This coyness, of course, can only constitute a love play when it is

manifested in the struggle with sexual instinct—that is, when it

becomes coquetry or flirting. As in the female spider, this impulse

is converted into rage which endangers the life of the wooing male,

so there are among women Brunhild natures for whom the process of

courtship can never be playful. But the effect is different when

repulsion is so balanced by attraction that there is alternate motion

to and from, approach and then flight; though this alone does not

constitute it a play, as the conflict of opposed instincts may be very

serious. When, however, women enjoy the varying moods for their own

sake, playful exercise of instinct easily ensues, and is somewhat akin

to the fighting and hunting play, yet clearly differentiated from them.

“In Paraguay,” says Mantegazza, “where intercourse between the sexes

is very free, an impatient youth who has good grounds to believe that

he is regarded favourably repeats in all possible variations of tone,

now tender, now passionate, now beseeching, now wrathful, the one word,

‘To-day!’ and the lovely creole who has never heard of Darwin answers

laughingly: ‘No, indeed; not to-day! You have only known me ten days!

Perhaps in two months.’”[512] Here the natural shyness has so little

of fear or anger that the young girl actually enjoys controlling her

lover and putting him off, and yet such coquetry as this is far from

being the heartless behaviour so commonly designated by that word. Even

this latter I regard as a love play, however, for we must suppose the

genuine coquette to be heart whole. She finds her chief pleasure in

her relations with the other sex, even the satisfaction of her vanity

being of another quality from that which has no such connection. If we

inquire what are some of the special forms of this playful coquetry we

find them parallel with self-exhibition in men, except that the display

is constantly held in check and veiled by modesty. While man makes much

of his courage and strength in the presence of women, women are apt to

take occasion to parade their weakness and helplessness. Genuine love

involves, as I have occasion to remark, a combination of the sexual and

fostering instincts; therefore woman’s need of his help is a strong

attraction to a man, which is quickly recognised and turned to account

by the female. A young girl is usually very much alive to the fact when

one of her rivals makes a display of her timidity or delicacy to make

herself interesting. On the other hand, women too like to show where

their capabilities lie, and they exploit their housewifely qualities.

This is amusingly shown among the company collected in one of the

mountain clubhouses where all must go to strengthen and refresh the

inner man. Great zeal is displayed by the women, aforetime so weary, in

getting out the dishes, laying the table, cooking and serving the meal,

and then in clearing away and tidying up. It is all done with laughter

and jest, for the very novelty makes it a delight, but would their

interest be so great if there were no masculine spectators in the hut?

Of all the modes of self-exhibition, there is none so important to

a woman as the display of her physical charms, and the difference

between the sexes is plainly shown here as elsewhere. Man in his

wooing makes straight for the goal; woman’s efforts are veiled, but

not hidden, under a show of modesty. The man says, “Look, I am thus

and so”; the woman, “I, too, am thus and so, but don’t look.” The

alluring glance which turns away if it is noticed, but not unless it

is, is a purely feminine love play, and so is the smile which is not

visibly directed toward the man for whom it is intended; with them,

too, attention to the hair is conspicuous. It is amazing to see what

importance even a three-year-old girl will attach to it, and with

what jealous interest the hair of other children is observed. A doll

with real hair is their chief desire. But an enumeration of woman’s

peculiarities in this respect is summed up in their toilet for full

dress; the _décolleté_ gown tells the whole story. Klopstock has the

idea when he speaks in his ode (Die Brant) “of the quickening breast

which so softly swells, not wishing to be seen, but sure of being

seen.” It would be impossible for men to carry off such an exhibition

as women do. They would either not do it at all, or else openly

recognise the object of it. Women, on the contrary, would, if asked,

indignantly protest against such an implication. As a rule, however,

they show little disposition to exhibit their charms for one another’s

benefit.

This principle extends, too, to the display of their mental graces.

When the talk between a man and a woman becomes a love play, she

usually tries to conceal her discovery of their congeniality with

defensive trifling. She leads him on with mocking words, makes a direct

attack, then pretends to discourage him, or intrenches herself in

incredulity.

2. _Love Play in Art_

Before going on to consider this branch of the subject a few remarks

are in order in regard to the Darwinian theory, which has been so

often referred to. According to it the arts are considered as directly

derived from the relations of the sexes in much the same manner as the

well-known phenomena in the bird world are known as courtship arts. Far

be it from me to deny the sexual instinct its part in the beginnings

of art, yet I certainly consider this view entirely too one-sided. The

attempt has been made, too, to refer the conception of beauty to this

instinct. Grant Allen, in particular, is a latter-day exponent of this

view; proceeding from sexual selection he reasons that for man mankind

is the first of æsthetic objects. All misshapen, abnormal, feeble,

unnatural, and incapable creatures are repugnant to us, while those

are beautiful which can boast of health, vigour, perfect development,

and parental soundness. Consequently our first ideas of beauty are

purely “anthropinistic,” having their origin and centre in man and what

immediately concerns him, his weapons, garments, and dwellings.[513]

The value placed on bright-coloured shells, stones, feathers, etc.,

comes from their use as personal adornments. While this view certainly

has much in its favour, yet its first premise is doubtful. Can we

assert with assurance that the perfect human form was the first object

of æsthetic admiration? If there ever were primitive men who knew no

sort of personal adornment, was the well-built, vigorous, and youthful

body beautiful to them? Did they first derive their intense delight

in coloured stones, feathers, shells, etc., from the fact that these

things could be used as bodily adornments? Such an affirmation is by no

means self-evident. We find pleasure in gay or shining objects a much

earlier feeling in children than is admiration of the human form, and,

moreover, it must be borne in mind that the attraction instinctively

felt for the normal and vigorous youthful form is not ordinarily due to

æsthetic appreciation. May it not be possible that the shining stones

and gay feathers were the earliest objects of æsthetic observation,

and that from them the eye first received its education and learned

to admire the human figure. Or if this is too radical, is it not

more prudent to assume that sensuous pleasure as such has its place

in conjunction with sexual stimuli in the development of æsthetic

appreciation? The personal adornments of primitive peoples seem to

me to indicate clearly that men at first had very little regard for

perfect physical beauty; therefore, proceeding cautiously, we are led

to the conclusion that the original use of cosmetics is on the whole a

detraction from racial beauty, though some painted or tattooed designs

do emphasize even for our eyes the symmetry and eurythmy of the nude

figure, and whitened teeth do bring out the colour effects of a dark

skin. Yet there are so many forms of would-be decoration which have

a contrary effect by reason of their lack of harmony with the racial

norm, so to speak, that we are forced to doubt whether the natural man

has much feeling for simple physical beauty in itself. Take this brief

description of Scott’s: “Teeth were extracted or filed to points, the

head shaved, beard and eyebrows pulled out, skull compressed, feet

bandaged and lengthened or deformed by turning the four smaller toes

under, nose and lips weighted with rings and sticks, ear lobes dragged

down until they touch the shoulders, the breasts cut off or made

unnaturally prominent, the skin scarred, seamed, or bruised as well as

painted, stained, and tattooed.”[514] Is it not natural to infer from

this that to the savage the body is beautiful only when what we think

its most beautiful and characteristic features are marred or destroyed?

It proves to be very questionable, then, how far the idea of beauty

is connected with the sexual instinct, though none can doubt that the

use of ornaments plays an important rôle in self-exhibition before the

opposite sex. It would be hazardous to state, however, that courtship

is their only end, since there are terrifying decorations which

would not be useful in that capacity unless, indeed, as a means of

frightening away rivals, which is hardly probable. There is the social

aim to be considered, and the simple pleasure in possessing beautiful,

unusual, or valuable things (we put such things in our pockets, but

the savage has to attach them externally).[515] Hardly any primitive

method of decoration can be adduced as directly strengthening Darwin’s

theory; the imitative principle controls the beginnings of plastic

art, courtship is not the exclusive aim in savage dancing, and as for

the music and poetry which go with the dancing, they rarely deal with

such subjects.

It may be demurred that such arts have gradually been divorced from

their original intention, but the facts do not point to it. Though

some scholars regard other ornamentation as of later origin than the

use of cosmetics, there is nothing to prove that this is a fact.[516]

Moreover, in the development of the special arts a noteworthy fact

becomes prominent—namely, that the sexual element appears stronger in

the later stages, while at first other elements are quite as important

or even far more so. Thus love is a conspicuous theme in the lyrics of

civilized peoples, but of primitive races Grosse declares: “It can not

be ascertained that the Australian tribes ... have produced a single

love song; and Rink, their most faithful student, says that the Eskimos

hardly show any appreciation of the sentiment of love.”[517] In our

dancing the two sexes unite in a movement-play, and Orientals have

beautiful girls to dance before them. Among savages, on the contrary,

imitative dances are much more common, which have no connection with

sex relations. Indeed, we often find rules which confine dancing to

certain places of resort where women are excluded. We can say of

personal adornment too that civilized peoples apply them much more to

the uses of courtship than do savages.

These things being true, it is well to use caution in applying the

Darwinian theory to the origin of art; while uses of courtship very

often accompany the appearance and development of art, we must still

cling to our conception of play as its principal source. Delight in

sensuous pleasure and in regularity, the charm of rhythm, enjoyment

of imitation and of illusion, the demand for intense stimuli, the

attraction of attempting what is difficult—all are elements in the

principle which we have repeatedly found and shall find more and more,

connecting the spheres of play and art without necessarily touching

at all on the question of sex. Even self-exhibition itself may depend

as much on the social as on the sexual instinct. I am convinced, then,

that Schiller was in the main right in deriving art from play, while

Darwin’s theory must be relegated to the position of a secondary or

partial explanation.

Having made this critical review of the subject, I may give my

undivided attention to the effort to prove that art, in its last

analysis, does include the sexual element along with all else that

appeals to the feelings, and so is often converted into a love play.

But we must distinguish such play as it is manifested in artistic

production and that which appears in æsthetic enjoyment. We often

find courtship carried on by means of the former, while the latter

is concerned only with the playful enjoyment of sexual excitement,

unconnected with any serious aim. Courtship by means of artistic

production is a subject which has been pretty thoroughly canvassed and

will have but brief mention here. It exhibits a playful character, such

as the above-mentioned forms of self-display when the wooer enjoys

the mere act of unfolding his charms. Among savages it is usually

confined to the use of pigments and dancing. Westermarck and Grosse

have recently enumerated the principal uses of the former. But, as I

have said, such decoration is not exclusively for courtship purposes;

the desire to outshine other tribes is often a powerful motive.

The psychological aspect of this sort of thing is interesting. The

later development of fashion teaches us that mere delight in finery

and ornament is a very small part of it; there is a complication of

relations. When we see an elegant old gentleman at a watering place

with a flower in his buttonhole, we attribute his state of mind to

a belated feeling of youthfulness; and so the adornments of savages

and the coquette’s toilet owe their effect less to a direct appeal

to the senses than to their symbolic meaning. They betray the demand

for ornament, and this demand again discloses the adaptability of

ornamentation to sexual purposes. Our peasant youths at the fairs

put labels in their hats announcing to the interested public that

they are in the matrimonial market, and all decoration for courtship

purposes says the same thing in effect. Their suggestiveness is not

so much in the external appearance as in their symbolism,[518] and

this may explain the fact that what is merely striking is as effective

in primitive and sometimes in modern decoration as what is really

beautiful.

Savage dances sometimes serve the purposes of courtship, and, of

course, the wild intoxication of movement which they lead to is itself

calculated to produce sexual excitement. Notes on obscene dances may

be found in the works of Waitz-Gerland (Australian), Turner (Samoan),

Ehrenreich (Brazilian), Powers (Californian), Fritsch (Zulu), and

others. When such dances serve the purposes of courtship they are

not uninteresting. When they consist of a wild _mêlée_ in which

participators and spectators are thrown into a condition of ecstasy,

the idea of discriminating choice on the part of the women is difficult

to apply. There is, however, no such difficulty in the way of my theory

that violent excitement is a necessary preliminary. I give two examples

from the bird world: “The black-headed ibis of Patagonia, which is

almost as large as a turkey, carries on a strange wild game in the

evening. A whole flock seems to be suddenly crazed; sometimes they fly

up in the air with startling suddenness, move about in a most erratic

way, and as they near the ground start up again and so repeat the

game, while the air for kilometres around vibrates with their harsh,

metallic cries. Most ducks confine their play to mock battles on the

water, but the beautiful whistling duck of the La Plata conducts them

on the wing as well. From ten to twenty of them rise in the air until

they appear like a tiny speck, or entirely disappear. At this great

height they often remain for hours in one place, slowly separating

and coming together again while the high, clear whistle of the male

blends admirably with the female’s deeper, measured note, and when they

approach they strike one another so powerfully with their wings that

the sound, which is like hand-clapping, remains audible when the birds

are out of sight.”[519] In cases where this sort of orgy, indulged in

by flocks of birds, serves sexual purposes, as it probably often does,

my theory proves to be more explanatory than Darwin’s, and the same may

be said of our general dance with its direct appeal to such stimuli. It

is much less likely that some of the dancers will single out special

partners than that participant and spectators alike will be thrown into

an ecstatic state in which all restraints are cast off.

In considering such dances the question must be met whether they, like

the courtship arts of birds, are referable to instinctive tendencies.

It may be inferred from the introductory part of this section that I

am somewhat sceptical as to that. I do, indeed, doubt whether human

dancing should be attributed exclusively to courtship, and I think we

can hardly emphasize too much the fact that while man possesses the

full complement of instincts, they are subordinated in his case in

favour of intellectual adaptations. Of birds we know with comparative

certainty that they must learn and practise their courtship arts

practically without teachers; but no one will affirm that individual

man without tradition or example would turn to ornament and dancing

on the awakening of sexual impulse. Only a general disposition toward

self-display is instinctive, the how and when being left to invention

and tradition. Perhaps some particularly significant movements are

specializations of this disposition, as, for instance, the hip

movement, which is accentuated in the waltz and which has influenced

plastic art since the time of Praxiteles. There must be much more

thorough investigation of the subject before we can affirm even the

possibilities respecting it.

Of the other arts, that of lyric poetry is about the only one which we

need to consider in relation to courtship, and this more especially in

its connection with music. Among primitive races dancing invariably

accompanies the recital of such poetry. The troubadour is the product

of a higher social condition. The lyric, too, played an important part

as an instrument of courtship in Mohammedan civilization during the

fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as is apparent from the Thousand

and One Nights Tales. “The ear often loves before the eye,” to quote

from one of them which deals with the winning power of beautiful verse.

In the story of Hajat Alnufus and Ardschir the amorous prince, who is

disguised as a merchant, seeks to awaken the love of the proud princess

by means of passionate verse, and the description is fine of how a

tender interest is aroused in the coy and high-spirited beauty toward

the persistent wooer, though it develops, it is true, into genuine

love only under his gaze. “O Hajat Alnufus,” runs one of these love

poems, “make happy with thy presence a lover whom absence is undoing.

My life was surrounded with joy and bliss, but now the nights find me

raving and mad with love. Must I always sigh and moan, always be cast

down and hopeless? All night long sleep shuns me, and I gaze wearily

at the stars. Oh, have pity on a dismayed and suffering lover whose

heart is sad and his eyes weary with watching!” In the story of Hasan

of Bassrah we have a feminine counterpart of this which deserves to be

numbered among the finest pearls of Oriental lyrical poetry. Hasan’s

lady is so rejoiced to see him after a long separation that she breaks

forth in the following rhapsody: “I breathe in the air which wafts from

your land and refreshes you in the morning. I ask the wind about you

whenever it blows from that way; I think of no one but you.”

More common are the instances which, while not directed toward a

special wooing, yet have the character of play with the sexual emotions

which is pleasurable in itself, and involve the question of the

connection of such stimuli with æsthetic enjoyment. I maintain that

this element is much more conspicuous in the use of cosmetics and

in dancing than is actual courtship, and even in the ornamentation

which seems far from the sphere of sex, and in architecture itself

love play is not entirely lacking at any stage of its development.

Von den Steinen has told us what pleasure the Brazilian tribes take

in decorating their tools with conventionalized _ulúri_, which are

triangular pieces of bark such as the women are fond of wearing. It

is very conspicuous in all the adornments of these people, who make

no secret of their fondness for it. This feeling, too, is at the

foundation of the employment of nude female figures for decorative

purposes in renaissance art. Obscene exaggerations of the masculine

figure are not uncommon in plastic representation, and are no doubt

due as much to sexuality as to any religious significance (such as

the exaltation of the idea of productiveness, etc.). Nor is love

play lacking in the art of cultured peoples, though here we are not

confronted with the crude sensuality, which is of comparatively little

psychological interest, but with that more subtile effect of the

instinct, that tender, moving, melting sensation which must be felt to

be understood, for it can not be described. In my Einleitung in die

Aesthetik[520] I have set forth the grounds on which the philosopher

Stöckl objects to representations of the nude. “As a result of

original sin,” he says, “mankind is susceptible to evil passions which

are aroused at the sight of nakedness, and the will is incited to

connivance in the sinful lust. Of original sin and its consequences,

it is true, most advocates of the nude in art are quite ignorant

theoretically, and yet it is a truth testified to by the experience

of every man, even though he be a student of æsthetics, that there

is in us a law which is at variance with spiritual law, and that we

ought to avoid everything that tends to bring us under its power, to

which things nakedness in art belongs.”[521] Whatever protest can be

made against this in the name of art, and however it may be insisted

that there is such a thing as chaste nudity, still I am convinced that

in the extraordinary attractiveness of the work of Praxiteles and

Canova, for example, subtile emotions connected with the sexual life

are involved. I have noticed that for the uneducated person Canova’s

Cupid and Psyche is regarded as embodying the acme of sculptured beauty

without the observer having the remotest suspicion of the source of

much of his intensity of admiration. The higher the æsthetic culture,

however, the less as a rule (not always) is this force operative, and

therefore directly in the interests of chastity the answer may be made

to Stöckl’s challenge, that an artist may experience a purely æsthetic

enjoyment of form in the nude figure which is hardly possible to the

uncultivated person.

It is hardly necessary to dilate on the influence of the instinct in

question in the sphere of painting. Here, too, it is more evident to

the average man, with his naïve enjoyment of materiality, than to the

connoisseur. Andrée tells us that many tribes of men cherish indecent

pictures and statues which have no religious symbolism, and we all know

how common is the habit of drawing such things on fences and walls.

But more significant than such grossness is the popular preference

for sentimentally suggestive pictures. The passionate admiration of

some neuropathic persons for the flat illustrations of a fashion paper

is but a pathological exaggeration and distortion of the amazing

popularity of some insipid, wide-eyed, simpering feminine figure,

and the almost worse blond hero of many so-called artists. It is not

necessary to call names, but a student of psychological æsthetics

should not shrink from stating _sine ira_ the true (though often

unconscious) grounds for the admiration bestowed on such things, nor

ignore its significance.

While music comes in the province of our inquiry only when the

accompanying words, situation, and explanations, or the subjective

temper of the hearer lends to the tone movements a sexual meaning,[522]

poetry, on the contrary, as has been said, plays a very large part

in the business of love, and even more so among civilized than among

primitive people. Besides love lyrics, which have been sufficiently

illustrated, there are narrative descriptions of love scenes and

processes—not only the numerous poetic lucubrations which deserve to be

designated as erotic, which means in plain English indecent, but the

whole immeasurable sea of novels and romances whose leading interest

depends on this theme. Many can read such tales only in their youth

(boys are especially liable to this passion for romance immediately

after the subsidence to their attack of Indian tales), but the

majority retain their capacity for inward sympathy with the trials of

lovers; and here, too, the taste of the general public is as opposed to

that of connoisseurs as in the case of pictures. The ability to cater

to this taste is possessed pre-eminently by women, because the false

idealism which abounds in such works accompanies a certain ignorance

of the facts of life which women retain oftener and longer than men.

The study of some of the better class of these romances—notably those

of E. Marlitt—is not without psychological interest. One of our comic

papers not long since quoted this passage, ostensibly from a novel:

“In an adjoining room sounded a bearded masculine voice”; and the

sentence might serve as a motto for the title page of a treatise on

the yellow-covered romance of the type which is so highly prized by

hundreds of thousands of readers of both sexes. A favourite theme is

to follow the fortunes of a young married couple who are estranged at

first, as in Marlitt’s Zweiter Frau, Werner’s Glück auf, and Ohnett’s

Hüttenbesitzer. It is, of course, psychologically and æsthetically

interesting to follow the conversion from real or pretended aversion to

attachment, a process from which, Spinoza tells us, deeper love results

“quam si odium non præcessisset.” But the extraordinary attractive

power of this novel specific for bringing about the desired result

arises from a special stimulus not difficult to identify from our point

of view, and inherent in the situation.

3. _The Comic of Sex_

This subject offers a difficult problem. The fact that all mankind,

adult and child, the refined, cultured person as well as the primitive

savage, the latest representative of centuries of civilization and his

remotest ancestor, alike show a propensity to take pleasure in things

relating to this subject, is one which we may deplore and yet can

not characterize as entirely inexplicable. But we may ask why it is

considered comical.

It frequently happens that the comic impression is heterogeneous, as

in the ribaldry which perverts wit from its proper sphere and makes

the offence against good manners take the form of a social blunder,

while unintentioned indecency may raise a laugh at the expense of the

perpetrator. Yet it can not be denied that the mere introduction of

the sexual element is an independent source of amusement and one which

requires some special explanation.

The common solution as set forth by Vischer and Zeising is to the

effect that this stimulus is identical with that of any other

impropriety, the laugh being at the outrage to conventionality.[523]

But while this explains some cases there are others which it does not

touch. Civilized man who is prohibited by strict rules of propriety any

reference to such subjects may experience a feeling of triumph when

he boldly bursts the bonds of custom, but with children and savages

the case is quite different, and they exhibit a peculiar enjoyment

of such things which is not identical with their relish of forbidden

fruit. Von den Steinen tells us that the Bakaïri consider it a shameful

thing to be seen eating, but do not regard the broadest reference to

things sexual as the least breach of good manners.[524] Yet they too

find them comic. “It is true,” says the famous and learned traveller,

“that things which would seem indecent to us afforded the Bakaïri,

both men and women, evident enjoyment, and if any delving pedant who

considers modesty in our sense an inborn inheritance of mankind could

follow the rising tide of gaiety which would have offended a member of

our degenerate race, he would be obliged to admit that their hearty

laugh is not shameless in our sense, nor is it an effort to conceal

embarrassment. Yet it is undeniably erotic in a mild way, and resembles

as much as the difference in circumstances and conditions will allow

the laughter over games with us in which the two sexes are thrown

together.”[525]

What, then, is the true source of this? Possibly the following

considerations may serve to throw some light on it: First, it may be

premised that allusion to sexual subjects has some association with the

idea of physical ticklishness. “The sexual parts have a ticklishness

as unique as their function, and as keen as their importance. The

faintest suggestion of them has great power over the risibilities

of children.”[526] More important still are two other points which

make the sexual comic a special case of offensive and defensive

fighting play, such as we considered in the previous chapter. The

former may be inferred from the fact that this passion throws men and

animals into a state of ecstasy which robs them of self-control, and,

like intoxication, temporarily “disables them in the struggle for

life.”[527] As a result of this the man who by word or deed actually

places himself in any relation to this side of life calls forth in us a

feeling of superiority which pleases us and excites our laughter. This

applies especially to the amusement which all displays of amorousness

induce, whether they are modest or bold—the one so long as it does not

move, and the other so long as it does not disgust us. In other cases

the fighting play becomes defensive, and this side of the question

seems to me to exhibit more delicate psychological distinctions, since

it concerns the thrill of sexual emotion which is excited in the hearer

or spectator, and which, while it is agreeable, yet, coming as it does

from without and therefore not under his own control, he laughingly

repels it. Kant notices that amusement is generally caused by what is

momentarily deceptive. If we accept the purely intellectual conception

of deception—namely, that it is a shock or a slight confusion—then

we may regard its conquest as a genuine triumph. Such a triumph we

experience when we repel the incipient stimulation, and the contrast of

ideas thus called up gives the finishing touch to the comic effect.

III. IMITATIVE PLAYS

The Tschwi negroes have a proverb to the effect that “no one teaches

the smith’s son his trade; when he is ready to work God shows him how”;

and I. G. Christaller obtained the following explanation from one of

the aborigines: “If you have a trade, and a son who watches you at

work, he easily learns it. God has implanted in children the faculty

of observing and imitating, and when the son does what he has seen

his father do so often it is as if he knew of himself. It is, indeed,

God who teaches him!” And this childlike elucidation is not a bad one

of the significance of playful imitation in life. The inborn impulse

enables a child to learn alone what he either could not do at all or

only after painful and wearisome teaching. Imitation is the connecting

link between instinctive and intelligent conduct. Thanks to it we

can add much to our accomplishments without other instruction, and

in a manner agreeable to ourselves, for enjoyment of its exercise is

natural, so that, to use the language of the African, it is indeed God

who teaches us.

The earlier psychologists gave too little attention to imitation.

The work of Tarde[528] and Baldwin[529] has first brought to many

the knowledge that it is probably destined to win a prominent place

in biological psychology, similar to that accorded to the idea of

association in the older theories. At any rate these investigators

have certainly expanded the common acceptation of the term. Tarde says

of a man who unconsciously and involuntarily reflects the bearing of

others or accepts outside suggestion, that he is imitating, and he

regards such magnified imitation as a special case of the great cosmic

law of repetition (ondulation, génération, and imitation are the three

forms of “répétition universelle”). Baldwin calls stimulus-repeating

repetition in general imitation (so far as it is produced by the

organism itself), and so includes the alternate expansion and

contraction in the lowest organic forms. According to him, the

essence of imitation lies in the fact that when movement follows a

stimulus, the stimulus is renewed, giving rise to what may be called

“circular” reaction. Imitation of the acts of another individual, from

the perception of which a duplicate act results, is a specialized

form of this circular reaction. Baldwin has tried to prove that

the accommodation of an organism to its environment is a phenomenon

of “organic imitation,” and he grounds his new theory of “organic

selection” on this principle. I can not here dwell longer on it than to

say that it undertakes to mediate in the strife between neo-Darwinism

and neo-Lamarckianism, since the survival of the individual with the

necessary adaptibility gives selection time to produce hereditary

adaptations with the same general trend (selection among coincident

variations). Our purpose is best served by confining ourselves to the

ordinary use of the term imitation, namely, “The repetition of the acts

of one individual by another,”[530] as Lloyd Morgan has defined it.

Even this is of the greatest biological and psychological import, since

it is responsible for what Baldwin calls “social heredity”; the psychic

heritage or “tradition,” independent of physical heredity,[531] which

hands down acquired habits from generation to generation. In using the

word tradition, indeed, one naturally thinks more of habits acquired

by their owner, who by precept and example imparts them to others,

so that emphasis is laid first on the acts of the originator, though

the inclination to impart would be fruitless without imitation on

the part of the pupil. On close examination we find this literal use

of the term far from satisfactory; as a rule, the acquisition of the

habits of others depends entirely on the imitator, without intentional

assistance from the model, a distinction which finds expression in the

common proverb that example is better than precept. The operation of

this principle is apparent among the higher animals. Wallace lays great

stress on it, though in a somewhat partial way. Weismann employs the

word in its wider sense when he says: “A young finch which grows up

alone sings untaught the song of its kind, though never so beautifully

nor so perfectly as when an older bird which is a fine singer is given

him as a teacher” (teacher is here not to be understood literally). “He

is largely influenced by tradition, though the fundamental principle

of the finch’s song is already implanted in his organization.”[532]

Indeed, the data of animal psychology give us a sort of experimental

proof of the importance of the imitative impulse, since animals reared

away from their own kind but with some other species are often strongly

influenced by the alien models, in spite of their inborn instincts.

An attempt to formulate satisfactorily the biological significance of

imitation results somewhat as follows: To the higher animals imitation

of their own species is an important adjunct to instinct. The young

finch has, indeed, an inborn instinctive capacity for producing the

note characteristic of his kind, but even with the assistance of

experimentation this instinct is not adequate to his needs until

imitation of practised singers rounds out, so to speak, the inherited

capacity by means of acquired adaptations. It is evident that there

are two ways of regarding this conception of imitation. The one which

Baldwin develops is implied in Weismann’s “already” when he says that

the fundamental principle of the finch’s song is “already” implanted

in his organism, thus implying that imitation is an essential factor

in the growth of his instinctive equipment. When the more intelligent

individuals of a species have by means of independent accommodations

made new life conditions for themselves they can manage to keep

afloat by the aid of imitation until “natural selection, by favoring

and furthering” coincident variations (those tending in the same

direction), can substitute the lifeboat heredity for the life-preserver

tradition.

The other view, as I have presented it in The Play of Animals, takes

just the opposite ground—namely, that imitation enables the animal to

dispense with instinct to a much greater degree than would otherwise

be possible, and so gives free play to the evolution of intelligent

control. Here we find imitation tending to relegate instinct to the

category of things rudimentary, while, according to the hypothesis

analyzed above, it favours the growth of instinct. “It is through

instinct,” says Baldwin in a notice of my earlier work, “that

instincts both rise and decay.” For our purpose the second view is

evidently the more serviceable, since it is undeniable that in man at

least, the transition from fixed instincts to more plastic tendencies,

with their partial supplanting by acquired adaptations, has been the

general course of phylogenetic evolution, and to this process imitation

is of extraordinary value.[533]

Finally, in pursuance of the same line of thought, it seems that

imitation, at least in man, goes far beyond instinct; for by his

untrammelled relations to the external world man has been enabled to

climb beyond the ground floor of Nature to a higher plane of culture.

Yet of all his means of improvement none to speak of are physically

inherited. Thus we see the idea of imitation expanded not only to

supply the deficiencies of instinct “not yet” or “no longer” adequate,

but to such an extent that on it depends the “social” heritage of

culture from generation to generation. This powerful impulse, without

which there could be no teaching, no handing down of anything to

posterity, thus becomes the indispensable medium of continuity, and

therefore the necessary postulate of a cumulative human culture, as

opposed to one constantly recommencing _ab ovo_. But the further

question arises, May we not be justified in calling the imitative

impulse itself an instinct? Once granted the fact of instinct at all,

and an affirmative answer seems imperative to one who is familiar with

the workings of this impulse in men and animals. On these grounds I

have committed myself in my former work to the designation of imitation

as an inborn instinct, and yet I must admit the logical inconsistency

of this, since the very conception of instinct dispenses with the use

of imitation. As commonly understood, instinct may be defined as a

hereditary and clearly defined motor reaction to a given stimulus.

In imitation, on the contrary, we have a thousand varying reactions,

for as the stimulus (the model) varies the whole character of the

reaction follows suit. What becomes of the fixed hereditary orbit if

at each repetition entirely new movements, sounds unconnected with

the foregoing ones, etc., are produced? “To assert that imitation is

instinctive,” says Bain, “is to maintain the existence of an infinity

of pre-existing associations between sensations and actions.”[534] This

appears to me to be the one insurmountable objection among the many

which he and others have brought against the conception of imitative

instinct, and it is serious enough to cause me to modify my former

position.

As a point of departure, suppose we take the assumption that, with

certain limitations, a psychophysical adjustment, not in the ordinary

sense instinctive, accounts for the genesis of imitation. This

adjustment depends on the fact that in conscious activity a necessary

connection exists between the movement produced and the antecedent

concept of the movement. On the one hand, then, a movement is said

to be voluntary only when the motor act is accompanied with such an

idea of movement, while the other view implies that the idea itself

is the thing which urges its own fulfilment.[535] If this is so, the

mere concept of the movement performed by another impels us to perform

it as well, and hence arises imitation. Although the difficulty

is to establish the correctness of this assumption,[536] yet we

may be pretty sure that the concept of a possible movement, if not

crippled by antagonistic motives, does induce a certain readiness for

fulfilment.[537]

This analysis, it is true, acquaints us with a necessary condition of

imitation, but as little accounts for the amazing force of the impulse

as the mere conception of movement accounts for voluntary activity.

While every concept may impel to the corresponding motor act, we know

from experience that such tendencies to form habits are checked and

aborted by all sorts of hindrances, mere inertia being sufficient in

many cases to counteract the motive power of such concepts. There must

be special reasons, then, which lend to the perception of a movement

performed by another such extraordinary motive power. We have still

to meet the question whether there may not be an inherited relation

developed on the foundation and presupposition of the “readiness”

described above. The thousand sensory motor paths involved in it

can not be determined by heredity, since they presuppose acquired

experience (as in learning to speak, first crude experimentation,

then imitation). But the strength of the pleasurable quality in

the reproduction of a movement accomplished first by another, the

strenuousness of the effort which presses for expression, as well as

the seriousness of the disappointment in cases of failure, are direct

results of selection and the developmental factors connected with it.

In support of this proposition we may refer to the social instincts,

the simplest of which is the associativeness of members of the same

race, tribe, or faction. Its demands lead to a kind of imitation, at

least in movement impulses (Hudson assures us that the young pampas

sheep runs the instant it is born after its rapidly running mother),

and the impulse to answer a warning or alluring call. Pleasure in

satisfying this genuine instinct is especially evident where one of the

participants (they being usually of the same species) accompanies the

signal with appropriate movements.

I permit myself no judgment of the value of this hypothesis, but I

believe its adequacy to meet the case is incontrovertible. Bain, too,

in the fourth edition of his work cited above, has made a suggestion

looking in the same direction, by which the use of the word instinct

gains a certain justification. Nor should it be forgotten that to

strengthen this “readiness” a whole series of other requirements may be

present, which for convenience in this analysis I may call instinctive.

Perhaps an illustration of a movement concept which is not imitative

in the ordinary sense will make this clear. If we think intentionally

and definitely of the movements involved in whistling, we are likely

to feel a mild inclination to whistle, which, however, is commonly

easy enough to overcome. Therefore we call it a certain “readiness” in

preference to a stronger term, such as “impulse.” But let this mental

process take place in church during service; the corresponding action,

it is true, is not performed, because of the influence of contrary

motives, but the impulse may nevertheless be so strong that their

subject suffers great annoyance. Why is this? Probably because the

idea of not whistling excites the instinctive impulse toward activity

of the movement apparatus (experimentation) as well as the fighting

instinct,[538] which resents such constraint and lends itself as a

powerful auxiliary to the movement impulse. It is just in this way that

the perception of movement made by another arouses special instinctive

emotions, and illustrates the power of the imitative impulse. This,

then, is a brief explanation of the grounds of the theory developed

above, according to which imitation serves as a complement to instincts

which have been weakened in favour of intellectual development or are,

for whatever reason, inadequate to the individual’s life tasks.

Thus we know that a child has the impulse to make use of his motor

apparatus, but this impulse is strengthened when another person makes

a movement which attracts the child’s attention. The concept as such

produces a mild inclination and the natural impulse to move weighs

down the scale. The little girl inherits an instinct for nursing;

alone, it would probably not be strong enough to originate nursing

play, and quite as little would the idea of the movements involved

which the child acquires from watching her mother have that result

(as witness, the boy). The two together produce the familiar result.

In the same way the boy’s fighting instinct impels him to imitate all

warlike demonstrations. We may say that the “what” of the subject is

answered by the movement idea and the “that” predominantly by the

corresponding instinct, though acquired necessity of course may

do the same thing. Moreover, imitation has a special affinity for

curiosity and the fighting instinct. The former asks concerning an

unusual movement by another, “How does he do it?” and an effort to

experiment at once ensues, while the fighting instinct is on the alert

at the perception of a difficulty, and loses no time in overcoming it

in order to enjoy the “I can, too,” of success. This success may be a

triumph over the model, since if no superiority is proved we arrogate

to ourselves a capacity which up to this time has been the property

of another.[539] It may, however, be mere pleasure in overcoming the

difficulty, as when we try to imitate qualities which we admire in

another, adding to the combative impulse the desire to make one’s self

agreeable or to subordinate others. But so far as conscious playful

imitation is directly concerned, the struggle with difficulties is

still in the foreground. We must remember, too, that with many of the

higher kinds of imitation—pre-eminently so with that which may be

called constructive, since its material is invariably appropriated from

foreign sources—the pleasure which is derived from recognition and from

illusion adds to its play the powerful charm of imagination.

Although I have presented here only a few of the leading features which

an analysis of the imitative processes reveals, enough has been said

to show how complicated and difficult the problem is, and to render

advisable a general summing up in more compact form of the results of

these somewhat rambling observations. It will not do to call imitation

instinct and leave it at that, since it is not a specific but quite

an involved reaction. Moreover, the condition of imitation, namely,

the tendency of movement ideas to produce corresponding movements,

is not itself instinctive; but we have seen that this tendency alone

does not explain all that we include under the name of imitation. This

tendency of the movement ideas must have special grounds furnished by

organic needs, and especially those which are instinctive; when the

general idea of movement is coincident with one of these the impulse

toward discharge becomes very strong. We cited in illustration of this

the general movement-impulse, nursing, curiosity (how is it done?),

belligerence (not only as regards distinctly hostile movements, but

sensation as well), recognition, and illusion. If there is nothing

else, then imitation taken alone is no instinct; it is only in very

close connection to instinct, as our biological point of view has

shown. It is, however, probable that these limits are not reached by

the simplest imitation, such as coughing, gaping, etc., and use may

be made of the hypothesis of transference (_loi de transfert_) from

specific social instincts, which are themselves the result of a certain

degree of imitativeness of the movement idea (agreement, answering, and

the like) to movement itself in cases involving the movements belonging

to a species. By this means natural selection of whatever developmental

factor is employed acquires an essential impetus. Whoever regards such

collaboration as probable will consider imitation as a phenomenon at

least similar to instinct.

Thirdly—and this point will be quickly disposed of—when is imitation

to be regarded as play? Evidently we must apply the psychological

criterion; imitation is a play when it is enjoyed for its own

sake.[540] Imitation transcends play at its highest and lowest

limits. Simple reflex reactions, such as gaping when another gapes,

fleeing because another has fled, etc., can not be called play in

a psychological sense, nor is the child’s first reproduction of

sounds playful. Only when he repeats the performance from enjoyment

of his success can we be sure of the thing from a psychological

standpoint.[541] The limit is passed in the other direction by

rendering the movements mechanical, so that the imitation is performed

involuntarily, no longer affording enjoyment of the act itself, as

it is now directed toward the external aim. Here belong imitative

teaching (so far as it is not in itself enjoyable) and the imitation

of an exemplary personality or ideal which is so important to ethics.

In the latter, however, a suggestion of playfulness is sometimes

present, though it would seem that nothing could be further from the

proper sphere of ethics; when poetic figures serve as models, however,

it is sometimes hard to mark the limit between the serious and the

playful.[542]

In conclusion, I would remark that imitation is almost never merely

that; it is creation as well, production as well as reproduction. Close

on the heels of imitation comes imagination, and that in the double

meaning of the word which we have learned to know. Imagination expands

the copy into a full likeness of the original, and then creates the

illusion that it is the original. However, imitation may actually

be new creation. As Baldwin lucidly puts it, the child’s persistent

imitation calls into the arena with the satisfactory copy a host of new

combinations which may be non-essential to this special aim, but which

claim the child’s attention and interest as discoveries of his own.

He is often so interested in these unexpected combinations as to lose

sight of his original purpose, and runs to his parents or comrades to

show what he can do.[543]

In turning to the consideration of imitative plays I prefer to divide

them into the following groups for the sake of convenience. First,

I shall speak of playful imitation of simple movements, which are

preparatory to more complicated processes, distinguishing between

optical and acoustic percepts. Then follow two important specialized

groups, namely, the dramatic and plastic or constructive imitation; and

finally I shall treat inner imitation as a fourth kind of play.

1. _Playful Imitation of Simple Movements_

(_a_) Optical Percepts

According to Tracy[544] there are few points so generally accepted

without question by child psychologists in general as that of the

beginning of imitation in the second half year. Yet this agreement is

not so universal as might be wished. Thus Baldwin says that experiment

with his own children has left him utterly unable to confirm the

results reported by Preyer, who thought that he could establish the

presence of imitation in the third or fourth month. Baldwin, like

Egger, could not be sure of it before the ninth month.[545] Strümpell,

on the other hand, thought he recognised the beginnings of it in the

twelfth week. “Careful observation assured me that the child was

sympathetically excited by the movements of adults in speaking. When

any one was talking to him he watched the mouth instead of the eyes,

as formerly; and as he watched, his own mouth moved softly, the lips

assuming different positions, which undoubtedly resulted from movements

in the inner part of the mouth.”[546] Baldwin may be right in regarding

such very early observations as frequently misleading, since the

correspondence with a model is apt to be accidental, though I do not

think that this supposition explains away all cases. However, enjoyment

of imitation and consequently play with it is undoubtedly of later

origin. This observation of Preyer may be called playful. “In the tenth

month correct copies of various movements are constantly produced,

and that with full consciousness. In the often repeated hand and arm

movement of ‘shaking ta-ta’ the child gazes earnestly at the person

showing him the signal, and suddenly repeats it correctly.”[547] This

is not the unconscious or involuntary copying of strange models which

is so common with young and old. The question no doubt arises in the

child’s mind, “How is that done?” and when followed by the successful

accomplishment of the task, is further succeeded by the joyful feeling

of “I can, too,” and playful use of the imitative faculty. The same

is the case with the following instances: “As I, with the intention

of amusing the child, waved my right hand to and fro before him, he

suddenly began to move his own right hand in the same way, and from

that time imitation slowly but surely progressed. On the day following,

he was much quicker in repeating the attempt, and evidently wondering

at the novelty of his experience, watched attentively now my hand

and now his own.... At fifteen months the child learned to put out a

candle flame. He blew six or seven times in vain, and kept grasping

at the flame, laughing when it eluded him, and straining after it,

while puffing and blowing with distended cheeks and lips unnecessarily

protruded.... A large ring which I slowly laid on his head and took

off again the child seized and unhesitatingly set it on his own head

(sixteen months).”[548] Sigismund says: “The child learns all his

little arts from his nurse: shaking good-bye, patting, kissing his

hand, bowing, dancing, etc. But he copies of his own accord movements

and attitudes which strike and please him. He walks with his father’s

stick, tries to smoke a pipe, puts wood on the fire, scribbles with a

pencil, and, in short, imitates whatever he sees done about him.”[549]

From a psychological standpoint there are various distinctions to be

made in these instances. Sometimes it is the movement itself which

forms the centre of interest, while again the result of the movement

is the thing aimed at, making the muscular exertion only a means to

the end (as in blowing out the light).[550] It is significant that the

pleasure derived from imitation is more conspicuous in the first case;

and another important question is, whether more of curiosity or more

of pleasure in competition is involved, since the one likens imitative

activity to intellectual experimentation, and the other assimilates

it to rivalry. In the one case the child’s attention is fixed on the

question, “How is that done?” He is interested in the _modus operandi_

as in the solution of a riddle. In the latter case the movement made

in his presence arouses him like a challenge: “You can’t do that!” And

his whole effort is directed to the proof that he can. The two factors

do not necessarily exclude one another; they may work together. The

exhilarating effect is heightened by strong emphasis of the fighting

element; the stronger the consciousness that the task was difficult,

though now achieved, the more will both child and adult enjoy the

imitation—another support to our theory of the comic.

In later life, at least among civilized people, the impulse to playful

imitation of the movements of others is not so strong,[551] except in

the case of teasing mimicry. Most adult imitation is either of the

character of involuntary adaptation, or for some specific end, and is

thus partly within and partly without the sphere of play. When, for

instance, the southerner who goes north to live, gradually controls

his lively gesticulation, it is done unconsciously and involuntarily,

unless he assists in the process because he does not wish to appear

ridiculous. There may be some imitative play in the indulgence of

air-castle building, founded on external models, though careful

discrimination would be needed to detect it always. Then there is the

callow youth who copies a leader of fashion in his manner of walking,

talking, and acting, and finds sufficient satisfaction in the success

of his efforts without any further aim. Sometimes, too, that imitation

founded on serious effort is manifested in trifling ways. I do not

know whether such amusement is now dispensed with in teaching writing;

my experience was that the higher classes at school as well as the

children tried to model their hand after that of some admired student,

teacher, or friend. Sully’s remark that imitation is sometimes “the

highest form of flattery” is applicable here.

(_b_) Playful Imitation of Acoustic Percepts

A group occupying a position midway between the foregoing and that

which is now to be treated of consists of such imitations as find their

antecedent in movement which appeals to the eye and yet whose real

effect is in the repetition of acoustic impressions. Preyer records

the following unsuccessful effort at the end of the first year: “At

this period, if any one struck with a salt spoon on a glass, making it

sound, my child would take up the spoon and attempt to hit the glass

in the same way, but he could not get the tone.”[552] Quite similar is

Baldwin’s observation: “H——’s first clear imitation was on May 24th

(beginning of ninth month) in knocking a bunch of keys against a vase

as she saw me do it, in order to produce the bell-like sound. This she

repeated over and over again, and tried to reproduce it a week later

when, from lapse of time, she had partly forgotten how to use the

keys.”[553] This sort of imitation, where, as in putting out the light,

the result is more important than the movement itself, is more enduring

than simple movement imitation, because the end attained is itself a

source of pleasure.

The most important phase of acoustic imitation is that which aids in

the child’s acquirement of speech. In studying experimentation we found

that voice practice is an indispensable antecedent of learning to

talk. Add to this the imitative impulse and the equipment is complete

for acquiring a mother tongue. The child imitates all the kinds of

sound that he hears—the howling of the wind, animal calls, coughing

and sneezing—but of course he hears most constantly the sounds of

his native language, and so it naturally follows that he gives it

particular attention, which constantly increases as he becomes aware

of his parents’ delight in his acquirements and as he perceives their

practical use.

Sigismund has asked whether imitation of singing may not serve as an

introduction to language lessons. He says: “The first real imitation

which I observed in my boy was not repetition of articulate speech,

but of a musical tone. When he was fourteen months old and had as

yet imitated nothing (?), I occasionally sang to him a popular song

whose melody began with a downward quarter (F-C), which interval

recurred frequently and forcibly in the song. I was greatly surprised

when the child, though very drowsy, sang this measure correctly, an

octave higher. The following day the same thing happened, and this

time without any example.... Is it the rule or the exception that the

infant sings imitatively before he speaks so? Many mothers whom I have

questioned were uncertain whether such singing had occurred at all,

but they had probably simply failed to notice it. The result of my own

investigations and observation points to the probability that children,

like birds, more easily comprehend and repeat singing tones than

speech.”[554] Ufer justly replies to this that while children do indeed

often sing before they can talk, we have no reason to affirm that this

is the rule. The child observed by Miss Shinn, for example, first made

feeble efforts to imitate singing in its fortieth month.[555] It is

always unsafe to attach too much importance to isolated cases. It is

characteristic of man that many of his inherited capacities are left

afloat, as it were, and must be anchored by individual experience, thus

affording opportunity for the development of varied individuality.

Consequently, it is hardly possible to be too cautious in drawing

conclusions for phylogenetic evolution from ontogenetic development.

It is self-evident that not all the sound imitations which underlie the

acquirement of speech are playful in a psychological sense. Words are

often babbled mechanically without any special enjoyment. Moreover, as

soon as the child has overcome the difficulties of the first stage of

his language study and knows how to express his wants, he often makes

use of expressions whose model exists only in his memory, without any

playful intention. Still, a considerable part of the effort to learn

to speak is properly imitative play. Preyer’s description shows us

how the child put his whole soul in the attempt to understand the lip

movements, and in another place (fifteen months) he says, “If he

hears a new word, ‘cold,’ for example, which he can not repeat he is

angry or turns his head away and cries.”[556] This demonstrates the

presence of fighting play; when the effort to be able to say “I can,

too,” fails in its aim, consciousness of defeat is betrayed by ill

humour. Older children, too, often obtain new acquisitions in speech

in a playful fashion. I kept a series of notes on Marie G—— in this

connection, extending from the third to the seventh year, and they show

this unmistakably. While she lived in Giessen she mimicked the dialect

of the servants and many of the peculiarities of Hessian speech, and

enjoyed copying the expressions of her playmates in talking to her

dolls. In one note, which records the observations of a single day,

I find four distinct efforts of this kind, and for many months she

adopted the rather forward manner of speaking, practised by a boy of

whom she was thrown with for a while. Hardly had we become settled in

Basel before she made a rhyme illustrating the local accent here.

The child’s effort, on the whole, is directed toward attaining

likeness to his model, whatever may be the difficulty, otherwise

he would remain satisfied with his first effort when he found it

understood. “Persistent imitation” constantly urges him on to

improvement by repetition, constantly striving for betterment. Thus

the power is gained to acquire new territory. The child’s enjoyment,

too, of recognition constantly furnishes him with alluring models.

This progressive method is directly opposed to natural inertia and

indolence, which are so strong in some children that we occasionally

find them not only satisfied with slipshod methods, but actually

going back, after learning better, to the faulty pronunciation. This

retrogression, too, is often playful.

We have space but for one illustration from the many which this

subject affords; it relates to inventiveness in language imitation. We

have already seen that the experimental play of infants (especially

in reduplication) furnishes material for a science of language. The

easily articulated syllables papa, mamma, baba, fafa, dada, etc., are

sufficiently explained in the case of parents, who take them into their

own vocabulary and thus confirm the child in their use. Many expressive

words have originated in this way.[557] Darwin’s child said “mum” to

signify eating or wanting to eat, and Strümpell’s daughter at ten

months called all the birds that she saw from the window “tibu.”[558]

Older children, too, often indulge in such playful experimental

coining of words,[559] as we shall see later. At present we are more

concerned with the word building founded on acoustic imitation. Preyer

thinks that the only kind of word creation practised by children is

the imitation of sounds which they have heard and their repetition

in the form of interjections. I quote from him: “When the listener

first imitates a word and then makes independent use of it depends

with normal children principally on whether much effort is made to

instruct them. More important psychogenetically ... are observations

on the creation of words with a special sense before the beginning of

genuine speech. These are not to be regarded as mistaken, imperfect, or

onomatopœic imitations,... but rather as original interjections. In all

my observations and studies directed especially to their investigation,

I have been able to discover nothing tending to establish a connection

of the hearer’s concepts with articulate sounds and syllables....

S. S. Haldemann has in his notes on the invention of words, which

include a small boy’s discoveries in that line, citations from Taine,

Holden, myself, and others. This boy called a cow “m,” a bell “tin-tin”

(Holden’s boy said “ling-dong-mang” for a church bell), a locomotive

“tschu-tschu,” the splash of something falling in water “boom,” and

applied the same word to throwing, striking, falling, shooting,

etc., without regard to the quality of the sound, though always with

reference to some sound. In weighing the fact that a sound repeated to

him, such as a trumpet call, was fitted with a word suggestive of the

sound seems to show that an intelligent child attempts to imitate and

repeat what he hears, despite the objection of a Max Müller, and until

a better hypothesis is offered affords an object lesson in the study of

the origin of language.”

Yet this theory is decidedly partial, for among primitive people,

besides mamma, papa, adda, etc., other sounds depending on neither

interjections nor imitation, but purely the result of experimentation,

get a meaning from the simple relation of mother and child, and so

attain at least a place in their vocabulary and surely form one of

the grounds for the explanation of the growth of language. It is not

maintained that the child first learns the art of imitating sound

from his elders, for without doubt he is often the originator, as

in the case of mamma and papa, which he has taught them. For us the

interesting question here is that of recognition which we find again

the object of playful activity. The “Bow-wow” theory sounds perhaps

improbable, or even ridiculous when we think of its being used by

adults,[560] but when confined to children all this is changed.

It works somewhat in this way: The child learns through imitation

to produce all sorts of sounds—the crash of falling objects, the

rumble of rolling ones, cries of animals, the gurgling of water. His

mother’s play with him adds to the value of such imitations, since

in their play the imitative sound comes to stand for its object just

as symbolism arises from the effort to express qualities. Imitation

makes this intelligible, since every copy is a symbol of the thing

copied. Even the interjection and the experimental sound can only be

elements of speech by imitation or repetition. Thus Jodl rightly says

(following Marty) of the imitation of sound, “As soon as their power

of adjustment, their reason, is sufficiently developed, they derive

from free play the means consciously employed for the acquisition of

varied experience.”[561] Therefore I maintain that imitation is an

indispensable condition in the explanation of the origin of language,

its objects being threefold: (1) All the acoustic models afforded by

the environment; (2) interjectional sounds; (3) experimental sounds.

It is as assured a fact that children practise the first as that

they playfully repeat their own experiments. Playful imitation of

interjection is not to my knowledge indulged in by very young children,

but using the sound to signify the thing from which it proceeds is

natural enough. On the whole, then, it seems that while imitation plays

an important part in the origin of language, as many investigators

testify, to make it the only factor would be an act of presumption.

As this impulse for acoustic repetition is weaker in adults than in

children, I need only mention the playful use of it in poetry where it

is agreeable to all. I have already had occasion to remark that poetry

written for children is especially rich in such imitation. Animal cries

and bird notes figure largely. Rückert’s poem Aus der Iugendheit makes

use of a very common metre to imitate the whirring call of the swallow,

thus:

“Wenn ich weggeh’,:,:

Hab ich Kisten und Kasten voll;

Wenn ich wiederkomm’,:,:

Hab ich kein Fädchen Zwir-r-n.”[562]

“When I go away

I have trunks and boxes full;

When I come back again

I haven’t a rag to my name.”

This interpretative imitation which lends to unintelligible sounds a

special meaning is applied to other things than animal cries, such as

the clatter of arms, the ringing of bells, the splashing of water, the

roaring of wind, etc. For adults it is expressed in the refrain, which,

however, does not as a rule convey any special meaning. A rather crude

form of it is found in Bürger’s Leonore. A more subtile use of it is

illustrated in efforts to make the sound of the words convey a faint

resemblance to the acoustic effect which is being described. A familiar

and celebrated instance of this is found in this passage from Faust:

“Und wenn der Sturm im Walde braust und knarrt,

Die Riesenfichte stürzend Nachbaräste

Und Nachbarstämme quetschend niederstreift,

Und ihrem Fall dumpf hohl der Hügel donnert....”[563]

Music, too, is notably richer in imitation of the latter sort than in

the much less valuable tone-painting. As we have, however, touched on

its analogy with and relation to speech movements, which is its most

important feature, the subject will not be opened further here.

2. _Dramatic Imitation in Play_

In the playful imitation which we have considered up to this point,

illusion was as a rule not involved, of the kind which seems to

convert the copy into the original. In dramatic or imitative play

involving the reproduction of actions it is almost invariably present,

and essentially differentiates such play. Imitation is still the

foundation and also the source of pleasure not only in the feeling of

emulation, but in putting one’s self in the place of another, in the

play of imagination and in the enjoyment of æsthetic effect. There

can be no doubt that this refinement of the process by which the

external act of imitation becomes at the same time inward sympathy is

of great importance to human progress. Konrad Lange has shown in his

stimulating article[564] that with the higher animals at least, play

without the contributory zest of illusion or conscious self-deception

would probably be much less attractive and consequently fail of its

biological purpose, since this feature of it contributes essentially to

the advance of intelligence. Even when the child merely copies for the

sake of copying he learns an astonishing amount, and acquires a host of

psychic adaptations. But mental elasticity, adaptability, and mobility

are first acquired when the migratory instincts of the soul, so to

speak, are awakened, and the child enters into the life of his model.

Veritable participation in the mental states of another individual,

objective appraisal of what he feels and strives for, would scarcely be

possible without such practice.

In the dramatic imitative play of children important distinctions are

apparent which are not noticeable in the dramatic art of adults.

The play may be so conducted that the player’s own body appears as

the exclusive object of the mimic production, or in such a manner

that the pretended object serves, either on the ground of an actual

resemblance or by sheer force of imagination, as a substitute for the

thing represented, or, lastly, in a way that includes both. We have an

instance of the first when the boy pretends to be a soldier, of the

second when he marches his tin soldiers to battle, and of the third

when he himself takes part in the combat, or when a little girl plays

that her doll is a real baby and she herself the mother. Since we have

reason to believe that dramatic art has developed from the play of

children by way of the mimic dance we may be sure that its progress has

been selective, and that there is good reason for the perfection of the

first of these forms. The second, indeed, appears in the marionette

farces which are still much enjoyed by the uneducated classes among

ourselves and are in great favour in the East. The third kind, in

which the player places himself in direct dramatic relation with the

puppet (taking the word in its widest sense), has no analogy in our

art, but is most prominent in the fetich cult. And the reason why is

easily traced. A fundamental distinction between mimic play and mimic

art consists in the fact that the player imitates simply for his own

amusement, the artist for the pleasure of others. His is not real play,

but exhibition. Bearing this distinction in mind, we see that the third

form of play is not applicable to art.

In our short review of dramatic imitative play we will not adhere

too closely to the three distinctions, but simply inquire what it

is that the child imitates. And first we glance at the strange fact

that his impersonating impulse extends even to inanimate objects; the

child acts without any feeling of limitation, like the labourers in

Midsummer-Night’s Dream, who were ready to take the part of the Wall

or the Moon indifferently. During a long and complicated play some

child will be a door post, a tree, a seat, a wagon, and a locomotive,

and endeavour by his motions and carriage to support these bold

illusions. This exhibition of versatility on the part of the child is

interesting in its analogy to the expansion of the imitative impulse

in æsthetic perception. Such external personification of lifeless

objects corresponds to inner imitation which is itself a kind of

personifying. A higher object of dramatic imitation is found in the

actions of animals which, as we have seen, are apt to lead to strongly

marked comic effects. They are a source of the liveliest amusement

to children, who will crawl like a snake, grunt like a pig, fly like

a bird, swim like a fish, seize and devour prey, make grimaces, wear

animal masks, make shadow pictures, notice and laugh at animals, and

perhaps even mimic their movements.[565] This last propensity has given

name and character to many complicated traditional games, such as “Cat

and Mouse,” “Wolf im Garten,” “Fox Chase,” “Hen and Hawk,” “Fox and

Chickens,” etc. This manifestation of the child’s deep interest in the

animal world is analogous to animal imitation in primitive art and

animal veneration in primitive religion. In the former connection the

animal dance is most conspicuous, being extremely widespread. Masks

representing the different animals are commonly worn, and the movements

of domestic animals, especially the dog, as well as of wild beasts,

are reproduced in rhythmic order,[566] nor are the dancers daunted by

swimming and flying. Probably the masking in Greek and Japanese dances

is attributable to such an origin, as also the unnaturally placed tails

on ancient figures of fauns, for in these dances animal tails were hung

in the belt.[567]

Hall and Allin, in their valuable treatise so frequently cited, attempt

to assign a reason for the very special interest which children take

in animals. They find my practice and preparation theory in this case

“obviously wrong.” As a partial explanation they develop the view

that use of a rudiment produces to a certain degree its atrophy, and

that consequently childish imitation of animals “marks the harmless

development of rudimentary animal instincts as they pass to their

needed maximal growth, till the next higher powers that control and

subordinate them are unfolded, thus recapitulating with immense

rapidity a very long stage in the evolution of the human out of the

animal psyche.”[568] It strikes me that this is one of the numerous

cases of the too bold application of the seductive but dangerous

phylogenetic theory. Entirely apart from the fact that the idea of

weakening as a result of practice seems improbable in regard to the

imitation of animals as well as in the catharsis theory on which the

author seems to base his, it is noteworthy that the child has to make

an effort to reproduce the movements, actions, and calls of animals,

and this at a time when it has already progressed very far in the

acquirement of human capabilities. Therefore, I am unable to subscribe

to the theory advanced by these gentlemen. None will deny that the

imitative impulse is of great biological importance as practice, and I

do not see that any special explanation is needed for its extension to

animal actions. If, however, such explanation is required, my theory

readily supplies it, for few things are more useful to primitive

man than a thorough knowledge of animal life, and playful imitation

afforded a much surer means of acquiring this than did mere receptive

observation.

We now pass to human activities which are chosen as models by children

still more than are the activities of animals. It may be stated in

general that there is scarcely anything which engages the energy of

man which is not made the object of childish imitation. Children of

savages naturally have a much smaller _répertoire_ than those of

civilized people, but as far as the fact of imitation is concerned,

and as it appears in child’s play, it usually strikes travellers most

forcibly, since they are not as a rule alive to the less salient

phenomena of experimentation. Livingstone says that in central Africa

it is remarkable how few playthings the children have; their life seems

to be already a serious one, and their only amusement consists in

imitating their elders while they build huts, lay out gardens, or make

bows, arrows, shields, and spears. In other places, he says, giving

a beautiful instance of childish invention and illusion, many bright

children are found who have plenty of attractive toys. They shoot

birds with their little bows, and teach captive ones to sing. They are

very skilful in setting traps and snares for small birds, as in the

preparation and spreading of birdlime. The boys make toy guns out of

reeds and shoot grasshoppers.[569] Many other witnesses confirm all

this, though their reports are usually less full and lucid, and we may

conclude that the games and sports of adults are also early acquired

by the children by means of imitation. Among the “wild men” exhibited

in Europe, quite small children are often found who perform the dances

of their elders with astonishing accuracy, and travellers tell us that

they do the same thing in their homes. Captain Jacobsen once attended

a regular Indian child’s party, for which the little people painted

their faces and stuck feathers in their hair in regulation style. “It

was really comical to see little tots of three and four gotten up

in this fashion and dancing about with leaps and bounds while older

ones beat the wooden drum.”[570] Children of civilized peoples still

retain among their plays many heathenish customs which have not been

practised by adults within the memory of man. An interesting example

will accomplish the transition from savagery, dealing as it does with

the powerful influence of the imitation of the uncultured on European

children. Signe Rink tells of her childhood spent in Greenland: “Like

all European children in the country my brothers and sisters and I

had a genuine passion for everything pertaining to Greenland; and

accordingly, as soon as the door was shut on our elders we tried in

every possible way and by all sorts of mimicry to identify ourselves

with our playmates. My brother got himself up as a seal hunter from

head to foot, and I became an Eskimo woman with waddling gait, who

was sternly forbidden to leave the house.” And of her play in an

Eskimo hut and with a Greenlandic girl she gives the following

delightful description: “We took off our shoes and sat on the warm,

comfortable, half-dark part of the couch behind the backs of the

grown people. Wherever I was there was Anna, my best friend among the

Greenland children.... We made quite free with pincushions, dishes,

and timepieces! We brought mussel shells and bleached seal bones and

made a playhouse in the corner. We took cushions from the great pile

and made beds for the puppies. We made mural decorations from coloured

chips. Over our heads hung boots, hose, skins, trousers, and _timiaks_

(under-jackets) to dry in the warmth of the lamp or to be out of the

way. All these surroundings formed elements in our play. In imagination

we had sent our husbands off on a seal hunt, and with thimbles on

our first fingers, the Greenland custom, we sewed round flaps for

the boot soles of the absent ones.”[571] One can not read such a

description as this without being impressed with the incalculable

influence of imitation on the whole psychic life of the child, not only

in relation to externals, but also as affecting their deeply rooted

sympathies and antipathies, habits and convictions, all of which are

deeply influential on the developing character. Baldwin says: “It is

not only likely—it is inevitable—that he makes up his personality,

under limitation of heredity by imitation, out of the ‘copy’ set in

the actions, temper, emotions of the people who build around him the

social inclosure of his childhood. It is only necessary to watch a

two-year-old closely to see what members of the family are giving him

his personal ‘copy’—to find out whether he sees his mother constantly

and his father seldom; whether he plays much with other children, and

what their dispositions are to a degree; whether he is growing to be a

person of subjection, equality, or tyranny; whether he is assimilating

the elements of some low, unorganized social content from his foreign

nurse. For, in Leibnitz’s phrase, the boy or girl is a social monad,

a little world, which reflects the whole system of influences coming

to stir its sensibilities. And just as far as his sensibilities are

stirred he imitates, and forms habits of imitating. And habits?—they

are character.”[572]

There is hardly any limit to the rôle playing of civilized children.

Under normal conditions they naturally take their own parents as

models, and even in societies not governed by caste considerations this

must have a conservative influence. But the occupations of others, too,

appeal strongly to the imitative impulse, and it is altogether probable

that such tests of various possibilities often exert an influence on

the later choice of a life’s calling, for play develops predispositions

and antipathies. When Schiller was eight or nine years old he was

taken to see the magnificent ducal opera house in Ludwigsburg, and was

forthwith inspired to produce a similar work; so he built a little

theatre of books, and had paper figures to act in it. Soon afterward

he got up private theatricals among his sisters and schoolmates. His

enjoyment of preaching, too, was shown in his being able, like young

Fichte, to repeat, when a child, whole sermons verbatim whose lofty

spiritual pathos confirmed his natural inclination toward the priestly

calling.

Before proceeding to the consideration of special forms of the

imitative impulse, I will make a limited selection from a series

of observations calculated to illustrate the variety of childish

imitation. The carrier’s wagon, the street car, the railroad are as

well represented by his own body as by external objects, though the

silver knife-rests on our table seems especially adapted for the last,

being hitched together and pushed about the table, passing through

tunnels, stopping at stations, etc. An old servant who comes to our

house daily to see if anything is wanted from the library or post

office, regularly gets letters which the child has placed in old

envelopes. Another play is for the child to knock at the front door

and say to the maid who opens it, “I am an old letter carrier.” When

asked if she has any letters she answers, “Here is some money for you,”

and spits in the girl’s hand. She comes with a pile of old papers, and

asks if we want to buy one. She travels to Coburg between the house

and garden, and visits a friend, saying, when she comes back, “I have

told Emmy that she must come here soon.” For months after a visit to

a swimming pool she practises swimming in the garden; standing on a

chair holding her nose she jumps in the grass, where she tries to copy

the movements of swimmers. She said, when five years old, to her doll:

“Lisa, in an hour you go to Frau Schneider, and when she asks you,

‘What is, the sky is blue?’ you must say, ‘Le ciel est bleu’; and when

she asks, ‘What is, the tree is green?’ you must say, ‘L’arbre est

vert.’” At six and a half she gave her doll writing and piano lessons.

In the latter she grasped the doll so that by means of pressure on the

hidden mechanism she elicited from it accompanying wails, at regular

intervals and in good time.

The capacity for illusion is always the most interesting feature of

such play. The same child varies greatly in this respect: sometimes he

seems entirely given up to self-deception; he will offer you a meal of

candy in which one bit represents the meat, another the vegetables,

etc., and is quite hurt if you are guilty of confusing these dishes.

Sometimes, too, when he has concocted various dainties out of mud, he

can not resist the temptation to bite into the brown mass, although in

his calmer moments he well knows that mud is not edible. On the other

hand, the waking consciousness seems to be unshaken through it all.

If you warn the playing child not to hurt his rocking horse, he will

answer that it is only a wooden horse, without, however, abating his

zeal in the play. Then, again, the whole thing is laid out beforehand,

as in this case. Marie: “Then let’s play that I am a thief, and there

is a whole roomful of cakes, and the door is shut, and I cut a hole in

it and take all the cakes away, and you are the policeman and run after

me and get all the cakes back again.” Frieda: “And I will take them

to my child. Or shall we play birthday?” When choice is thus offered

between various possibilities there is, of course, much variation

in the strength of the illusion, and the sudden transitions of the

imagination are often very striking. For instance, one small dramatist

called two combs which he held together a biscuit, and said it had an

excellent taste, and the next moment was rocking them to sleep with

tender solicitude. We have already noticed the child’s extraordinary

capacity for supplying any deficiencies in the object of his fantasy;

he has no difficulty in accepting two upright pencils as towers, an

umbrella for a baby, with grass stalks attached to it for flowing locks.

At the risk of giving too much space to this phase of the subject I

will describe a baptismal festival in 1896, which was participated

in by half a dozen children from five to fourteen years old, at our

house. For the adults chairs were provided and placed in regular rows,

and they were required to bring tickets of admission which a duly

accredited doorkeeper received. All the children were deeply affected

during the official parts of the ceremony, especially the young mother,

who showed as she brought the doll infant forward a really pallid face,

and the fourteen-year-old minister was so moved by his solemn office

that he lost his place after the first sentence. On the certificate of

baptism was the proverb:

“Ihm ruhen noch im Zeitenschoose

Die schwarzen und die heitern Loose”;[573]

and the programme, whose second part seems to throw some doubt on the

lofty idealism of the children, was as follows:

PROGRAMME

FOR THE CHRISTENING OF ILSE, ELIZABETH, AND ERIKA BÖHME

I. BAPTISM.

1. Sermon.

II. LUNCH.

First course, pastry.

Second course, ham and asparagus.

Third course, fish and potatoes.

Fourth course, tongue and cabbage.

Fifth course, beefsteak with sauce.

Sixth course, poultry and salad.

Seventh course, roast pork and chestnuts.

Eighth course, venison and compote.

Ninth course, pies.

Tenth course, ices.

Eleventh course, cheese and pumpernickel.

III. CONCLUSION.

1. Conversation.

2. Games.

3. Domino party.

4. Dancing.

Amid the bewildering variety of childish dramatic play two specialized

groups seem to be particularly prominent. As stated in the general

introduction the imitative impulse is often aroused by an intensive

stimulus calculated to call into play other stimuli as well, one of

the most prominent being the fighting instinct—playful imitations of

all sorts of contests—as vigorously practised by boys, for, however

much education may be said to foster it, their inborn nature sets

the pace. The old story of Achilles’s choice of a sword, though he

had been brought up like a girl, is well founded. Among savages the

chase and manly contests are the constant models for playing boys,

while among ourselves, besides playing soldier, many such sports are

kept alive solely through tradition. This is the case, too, with less

cultured peoples, the bow and arrow being used as toys long after

they are abandoned for serious warfare.[574] Since so many of these

plays have been enumerated with the other fighting plays, I will not

here single them out, but rather confine myself to a notable example

from ethnology. Just as our children chase each other, take prisoners

and execute them, so do the little ones of the Seram Islands play at

decapitation. “A favourite game of young and old,” says Joest, “is

that of cutting off heads, for which the children are armed with light

wooden swords. A cocoanut is hidden in the shrubbery, and their naked

bodies wind like snakes through the grass and thicket in search of it.

An arrow or lance is hurled into the air when the nut is found, and a

couple of well-directed blows with the sword sends it bounding away,

severed from its stem. The victor, holding his booty in his left hand

and exulting in his triumph, runs off at a gallop, pursued by the

entire crowd, shouting and brandishing their weapons.”[575]

The nursing or fostering instinct which is so prominent in the

imitative play of little girls deserves more attention. A special

section is devoted to such play among animals in my former work, but

I admit that I am myself somewhat sceptical in regard to some of the

examples quoted there, though I was most careful to get the testimony

of trustworthy investigators. Among animals, moreover, some sorts

of nursing play are wanting, such, for instance, as that in which a

lifeless object is treated as a veritable infant.[576] The feeding

of young birds of a second brood by their older brothers and sisters

seems to me entitled to be called a nursing play, and Naumann observed

this in the case of water wagtails. Altum reports the same behaviour

by canary birds, and vouches for having seen young water wagtails who

were still wearing their first feathers feed young cuckoos.[577] That

this is a play can scarcely be questioned, and it must be imitative

since the parent birds are taken as models, but whether it is dramatic

illusion play is another question and a doubtful one, for there is

always actual feeding with actual food; not, as with children, a mere

pretence. Yet I am very doubtful whether there would be any nursing

plays among children without parental models, and for that reason it

has been included among imitative plays in this book instead of being

given a separate section. We then conclude that the maternal instinct

is present in little girls, but first attains expression in play on the

rise of the imitative impulse.

We have a direct analogue to the bird examples when an older child

assumes the rôle of mother to a younger with purely playful and

imitative motives. Dramatic illusion first comes in when sham activity

is involved, as may be the case with dolls, other children, or even

adults as the subjects. We must conclude, then, that the imitative

impulse is fully developed only when imagination supplements the copy.

Baldwin gives a particularly pretty instance of dramatic nursing play

where the older sister takes the part of mother to the younger.[578]

As regards the use of dolls it would be interesting to know whether

the child would of its own accord so treat any beloved object if it

had never seen a real doll made by adults, but the artificial doll

is always provided so early that there is no opportunity to make the

experiment. In the slums of a great city a proper subject might perhaps

be found. However, we know that the child’s powers of illusion are

amazing. A cushion, a stick, a building block, an umbrella, a dust

brush, or a footstool, a table cover, a slipper, a fork, in short,

anything portable, is liable to become a beloved and zealously nurtured

baby, and every detail is quickly arranged to suit the picture.[579]

Finally, a few words as to the origin of this toy. Its use is well-nigh

universal, and one of the sights most worth seeing in an ethnological

museum is a collection of dolls from all over the world. They are

made of clay, of edible earth, of wax, of wood, of bark, of cloth, of

porcelain, etc., and imitations of the human figure blend with those of

animals, of household furniture and utensils, of arms and implements of

different sorts in motley variety.[580] They serve to illustrate human

progress. In mediæval Europe, in ancient Rome, in Greece—everywhere the

doll was at home. The old museum in Berlin, for example, possesses a

wooden doll from the Egyptian excavations, which has movable legs, and

a crocodile whose jaws can open and shut. Since these images of men

and animals were probably the earliest form of toys, the conclusion

is natural that they probably originated with idols which from

religious feeling may have lain in the cradles and thus appealed to the

children as playthings. Other customs and the testimony of travellers

give colour to this idea, though it is difficult to draw the line

between the idol and the doll.[581] Through the kindness of my former

colleague, Sticker, at Giessen, I myself own an old Indian wooden doll,

which appears suited to be both a protection from evil spirits and a

toy for children. Still, we must not allow to pass unchallenged any

manifestation of the disposition which used to be so common, to refer

everything to a religious origin. It is quite possible that simple

pleasure in plastic representation for its own sake is responsible for

the manufacture of these toys. Von den Steinen tells us, “Dolls a span

long, made of straw, served as children’s toys, and were also stuck in

a pole on the roof of their places of festivity as a sign that some

frolic was in progress, and everybody spread the news.”[582] There is

nothing here to hint at a religious significance.

Of dramatic imitation play by adults we find only a few remnants among

civilized people, aside from mimicry on the one hand and the borders

of art on the other, where imitation is not exhibited as an end in

itself, but rather in relation to its effect on the spectators, and

therefore is no longer a genuine play. Professional actors “play” only

in particularly happy hours. The case is quite otherwise, however,

with savages, whose imitative dances, while conducted in the presence

of spectators, it is true, are unmistakably for the enjoyment of the

participants first, somewhat as are our amateur theatricals. We have

already described animal and erotic dances, which are also imitative,

of course, and all interesting, comic, and exciting elements of their

life are repeated in various dramatic dances, fighting scenes being

favourite subjects. I choose an example whose details most strongly

recall the capacity for illusion possessed by children. It is a woman’s

dance which K. Semper saw in the Palau Islands: “We could already hear

the rustling of their leafy garments, which swung in time with the

dancers’ movements as they stood in a long row. Their aprons were of

the briefest, their naked bodies were fantastically painted in gay

colours. In one hand they carried short wooden instruments which seemed

to be weapons, and in the other a staff covered with a skilfully made

tuft of white shavings, tipped with red. They marched in a row on to

the raised platform whose roof sheltered them from the sun, and now

the dance began. The beginner sang a verse without moving, then all

repeated it as a chorus with accompanying rustling of the leafy gowns

and beckoning movements of the arms. Soon they became more active,

and apparently wished to express joy and greeting. Each seized her

wooden instrument—a neighbour told me that they represented weapons—and

made light swinging movements before her. During this war dance they

gradually removed from the starting point. A sudden loud cry, wild

movements of the arms and whole body, excited singing and blazing

eyes betokened the expectation of approaching battle.... The dancers’

movements became wilder, they stamped their feet, their hands dealt

blows in time with the song—here to strike a fallen foe, there to sever

a head. At last victory is won. They grasp the wands bearing the gay

tufts and raise them aloft, then lower them diagonally to the ground.

‘What does that mean, Frau Ebadul?’ I ask. ‘That is the battle of the

Inglises against Aibukit, whom they are besieging; now they are firing

the villages—the yellow tufts are flames to light the huts with.’”

Aside from the rhythmical movement which is needed to complete the

power of illusion for adults, this is very like the dramatic imitative

play of children.

3. _Plastic or Constructive Imitative Play_

Under this heading are grouped external representations of two or three

dimensions, thus including drawing as well as the moulding commonly

understood as plastic. Here it is more difficult to distinguish between

play and art than in dramatic imitation, since, while the child nursing

her doll, or putting his tin soldiers through a drill, thinks not at

all of spectators, and how they will be affected; even an infant artist

is always eager to show what he can do. It can, however, be generally

prevised that pictorial imitation is a play only when pure joy in the

act of production fills the soul of the copyist.