in the somewhat peculiar relation of the boy Rousseau to the little

Goton who played the part of teacher in their private interviews: “Elle

se permettait avec moi les plus grandes privautés, sans jamais m’en

permettre aucune avec elle; elle me traitait exactement en enfant:

ce qui me fait croire, ou qu’elle avait déjà cessé de l’être ou qu’au

contraire elle l’était encore assez elle-même pour ne voir qu’un jeu

dans le péril auquel elle s’exposait.”

Often, too, children show the same sort of preference, all unconscious

of its import, toward particular favourites among their grown-up

friends, enjoying the pleasure of contact for its own sake. “The pretty

girl,” says Mantegazza, “whom Nature has endowed with the power to

awaken longings and sighs at her every step, often does not realize

that in the swarm of her admirers there are boys scarcely yet past

their childhood, who secretly kiss any flower on which she may chance

to look, who are happy if they may steal like a thief into the room

where the beauty has slept and may kiss the carpet that her foot has

pressed; ... and how seldom does she suspect, as her fingers play with

the locks of the little fellow whose head rests on her knee, that his

heart is beating audibly under her caressing touch!”[503] Perez cites

Valle’s account of a ten-year-old boy who was in love with his older

cousin. “Elle vient quelquefois m’agacer le cou, me menacer les côtes

de ses doigts longs. Elle rit, me caresse, m’embrasse; je la serre en

me défendant et je l’ai mordue une fois. Elle m’a crié: Petit méchant!

en me donnant une tape sur la joue un peu fort, etc.”[504]

This feeling may be involved in some of the positions and movements

of tussling boys. Schaeffer has remarked in a short paper that in

the belligerent plays of boys, especially ring fighting,[505] “the

fundamental impulse of sexual life for the utmost extensive and

intensive contact, with a more or less clearly defined idea of conquest

underlying it,” plays a most conspicuous part. I do not believe that

this is the rule, yet I am convinced that Schaeffer’s view is more

often correct than would appear at a first glance, and especially so

when the contestants are on the ground and laughingly struggle together.

Lastly, we must notice the absorbing friendships between children

of the same sex. Here, too, the instinct, robbed of its proper aim,

may assume a sportive, playful air. Even among students, friendships

are not rare in which the unsatisfied impulse plays its part all

unknown to the subjects. I content myself in this connection with the

citation of a little-known passage of the highest poetic beauty, and

evidently inspired by personal reminiscence. In it a light touch of

sexuality is imparted with a delicacy equal to that of Keller. Wilhelm

Meister writes to Natalie of his suddenly formed and tragically ended

friendship with a village lad. The two boys, who had just become

acquainted, were fishing together on the river bank. “As we sat there

leaning together he seemed to grow tired, and called my attention

to a flat rock which projected into the water from one side of the

stream. It made the loveliest place to bathe. Pretty soon he sprang up,

declaring that he could no longer withstand it, and before I knew it

he was down there undressed and in the water. As he was a good swimmer

he soon left the shallows, yielding his form to the water and coming

toward me. I too began to be interested. Grasshoppers danced around

me, ants swarmed about, bright-coloured insects hung from the boughs

overhead, and gold gleaming sunbeams floated and glanced fantastically

at my feet, and just then a huge crab pushed up between the roots to

his old stand whence he had been driven by the necessity of hiding

from the fishers. It was so warm and damp that one longed to get out

of the sun into the shade, and then from the cool shade to the cooler

water. So it was easy for my companion to lure me in with him. I

found a mild invitation irresistible and, notwithstanding some fear

of parental displeasure, and a vague terror of the unknown element, I

was soon making active preparations. Quickly undressing on the rock I

cautiously stepped into the water, but did not go far from the gently

sloping bank. Here my friend let me linger, going off by himself in the

buoyant waves. When he came back he stood upright to dry his body in

the warm sunshine. I thought the glory of the sun was eclipsed by the

noble manly figure which I had never seen nude before. He too seemed to

regard me with equal attention. Though quickly dressed again, we now

stood forever revealed to one another, and with the warmest kisses we

swore eternal friendship.”

I suppose the general playfulness of the foregoing instances might be

called in question on the ground that there is no consciousness that

it is all a play, no sham activity. Yet we refer complacently enough

to other things which display quite as little of such subconsciousness

as play. Indeed, the rule is that it is absent from mental play, and,

moreover, this is a case that more closely concerns the emotions.

The plays which involve subjective sham activity overlap to a great

extent the sphere of the objective ones where the man or animal takes

pleasure in action which has no necessary actual aim, yet without

being conscious of having turned aside from the life of cause and

effect. If we admit that the boy careering aimlessly about is playing

because he enjoys the movement for its own sake, or that gourmands who

eat without hunger, and merely to tickle their palates, are playing,

then we must also call it play when the child takes pleasure in the

sexual sensations arising from touch stimuli without knowing that his

activity, on account of the exclusion of their proper end, is all a

sham. From a purely biological standpoint the conception of play goes

much deeper, as we shall see later on. I have purposely selected such

examples as (with the exception of the last citation) exhibit the

sexual impulse in conjunction with other activity that is unmistakably

playful, believing that this conjunction would strengthen the

probability of its being playful in those cases which if given alone

might appear doubtful.

With adults the subjective side of play is more prominent, especially

when the proper end of the instinctive impulse for contact is held in

abeyance by the will of the participants. Here belongs the dalliance

of engaged couples. It is no play, of course, when the lovers,

on the first revelation of their common feeling or after a long

separation, indulge in a passionate embrace. But when in their daily

intercourse that manifold trifling begins which is too familiar to

need description, I see no reason why it should not be called play

with touch stimuli. The more naïve the period or social class the

more common this is. In the free intercourse of the sexes in mediæval

baths the jesting caresses must often have been quite rough. While

many of the pictorial representations of such bathing scenes are

doubtless exaggerated, still they could not have been pure inventions.

The description by the Florentine Poggio (1417) of Swiss bathing

customs bears them out. He expressly says: “It is remarkable to see

how innocent they are; how unsuspiciously men will look on while their

wives are handled by strangers,... while they gambol and romp with each

other and sometimes without other company; yet the husbands are not

disturbed nor surprised at anything because they know that it is all

done in an innocent, harmless way.” In feudal times it was the custom

for noble gentlemen to be served in the bath by young women, to be

washed by them, and afterward rubbed. At the spinning _fêtes_ the young

couples “played,” as a Christmas piece has it, with all sorts of hand

clasping and stroking. But the most remarkable proceeding of this kind

was the “lovers’ night of continence,” observed in various countries,

including France, Italy, and Germany, by knightly devotees whose

lady permitted them to pass one night at her side, trusting to their

oath and honour not to take advantage of her kindness. This strange

custom, so shocking to our ideas of propriety, was doubtless derived

from similar practices of very ancient origin among the peasantry, the

chastity of whose girls was rarely violated in spite of the utmost

intimacies. It is interesting to find an ethnological analogue to this

among the Zulus. According to Fritsch, the custom of _Uku-hlobonga_

obtains there, “in which the young bachelors join the maidens of the

neighbourhood, and these latter choose their mates, each according to

her pleasure. The rejected swains have to bear the scorn of the whole

company, while the chosen ones recline with their sweethearts, and an

imitation of the sexual function is gone through with. Yet, as a rule,

the girl by force and threats prevents anything more serious!”[506]

Self-exhibition will occupy us only so far as it does not relate to

art. Every lover desires to present himself in the most favourable

light to the object of his affections, and to this end he plays a part,

to a certain extent; he “does as though” he were braver, stronger,

more skilful, handsomer, of finer feeling, and more intelligence than

he actually and habitually is. Fliegende Blatter said once, “A lover

always tries to be as lovable as he can, and is therefore always

ridiculous.” Such self-display is not necessarily playful, but it

becomes so as soon as the lover’s vanity is involved, and he aims not

only at the desired effect on his mistress, but also enjoys for its

own sake the exploitation of his charms. Here, as in so many psychic

phenomena, the complexity of the field is important. We are able to

see ourselves over our own shoulders, and behind the wooing I stands a

higher consciousness which looks on with satisfaction at the display

of its own attractions. Hence arise the frequent cases where a sort

of tacit understanding between a man and woman prohibits all serious

intercourse, so that they can have only such relations as depend on the

sexual stimulus (flirting).

As the first form of courtship by self-exhibition I mention those

fighting plays in which the combatants engage in the ladies’

presence. I have noticed incidentally that human combat, as well as

that between animals, is often connected with the sexual life, but

now we will consider the subject from its proper standpoint. That a

martial bearing is a means not only of terrifying enemies, but also

of delighting females, all experience goes to show, and war paint and

feathers become adornments as well. Here as with animals, says Colin

A. Scott, the terrible approaches the beautiful, and as modesty in

women has a peculiar charm to the other sex, so does a warlike spirit

appeal to the feminine nature. “In some tribes a man dare not marry,

and indeed no woman would have him, until he has slain a certain

number of foes.”[507] The conquest of rivals then becomes a means of

self-exhibition before the loved one. Westermarck, in his history of

human marriage, gives numerous instances of such courtship contests,

from which I shall borrow. Heame states that “it is a universal custom

among the North American Indians for the men who are wooing a woman to

fight for her, and naturally the strongest among them gets the prize.

This practice prevails among all their tribes, and is the occasion

of passionate rivalry among their youths, who from childhood, and on

every possible occasion, make a point of displaying their strength

and skill in fighting.” Lumholtz writes from North Queensland: “If a

woman is beautiful all the men want her, and the strongest and most

influential is usually the lucky man. Consequently, the younger men

must wait a long time to get a wife, especially if they are not brave

enough to risk a fight with one stronger than themselves. Among the

West Victorian tribes described by Dawson a young chief who can not

find a wife for himself and is inclined to another man’s, may, if

the latter has more than two wives, challenge the husband to combat,

and if victorious make the lady of his choice his lawful spouse. In

New Zealand when a girl has two suitors of equal merit a contest is

arranged in which the damsel is dragged by the arms in different

directions by the wooers, and the stronger carries off the bride.”

Arthur Young tells of a strange custom which was at one time general

in the Arran Islands. “A number of the poorer village folk confer

together respecting some young girl who according to their opinion

ought to be married, and select an eligible peasant. This settled, they

send a message to the fair one that next Sunday she will be ‘beritten

gemacht’—that is, carried on the men’s shoulders. She then prepares

burned wine and cider for the feast, and after mass all pay her a visit

to watch the sling contest. After she is ‘beritten gemacht’ the rivalry

begins, and general attention is skilfully directed toward the chosen

swain. If he is victor he surely marries the maiden; but if another

overcomes him he loses her, for she is the prize of the champion.”[508]

There is surely something playful about such contests, at least in the

preparation and in the awards, if not in the struggle itself. But it

is not always by combat with other suitors that the lover displays his

courage, strength, and dexterity. By boldly taking risks and engaging

in tests of strength and trials of skill which have so strong an

attraction for the young, he claims the attention and admiration which

women bestow on such acts. I do not assert that such exhibitions would

never take place without feminine spectators, but as a rule they would

be pursued with much less enthusiasm if the only onlookers were to be

men. Most herdsmen would be indifferent to the Edelweiss growing on the

almost inaccessible rocks did not a sprig of it in their hats advertise

them to the village beauties as men fearless of danger. We have seen

that the adventurous knight’s readiness for the fray and hearty welcome

to danger in any form were usually prompted by his wish to lay the

trophies of his victories at his lady’s feet. Nowhere is this sort of

courtship more naïvely expressed than in Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, where

Richard Cœur de Lion sings beneath his lady’s window:

“Joy to the fair! My name unknown,

Each deed and all its praise thine own;

Then, oh, unbar this churlish gate!

The night dew falls, the hour is late.

Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,

I feel the north breeze chill as death;

Let grateful love quell maiden shame,

And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.”

We should further note the display of physical charms so far as it can

be separated from art, which, indeed, is no easy task, as the boundary

line is sometimes almost indistinguishable. Yet it does exist, and we

may be able to detect it most readily in the conduct of our budding

youths. As a rule, when the other sex begins to interest them they

are impelled to make the most of every outward advantage. The boy

begins to be neat, to care for his teeth and nails, arrange his hair

more carefully, to consider the fit of his clothes, and to indulge in

boots and gloves which are too small for him; he puts on high collars

and makes a great display of his cuffs, and impatiently awaits the

premonitions of a mustache. It is altogether unlikely that he is clear

as to the meaning of all this, and in that case he is playing with his

personal charms. Such special attention is given to the hair by youths

of all classes as to suggest a particular significance for that form of

adornment, and the care of the beard naturally goes with it.

There are, however, less innocent modes of self-exhibition and some

which more unmistakably point to the end which they are intended

to serve. The girdle decorations of savages, for instance, are now

considered to have a significance quite different from that formerly

attributed to them. Their original intention was in all probability

to attract attention, not to conceal. Of their ornamental use we are

not now speaking, but I confess that I have my doubts of the universal

applicability of the explanation just indicated, in spite of the

opinion of many competent investigators. Forster speaks of the leaves

of a certain species of ginger plant which the male inhabitants of

some of the New Hebrides bind to their breech cloths, as outraging

in their appearance every law of decency, and Barrow makes the same

remark about the Hottentots.[509] Many scholars, too, are disposed to

attribute the origin of circumcision to some such beginnings, as there

is much against its explanation on religious or sanitary grounds. It

is rather surprising that no one has adduced, in support of the modern

view of the purposes of courtship served by the articles suspended from

the girdle, the strange fashion of projecting front flaps introduced

in the fifteenth century. Rabelais’s famous chapter on this subject is

merely an exaggeration, not an invention. The reality was certainly bad

enough,[510] and as little calculated as are the savage decorations to

serve the purposes of modesty. Yet in neither case am I prepared to

assert that they belong exclusively to the category of sexual stimuli.

The higher the culture of a people the more prominent becomes the

display of mental qualities in conjunction with physical advantages.

We have seen that the opportunity to speak in public is often the

leading stimulus in the mental fighting play of argument, and in the

intercourse of the sexes the decorous display of one’s intellectual

advantages appears as a further play, be it whether the man simply

wishes to show his powers to their best advantage in the presence of

beautiful women, or whether he intends his gallantry as a direct attack

on the feminine heart. Every one knows how common this is as a mere

play, apart from any serious intention, and, indeed, that it is the

habit of man to play the gallant even when he is not especially “laying

himself out” to be attractive. The much-decried unseemly haste of men

in society to seek refuge in the smoking room after dinner is due

certainly in part to their fatigue after keeping up the play so long

and trying to appear superior to their ordinary selves.

But earnest courtship, too, easily assumes a playful character, because

the pleasure in self-exhibition and the satisfaction of vanity easily

become ends in themselves. The stilted and flowery epistolary style

common a few generations ago doubtless grew up in this way, and the old

letters published as models for lovers are good instances of this sort

of extravagance.

Coquetry in the other sex is allied to self-exhibition in the male, but

it is of so complicated a character that a special section is devoted

to its treatment. Usually the word conveys the idea of a heartless use

and enjoyment of a woman’s power over men, but it really has a much

wider meaning which is of great biological importance.

Not only among human beings, but in the animal world as well, peculiar

behaviour is noticeable on the part of females, which is based on the

antagonism of two instincts—namely, the sexual impulse and inborn

coyness. Hence arises that alternate seeking and fleeing for which I

know no better name than coquetry, which is thus seen to be often quite

different from mere heartless play. A simple illustration is that of

the doe followed by an ardent buck; she flees, but it is always in a

circle.

If we find the cause of such coquetry in inborn modesty which is

directly opposed to the sexual impulse the question is at once asked,

Of what use is this modesty? The answer which is attempted in The

Play of Animals involves an essential modification of the theory of

natural selection. Darwin has referred animal arts of courtship to

æsthetic taste on the part of the female, who is said always to choose

the handsomest and best equipped of her wooers. But it is by no means

certain that such choice from a number is always the case; indeed, some

observers directly contradict the theory of courtship arts at all. The

Müller brothers have definitely established the fact that birds pair

long before the breeding season, so that such arts can only be for the

purpose of “overcoming feminine reluctance to sexual union.” And H.

E. Ziegler remarks, in a notice of my book, that courtship plays are

indulged in repeatedly by monogamous birds long after their permanent

choice has been made. With these facts then as premises, I have reached

the following conclusion: Since the sex impulse must necessarily have

extraordinary strength, the interests of the preservation of species

are best served by a long preliminary condition of excitement and by

some checks to its discharge. The instinctive coyness of the female

serves this purpose. The question is not, in my opinion, which of many

males she will choose, but rather which male possesses the qualities

necessary for overcoming the reluctance of the female whom he selects

and besieges, and for maintaining at the same time the proper state

of excitation. “The female is not then the awarder of a prize, but is

rather a hunted creature; and just as the beast of prey must possess

special instincts for securing his victim, so must the ardent male be

equipped with special instincts for subduing the coyness of his mate.”

Thus the phenomena of courtship are directly referable to a biological

end, and the great importance of coyness is explained.[511]

But this peculiarly feminine instinct has a salient psychological

significance as well, as I have hinted in the preface to my former

work: “Just as in the beast of prey instincts of ravenous pursuit are

refined into the various arts of the chase, so from such crude efforts

at wooing that courtship has finally developed in which sexual passion

is psychologically sublimated into love.” We must suppose that the

evident refinement and depth of the marriage relation among birds is

largely to be ascribed to the fact that the male does not simply excite

and control his mate, but seeks to win her in a less abrupt manner by

the display of his charms and capabilities; and the same is true with

ourselves. Without the modesty of women, which as a rule only yields to

the power of love, the sexual relation would hardly be a poet’s theme,

while now love is regarded as the highest flight of the human soul. “La

pudeur,” says Guyau, “a civilisé l’amour.”