The Play of Man
Chapter 4: The Playful Exercise of Impulses of the Second or Socionomic Order[1]: Fighting Play
Karl Groos
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OUR conception of experimentation includes a large number of phenomena having the common tendency to bring into action the manifold inborn predispositions of the organism, but without reference to those instincts by means of which the relation of the individual to other living creatures is regulated. In experimentation only the more general needs, such as are indubitably grounded in the nature of the organism, are allowed expression, in such a manner as to bring into action the sensor and motor apparatus as well as the higher mental faculties. The individual would exhibit similar qualities in isolation; he plays with himself, not with his relations to others, and even when association exists, as, for instance, in ball-catching, he recognises at the same time that experimental play is involved. Now, however, we enter on the consideration of such play as is intentionally directed toward other beings, and first on our list is the inborn impulse to fight. Walther von der Vogelweide has shown the power of this instinct in the impressive lines
| Des Stromes Wellen rauschten kühl ; Ich sah darin der Fische Spiel. Ich sah, was ringsum in der Welt: Den Wald, das Laub, Rohr, Gras and Feld, Und was da alles kriecht and fliegt Und seine Bein' zur Erde biegt. Dis sah ich, and ich sag' Euch das Keins lebt von ihnen ohne Hass." |
" The stream's waves murmured coolly ; I saw the fishes playing there; I saw all that was in the whole round world; In wood, and bower, and marsh and mead. and field, All things which creep and fly, And put a foot to earth. All these I saw, and say to you, That nothing lives among them without hate" |
(174)
In our common speech, too, life is referred to as a battle, and is in reality too often a general struggle for money or power. It is but natural, then, to find the fighting impulse developed early in childhood and practised in play. Indeed, the demand for its exercise is so strong that there is scarcely any form of play which may not take on the character of a contest. Especially is this the case when there is any difficulty to overcome or danger to be encountered. "Both danger and difficulty," says Lazarus, "appear as incarnated opponents over whom it is possible to gain a victory." [2] In the same way play with lifeless objects is easily converted into a contest by the force of aesthetic illusion. As numerous examples of such intensive stimulation of the fighting impulse have already been given, I shall here mention only the mountain climber's struggle with lofty peaks. In this chapter such collateral themes must be avoided, as we shall find our immediate problem very wide. In order to discriminate as to the relative importance of the various fighting plays the following division of the subject will prove convenient: First, there are direct fighting plays in which the contestants immediately measure their strength, whether mental or physical. The second group is composed of indirect fighting plays where the victory is sought through means of conducting the contest. Among the mental phases of this we find betting and gambling. In the third group we place merely offensive sports in which no defence is possible or availing, such as playful destructiveness, teasing, and the enjoyment of the comic (so far as it is connected with fighting at all). After disposing of all these, two subdivisions yet remain: first, playful chasing, fleeing, and hiding (hunting plays); and, second, the enjoyment of witnessing a contest.
1. Direct Physical Fighting Play
Any one who takes the hand of a two-year-old child and strikes himself with it, pretending to be much hurt, can not doubt after seeing the delight displayed by the little creature, the pleasurable effect of the discharge
(173) of this impulse so deeply seated in human nature. Yet the fighting instinct seems to be comparatively late in assuming the form of regular independent playful contests. Unprovoked tussling merely for the fun of the thing seldom appears earlier than the third year, while young bears, dogs, and other animals begin such play almost at once. In this youthful tussling the chief aim is to throw one's opponent to the ground and to hold him in this helpless position. So far as my observation goes in this little-investigated sphere, very small boys seldom stand for their combats. Usually one already seated seizes his comrade, who may be standing near, by the foot, pulls him down, and they fight, rolling over on the floor, and each seeking to keep the upper hand. The effort is constantly made to keep the enemy's head down, a position so distasteful to the party concerned that the scene threatens to end in noisy and serious strife. As the children grow older they gradually formulate rules for their contests partly through imitation of their elders and partly as the result of their own experience. As with adults, the proper grip of the opponent's body is an important point. "He caught him by the waist, where he was weakest " is quoted as far back as the Hildebrandslied. For throwing, it is often necessary to slip the hand through the other's arms and give him a sudden twist, or to place one arm on his neck and push him backward. The legs, too, have their part to do. Sometimes a boy is thrown across a projected knee, or a leg is thrust outward to check the fall when the attempt is made to throw sideways by lifting. Or the method adopted by Odysseus in an extremity may be employeda sudden blow dealt at the bend of his opponent's knee being the cause of his overthrow. Usually the fight ends at this point,[3] but sometimes the tussling is continued on the ground, as described above, and the playful character is very apt to be lost. Sometimes it happens, on the contrary, that the fight is over before either contestant is thrown. I saw two boys wrestling, when one of them
(174) "As soon as the two athletes have taken the proper grip they sink on their right knees and withdraw the lower part of the body as far as a good hold will permit. If one ;has reason to fear that he is about to be lifted, he lies flat down on his stomach and the other must follow suit. In this unnatural position they torment one another for half an hour at a time, writhing on the ground like snakes, and stretching sinews and muscles until their faces grow dark with the strain. If neither can manage to overcome his opponent by endurance, superior strength, or strategy, they at last voluntarily abandon the conflict, utterly exhausted, and shake hands on their prowess, but neither can claim a victory."[4] So-called tests of strength are similar to this.[5] In pulling contests the attempt is made to draw the opponent toward one, sometimes by the hands —in the Bavarian mountains it is done by hooking the middle fingers together— sometimes by seizing a stick at its ends or across, sometimes with a rope, as the Greek boys did, sometimes by a band around the neck, which serves to strengthen the muscles of the back, [6] and sometimes by hooking one knee of each together, so that the contestants can only hop about on one foot until the contest is decided. Another test of strength is the pushing which children usually take up of themselves, as many schoolroom benches could testify. In Japanese contests pushing across a line seems to be a leading feature. Zettler gives the following description of it: " Japanese prize fighters are trained to their profession through centuries of inheritance from father to son, and by every conceivable means calculated to produce perfect specimens of their kind. In stature they are veritable giants, not only in height but in the development of all the limbs and masses of fat, which would not lead one to expect special adroitness or muscular force. In their ring contests the effort is made either to throw or to push one another off the arena, which is an elevated circular platform thickly strewn with sand and surrounded with
(175) a double ring of straw. Whoever makes one step over the edge is lost. Weight is of great use in this contest." Children frequently make use of a combination of pulling and pushing, which is really imitative play. One child, for instance, takes his position on a sand heap and defends himself against another who represents the enemy storming his castle. From the well-nigh innumerable tests of strength we may select the following as typical: The players stand with outstretched arms opposite one another, seize hands and pull, or one stands firm with stiffened arms while the other tries to stir him, or they sit in such a way that the knees of one are caught between those of the other, and the effort is made to force the legs apart; or sometimes it is to open the rolled-up fist, etc.[7]
Fighting with fists leads the way to fighting with weapons, though the rolled-up fist is used by the angry child as a weapon earlier than the open hand. In playful fighting, however, the blow with the fist is not much used. Sometimes a little playful boxing is indulged in, but it is difficult to keep within the bounds of play in a fisticuff. Gymnastic exercises of this kind as practised by the Greeks and English are more important. Among the former blows were aimed at the head, and, "to strengthen the blow," says Fedde, "the fist and forearm were wrapped with thongs of oxhide, which left the fingers free to double up the fist. Later a strip or ring of hard leather was added, which, as it was held around the ball of the fist, inflicted severe wounds, being sometimes studded with nails or lead knobs. The soft leather thongs of earlier times were called friends (meiligai), while the dangerous knobs in later use received the name of bullets (sfairai), and a specially cruel kind of gloves were ants (murmhkes). [8] That not only practised athletes used these, and that they were donned in the playful contests of mere boys, is proved by the speech of Lucien''s Scythian,
(180) Anacharsis. "And those standing so straight there," he says as he is observing the youthful sports, "beat one another and kick with the feet. There is one who has been hit on the chin, and his mouth is full of blood and sand, and his teeth almost knocked out, poor fellow, and yet the archon does not separate them and end the strife. On the contrary, he urges them on and praises the one who gives the blow."[9] Raydt says of English boxing: " An English specialty in physical exercise is boxing, practised methodically and with all possible skill. The fists are incased in thickly wadded gloves, which render the blows harmless, and a distinction is made between extreme severity and lighter strokes, the tactics admitting of felling an opponent by the former or exhausting him with the latter. The boxing which I have seen was carried on in an orderly and decorous manner, and still I was convinced that it is a very severe exercise, and should not be introduced into the schools."[10] Regular boxing matches, requiring seconds and an umpire, as they are given by the students, are fought either to settle some dispute." Fighting with fists is the natural and English way for English boys to settle their quarrels," is said in Tom Brown's School Days—or as a spectacle for a large audience to witness. In both cases it is fighting play only when the belligerent instinct as such forms the chief motive, and when, too, the quarrel in one case, or the prize offered and desire for self-display in the other, gives occasion for the exercise of the fighting instinct. There can be no doubt that this is often the case. Like our own students, English youths often fight, not because they have any quarrel, but because they seek one, because they want to fight, and the struggle thus becomes not the means but actually the end. The case is frequently the same with prize fighting. Professional boxers at the beginning of the nineteenth century were to a great extent rough fellows, who were only after money, or at best notoriety. But Conan Doyle has recently given us in his Rodney Stone a masterly description of a blacksmith
(181) who was a good husband and a skilful workman, yet even in his old age could not resist an invitation to take part in a public prize fight. What primarily influenced this man was a deep-rooted manly enjoyment of fighting for the fight's sake, and many Greek and English athletes have felt as he did.
Another primitive method of fighting is by throwing missiles; even monkeys throw stones, dry branches, and fruit. Miss Romanes's ape was very sensitive to ridicule. One day the tailoress came into the room, and a nut was given to the monkey to open with his hammer, as he knew how to do. The nut proved to be empty, and the woman could not help laughing at the monkey's blank expression. " He then became very angry, and threw at her everything he could lay his hands on—first the nut, then the hammer, then a coffee-pot, which he seized out of the grate, and lastly all his own shawls. He threw things with great force and precision by holding them in both hands and extending his long arms well back over his head before projecting the missile, standing erect the while." [11]
The child begins very early to throw things to the ground, as we have seen, and seems to delight in watching their motion as well as in the noise. Later the child turns the skill thus acquired to the account of his fighting instinct, and in this way genuine offensive throwing begins as soon as he is able to tumble about alone. The enjoyment is doubled when it becomes not only a question of hitting the enemy, but of dodging his missiles as well. The prettiest and most harmless form of such sport is snowballing; but also fruit, cherry stones, clods of earth, pebbles, hay in the meadows, pillows from the beds, etc., all serve the same purpose. Some games of ball, too, are of a similar character. Ii. Weinhold tells us how he as a boy played against, his comrades with a six-pound caution ball. The wonder is that no bones were broken. "Less fortunate," he continues, "were the islanders who indulged in this mad folly, for in their case it was punished. On a holiday the contest between boatmen and
(182) landsmen was begun, and after several days the latter retired as victors. The boatmen, stung by the taunts of their conquerors, took counsel with their friend Hard Grimkelssohn, who advised them to make balls of horn and challenge the shore people to another game. That evening six of the latter lay dead, while the boatmen lost not a single man."[12] In many ball games, however, the players do not themselves catch the ball, which is sent to a base or home, as in the English game of football. Behind each party is a base consisting of two upright posts and a connecting rod, and Each side endeavours to get the ball over the other's base or to prevent such a result when it threatens their own. This is a specialized form of reciprocal mass contest, since the enemy is not attacked in person, but the effort is made to wrest from him a symbolic stronghold, as is common in mental contests. There are many similar ball games—for instance, baseball—where the ball is thrown by hand and its analogue found among the North American Indians; and cricket, where a single player, armed with a bat, defends the easily approached wicket. The idea is carried further when the ball which is thrown becomes the goal as well, so that the same instrument is at once weapon and symbol of the enemy. Playful pelting is indulged in in carnival times, when berries and confetti are thrown about promiscuously; in former times there were many occasions for this lively sort of play. Travellers experience the primitive impulse which makes it hard for them to resist the temptation to throw when in midsummer they stand in a little snow field, and students are universally given to throwing beer mugs, in spite of its being occasionally dangerous. The principle of returning offensive missiles is not much applied in play, and yet I remember that as a boy I enjoyed shooting with bow and arrow at another boy similarly armed. We stood about fifteen feet apart and tried to hit each other with light and harmless cane arrows. A still more innocent battle was fought with popgun and berries.
It is doubtful whether children really play with
(183) thrusting weapons; they rather exercise than fight with their wooden swords and spears, but when it comes to an offensive use of the weapons play turns to earnest, and, as with the young Goethe, ends disastrously in quarrelling and blows. Boys who are much older engage in actual fighting plays with such weapons, but it is left to the students' duels to exhibit its highly developed form. Some years ago the half-grown sons of a professor in a university town went to a fencing hall and fought out a regular contest in a perfectly friendly spirit, although it was by no means bloodless. Many readers will no doubt recall such incidents. Such contests between boys and young men are very interesting, and in Germany we distinguish between them and real duels in that they are playful, while the latter are brought about by some serious offence. That serious wounds sometimes result from these fencing matches is no argument against their playful character, for many games are dangerous, and these contests certainly come within our definition of a play, the satisfaction afforded by them being not in conquest but in fighting as such. When, indeed, one student provokes another intentionally from dislike or anger, the fighting which results is not a play; but the elaborately arranged appointments and the fencing matches which result from some remarks made, perhaps, in all courtesy, though it may end in injury to one or both parties, undoubtedly is of this character.[13] In the same way must have been managed the jousts and tourneys of the middle ages, the knightly combats of ancient Teutons, and youthful trials at arms and many similar contests as practised by various peoples [14] where, so long as there is no evidence of a quarrel, but only a natural demand to satisfy an inborn impulse to fight, it is all playful. We must not forget, however, that the desire for self-exhibition, to display one's skill and courage, is also conspicuous. This subject brings us to a question which I touched
(184) upon in The Play of Animals. In reviewing the fighting plays of animals we found that many mammals and birds fight hotly in youth who seldom beard an enemy in later life, habitually taking to flight when attacked. The supposition in such cases must, be that fighting play serves as practice for the mating contest, since even the peaceful ruminants engage in bitter combat with rivals. This supposition granted, we may further assume that the fighting plays of the fiercer animals are also connected with the sexual life, and may it not be true with men as well? It is indisputable, of course, that human combat with wild beasts and other enemies is often a struggle for food and ownership, and accordingly, in considering play as preparatory for serious fighting, its aim must be considered as only partially sexual. Still, the connection is sufficiently close to deserve a few words of mention.[15] A great difference is observable in the tussling of boys as they approach maturity. While the games of six-year-olds are uniformly harmless, and proceed amid laughter and fun, as the age of puberty approaches fighting play assumes a much more serious character, and even when only play is intended the whole bearing of the participants is greatly modified. Genuine make-believe, the innocent measuring of strength, is no longer practised; the youth desires to prove that he can play with danger, too; he assumes an offensive and boastful air, and regards each of his contemporaries as a rival. The inward restlessness which characterizes this time of life is directed by instinct toward belligerence, and every opportunity to fight is welcomed. It is at this time that the weapons, properly blunted or otherwise rendered less effective, may still be dangerous, for youths of all vigorous peoples will engage in some kind of spirited combat. Take, for example, the description of London boys, by Fitz Stephen, who lived in the time of Henry II. We find not only the nobility, but the merchant class as well, exercising themselves at all times of the year in armed contests, which, in spite of their playful character, often had serious results. In the dead of winter, often on ice,
(185) they assembled for this purpose, with staves for lances, held jousts "from which they did not always escape uninjured, for many were the legs and arms broken in the fray. But the youths, in their desire for glory, delighted in such practice, which served as a preparation for the time when they should go to war."[16]
While we are obliged to attribute a very general significance to such dangerous indulgence of daring warlike spirit, still we can not fail to trace its connection with sexual life. Without the youth's necessarily knowing it, there is something similar to the bellicose tendency exhibited by animals in their pairing season, in the feeling of rivalry which possesses him at this time. The same thing is shown in the spirit of adventure, which at first is only a general desire for change, and delight in struggle and risk, but in its manifestations that are most closely connected with play appears in many mediaeval knights in close conjunction with courtship. " The heroic deeds of adventurous knights," says Alwin Schultz, " should be included in the category of fighting plays. Thus Ulrich von Lichtenstein, in his open letter to all knights, promised to every knight who would break a lance with him on his homeward journey from Venice to Bohemia a gold ring for his sweetheart, and to any one who should unhorse him the steed on which he rode; while in case he himself came out conqueror all he required was that the vanquished knight should pay homage to his lady." Another knight, Waltman von Lattelstedt took with him on a ride from Merseberg to Eisenach a damsel on a palfrey, having with her a sparrowhawk and a hunting dog. " Waltman proclaimed that on his arrival at Eisenach he would be ready to fight all comers, and that whoever should overcome him could have the girl, the palfrey, the sparrowhawk, and even the dotand harness, but meat permit the girl to ransom herself if she chose with ä guilder and a gold ring. Whomsoever he should overthrow must give to him, as well as to the maiden, a ring of equal value. When she came back from Eisenach this young girl had gold rings enough to bestow one on every
(185) maid of high degree in all the town of Merseberg."[17]
Such contests were more formidable with the North Germans. Among these warriors it was common for a hero to travel to a distant land, and when a woman there pleased him, to demand her surrender from husband or father or brother in two weeks' time, the demand to be supported in the lists.[18]
And finally it may be mentioned that the tourney, which was at first practised chiefly as .preparatory for war, became later as often a contest for a woman. In one English tilt the king promised the kiss of an eight-year-old girl as the reward of success, and Eastern tourneys were often instituted to win the hand of a princess. [19] What was there done with intention may often unconsciously ground the various contests of young men.
2. Direct Mental Contests
The impulse to opposition is a quality which is usually regarded as a very unpleasant disposition of mind, but which is in reality, when kept within proper bounds, the very leaven of human life. We shall see later that rivalry taken in connection with the imitative impulse is one of the mainsprings of advance of culture, and the oppositional force connected with the fighting instinct is also necessary for the mental development of mankind. The great newcomers in the various departments of learning are almost invariably either friendly or bitter opponents of long standing authorities, and any project which meets with no opposition sinks to sleep. For the individual, too, it is quite as important, since a man without it would be entirely too hospitable to suggestion; indeed, abnormal suggestibility rests finally on the suspension of this instinct. Children early show a playful as well as an earnest resistance to authority. While Sully is right when he Says that an attitude of absoluto hostility to law on the part of the child would make education impossible, still he admits that the best children—from a biological
(187) standpoint—have " most of the rebel " in them.[20] The sweetness of forbidden fruit is imparted largely by the combative instinct. Such a spirit is manifested playfully, not when disobedience is attended with cries and struggles or sulky behaviour, but when it is enjoyed for its own sake, as a source of triumphant satisfaction. When a two-year-old child who has been told not to throw his spoon under the table repeats the action, not in anger but with twinkling eyes, he is acting playfully. Some of their speeches, however, exhibit this spirit most clearly. For instance, a small boy who had been rather rough with his younger brother and was remonstrated with by his mother, asked, " Is he not my own brother? " and then cried triumphantly, when his mother admitted the undeniable fact, "Well, then, you said I could do what I please with my own things! "[21] Another child of three years and nine months answered his nurse who called him: " I can't come; I have to look for a flea! " and pretended to be doing so while he broke out in a roguish laugh. [22] A three-year-old Italian girl said to her grandmother under similar circumstances, "Non posso venire, la piccolina [her doll] mi succhia ! "[23]
With children of school age, playful resistance to authority is naturally directed chiefly against the teacher. As an example I regretfully recall a piece of mischief of which I myself was guilty. I had looked back during a recitation to speak to the boy behind me, when the teacher called out to me to turn around. At that I turned around so completely as to be able to continue my conversation from the other side. The indulgent teacher was so amused at my impudence that he did not punish me as I deserved. Hans Hoffman has shown in his Ivan the Terrible how ill-mannered schoolboys can take advantage of a teacher who does not possess the secret of command; and Carl Vogt says of his school days at the gymnasium: " Study and work were for the majority secondary considerations. Most of the boys staid there for the purpose of tormenting their fellow-students and enraging their teachers. By studying the peculiarities of character pos-
(188) -sessed by our tyrants we soon found a weak side to each of them and tried such experiments with these weaknesses as their owners could not avenge by punishment. Thus the whole school was leagued against the professoriat, and now single combat or skirmishing, now slyly preconcerted mass operations were for the time in favour, and there were occasional truces, but no lasting peace."[24] E. Eckstein's humorous sketches, too, are especially popular because of their celebration of this warfare against the teachers.
We have yet to notice adult opposition to political, scientific, artistic, social, and religious authority. It is of course usually serious, and yet it seems to me that in spite of its practical side there is often something playful in it, something of enjoyment of the conflict for its own sake. The obstructionist in legislation, the opponents of time-honoured regulations, customs, doctrines, rules of art and dogmas, all take, if they are born fighters, a peculiar pleasure in the excitement of resistance to authority. They like to blend their voices in the war cries of spiritual combat. It is one of the pleasures of life.
Contradiction is another form of opposition. I once snapped the fingers of my four-year-old nephew, Heinrich K., for some misbehaviour. After he had been quiet for a while, as was his habit, this dialogue passed between us, evidently soon becoming playful to the child: " Uncle, I'll shut you up in a room so you can never get out." " Oh, I'll climb out. of a window." "Then I will shut the blinds." "But I will open them." "But I'll nail them shut." "Then I'll saw a hole in the door." "But I'll have an iron door, very strong." " Then I'll make a hole in the floor." " But I will go underneath and make iron walls to the whole house." And so it went on until I gave up the struggle with childish inventiveness. Enjoyment of such playful dispute often lasts a lifetime. As a fourteen-year-old boy I once argued for hours with a friend as to whether the beauty of colour was relative or absolute. One of us contended that a blue embroidered chair might be positively ugly, however attractive
(189) the colour, while the other maintained that the beauty of the blue would make the chair admirable. I mention this trivial example only because it shows so plainly the playful character of such talk, for without any personal interest in the matter we waxed warm over our respective views and presented them with great energy. The heated discussion gave us quite as much satisfaction as solving the problem could have done; in fact, the charm of conversation is largely to be attributed to the enjoyment of disputation. On examining closely into what constitutes the attraction of such entertainment for us we find that besides relating and listening to anecdotes and gossip about acquaintances (this is also play) our chief pleasure is in more or less playful combating of opposite opinion. People who have no interest or talent for these three things are at a loss in society.
We now take up such intellectual contests as are commonly included in the lists of fighting plays, including the solution of riddles, fo which we alluded under experimentation. The measuring of mental readiness between individuals when the problem is given orally by a third person, and this is the original and natural method, is a genuine intellectual duel. It was a favourite entertainment of the ancient Germans which Rückert has celebrated in his beautiful poem. Another form is the putting of difficult questions alternately to opposed parties, as in our modern spelling bee. There are examples of this in the Eddas, such as the intellectual duels between Odin and a giant, and between Thor and the dwarf Alvis. Romantic troubadour songs belong here too. Uhland and Ruckert once engaged in a metrical debate as to whether it is worse to find one's lover dead or faithless. Uhland preferred death, while Ruckert attempted to sustain the thesis "better false than dead."[25] Rivalry is conspicuous in such contests, as we shall have occasion to note later.
In our common forfeit games, too, mental contest
(190) often forms the basis of the fun. For instance, it is a distinct attack and parry when a handkerchief is thrown to a player and a word pronounced to which he must find a rhyme. In English, where the spoken and written words are so unlike, the spelling of unfamiliar words is turned into a game; and another idea is to introduce into a story some object or incident suggesting the name of one of the players, whereupon he must continue the recital, passing it on to another in the same way. Or a passage from some great author may be cited and his name guessed, and many similar devices. Finally, we mention the important group of plays for which the stimulus is partly intellectual experimentation, but is primarily attributable to the combative instinct, such as board and card games, both of which are symbolic of physical contests in which the players appear as leaders of opposing forces and originators of strategic operations. A genuine battle ground is afforded by the board, and the great object is to have the right man in the right place at the right time. In cards strategy is exhausted in the choice of the right champion at the right moment, but is rendered much more difficult by the fact that the former contestants have disappeared from view, while the reserve is concealed. Thus it results that board games afford opportunity for the display of skill in arrangement and card games especially cultivate memory, while both are important promoters of the logical faculty and of imaginative foresight .[26] An important distinction between them is that in board games the strength of the contestants is exactly equal at the start, and the material chances are identical, while in cards inequality is the rule.
Board plays (the name is not very fortunate, for the battlefield is by no means always a board) are older and more generally distributed than the others. When Lazarus points out reasoning games in distinction from games of chance as indicative of a higher state of culture [27] he can not be referring to board games in general, since some of the lowest and most savage tribes indulge in them. There are three distinct varieties of these plays. In the
(191) first kind one, or possibly two, stand opposed to a large party, but the conditions are equalized by the rule that all the party must act together while the smaller side is rendered more formidable by various advantages, such as greater freedom of motion and capacity for lying in wait and taking prisoners. The object is to dislodge the single fighter from his stronghold and cut off his retreat, or to surround him in the open field and take him captive. The prototype of the former is the beleaguered fortress, and of the latter combats with dangerous beasts of prey. The Malay Riman-Riman, .or Tiger-play, is a good example of the latter. The arena is somewhat of this form and appearance, the figure being simply traced on the sand, or stamped with red and white on boards or cloth. The single player has twenty-four stones, the men, ôrang-ôrang. The other players have a single large one or sometimes two, the tiger, riman. The tiger is governed by fixed rules, and the men seek to pen him up so that he can not move.[28]
In the second kind the parties, being
numerically equal, stand opposed as in checkers, where a hot struggle goes on to get three
men in a row—at least this is one of the simplest forms of the game as described by
Ovid. Among German antiquities there is a representation of two men with a board set with
stones. Schuster at least considers this a game similar to checkers.[29]
And besides, there are groups engaged in the Damen-Spiele, which was probably known to the
ancient Egyptians as well as the Greeks and Romans, although we can not be certain as to
the rules of these ancient games, polis, ludus
latrun culorum. In mediaeval times elaborately ornamented boards were used for this game.
"Especially noteworthy," says Weinhold, " is one that is used as a
reliquary on the altar at Asschaffenburg. It is set with jasper and beryl crystals,
beneath which various figures are inlaid in
(192) the Roman manner on a gold
ground."[30] Biittikofer brought with him from Liberia a very
interesting ethnological specimen, almost unique in character. The game played in that
region does not require a board or other flat surface, but wooden cases into which rods
are inserted like arrows in a quiver. This represents the placing of the men on a board.
Each player has ten rods, of which only four are placed at the beginning of the game. The
dots in the cut show their position. The object is to get into the enemy's country by
judicious jumping, the reserve ammunition being placed as occasion requires until the
supply is exhausted. [31] Another form of this kind of game is the
Oriental Mangale, which is now becoming quite general. [32] In Damascus,
where, according to Petermann, it is constantly played in all the coffee houses, a board
two feet by six inches is used. It is over an inch thick and has in its upper side two
parallel rows of holes, seven in number in Damascus; other places have six, eight, or
nine. In these holes tiny pebbles, gathered in a particular valley by pilgrims to Mecca,
are laid; usually seven in each. The player removes the stones from the first depression
on his right, and throws them one by one toward the left and into the holes on his
opponent's side. This play is kept up under certain rules and conditions, of course, and
with the aid of much counting [33] of winnings, and whoever gets the most
stones has the game.[34] In concluding we must not fail to notice the
noblest of all board games, chess, which, on account of the great variety of men employed
and their complicated moves, is the most difficult of games, as well as the most
entertain-
(193) -ing. Many are of the opinion that some ancient games are of the same character, but it is probable that real chess is of Indian origin, whence it spread to the Persians and Arabians, and through them into northern Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain. In the last-named country we hear of it as early as the ninth century, and it appeared in Italy and Germany certainly not later than the eleventh, soon becoming the favourite game of the educated classes. This is proved by the fact that in a hook of sermons published in the latter half of the thirteenth century one Jacobus de Cessoles, a Dominican, attempts to set forth a system of rules for right living founded on the rules of the ludus scaccorum.[35] The game has naturally undergone many changes in the course of time; for instance, the Arabians originally had elephants in the place of our bishops; but it has always preserved the character of a battle, and is so represented in old Arabian manuscripts.[36]
Our third group of board plays is comprised of those which add the attraction of chance to intellectual enjoyment of the contest. It is true that to a certain degree chance is an element in the purest games of reason, since the most skilful player can not foresee all the consequences of a move, and various uncontrollable influences [37] may interfere with the best-laid plans; but in the games which we are now considering there is a blending of risk with calculation, which has a peculiar charm. Perhaps the most familiar game of this kind is backgammon, which was certainly known to the Greeks and Romans, and possibly to the Egyptians and Phoenicians. In this game and kindred ones the object is to throw away men whose value is determined chiefly by chance, while the advance to advantageous points is a matter of calculation, thus affording a combination of direct and indirect fighting. Backgammon is of peculiar ethnologie interest because of the prominent part it plays in the controversy
(194) as to whether Asiatic influence is traceable in primitive American civilization. E. B. Tyler has stated in several passages [38] that a kind of backgammon played on a cruciform board is a favourite amusement of the East Indians, and is called by them Patschisi (in Burmah: Patschit), and a very similar form of the game was known to the pre-Columbian Mexicans under the name of Patolli. Tylor considers the complicated nature of the game as a sufficient disproof of its independent origin, and from this, and a certain kinship to chess which is apparent in it, he concludes that the whole group of games furnishes an important argument in favour of Asiatic influence on American life before the time of Columbus.
Dominoes may serve as the connecting link between such games as we have been considering and card games, since the lack of a prescribed field, the concealed store of each player, and the chance distribution at the beginning, as well as the acquisition of new ammunition during the game are common features. Playing cards are supposed to be a comparatively recent invention of the Chinese, which, like chess, was carried into Spain by the Saracens, and thence spread all over Europe in the fourteenth century. Many are of the opinion that they are a modification of chess, and in fact the oldest game known to be played with them is one of the most complicated that we have—namely, Taroc, which requires seventyeight cards. It was played in Bologna in the beginning of the fifteenth century.
Since the victory in card games is not won by virtue of the position of the cards, but by their succession and value, the faculty of memory is largely concerned, as victor and vanquished at once disappear and the men yet unengaged are concealed. This and the inequality of the players' forces at the beginning constitute the distinguishing feature of cards. Lazarus's penetrating glance has descried the point which differentiates the
(195) various games, placing them in the varying relation of accident and calculation. " Not all games," he says, " are alike in this. There are some in which chance is predominant—as poker, for example, or the new game of bluff, so popular in America, where so much depends on the dealing, and the play is not so much a calculation as an attempt to exhaust one's opponent . . . . The stronger games, however, such as whist, Boston, l'hombre, solitaire, piquet, Skat, euchre, etc., depend on the sustained influence of both chance and calculation. After the cards are once distributed calculation begins, but chance continues to be powerful,[39] for at every play a new card enters into the combination and must be given its due weight, whether from the hand of friend or enemy. This is more obvious in the cases where the original force is recruited by drawing from the pack; yet even here attentive following of the progress of the game will furnish data for determining the probable situation of a third card, and thus, after all, skill has as much to do with it as chance. And in such a game as whist en deux in which all the cards are dealt, and each player knows exactly the strength of his opponent, the whole thing depends on calculation, and consequently is not so attractive. It would be a game of chess with cards but for its inferiority in variety and combination." [40] Lazarus goes on to say why chance is indispensable in card games—namely, because, as there is no such thing as space combination, the monotony would be wearisome, and continued playing well-nigh impossible. Without Fortune's reverses, too, the games would necessarily be begun with equal forces, and it is easy to see how little enthusiasm such games would excite. Only in connection with chance, then, can Reason find in cards a task worthy of her powers, and, indeed, a small prize is a stimulus sometimes needed to keep up our interest. This may be a suitable place to mention that it was for
(196) merly the custom to play for money or some stake with all games of chance and even with chess.
I close this review of contests which are purely intellectual with two brief remarks, the first of which concerns the invention of board games. It is difficult to find a perfectly satisfactory answer to the question of their origin. However, their complication points to adults rather than children as their probable inventors, and to me the following consideration seems important: The primitive races, who find it difficult to convey their thoughts in speech, naturally take to marking on the sand, and hence the figures might arise.[41] If the leader of one of the more intelligent peoples wished to instruct them concerning some past or future combat, it would be a simple method of illustrating his meaning to draw an outline on the ground and represent the position of the hostile forces by small stones or similar objects whose movements would symbolize the manoeuvres of the forces or the advances of knights for single combat. This would, no doubt, be exceedingly interesting to those conducting it, and also to the spectators, and might. easily be repeated for the sake of the amusement afforded until some inventive genius turned it into a veritable play with board and men. To show that there is nothing improbable in this supposition we may point to the fact that such play is actually carried on by our own officers (Italian, manovra sully carts).
The second remark relates to the pleasurable quality of games involving use of the reasoning faculty. We have already shown that play with reason takes the form of experimentation with imagination and the other intellectual faculties in their capacity of illusion workers as well as in their more constructive activity; now we find further that its recreative effect is much greater than is realized during the progress of the game, and flint the consciousness of standing voluntarily in a world of our own creation may be a feature in the interest excited by the game.[42] The chief source of satisfaction, however, is enjoy-
(197) -ment of the fight, in the playful intellectual duel, where bold attack and skilful parry, systematic advance and stubborn resistance, crafty manoeuvring and direct assault, single combat and the general skirmish, as well as pursuit and demolition, succeed one another in everrenewed combinations. In those games which add the charm of uncertainty to the mental contest the effect is of course still more complicated. As I shall have occasion later to speak exhaustively of games of chance, I confine myself here to Lazarus's significant conclusion from the union of these contrasted forces. " That men, and, indeed, the same man can take pleasure in such opposite and absolutely contradictory principles of play seems wonderful, and yet it is most natural, for both are elements of human nature grounded in the very essence of his being and the normal manner of using his powers. In his serious, moral life, directed by the mandates of duty, he is also controlled by two contrary forces, freedom and necessity. He must bow to Fate and yet strive and struggle for what is his own. He expends his energies according to his own behests, and must then await success and reward till the turn of Fortune's wheel. Both disappointment and struggle, receiving and expending, suffering and toiling, are woven into the texture of his life and character, and become the sources of his volition as well as the arbiters of his fortune. He obeys both forces; to pursue and hold to what is good is his dual impulse, both in life and in play."[43]
3. Physical Rivalry
In playful competition indirect conquest of an opponent is aimed at, since the effort is to show that one can perform the task better than another. In it the fighting instinct assumes the form of rivalry. "No entreaties or commands," says Lazarus, " nor oven tips, could arouse our coachman to such a display of skill and speed as could another coachman who showed a disposition to race with him. Apart from the fighting instinct itself,
(198) jealousy is the prime cause of rivalry. Spinoza defines it as "the desire for a thing aroused in us by the belief that others want it." One of the first manifestations of jealousy in children is with regard to the love and caresses of its parents; we all know at what an early age the infant expresses his disapproval when his mother pets another child—sometimes as early as the second quarter. If he shows it simply as anger he is plainly jealous, as older children are; but if (as a dog often does when the hand he loves strokes another) he tries to win to himself by all sorts of cajoleries the maternal tenderness, then he enters upon a sort of rivalry. True emulation, however, is first developed when the aim is to win approbation and admiration when praise rather than love is the alluring reward—in short, when the child becomes ambitious. Say to a three- or four-year-old boy, "Your friend Otto can draw beautifully," and it is ten to one that he will answer, " But I can draw better." This desire to surpass others is what leads to the indirect contest which we call rivalry.
Imitation, too, plays the part of a first cause here, as Spinoza points out in pursuance of his definition of emulation. As, however, this subject will come up for discussion later, let it suffice to say here that imitation is exceedingly important for all mental and physical development, and is accordingly especially conspicuous in the play of children. The effort to say " I can, too;' easily takes on a certain hostile character when there is difficulty in attainment, and so imitation becomes actual rivalry as soon as the effort is for " I can do better," and the struggle becomes sharper in proportion to the consciousness of a desire to surpass. Thus we are justified in regarding the impulse of jealousy which is related to the fighting instinct as the foundation of rivalry as well.
Before going on to investigate this playful rivalry it may be useful to inquire into its social significance. G. Tarde, in his interesting sociological study, Les lois de l'imitation,[44] attempts to prove that imitation is the main
(199) spring of social evolution. But along with the peaceful operations of imitation, the fighting instinct, too, makes itself felt in manifold ways, as a principle of progress (as I remarked above in discussing combativeness), in conjunction it is true with imitation and usually under the form of rivalry. It is evident that social progress would be slow indeed if men only imitated and never opposed what is done in their presence. Rivalry in ownership, power, and authority is the force which urges each to do his utmost in the struggle for life, and which has produced the most advanced civilizations. A people with out ambition is lost; not merely stationary, but actually decadent. As in art bald imitation of even the best models results in weakness, so in society. Men must will to do better in order to do as well.
In spite of their variety we can very quickly review the physical imitative games, since under movement-plays we have already noticed a considerable number belonging to this class, and since it is their psychological side alone that chiefly appeals to us. The following examples, then, are merely chosen to show by means of their variety the great importance of imitation in human play.[45] Children learn most of their bodily movements by such play in a way which clearly illustrates the mingled effects of imitation and emulation. When one child jumps off the second step, another child who sees him immediately tries to cover three; and when boys are practising their leaps each makes a mark in the sand beyond the others as his goal. To lift a heavier weight, to throw farther, to run faster, to jump higher, to make a top spin longer, to stay longer under water, to shoot higher, farther, and with better aim than his comrades can, is the burning wish of every childish heart. In order to see the same enthusiastic rivalry in physical prowess exhibited by adults, we must turn to the half-civilized peoples to whom such acquirements are of surpassing value in the struggle for life. Among the ancient Germans, for
(200) example, such contests were carried to the highest degree of perfection, and, in spite of their avowedly playful character, conducted with such seriousness that they often became matters of life and death. Skill, prowess, and endurance in leaping, running, lifting and throwing huge stones, the use of bow and arrow, diving and swimming, riding and rowing, were all the subjects of contest, and each victor sought to surpass the achievements of the former one. All warlike peoples of whom ethnology is cognizant show much the same picture, and highly civilized nations, too, accord an important position to athletic contests, as the Greek and Roman games bear witness, as well as the championships and records of our own day. Rivalry enters, too, into such games as tenpins, billiards, croquet, golf, etc., all of which are favourite amusements. The pleasure they afford is complicated, including display of one's own strength and skill, the pleasure of watching others, the stimulus of rivalry and the satisfaction of overcoming an opponent. Sometimes, and especially in croquet and billiards, the contest closely approaches fighting play, since the participants not only try to attain the object of the game, but are apt to engage in direct hostilities.
We now turn to some examples that are better calculated to exhibit the many-sidedness of rivalry, which is, of course, an element in all the games of skill which we have mentioned. We are not so well prepared to find it in games requiring patient effort, yet even the Eskimos, in their Fadenfiguren, indulge in fierce emulation,[46] and a play as peaceful as kite-flying is not exempt. "The Hervey Islanders believe that once the god Tane challenged the god Rongo to a kite-flying contest, in which the latter won because his cord was longer."[47] In drinking there is rivalry in the effort to withstand the power of alcohol, and students have a time-honoured tradition that the man is a fine fellow and worthy of all respect who can drink the rest of the company under the table. It is more charitable to attribute this practice to rivalry,
(201) rather than to love of drunkenness.[48] The instance of the two boys holding burning matches illustrates how readily the ability to suppress any manifestation of pain lends itself to rivalry. The old Germans tested their endurance by sitting at feasts after their battles, and when they were covered with wounds. In a grotesquely exaggerated saga it is related of the wounded sons of Thorbrand: " Thorodd got such a blow in the neck that his head hung sideways; his hose were all bloody and would not meet. Snorri could see and feel that a sword was sticking in his thigh, but Thorodd said nothing. Among the gayest of the gay is Snorri, son of Thorbrand, who sits with the others at table, but eats little and looks white. When asked what ails him he says, `When the vulture has won the fight he is not in haste to eat.' Then Gode looks at his neck and finds an arrow head at the root of his tongue."[49] The jeering of Walthar and Hagen, who vie with one another in mocking at their wounds, is another case in point. Finally, the passion for making collections, which is so strong in both children and adults, may be considered as a form of competitive rivalry which reaches its climax in the miser.
4. Mental Rivalry
The space devoted to the more general kinds of emulation has purposely been curtailed in order to devote more to the special case of gaming, as much of the ground has been covered already.
Children are fond of displaying their mental acquirements even before they are old enough to go to school, but it is there, of course, that the best opportunity is afforded them. Colozza tells us how the Italian children use their recess time for contests over the multiplication table [50] During school hours recitation is easily transformed to emulation which can be turned to account by
(202) the judicious teacher with better results than are attained by one who tries to draw the line too rigidly between work and play.
The intellectual rivalries of adults are exceedingly varied. Music offers unlimited opportunities when people are far enough advanced to have any sort of society, and even primitive tribes indulge in this sort of entertainment. Among the Eskimos the contestants compete in public for the prize for singing, and then fall into actual combat, thus combining the two forms of rivalry. Grosse quotes from Rink the following musical dialogue between two East Greenlanders. " Savdlat : ` The south, the south, oh, the south over there! As I stood on the headland I saw Pulangitsissok, who had grown fat upon halibut. The people of this land know not how to speak. Therefore they are ashamed of their language. They are dumb over there; their speech is not like ours. In the north we speak in one way, different from those in the south. Therefore we cannot understand their talk."' To this challenge Pulangitsissok responds: " `There was a time, as Savdlat knows, when I was a good sledger, when I could take a heavy load on my kajak. Four years ago he found this out. That was the time when Savdlat bound his kajak to mine for fear he might capsize. Then he could carry a good load on his kajak, too. As I was tugging along you cried out pitifully, and were afraid and almost overturned. I had to hold on to my ropes to keep us up."'[51] Such sarcastic dialogue often leads to direct contests, in which the singers try to rout one another by means of their witty improvisations. A later form is the contest in oratory and song on an assigned theme, opening with a direct challenge between the contestants. The poem of Wartburg-Krieg is especially famed, while Plata's symposium may be instead ac a fine example of competitive oratory on a given theme
Other kinds of rivalry frequently arise in social gatherings, such as recounting experiences in love, hunting, and battle, as was pre-eminently the custom among the
(203) ancient Germans. "One after another," says Weinhold,[52] "boasted of his prowess and sought to prove it by tales of his wonderful deeds. To heighten the effect, each chose an opponent worthy of his mettle. Thus it happened that Eystein and Sigurd, the crusader, both Norwegian kings, once had a controversy in court. Eystein advanced the proposition that it was impossible to live aright in society, and called on his brother to sustain the contrary. Then the travelled warrior Sigurd, who had filled all lands with the fame of his deeds, and the peace-loving, homestaying Eystein, each related what he had done and could do: the one his battles, his fame in the East; the other that he had built huts for poor fishers, made roads over rugged mountains, opened harbours, widened Christendom, and strengthened the Church—in short, extended his kingdom by every peaceable method. The talk became warm, and the silence which followed was ominous, but as they were both noble-hearted no harm came of it." Very characteristic, too, is the Harbardhslied in the Edda, where the gods Wotan (under the name Harbardh) and Donar emulously recount their achievements:
| Donar : | " Do you ask what I did to Rungner, The giant with sturdy heart and head of stone? I felled him then, he lies at my feet. And what did you, Harbardh, the while?' |
| Harbardh : | " For more than five full winters Was I on an island that is called Allgrün; There I found men to fight and enemies to fell, Many things to prove, and many maids to free," etc. |
Singing the praise of one's future deeds is another form of such boasting. A company of carousing men have need of a wild boar or some other sin offering to go through their midst as they perjure themselves with oaths concerning the hazardous and difficult deeds which they mean to perform.
Before taking up games of chance again I mention once more the fact that many reasoning games are also rivalries—dominoes, for example, and backgammon[53]
(204) since the chief effort is to reach a certain goal first and direct efforts are made to embarrass and retard the adversary, so that genuine fighting play results.
In chance games proper, however, the contestants do not attack one another directly, but seek to conquer by the better solution of some problem, the point of departure from other rivalries being that the reward of solution, at least in games of pure chance, is entirely accidental, and not dependent on the player's strength or skill. We will now attempt to review the more important phenomena connected with such games, and later study the question in its psychological bearings.
The wager is akin to play with chance and arises from the holding of opposite opinions, which can only be settled by future events. Even if the bet concerns something which is past or present, still the decision must be in the future, and the fighting element comes in in the striving of each to prove his superiority, the interest being much enhanced by pooling the stakes. The bettor's conviction as to the correctness of his opinion may be strong or weak[54] —absolute certainty destroys the validity of the bet, while absolute uncertainty makes it a mere game of chance, whereas it should depend, like the best card games, on a union of reasoning and hazard. For this reason future events are the proper subjects of the wager, and we will confine ourselves for brevity's sake to such bets. Schaller says rightly: "The future is pre-eminently the object of conjecture, of the reckoning of probabilities. Even when present circumstances seem to tend inevitably to a certain result, there are still infinite possibilities that other results may transpire. Therefore the wager should concern something yet to come." [54]
One of the earliest forms of betting was on physical or mental superiority, and the stakes formerly so common in reasoning games may be regarded in the same light. There was much betting on the victor in the old German riddle contests and life itself was sometimes staked, if we may depend on the ancient accounts. More often, though,
(205) physical prowess was the subject of the wager. "Indeed, Tacitus may be right," says Schuster, " when he records that the Germans disdained to be praised for ordinary physical vigour, yet they gave prizes to the victors in their contests and liked to claim the glory when it set them above others. Reputation with them must not be mere empty words; one must work for it to the full extent of his powers. Many examples illustrate this spirit; for instance, Welent and Amilias, the smiths, each boasted that he could not be surpassed in his art. The latter offered to bet on it, and Welent replied, ` I have not much property, but I will stake it all.' Then said Amilias, If you have nothing else, stake your head, and I will stake mine, and whichever of us is the better man shall cut the other's head off.' Two of Olaf Trygvason's retainers boasted of being superior mountain climbers, one wagering his ring on it, and the other his head."[56] Schuster cites, too, the famous contest in the Nibelungenlied, to which Brunhild thus challenges King Gunther
" She said: If he is your lord and you are in his hire,
Tell him that I have sworn that whoever can resist my play,
And prove himself my master there, him will I wed,
While if I win you must go alone from hence."
Fable makes animals wager in the same way; the old tale of the hare and the hedgehog is found even in Africa, although there the hedgehog has become a tortoise.[57]
The stakes are not always, however, on one's own ability, but quite as often on the performances of others, or on the speed and endurance of animals. This is indeed the most popular form of the sport, doubtless because the agreeable tension of expectation is thus prolonged until the very moment of the dénouement, as it is not likely to be in the more personal contests. In riding, rowing, sailing, and running contests spectators, as well as participants, bet on the result.[58] Betting on races," says E. v.
(206) Hartmann, "° is the most dangerous and exciting form of gambling, being dependent purely on chance, and yet offering a false appearance of being essentially influenced by intelligence and judgment. The custom is fostered of raising the stakes at the last moment under the influence of artificial stimulation to interest during the race itself. Immature boys, sons of respectable labourers, are thus initiated in the fascinations of the passion for gaming who would otherwise have little inclination for it."[59] In various parts of the world wagers are laid on the result of fights between animals. In ancient Greece gamecocks were bred with special care, and Tanagra, Rhodes, Chalcis, and Delos were famous for the achievements of their respective breeds. The birds were fed with garlic before the fight to augment their excitement, and were armed with artificial spurs. The stakes were often enormous.[60] Cockfights in which betting seemed to be the principal feature were held during the middle ages in most European cities, and in some localities have survived to the present day. Malays are especially devoted to this sport. It only remains to add in conclusion that lifeless things, too, may be the subject of bets. The Gilbert Islanders set two sailboats, about four feet long, afloat, and bet as to which will sail fastest.[61] This is very near to being play with pure chance, and the wager of Canning with an English duke is even more so. They staked a hundred pounds on the question of who should meet most cats on a certain road.
There is but one opinion as to the origin of games of pure chance—namely, that they grew out of the serious questioning of Fate in the form of oracles, and colour is given to the theory by the custom of jesting with the oracle. The Greek custom of pouring wine into a metal cup and from the sound it made reading one's prospects in love, drawing straw—a practice which Walther von der Vogelweide has made famous—the various flower oracles,
(207) counting the cuckoo calls, observing the flight of birdsas, for example, how many times the kite circles—and many other such customs [62] were originally conducted seriously, with a view to gaining some knowledge of the future, and even when playfully practised smack of superstition. Tylor says, in his admirable study of this subject: " Soothsaying and games of chance are so closely allied that the instruments of each are used interchangeably, as among the clever Polynesian magicians cocoanuts are skilfully rolled about in a circle. In the Tonga Islands the chief use made of a holiday is to inquire whether the sick will be cured. They offered loud prayers to the family deity that he would place the nuts aright, then spun them, and from their position judged of the god's will. Under other circumstances, when the cocoanuts are rolled simply for amusement, no prayer is offered and no significance attached to the result. The Rev. G. Turner found the same custom in the Samoan Islands in another stage of development. There a company sits in a circle, the nuts are rolled about among them, and the oracle's answer depends on whether the monkey face of the nut is turned toward the questioner when it stops rolling. The Samoans formerly used this method to detect a thief, but now it is a forfeit game."[63] In this sort of play with chance there is nothing special at stake, yet it is no doubt closely connected with those forms which have this feature.
Another of the earliest of the manifold forms of chance games is the casting of lots. New Zealand wizards decide the fortunes of war by throwing staffs. If the stick which represents their own tribe falls on that of another, then a favourable outcome may be confidently expected to the battle. The Zulus have a similar cere-
(208) mony, and the Hindus cast lots before the temple and supplicate the gods for victory. In the Iliad the crowd prayed with outstretched hands while the dice in Agamemnon's helmet decided who should be the first to fight Hector. Tacitus tells us that the German priests tossed three dice on a white cloth before they attempted to reveal the future .[64] The origin, then, of the use of dice in games of chance is indubitable. The ancient form of backgammon common in India and Mexico was played with lots instead of dice, as was also the case with the Arabian Tâb. Some Indian tribes use the simple casting of lots for gambling purposes. The Arabian does not throw, but draws lots as a substitute for the Meisir forbidden in the Koran. [65] The complicated Chinese game lotto is well known, and Bastian found a similar one used in Siam.[66] E. von Hartmann refers repeatedly in his Tagesfragen to our European lottery, combating the popular idea that it is reprehensible, and should not be fostered by the state. He sees in a well-conducted state lottery the best means of directing the ineradicable tendency to play games of chance into harmless channels. Money speculation is, as a rule, little different from a lottery, since the great majority of speculators have no more intimation of the outcome than is furnished by the law of probabilities which governs pure games of chance. Returning now to simpler manifestations, we find many which are closely related to the use of lots. North American Indians, who are zealous gamblers, use marked or coloured stones, seeds, and teeth, and stake their clothing, furniture, weapons, and, in fact, all that they possess. In Burnish a favourite game is played with beans, and in many of the villages a thrashing floor is erected for the express purpose of supplying the demand.[67] In Siam the children play with shells, and everything depends on whether the opening falls up or down. [68] A similar game was known to the Greeks, and in Rome a coin was tossed
(209) with the cry, " Caput aut navis ! " equal to our " Heads or tails! " We must suppose that such play by children is derived from adult games of chance.
Astragalus and dice were the implements used in many such games. The former are peculiarly shaped bones from the ankles of sheep, goats, or calves, and their use for such purposes is very ancient. They are capable of resting on any one of four sides which may vary in value, as the six sides of dice. The Schliemann collection in the Berlin Museum contains some of them which were found in the "second city." In ancient Greece four astragali were used in the games of adults, and were thrown either from the free hand or from a cup. Special names were given to the various throws, such as Aphrodite, Midas, Solon, Euripides, etc., and the worst throw was called, there as in Rome, the dog. The children of antiquity also played with these bones a game partly of chance and partly of skill, and Hellenic children use them to this day. Ulrichs saw them at Arachola on Parnassus. " The children there," he says, " play with the astragalus, which is a small four-sided bone rounded at the end and so shaped as to be capable of resting on any of its sides. In the game the uppermost side is read, the commonest throw being that which brings the round end up and is called the baker or the donkey. Then follow the thief, the vizier, and, rarest of all, the king, the side which looks like an ear and is opposite the vizier."[69]
The name vizier seems to point to Mohammedan influence, and indeed the children of Damascus have a special game of chance with astragalus in which the terms vizier and thief are both used.[70] Some think that ordinary dice are derived from the astragalus, but it would be difficult to prove, though their imitation in other materials seems to suggest it, as in the case of the oblong dice used by the Romans with cubical ones, and several hundred prehistoric dice found in Bohemia are of similar form. The Berlin Museum, too, has oblong dice from India and China, showing that they were widely
(210) used in the Orient, and Hyde points out in his history of games of chance that the Greek word kubos is related to the Arabic Kab, which meant simply made of lamb's bones. On the other hand, cubical dice with spots like ours are found in Theban graves, so that we can not be positive as to the priority of the astragalus.
Possibly cocoanut rolling was the primitive form of roulette as we have seen it used in half-religious, halfplayful manner by the South Sea Islanders. The Berlin Museum has Chinese rolling dice through which a peg passes, projecting on each side or with the peg on one side only, and the ball tapering to a point on the other. According to Egede, Greenlanders have a sort of roulette, an oblong ball about which the players sit with the stake before them.[71] Another form of chance game is the morra, which was probably known to the ancient Egyptians, and was in all likelihood at first a clever method of calculating.[72] As a play the hands of all the players are thrown simultaneously into the air, and each must guess at the number of outstretched fingers without taking time to count. This amusement, still very popular among Italian peasants, was called by the Achaeans " micare digitis." In China, where it is zealously cultivated, it bears the name of " tsoey-moey." [73] The North American Indians have a modification of it in their cane guessing—namely, the effort to locate a small object passed quickly about in a company. It is used for gambling purposes, the Indians staking all that they have, even to their wives sometimes.[74] The " Kyohzvay " play is taken quite as seriously in Burmah. For this a stick is fixed among the folds of a tightly wrapped cord, and the game is won or lost [75] according as it is or is not successfully concealed.[76]
(211)
The various games of cards afford by far the most important instances of play with chance, and their name is legion. We have not time even to glance at such games as faro, lansquenet, rouge et noir, trente et quarante, etc., except to say that they all depend on a combination of reason with chance, and so more speedily put an end to suspense as to who is the victor than do purely chance plays. We are now confronted by the difficult question of what it is that constitutes the demoniacal charm of gaming, whose power is demonstrated by the value of the stakes with which a man will tempt Fate. Every one is familiar with Tacitus's description of the ancient Germans who, when they had lost everything else, staked their freedom and their life on the last throw. H. M. Schuster gives a long list of examples of Germans staking freedom, wife, and children, the clothes on their backs, life itself, yes, even their souls' salvation when their passion for play was at its height. That this is a universal Aryan trait is shown by the Indian poem of Nala and Damayanti. The former, under the power of a hostile demon, loses at play with Pushkara his ornaments, jewelry, horses, wagons, and clothes. In vain his wife and followers seek to restrain his madness; for many months the ruinous play goes on until Nala has lost all his property and even his kingdom. Then as Pushkara, with loud laughing at the unlucky fellow, cried out that now he must put up his wife Damayanti, Nala rose from the table and walked away with his faithful wife, stripped as he was of all else. The Chinese, Siamese, and Burmese, too, are all passionate gamblers, and the Malays are famous for their wagers on animal fights. This is sufficient to show that the wonderfully strong attractive power of gaming, "le jeu-passion, dout le rôle tragique est vieux comme l'humanité,"[77] is the result of numerous causes whose aggregate, according to Fechner's principle, is far greater than their numerical sum. Taking account of the essentials only, we still have a threefold phenomenon; these are, desire to win the stake, the stimulus of strong effects, and the impulse given by the fighting instinct.
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Winning the stake is so important that without it games of chance become very flat and most unimpressive, as forms of entertainment. How is this to be explained? Sometimes it appears as veritable cupidity, the "fascination d'acquérir d'un bloc, sans peine, en un instant."[78] The seductive chink of gold pieces is heard and visions of new names of wealth open before us, promising to deliver us from all burdens and dangers which in spite of their distance and vagueness we strive to get possession of by a single turn of Fortune's wheel; the gold fever is at home in gambling dens. Yet—and I think this is important—as a rule, it is not mere greed for gain as such, but a feeling more refined. It is boundless delight in sudden good fortune that makes the unearned winnings so enticing. That inward striving after the absolute, which is so deeply rooted in the human breast, is concerned in the longing to experience at least one moment of exhilarating joy with which a single stroke of Fortune's wand sets our hearts aflame
" From the clouds it must fall,
Such is the gift of the gods;
And the strongest power of all
Is that which belongs to the moment"
It would be misleading to suppose that all wagers in a game of chance are attributable to a desire to win, even in this refined sense. In so far as it is the chief motive, there is no real play at all, for it constitutes a serious aim wholly outside the sphere of play. There must be some other meaning to the intense delight in winning, and Lazarus, as usual, puts his finger on it. "Even for an onlooker, not pecuniarily interested, the charm increases with the value of the stake."[79] The stake serves not only to enhance the thought of winning the game, but intensifies the decisive rnomont.[80] A gambler must have excitement at any price, and he also wants to risk something; betting satisfies both demands.
The need for intense stimuli which we are so con-
(213) -stantly encountering in the course of this inquiry appears as the second motive in our classification, and it is met by a storm of effects which betting excites. Consequently gambling is pre-eminently suited to supply this demand. I have already pointed out that betting on the performances of others is an especially popular form of gambling, since in this way alone can the excitement be enjoyed unimpaired by personal considerations. So, too, in games of pure chance, which relegate the player to comparative inactivity and impart a feeling of externality among its other effects. By far the most important of these effects is the contrast of the emotions of hope and fear, and often this simultaneous action of opposing passions is sufficient to stir the soul to its depths, since, as Lazarus penetratingly remarks, the result is in either case positive; the question is not, winning or not winning, it is winning or losing. This is another point which renders games of chance peculiarly fit for the production of exciting effects. Also besides fear and hope there is the tension of expectation and the shock of surprise to render the mental agitation more intense and varied. This explains why gambling is the last resort of the dissipated, worn-out man who needs sharp stimuli to arouse his exhausted powers.[81]
Gambling is, moreover, a fighting play, and this is doubtless one of its most important phases. There is no other form of play which displays in so many-sided a fashion the combativeness of human nature and with so slight expenditure of time and strength. There is the charm of danger as such, enjoyment of bold betting which in the changing course of the game is constantly renewed, and further indirect as well as direct battle with an opponent, for he who makes the best throw gets the best card.
Besides all this there is the desire to win his wager, and by means of the steady augmenting of stakes it differs from all other fighting plays in affording at the last moment, when all seems lost, an opportunity of retrieving everything by a sudden overwhelming victory. And finally there is the defiance of the power of chance,
(214) or rather, if a religious rearing makes one scruple to put it in this form, we may call it a struggle with the powers of darkness.
The question now arises whether this is properly called a fight when the player can not influence the outcome, but must submit absolutely to the incalculable hazards of fortune. What right has he to congratulate himself on a victory for which he is in no way responsible? To this it may be answered that in addition to this subjective, psychological condition there is an active contest; for an illusion exists in connection with every game of chance that in some way the outcome is dependent on the capacity of the player, and a little reflection will show that this is characteristic of human nature. How else arises our naïve sense of worth or of shame? Are we not vain of physical beauty, of inherited advantages, and of riches which we have not earned? Does not the consciousness of deformity, stupidity, weakness, awkwardness, or even a lowly origin impart a feeling of shame and a sense of responsibility for our own shortcomings? We feel as if we had had a voice in the fashioning of our bodies and souls and a choice of our position in life—in short, as the vulgar saying has it, as if we had not been careful enough in the choice of our parents. Just in the same way we are proud of our luck in play. Luck is genius, and he whom it smiles upon is a hero.[82] This failure to discriminate between fortunate circumstance and personal merit is shown in a striking manner in popular poetry. Its heroes are often armed with magic weapons or directly assisted by higher powers who lend them supernatural strength or work ruin to their enemies. Such advantage is thus given them that the reflecting person has some difficulty in regarding their exploits as especially praiseworthy, yet the average hearer is undisturbed by such considerations. For instance, considcr the invulnerability of Achilles and Siegfried's Tarnkappe, which gave him in the fight with Brunhild " the strength of twelve men."
In the case which we are considering, however, this
(215) habit of mind has a twofold significance: First, there is the personification of chance as fate, with whom the player struggles. Lazarus says: "Instead of blind chance, he pictures before him a reasoning intelligence whose laws he tries to fathom, and in the face of many failures and mistaken conclusions he persists in attempting to calculate his chances and to count on them, forgetting that the reckoning of probabilities is useful only in generalities and is practically worthless when applied to a single case. By and bye he endows luck with moral qualities as well. He will risk everything on a single card, and either can not believe that Fate will be inexorable, that his faith and perseverance must at last be rewarded, or else assumes an attitude of defiance to a hostile being." [83] 'In the second place, the gambler regards the implements of his trade as does the magician among primitive peoples the means of performing his incantations. It is actual fetich worship in which personification assumes proportions quite different from those it bears in the general idea of fate. Demons who sometimes obey the player's will, and sometimes mockingly defy him, seem to dwell in the dice and cards, transforming play into a contest in magic arts. This is perhaps not so strongly felt by cultivated people of the present day as I have represented it, yet it is present in a more or less rudimentary form in all devotees of the game. While some scoff at it, even they avoid those things which are traditionally supposed to bring ill luck. Thus, when I was a student, in our games with dice which were very popular, the following rules were rigidly observed: In order to throw double sixes, the player took the dice cup in his right hand, placed the left over it and shook it solemnly three times up and down before making the final throw. If low numbers were desired, the inverted cup was held slanting and drawn carefully back on the table so that the dice glided out rather than rolled. For medium throws there was a choice between two methods over whose comparative efficacy there was serious controversy: either to rise from the table and empty the cup from a
(216) height, or to propel the dice suddenly by a sidelong movement from the cup, held at a slant. Was all this mere joking? To a certain extent certainly it was, yet the boys half believed in it and had a poor opinion of beginners who did not know how to handle the dice. Among the lower classes, however, and among peoples of less advanced civilization this fetichism is much stronger. Konrad von Haslan, says Schuster, testifies to having seen and heard " how on the one hand dice are honoured, greeted, and kissed, and have offerings of booty made to them, while on the other they were beaten and abused as if they possessed life. Often the player who has lost by them takes revenge by picking out the spots or smashing the dice with a stone or biting them in two to make them suffer."[84] All these circumstances combine to make gaming a fighting play not alone with men, but also with supernatural powers whose inscrutable decisions possess a peculiar power and whose favour lends to the fortunate player a special nimbus, while the vanquished does not suffer in his own esteem as if he had been conquered by a human foe.
Finally, we should note that gaming has various mental connections with experimentation, since enjoyment of the excitation of hope and fear and the feeling of suspense as well as the shock of surprise is experimental in every case. With this is combined great activity of attention and imagination to whose agency the personification of which we have spoken must be ascribed; reason's part in the process is displayed in the complex calculation of probabilities, and that of the will most conspicuously in the effort to appear outwardly calm while the wildest excitement reigns within, and hope and despair surge in alternate waves across the soul.
It is difficult to say which of these stimuli ought to be placed at the head of the list, but two appear to mo to be rather more important than the others. First, the combative impulse, whose influence is particularly strong here; and, second, pleasure in intense effects, as when the "gold fever" takes the form of longing for a supreme
(217) moment which shall fill the soul to the brim, something which will transcend all other transporting agents. Both find their satisfaction at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and importance of its revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the extraordinary persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the table, as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of the game. The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated action tends to lead to the production of the first part again.
5. The Destructive Impulse
Turning our attention now to the third of our principal groups of fighting plays, the first subject—namely, the destructive impulse—will not occupy us long, as we have already given some consideration to it in the section on analytic movement-play. There we were chiefly concerned with the experimental element as manifested in the desire to take things to pieces. Here we shall emphasize the fighting instinct which is so easily aroused even toward a lifeless object, and frequently becomes a sort of delirium which is only appeased by the entire destruction of the object, as if it were a vanquished foe. And here, too, belongs the inquiry under what circumstances the discharge of this impulse, whether directed against a living or a lifeless object, may be considered as playful. As soon as rage ceases to be the chief influence, and the destruction is continued simply for the sake of its intoxicating effects, it takes on more or less of a playful character, though it is inexpedient to attempt to set clearly defined limits to what is earnest and what is play.[85] When children tear paper or overturn structures laboriously erected by themselves, how often the interest is cumulative, developing finally into passionate eagerness from action which was at first indifferent! The paper is seized in the teeth, the building kicked to bits, objects which are breakable entirely destroyed, flowers pulled to pieces,
(218) etc. Education should interfere at this point and direct the play, imposing proper checks. Madame Necker de Saussure relates of a previously gentle and tractable girl of eighteen months that "one day when she was alone with her mother, who was confined to her bed from illness, the child, without the least provocation, broke into open rebellion. Clothes, hats, fans, and every movable object that she could lay her hands on were piled in the middle of the floor, and she danced around the pile and sang with the greatest delight. Her mother's serious displeasure had no restraining effect."[86] " A girl three years old," says Paolo Lombroso, "was left alone for a few moments, and proved her ability to improve the time. She at once began most energetically, and with full consciousness of what she was doing, to pull to pieces a basket of vegetables. She reduced all these to fragments, and then emptied an inkstand in her lap, amusing herself by smearing it on the wall and floor with her fingers. When that palled she took a corkscrew and punched her apron as full of holes as a sieve."[87] A little later in life the impulse leads to more violent misdemeanours. The destruction of garden borders, smashing of furniture in public parks, and many other acts of vandalism which we prosecute, are practised by half-grown lads, and sometimes even by students.[88] Some may object to calling such roughness play, but play it surely is if there is no malicious intention, as is usually the case. Such mischief is often reprehensible, and deserves to be checked, yet such antics as these of the subalterns as described by Eugen Thossan can not be taken seriously. He says: " Suddenly a beer mug flew across the table and hit Sergeant Putz square in the face. This was the signal for a general free fight. Steins flew through the air like cannon balls. Four lamps borrowed from the officers' rooms were on the table: one wag struck and the chimney fell off. Somebody celled out `When the chimney is gone the lamp may as well
(219) follow,' and a blow from a fist shattered the lamp. A mad rage for destruction was kindled, and with anything that came to hand all the lamps were beaten to pieces. In the general hullabaloo no one noticed the wounds that he received from the splinters and blows. When every vestige was demolished, a frightful war whoop rose to the hall above." It is more than probable that such orgies as this often have a certain connection with the sexual life. We find among animals—deer, buffalo, etc.—a similar rage for destruction during their breeding season.
My last example refers to mature men. It is the vigorous description in Vischer's Auch Einer of the argument of two friends in an inn about the china displayed around them. " At last Auch Einer called out: `That is enough; they are condemned.' He bought the whole collection from the innkeeper and then let himself loose. He handed me the pitcher with the remark that I should have the honour of opening the ball. I was not slow to obey, and as a massive granite block stood opposite the window I sent the pitcher crashing against it. Auch Einer was delighted, and, seizing a vinegar cruet, followed suit. Then we took turns with plates, dishes, glasses, and whatever came to hand. A crowd of villagers soon collected outside and cheered the rare sport; loud laughter and cries of `Go it, there!' greeted each act of justice."
Injurious treatment of living creatures, too, is often due to the same instinct. In the desire to investigate, the principle of the golden rule is forgotten. It would be too optimistic, however, to assume that such things are never done from cruelty. Fischart says that even welldisposed children reveal the demon of fighting and destruction when there is a beetle or a broken-winged bird or a wounded cat to torment. Most readers will recall some reminiscence of their own youth when they really enjoyed inflicting injury on some living thing. It may assume a dangerous form when directed against other persons. Some years ago a number of children at play intentionally drowned a comrade; and Fr. Scholz tells us, "An eight-year-old girl with an angelic face secretly put some pins in her little brother's food, and calmly
(220) awaited the catastrophe, which fortunately was averted." " A girl twelve years old pushed a child of three, with whom she was playing, into a pile of paving stones for no other reason than that she might have the opportunity to tickle him cruelly."[89] Among criminals murders may sometimes result from following this impulse. Some time ago three peasants were tried for the murder, with incredible cruelty, of a servant. They were father, son, and mother. After the old man had throttled his victim he said to his accomplices, " Now he is dead enough." But the woman, to make sure, dealt a hard blow on the poor fellow's head. "Now I think he has had enough, this fine rabbit that we have caught." [90] Here the bounds between play and earnest are hard to place, but probably belong at the point where the prearranged plan is no longer the leading thought, it having given place to mad delight in inflicting injury. These matters are, after all, only on the threshold of play, and we will now turn our attention to subjects more important to our inquiry.
6. Teasing [91]
The fighting instinct of mankind is so intense that all the playful duels, mass conflicts, single combats, and contests which we have described, do not satisfy it. When there is no occasion for an actual testing of their powers, children and adults turn their belligerent tendencies into a means of amusement, and so arise those playful attacks, provocations, and challenges which we class together under the general name of teasing. The roughest if not the earliest form of such play is that of bodily attack, such as is often observed among animals. A female ape which Brehm brought to Germany loved to annoy the sullen house dog. " When he had stretched himself as usual on the greensward, the, roguish monkey would ap-
(221) -pear and, seeing with satisfaction that he was fast asleep, seize him softly by the tail and wake him by a sudden jerk of that member. The enraged dog would fly at his tormentor, barking and growling, while the monkey took a defensive position, striking repeatedly on the ground with her large hand and awaiting the enemy's attack. The dog could never reach her, though, for, to his unbounded rage, as he made a rush for her, she sprang at one bound far over his head, and the next moment had him again by the tail."[92] We all know how children delight in just such teasing. To throw an unsuspecting comrade suddenly on his back, to box him or tickle and pinch him, to knock off his cap, pull his hair, take his biscuit from his hand, and if he is small hold it so high that the victim leaps after it in vain—all this gives the aggressor an agreeable feeling of superiority, and he enjoys the anger or alarm of his victim. When I was in one of the lower gymnasium classes our singing on one occasion was suddenly broken into by a shrill scream. One of the pupils had found a pin which he energetically pushed into an inviting spot in the anatomy of the boy in front of him. The culprit could only say in palliation of his offence that he did it " without thinking," which excuse was received rather incredulously. Schoolboys often pull out small handfuls of one another's hair, and it is a point of honour not to display any feeling during the process. Becq de Fouquières records an ancient trick of this kind, consisting of a blow on the ear in conjunction with a simultaneous fillip of the nose. — Cold water is a time-honoured instrument of torture. To duck the timid bather who is cautiously stepping into the pond, to empty a pitcher on a heedless passer-by, to place a vessel full of water so that the inmate of a room will overturn it on opening the door—these are jokes familiar wherever merry young people are found. The lover of teasing naturally seeks such victims as are defenceless against him, especially those who are physically weak or so situated as to be incapable of revenge. Yet there are ways of annoying the strong and capable. A good-natured teacher is apt to
(222) be the subject of his pupils' pranks, though in this case they seldom take the form of physical assaults. It is not an unheard-of thing, however, for a paper ball to hit his head or for his seat to be smeared with ink or perhaps with glue as in Messerschmidt's Sapiens Stultitia.[93]
Youths and grown men are little behind the children in such jests. There is, for instance, the christening on board ship in honour of crossing the line which Leopold Wagner thinks is derived from the ancient religious ceremony celebrated on passing the pillars of Hercules.[94] Tossing in a blanket, which made such a lasting impression on Sancho Panza, was known to the Romans by the name of sagatio. Such rough sports were practised in the time of the Roman emperors by noble youths. Suetonius relates of Otho that the future emperor as a young man often seized, with his companions, upon weak or drunken fellows at night, and tossed them on a soldier's mantle (distento sago impositum in sublime jactare).[95] In popular festivities fighting with pigs' bladders is a fruitful source of amusements to which tickling with a peacock's feather is a modern addition, and lassoing with curled strips of paper which cling about the neck. Students make a specialty of such pranks. A favourite one was crowding, when the streets had only a narrow pavement for pedestrians, while in bad weather the rest of the road was a mass of unfathomable mud; another was to deal a hard blow on the high hat of some worthy Philistine, plunging him suddenly into hopeless darkness, or tracing a circle on the bald head of a toper asleep over his wine, etc. In an inn in Giessen there is still in existence a bench through whose seat a nail projects when a hidden cord is pulled—a pleasant surprise for the unsuspecting guest who reclines upon it. On entering the gymnasium I was initiated in an aesthetic little practice which is of ancient date and serves as an instance of the coarse jesting that is so common there. One of the company secretly fills his mouth with beer and reclines on
(223) two chairs. With a handkerchief spread over his face he plays the part of The Innkeeper's Daughter. They all sing the familiar song, and two accomplices play the rôle of two of the peasants while the novice is asked to be the third. The veil is thus twice withdrawn from the daughter's face, and twice replaced without any suspicious revelations, but when the innocent third lover arrives he is greeted with the stream of stale beer full in the face. A suitable companion-piece to this decidedly disgusting trick is this incident related by Joest as occurring among the Bush negroes of Guayana: " As I was tending the wound of a young negress whose breast was badly cut, she wearied of the operation, and suddenly seizing it in both hands she sent a stream of warm milk into my face and fled laughing away." [96]
The most harmless teasing is the obvious kind which forms the basis of much social play, such as games for a company like " Blind-Man's Buff," " Fox Chase," " Copenhagen," and similar diversions. A striking instance occurs in The Sorrows of Werther. During a violent storm Lotta attempts to cheer the frightened company; she places chairs in a circle and seats everybody in them—many acceding in the hope of being rewarded with a sweet forfeit or two, and getting their lips all ready. " We are going to play counting," said Lotta. "Now, attention t I am going round the circle from right to left, and you must count, each taking the number that comes to him; and we are going like lightning, and whoever hesitates or blunders gets a box on the ear, and we are going on to thousands." She then stretched out her arms and flew around the circle, faster and faster. If any one missed, bang! came a box on his ear, and in the laugh that followed, bang! came another, and always faster and faster. Werther, however, noticed with inward satisfaction that the two blows which he received were somewhat harder than Lotta gave the others. When the company is still less refined than this, joking sometimes becomes so rough as to lose its playful character. The ancient Thracians
(224) were celebrated for this sort of thing. Gutsmuth says truly that from this circumstance much could be inferred concerning the state of civilization among them, if we had no other sources of information. " A man stands on a round stone holding a sickle in his hand and having his head through a noose suspended from above. When he is not expecting it a bystander pushes the stone away and there hangs the poor wretch who has been chosen by lot for this fate. If he has not sufficient skill and presence of mind to cut the knot at once with the sickle he flounders there until he dies, amid the laughter of the spectators." [97]
Turning now to other forms of teasing than direct bodily annoyance, we find again that children very early understand it. When the pretence is made of great alarm at his beating with a spoon or banging a book or at a sudden cry, a child as young as two years old shows great delight, and will repeat the performance with a roguish expression. From this time on, to cause sudden fright is a favourite method of gratifying the taste for teasing. The ghostly manifestations which terrify each generation in turn can often be traced to some mischievous urchins.
I remember a joke played on a geographical professor at the gymnasium who, as he carelessly opened a closet door, was confronted by a skeleton which had been used in the previous lecture. Students could hardly subsist without the ancient trick of stuffing the clothes of a "suicide," and placing the figure on the floor of their victim's room with a pistol lying near, or hanging it by a rope to the window frame, to give the late home-comer a genuine scare. In Athenäus we find a beautiful instance of readiness to meet such a trick. King Lysimachus, who took delight in teasing his guests, one day at a banquet threw a skilfully made artificial qenrpion on to the dress of one Bithys, who recoiled; but, quickly recovering himself, said to the rather penurious king: " My lord, it is now my turn to frighten you; I beseech you give me a talent."[98] Such sport with fear, though harmless in these instances, becomes a passion with all narrow
(225) -minded, tyrannous natures, and leads to cruelty which is anything but playful. Slatin's dramatic work, Fire and Sword in the Soudan, gives an instance of such traits in the character of the Caliph Abdullah. Indeed, Abdullah had a part in, or rather was the occasion of, Slatin's first experience during the life of the Mahdi. Slatin was taken prisoner by the Mahdi's army before the gates of Khartoum. The morning after the city was taken, alarming rumours reached him; half incredulous, he looked out of his tent. " A mob had collected before the quarters of the Mahdi and his caliphs; it seemed to be getting into motion and making toward me, and I soon saw clearly that they were coming in the direction of my tent. I could now distinguish single persons. First walked the negro soldiers, one of whom, whose name was Shetta, carried a bloody burden on his head. Behind him howled the mob. The slaves entered my tent and stood glowering before me, and Shetta opened the roll of cloth and showed me—Gordon's head! I grew faint and dizzy at the sight, my breath stopped, and it was only by the greatest effort that I commanded myself sufficiently to gaze upon that pallid face." The Mahdi and his caliphs had ordered this hideous cruelty.[99]
A common and early developed form of teasing is the deception which imparts to the perpetrator a feeling of intellectual superiority. Children display this in their tender years principally by pretending that they are going to do forbidden or improper things, as revolt against authority. When the little girl observed by Pollock was twenty-three months old she often declined to kiss her father good-night. She turned from him as if annoyed or indifferent, to make a fausse sortie, and then called him back and gave the kiss.[100] Sigismund's boy often exhibited a " kind of humorous defiance of authority," such as grasping at a light standing near him, but not so that it could burn him, and looking slyly at his father. [101]
(226) Older children have innumerable tricks of this kind. A sort of game is to strike on a table with a spoon or on the floor with a card and repeat the formula "He can do little who can't do this, this," and pass the stick or spoon to the next neighbour with the left hand. The uninitiated who attempt to do this usually pass it with the right hand and are much puzzled when told that they are wrong. There is much of this element, too, in the games of magic which children are so fond of. For examples of it among adults it is only necessary to turn again to the old jokes of students. In a university town a merchant, Karl Klingel, was roused in the middle of the night by a ring at the bell. The visitor was a student named Karl, who pretended to think that the name on the sign was a signal for him. " Mystification," says Goethe in Wahrheit and Dichtung, " is and ever will be amusement for idle people who are more or less intelligent. Indolent mischievousness, selfish enjoyment of doing some damage is a resource to those who are without occupation or any wholesome external interests. No age is entirely free from such proclivities." Moreover, one whole day in every year is given over to this jesting deception. The civilized world over the first of April is fool's day. Wagner thinks that this custom arose from the change of the new year from the vernal equinox to January 1st, thus giving to the customary exchange of New Year's gifts the character of jests, and to those who should forget the change of time the appearance of fools. So they are called Aprilnarren, poisson d'Avril, April fools, and in Scotland gowks.[102]
Memory forms another important division of our subject. The child's natural impulse is easily aroused by new and striking peculiarities—for instance, he soon learns by example to stammer, to talk through his nose, or imitate any other defect without at first intending to tease. When his mimicry is laughed at he attempts intentional caricature, yet we are not to suppose from this that he would never do so alone. As a rule, though, it is the amusement of adults which stimulates him to
(227) improve on his former efforts. And as soon as he perceives that his victim is annoyed his mimicry becomes teasing. [103] At school this sort of teasing attacks unmercifully any little weakness or peculiarity, such as a halting or limping gait, stammering or lisping speech, a strange accent or foreign pronunciation. All these become the objects of ridiculous exaggeration even in the presence of older persons if they show no signs of disapproval.[104] In our club in the high school there was a boy who ran his words together in a comical fashion, and from imitating his manner of speech we constructed a formal language, some words of which still survive in the memories of his contemporaries. The most important sphere of this sort of imitation is that of pictorial art, where the caricaturist seeks to amuse by his exaggerated representations of familiar peculiarities. Children attempt this too. Their efforts are at first, of course, the grossest deformities with projecting ears, huge noses, etc., which they label with the name of some comrade whom they wish to annoy, but later when they have learned to draw they achieve some creditable caricaturing. I well remember our portrait of a French teacher who had two deep lines from the base of his nose to the corners of his mouth, forming with his long nose the letter M. Such pictures are, of course, not to be classed with methods of teasing unless the intention is to show them to the subject, which is by no means always the case, and unless their raison d'être is something less than serious malice or hatred. There is always a charm in wielding, under the safe refuge of anonymity, these effective weapons against the mighty of the earth. What has not the nose of Napoleon III, for instance, suffered in this way!
Political caricatures were known to the early Egyptians;[105] and in Venezuela, besides pre-Culuuibiati figures, a statuette with a gigantic nose has been found which is
(228) supposed to represent the Spanish invader.[106] Indirect satire forms a poetic analogue to these creations of the pictorial art, as it is an ironical form of teasing which imitates in an exaggerated manner, and makes the most of awkwardness and weakness, to raise a laugh against their, possessor. Here play and earnest are frequently mingled, the poet usually setting out with the serious intention of annoying his victim, and yet taking such pleasure in the effort that the attack becomes genuine play. Indeed, we may say that the happiest and most effective satires are usually those which reveal such playfulness. The epistoloe obscurorum virorum afford brilliant examples as well as many passages in Rabelais's immortal work.
Finally, we must note the kind of teasing which is implied in provocative words and actions. Children often have the desire to use insulting and abusive language to their elders, but, not quite daring to utter it, they assume an impertinent air which sometimes seems partly playful. Thus Compayré tells of a child who said to his mother, " Vilaine ! " but added immediately, " poupée vilaine"; and Marie G— in her third year said to her father, "Papa, you are a stove, you are a tray," while the expression of her face plainly showed that she had a more offensive epithet in mind.
There can be no doubt that the fighting instinct often finds expression in the direct effort to excite others to anger by provoking words. Such taunts are frequently thrown into rhythmical form, and so constitute a primitive lyric in which the musical element is not wanting. This is especially the case when there are several participants, who chant them in a sort of recitative, and usually adopt, as far as my observation goes, that fundamental stereotyped measure which forms the basis of all [107] primitive German child-song, and which in its simplest form is this
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In this measure the street urchins call mockingly after a teamster:
"'Shängt eener hinde dran,
'S hängt eener hinde dran,"
or when they wittily compare a tipsy man with an overloaded and toppling wagon:
Er hot, er hot,
Er hot zu scheppe gelade,"
or taunt a young Englishman with
°Beefsteak, Wasserweck
Auf dem Kopf a grosse Schneck ? "
or scoff at a tale-bearing comrade
" Angeber, geb mich an
Kriegst 'n hohle Backezahn."
This same motive is always used for such songs now as it was in the days of our pagan forefathers, who doubtless gave it a wider application.
Grosse points out that the derisive songs of savages have a strong similarity to such childish taunts. He cites one which Grey heard Australians sing in scorn of one of their own number
" Oh, what a leg he has !
Oh, what a leg he has!
The old kangaroo jumper "
and compares it to a scene before the door of a school in Berlin where a troop of children followed a little lame girl, calling out
" Aetsch, ätsch, âtsch,
Anna has a crooked leg,
Aetsch, ätsch, ätsch." [108]
Scornful speech among the common people is more than tossing. T must confine myself to only one or two examples of this important group. The above will suffice as an instance of the common jeering at physical infirmity.
Banter between the sexes begins even in childhood. In
(230) Alsace the little girls sing a rhyme which recalls the English
| " Girls are made of sugar and spice ' And all that's nice; Boys are made of rats and snails And puppy dogs' tails." |
' Räge, Räge, Tropfe! D'Buäwe muess mä klopfe, D'Maidle kummen in Hommelbett, D'Buäwe kummen in Knotensäck!" |
While in Bohemia the boys have it: —
| " Zeisig, Zeisig, Die Buben sind fleissig. Stieglitz, Stieglitz, Die Mädeln sind gar nichts nütz. [109] |
Boys are the busy ones, Goldfinch, goldfinch. Girls are no use at all." |
At the festivals, and especially the weddings of mountain folk, the youths and maidens carry on a veritable poetic warfare, which sometimes becomes pretty severe.
Ten different German tribes too had champions who sang in scornful contests like that of the two Greenland poets.[110] In trade rivalry the tailor suffers most. Religious differences have given rise to such jargon as this:
'Franz Willwanz
Willwippke Kadanz,
Willwippke Kadippke
Katholischer Franz!"[111]
As it is not expedient to dwell on the higher forms of satire here,[112] I will close this section with some remarks on the provocative manner and bearing. Like all other teasing, a scornful manner results from a feeling of superiority, and is always calculated to depreciate its object. When serious, such scornful behaviour constitutes a challenge to actual combat, but when playful it becomes the sort of teasing in which the perpetrator enjoys annoying others. The gesture which naturally accompanies it is pointing with the finger, and children usually add laughter. Even dogs understand this laughter, as their half-angry, half-depressed demeanour well proves. Sticking
(231) out the tongue, which with some children only means awkwardness and embarrassment, is sometimes employed in the same way. Sittl thinks that it was unknown to the Greeks and early Romans [113] (?); yet the Gauls made use of it as a means of expressing contempt, as did also the Jews. I have been unable to find a satisfactory explanation of this or for the "turned-up nose." In Romeo and Juliet this passage occurs: " I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it"; and Persius refers to the same thing as expressing scornful depreciation of one's opponent. Italians and Greeks place the thumb nail on the front teeth and snap it forward with like intent.[114] Minimo digito provocare, which may be freely interpreted as "I can manage you with my little finger," serves the same purpose as does snapping the fingers also. Tyler remarks that in the language of deafmutes the rubbing together or snapping of small objects signifies contempt, depreciation, etc.[115] Many scornful gestures are obscene in character, and some such have been perpetuated in plastic art, especially during the middle ages (as, for instance, on the door of the Schwäbisch Hall). They all no doubt originated in the desire to express contempt in a forcible manner,[116] though the appropriateness of some of them is not apparent, as, for instance, jeering challenges to some degrading act, direct accusations, symbolic threats of defilement, where the idea seems to be that the assailant wishes to prove himself not only fearless in the presence of his foe, but shameless as well.
While on one side teasing is an expression of the fighting impulse, on the other it seems to be of considerable value as a promoter of sociability. The educational quality of school comradeships and students' clubs depends in no small degree on the hardening of the supersensitive by tensing, and thus preparing them for the
(232) future buffetings of fortune. It is useful, too, in stirring up heavy and phlegmatic natures. Bastian writes from Siam: "When a boy misses his aim and stands like a whipped poodle, his comrades mock him with ` Kui, kui,' which is very provoking. Some poor fellows are so sensitive to this blame and jeering, and so emulous of praise that they are quite beside themselves, and beat their heads against a wall. They are then said to be ` Ba-Jo,' or mad from shame. When, on the contrary, they meet such scorn with indifference, they are regarded as fearless."[117]
7. Enjoyment of the Comic
There are two theories of the comic—that of the feeling of superiority and that of contradiction; the one being more subject to the will and the other to reasoning processes. That which Hobbes sets forth and which is perpetuated in modern psychology by Bain, Kirchmann, Neberhorst, and others, emphasizes the connection between laughter and ridicule. As the latter is a pleasure, " orta ex eo, quod aliquid, quod contemnimus in re quam odimus ei inesse imaginamu" (Spinoza), so too our appreciation of the comic is derived from our own powers of exaggeration over and above the contradictions inherent in the object of our depreciation. Erdmann says that we never think of Christ's laughing, because we have an innate feeling that there is something malicious in unrestrained laughter. [118] The other theory, which also has many supporters, lays most stress on the intellectual side of the phenomenon, on the idea of contradiction, of inconsequence, of incongruity as displayed by the comic object. This startles us at first by its unexpectedness, and then appeals agreeably to our sense of the ridiculous. These two theories are by no means exclusive the one of the other, and are only opposed in that each accuses the other of failure to cover all the facts. Sully and Ribot [119] attempt to unite them by deriving the more refined sense of incongruity from the first exaggeration, progressively exclud-
(233) -ing the latter by mental play with contraries. We will be satisfied with the undeniable fact that pleasure derived from the comic is usually not only experimentation with attention, the shock of surprise, and a more or less logical enjoyment of the incongruities involved, but also an agreeable pharisaical feeling of being superior to the occasion. So far, then, as such pleasure can be referred at all to reason it does consist in this sense of superiority, and belongs in the category of fighting plays.
It is a familiar remark that we find something not altogether disagreeable in hearing of the misfortunes of even our best friends. From the standpoint of social science it is evident that humanity is not entirely dominated by the social and sympathetic instincts since even when these are most strongly manifested there is always a remnant of the fighting impulse in ambush, which greets with joy any damage to a friend as to a foe. This is the principle of competition. We know that untutored savages make violent demonstrations of joy over the misfortunes of an enemy, their fiendish laugh of triumph has been often described, and childhood recollections furnish most of us with striking data in the same line. " A ten-year-old boy who had daubed a comrade with filthy mud from the street danced around his victim and screamed with laughter." [120] Sometimes scornful and contemptuous laughter serves as a weapon, for it is not always a mere expression of feeling, being frequently used to infuriate an opponent much as a provoking manner is employed. We find, too, that in numerous cases it originates in a triumphant feeling, as when the teasing we have been considering is successful, and also when spectators applaud such success. Then, too, there is laughter at the artistic representation of such scenes, pictorial, plastic, and poetic. Y Yet we arc far from exhausting the list. As a result of the struggle for life, every inferiority calls forth a triumphant feeling in the observer, be it in physical or mental fitness or in opportunity or
(234) ability. Thence comes, too, the opposition among gregarious animals to anything which menaces the social norm or its usages, anything which is too small or too great to be reduced to the general average, provided the greatness is not sufficient to inspire awe or fear. And inferiority, too, in the courtship contest is often subject for ridicule. In all these cases, embracing as they do a large proportion of things comic, the instinct for fighting enjoys a triumph, and this enjoyment forms a large part of the general sense of satisfaction.
Yet we rightly hesitate to identify enjoyment of the comic with mere maliciousness. There is evidently something more. But what? Is Aristotle's explanation, that the misfortune to another which excites our mirth is really a harmless thing, sufficient? By no means. While this may be quite true considered subjectively, it does not bear on our special question. It is at this point, I think, that the other theory becomes applicable, especially in a connection which has not been sufficiently brought forward. In all the relations of the comic with which we have so far had to do, only a small part of the stimulus of contrast has come from the object itself and from the relief of tension. By far the most significant feature of the process is the fact that the observer alternates between aesthetic feeling or inner imitation and the external sense of triumph. Hereby alone does the comic win the right to a place in the sphere of aesthetics. It is a psychological law that sufficient observation of any object stirs the imitative impulse to such a degree as to cause us inwardly to sympathize with the object, and the law holds good with regard to what we consider inferior if it impresses us as amusing as well. Our feeling, then, is so far from being pure malice that we actually spend an interval in inward participation in the inferiority, though at the :next moment, it is true, exulting triumphantly in our own superiority. All this is a play grounded on the instinctive indulgence of our fighting impulse, aided and enlarged by the idea of contrast, the two together constituting appreciation of the comic. Mere mischief is not aesthetic, and the mere idea of contrast does not necessarily produce laughter; but, then, synthesis does
(235) call forth this characteristic effect of the comic .* The mischievous factor is sometimes of much less importance, and the laugh not at all like ridicule, yet in the vast majority of cases the idea of resistance mingles, if for nothing else, then to overcome the shock which is apt to stagger us at first, but is finally conquered. I proceed now to adduce some instances to which, in spite of their diversity, this explanation is applicable. We have seen that surprise is one of the first causes for laughter in children. They thoroughly enjoy the moment of recognition of a picture which has puzzled them, and adults have the same feeling when they have wrestled with almost illegible handwriting and at last decipher it. There is a slight shock of it, too, when we hear a child express precocious sentiments or see an animal act like a man. Then arises what Kries calls a state of false psychic disposition, from which we escape in the next instant. We may test this sensation by turning from a comic sheet to some serious reading. We are apt to conceive of the first sentences as if they were meant to be ironical, and find the recognition and correction of the misapprehension a pleasure in itself. Such a stimulus is also mildly-operative in the amusement we derive from masquerades and other pretences. The charm of juggling and sleight-of-hand tricks is dependent on the unexpected performance of an apparently impossible task or the solution of an apparently insurmountable difficulty. As an instance of the surprise whose conquest forms a part of our amusement and which at first gives us a shock which has something of superstition in it, I will mention that which I felt on receiving " in the very nick of time," as it were, the article of Hall and Allin's, to which I have so often referred, just as I was about to begin my attempt to analyze the comic.
Punning, the introductory step to wit, is enjoyed by children too young to appreciate true wit. It consists in
(236) an incongruous association of ideas which at first amazes and then delights. Wit presents ideas in unexpected associations full of suggestion which prove either to be illusory or to conceal some jesting or serious meaning. Finally, we may include in his list some lying tales and extravagances which are too grotesque to represent any intention to deceive.
In all these instances we can trace the combination of fighting play with the contrast of ideas. The former, however, possesses here a deeper and more subjective significance, since it is no longer inspired by external inferiority, but by the necessity for overcoming the shock which at the first blush staggers and overwhelms us, but which it enables us to shake off immediately. We can thus speak of an offensive and a defensive triumph; in the former the laugh has something of the character of an attack, while in the latter we are warding o$ surprise. Yet the contrast of ideas coming in here makes it difficult to maintain this distinction clearly. Inner imitation falls in many cases into the background or entirely out of view, indicating that we are no longer dealing with aesthetic enjoyment. In the simpler cases contrast between stressed attention and its sudden unexpected release becomes the most prominent feature, while in others it is the contrast of opposing qualities which the object really possesses or has ascribed to it.
Summing up now the important data we find that enjoyment of the comic depends in the large majority of cases, though not in all, on the union of fighting play with the idea of contrast. This kind of fighting play naturally falls into two distinct groups, involving everything comic. The one is essentially composed of aggressive fighting plays, and makes prominent the contrast between inner imitation and the triumphant feeling of superiority. In the other group we find more defensive fighting play, and the idea of contrast takes the form primarily of sudden relaxation of the stressed attention and the impresion of contradiction. That the first group represents an earlier stage of development from which the second is evolved, as Sully and Ribot intimate, is not easily proved. Children exhibit both very early.
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Are there cases which do not exhibit fighting play in any form? I do not deny the possibility, though up to this time I have not been able to discover any such. The first difficulty to surmount in trying to establish this possibility would, it seems to me, be the laughter of children when they mimic anything (for example, the cries or movements of animals), which is not in itself amusing, nor is their intention mischievous. Can this be a case where the idea of contrast works alone and there is no fighting play? I think not, for I am convinced that the child's first impression of the comic depends on his aesthetic sympathy with the model and on his conscious shaking off of this feeling; and, furthermore, the idea of contrast is in this instance connected with the conquest of difficulty, an association which always indicates an approach to fighting play, and is especially significant in this case, since mimicry singles out the salient and individual characteristics of the model.[122]
8. Hunting Play
Having learned to recognise the three principal groups of fighting plays we turn now to a special application of the fighting instinct. The name " hunting play " will include, for the sake of brevity, playful pursuit, flight, and hiding.
The chase is, in connection with the collecting of fruits, the oldest and most primitive method of obtaining a food supply known to us. It is not impossible that in some more primitive stage than that of modern savages human beings subsisted entirely (with the exception of some insects, young birds, and eggs) on vegetable food, as monkeys do. But we have no definite knowledge of this, and, however it may be, the facts justify the deduction that the impulse to pursue a fleeing creature, or. on the other hand, to flee and hide from approaching danger, is as much an inborn instinct in man as in the lower animals. It is true, indeed, that the arts of the
(238) chase are of vast service to evolution in other ways than in the pursuit of and escape from wild beasts, for it is often enough his fellow-man from whom the fugitive flees and must escape by speed or guile. In the case of animals the instinctiveness of the impulse is proved by their play. The kitten treats a ball of yarn exactly as an adult carnivorous animal does its prey, and that before she takes note of a living mouse; and young dogs show their wolfish nature in their chasing of one another when there is no real game to pursue. In the life of man, too, phenomena are not wanting which point to an instinctive basis for the hunting instinct, and they all belong to the sphere of play.
First, then, we must consider actual hunting of animals, which is not for the purpose of securing food. Small children display a disposition to chase animals. G. H. Schneider considers that this fact points directly to the inheritance of the habits of primitive man, but it is not necessary to call in the principle of inheritance of acquired characters, since simple succeeding to inborn instincts is sufficient to produce this result. " In the same way," says Schneider, "the impulse for hunting, fishing, slaughtering animals and plundering birds' nests in so cruel a manner is inherited, and is to-day quite common in young men accustomed to an outdoor life. The boy never eats the butterflies, beetles, flies, and other insects which he eagerly pursues and possibly dismembers, nor does he suck the eggs which he gets from nests in high trees, often at the risk of his life. But the sight of these creatures awakens in him a strong impulse to plunder, hunt, and kill, apparently because his savage ancestors obtained their food chiefly by such acts."[123] Schneider goes too far, I think, in assuming that there is a special connection between the sight of a certain animal and the inherited impure, yet it is quite probable that there is a general tendency to seek and pursue moving living creatures over and above what can be accounted for by fear. And perhaps the children of savages possess this tendency in a higher degree than do our own. Semon tells us of
(239) young Australians: "Any one who observes the children, and especially the boys, will see how in their play all the exercise is directed to the perfection of their skill in the chase. They are constantly occupied with throwing pieces of wood and little clubs at any possible target, killing squirrels and bringing down birds and small animals with these missiles. On the march, while the women and girls carry the baggage, the boys amuse themselves with various throwing plays." The cylindrical nests of Australian birds are favourite hiding places of poisonous snakes, " and children who give promise of becoming zealous scientific investigators are often, as well as their elders, bitten in this way. My little friends in Coonambula were eager collectors of all sorts of insects and every creeping thing, and I have to thank them for many of my choicest specimens."[124]
The chase as practised for sport by adults also argues for an instinctive basis of such play. Civilized man, who no longer makes hunting a direct means of replenishing his larder, still feels the force of this powerful impulse, and playfully reverts to the practices of his progenitors. The passion which this sport excites in its votaries is so strong as to leave little doubt that the impulse is an inherited one. " In our time," says Johann von Salisbury in the twelfth century, "the chase is regarded by the nobility as the most honourable of employments, and its pursuit the highest virtue. They consider it the summit of earthly bliss to excel in this exercise, and consequently they ride to the chase with greater pomp and pageantry than to war. From pursuing habitually this manner of life they lose their humanity to a great degree, and become almost as savage as the beasts they hunt. Peasants peacefully tending their flocks are torn from their welltilled fields, their meadows, and pastures, in order that wild beasts may take possession."[125]
King Edward III had such a passion for hunting that he took a large pack of dogs with him when he was making war on France, and on French soil and every day he followed the chase in some form. The priestly Nimrods
(240) whose tastes belie their calling have been subjects of derision from the time of Chaucer to C. F. Meyer's Shots from the Chancel, and the opposite extreme is found in Sebastian Brant's Narrenschiff, where he accuses his contemporaries of disturbing the worship of God by bringing their dogs and falcons into the churches. In modern times the passion for hunting is strongest in mountaineers, whose free outdoor life affords every opportunity to indulge the taste. No one who has seen the face of an old mountaineer as he catches sight of a likely goat has any further doubt that inherited instinct is at the bottom of the hunting impulse. Bismarck well described the charm of field sports at the time (1878) when, his health being threatened, he left the business of his office to younger diplomats, and refused to be consulted except on the most vital questions. Rudolf Lindau has given, too, in a parliamentary speech of Bismarck a half-humorous and yet striking picture of a tired hunter: " When a man starts off on a hunt in the morning he is quite willing to tramp over miles of heavy ground to get a shot at birds. But after he has wandered about all day, has his game bag full, and is about ready to go home, being tired, hungry, and covered with mud, he shakes his head if the gamekeeper says that there are partridges in the next field.
I have enough,' he says. But if a messenger comes with the news that there is a wild boar in the woods below, this tired man with hunter's blood in his veins forgets his fatigue, and hastens to the woods, not satisfied until he has found the game and captured it."
The most rigidly conducted chase has something of the character of play, and there is a whole cycle of games in which flight and pursuit are the main features. To begin with the pursuit of our own kind: suppose one taking a two-year-old child in his arms and springing toward another person, who runs away in pretended fright: The child will manifest delight, which is much too strong to be attributed to mere pleasure in the movement, and must be connected with the hunting impulse. It is shown, too, quite as plainly by boys playing on the street. James is right when he says, " A boy can no more help running after another boy who runs provokingly near him than
(241) a kitten can help running after a rolling ball."[126] In 1894 I had an opportunity to observe a scene which displayed the power of this instinct in a manner which was almost terrible; the boys irresistibly reminded me of dogs or wolves pursuing their prey in a hot chase. At that time a racer came to Giessen, and to attract attention ran through the streets at midday attired in rose-coloured tights, fantastically decorated, and carrying a large bell in his hand. He moved with incredible rapidity, now disappearing round some corner, and now emerging from a side street. When school was out a crowd of homeward-bound boys filled the streets, and, catching sight of the runner, chased after him, so that soon a mob of from fifty to one hundred children were on his heels, chasing him like a pack of hounds with the wildest excitement and loud cries. The man carried a whip which he laid about him well, otherwise the children would doubtless have tried to catch and beat him.
The number of plays which employ such chasing is extraordinarily great, and I will confine myself to a few examples which display the characteristic points of difference. One of the simplest forms of it is the "Zeck," which is described in a seventeenth century collection. Another is the Greek ostrakinda, for which the boys used bits of pottery or a shell, one side of which was smeared with pitch and called night, while the other side was day. The children were divided into parties of the day and night, and the token thrown up in the air. The side lying uppermost on its fall determined which party should flee and which pursue. Whoever was caught was called a donkey [127] and must sit on the ground to await the end of the game. This may have been the origin of our coin tossing. In most chasing plays there are special prearranged conditions which avert danger from the fugitive and facilitate bringing the play to a close, and most of these conditions can be traced to some ancient superstition. In one game the pursued is safe while standing on or touching iron, and in another sudden stooping makes him immune, while others again appoint bases as
(242) cities of refuge. These were used by the Greeks, and a great variety of designation indicates how general they are among the Germans. In the Greek scoinofilia the participants formed in a circle, around which one went with a stick which he secretly hid behind one of the players, who has the privilege of chasing the depositor; or, in case he fails to discover in time what an honour has been conferred upon him, he must run around the circle exposed to the blows of all its numbers.[128] It is like our "Drop the Handkerchief," and also the game where the boy, whose cap the ball falls in, must throw it after the others. Finally, I will mention two games in which this element has developed into complex imitation of genuine combat. "Fox chasing" furnishes a perfect picture of battle. Two hostile parties stand opposed and attempt to conquer one another and to free their imprisoned allies, and yet, since each capture is made by pursuit and not by fighting, the principle of the chase is the controlling one. " Hare and Hounds " is another imitation of the chase. Adults usually play it on horseback, though there is a notice in Ueber Land and Meer (1880, No. 27) of such a chase on foot, in America. Two specially good runners are given fifteen minutes' start, and the rest of the company take the part of hounds.
But it is not essential that the thing pursued shall be a living creature. Just as kittens and puppies chase lifeless objects, such as rolling balls, sticks, etc., so do human beings also find substitutes for the proper objects of their sportiveness. Catching a swiftly moving ball is sometimes of this nature; there is attending it a feeling of triumphant mastery much the same as that which excites the boy who seizes and holds a fleeing comrade or the clown who obstructs the course of a scorching wheelman. This is especially the case with professional ball players, who allow the ball to pass their hands and then seize it by a quick movement as it is about to touch the ground. There are other games in which the ball is not caught in the air, but is allowed to fall to the ground and roll away while the players must pursue and catch it.
(243) Football and cricket are examples of this, and consequently can be classed either with chase or fighting plays, though they have more of the characteristics of the latter.
Another form of hunting play which should not be overlooked is the seeking for hidden persons or things. H. Lemming refers to a process belonging to the child's first quarter as a kind of hiding play. " The child's aunt had him on her lap, his little head resting on' her right shoulder, while she played hide with him. `Where is he?' she would cry while she hid his head between her arm and breast; then, as she suddenly drew the arm away, `There he is.' She had not done it many times before the little fellow understood perfectly. As soon as his aunt made the motion he turned his head in the right direction and laughed softly. Several days passed, and the game had been repeated two or three times, when one morning early, as he was lying on my bed, I smiled at him and he laughed back; then his face took on a roguish expression, and he buried his head in the pillow for an instant and suddenly raised it with the same mischievous look. He repeated this several times."[129] Becq de Fouquières restores a beautiful antique picture of a Greek hiding play. One little fellow presses his eyes shut while two others hurry to hide themselves. In Siam " Hide-and-Seek" is called "Looking for the Axe," and is oftenest played in the twilight because dark, impenetrable corners are more abundant then.[130] There is added weirdness, too, in the half light, and the shock of surprise on suddenly coming upon the hidden object is stronger, bringing the players more in touch with the emotional life. The objects to be hidden are of various kinds. This is a use to which children love to put Easter eggs, and much interest is added to the search by the cries of "Cold," "Freezing," "Getting warm," "Hot, hot, burning," etc. Very common too, are games like " Button, button, who's got the button? " where a small object is passed from hand to hand and kept concealed. A curious forfeit game like this was very popular in former years, and is thus de
(244) scribed by Amaranthes : " The whole company sit close together in a circle on the ground while a shoe belonging to one of them is slipped along and hidden beneath their legs, while one person tries to find it."[131] Fleeing and hiding occur in all hunting plays, but are specially prominent in some forms in games like "Going to Jerusalem," for instance, where many attempt to make use of the same chair, " Stagecoach," " Change Kitchen Furniture," " Cats and Mice," etc. In many the pursuers are restricted by certain conditions and prohibitions which are in favour of the fleeing ones, and furnish occasion for evasions and all sorts of byplay. For one thing the " catcher " may be hooded or blindfold. Bastian saw a game played in Siam in which the bandage over his eyes was so arranged that it hung down like an elephant's trunk.[132] Another handicap is to require the pursuer to hop on one foot and hit those whom he overtakes with his knotted handkerchief. When in his excitement he changes to the other foot they all cry out and beat him with theirs. The Greek askwliasmos was apparently much like this.
9. Witnessing Fights and Fighting Plays. The Tragic
Aesthetic observation belongs more properly to imitative play, but we have been compelled to notice it already in several connections and must not overlook its influence on fighting play. Thanks to inner imitation we can take part in fights without objective participation, and actually enjoy attacks and defence, strategy and risk, victory and defeat as if they were our veritable experience. As we found in games of rivalry, this internal sympathetic fighting has a great advantage over objective fighting in the more varied and lasting excitement which it effects (for example, the tension of expectation which in one's own quarrels soon vanishes); yet, on the other hand, it lacks the element of pleasure peculiarly associated with one's own achievements.
In considering the observation of actual fighting we must distinguish between combat with an enemy and the
(245) conquest of difficulty. Inner imitation is prominent in both. When we see a company of labourers trying to lift a heavy stone or beam with pulleys, or driving piles in the water, or a man pulling his boat up on the beach, or a smith beating the hot iron with heavy blows of his hammer, or a hunter scaling mountain crags to reach an eagle's nest, we take part in the struggle with difficulty and enjoy success as if it were our own. The sympathetic interest is even greater in witnessing a fight between two combatants; indeed, it can be playful only when the onlooker can restrain his emotions and regard the struggle going on before him as a theatrical representation, as is often enough the case. When two boys are tussling, when adults quarrel with high words, when a rider attempts to control his vicious horse, when a man defends himself with a stick against a brutal dog, when the champions of opposing parties fight in the presence of their backers, the spectators may take such impersonal interest in the combat.
Much more to our purpose, however, is the witnessing of playful fights where the contestants engage merely for amusement or to test their prowess, whether or not they are in playful mood. In this case, overcoming difficulties is the leading feature. Then, too, there are myriad forms of juggling, contortionism, prestidigitating, etc., in which the spectator, at least in part, inwardly joins; and the wild excitement of animal and ring fights, bull baiting, fencing matches, racing on foot, wheel, and horse. Even for the fighting plays which are not intended as an exhibition, such as football and cricket games, there is usually collected a crowd of intensely sympathetic spectators, and the players themselves, when not in action, are entirely out of the game, yet they still take part through inner imitation which has frequent outward manifestations. Moreover, whoever sees a difficult piece of work accomplished feels a desire to test his own skill with a like task. The merest onlooker at a prize fight will assume belligerent postures, as Defregger says, and savages are often so wrought upon by witnessing a war dance that serious brawls ensue.
These facts lead us insensibly to the realm of art, of
(246) which I merely remark in passing that certain echoes of the fray may be detected
in architecture and music, and that the representative arts and especially painting devote
a wide field to combat, but that the real domain of internal fighting play is found in
poetry. Fighting and love plays [133] contribute most largely to the
enjoyable element in poetry, and the latter is less effective when divorced from combat.
Even in lyrics, which would seem to afford the least opportunity for exploiting such
themes, the tourney is a fruitful inspiration, and the triumphant note of victory is
conspicuous. A verse of Heyse's illustrates in mocking wise, and perhaps more forcibly
than any other, how great is the importance to the poetic art of its connection with the
fighting instinct. In dilating upon the literary status of the abode of bliss he says:
| " Fur Drame, Lustspiel and novelle Ist leider hier Kein gunst'nerBoden ; Die kultivirt man in der Holle. Hir giebt es Hymnen nur and Oden." |
"For drama, stage play, and novel There is, alas! no public here; These things are practised down in hell Here hymns and odes are de rigueur." |
In studying epic poetry we are struck by the frequency with which the excitement of fighting furnishes the motive. This is the case with almost the whole cycle of primitive epics and folk stories, down to our modern romance; and when an epic is produced, like the Messias, for example, without such stimulus to interest, it falls irretrievably under the reproach of dulness. In the drama war is all-important. A short time ago an unnamed author published an article on dramatic conflict to which I fully subscribe.[134] Since the time of Aristotle the idea of acting has been prominent [135] in any conception of the drama, though there have been some writers like Lenz, Otto Ludwig, and lately Gartelmann, who have stressed the delineation of character. Both theories easily lead to a one-sided view. " Not character as such, but character in conflict it is which lays claim to our interest in
(247) the drama, and only such acting is dramatic as reveals the conflict . . . . The essence of the dramatic consists in the presence of an overwhelming catastrophe which forms the central point of the poem, and its culmination is the writer's chief task." It strikes me that this is incontestable, though it may be urged that the conflict is only a means of bringing out the essential features of the character. Thus Wetz strikingly says: " If a poet wishes to portray his hero realistically, then must his environment contrast with his character. He must be put in trying circumstances, and thus be brought out of himself and reveal his utmost depths. Comedy as well as tragedy furnishes such situations; where the amusing complications or fatal passion have once been intimated they must be pursued to their final consequences."[136] For refined connoisseurs it may be true that in perfect drama [137] conflict is but a means of unveiling character, yet even their interest is deepened by psychological considerations. With naïve spectators, who are to me the more important, it is quite otherwise. The conflict itself is the important thing to them, and the fact that it may afford insight into character is only noteworthy as making the fight more interesting. In any case we are safe in averring that the pleasure afforded by the drama has one very essential feature in common with ring contests, animal fights, races, etc. — namely, that of observing a struggle in which we may inwardly participate.
Tragedy is the highest poetic representation of a contest which is pursued to the bitter end, usually violent defeat.[138] Here we again encounter the question of enjoyment in relation to what is tragic. Volkelt explains it as a result of (1) the exalted character of the excitement; (2) sympathy; (3) strong stimuli; and (4) appreciation of artistic form. The third point, which is also one of ours he considers subordinate. His first point, however, is not universally applicable, and his sec-
(248) -ond is limited to those cases in which the sufferer is regarded as worthy, and even then pain predominates and only serves to weigh the balance further down on that side. Thus only the last two points remain for universal application. While we grant that appreciation of artistic form is an element in the explanation, the third point, pleasure in intense stimuli, seems to me more important. Volkelt's view is not a little influenced by Vischu's contention that " a general disturbance of the emotions constitutes a satisfaction for barbaric crudeness and ennui." We have already had occasion to show that the enjoyment of strong stimuli is of great significance in all departments of play, but I fail to see anything barbaric about it, and consider this word unworthy to be applied to aesthetic pleasure. Is it not a noble pleasure to stand on a mountain summit or a ship's prow and watch an approaching storm? And how much more elevated still is the storm of effects which tragedy awakens in us !
In considering fighting play in this connection we must notice a further point which is a corollary to those which have gone before, and is illustrated by some of the examples already given. The man standing on a ship and contemplating the force of a storm (I do not refer to his struggle with it) enjoys more than mere excitement. His soul partakes of the raging of the elements, the seething waves which break on the vessel's prow, the furious gusts of wind, all this outward strife is inwardly imitated by him, and he is filled with jubilant delight in exercising all his fighting instincts. So also with tragedy. Not only joy in the storm of emotions, but also joy in the contest, is an important means of subduing what is unavoidably painful. While this relation, too, has been appreciated in other spheres, its application to the tragic has not hitherto been made. Indeed, this instinct is usually referred to in a narrow sense as a sort of bloodthirstiness, an idea not always far wrong. Ribot has formulated the following progression: " Pleasure in manslaughter, pleasure in judicial execution, pleasure in witnessing death (murder, gladiatorial combat, and the like) pleasure in seeing the blood of animals gush out (bull and cock fights) pleasure in witnessing violent and gory melo-
(249) drama [this is only imitation, since the illusion of reality is but momentary], and finally, pleasure in reading bloody romances and following imaginary murder trials."[139] We can hardly deny that even the cultured spectator feels something of the murderous impulse when, for instance, Hamlet springs with the agility of a tiger toward the king to fix him with a dagger. Yet as a whole this exposition of the theory of tragedy is defective even if we make the murderous impulse cover every variety of injurious conduct. The impulse to inflict injury has nothing to do with the final overthrow of the hero of our sympathies (and we do sympathize often with the very criminals in tragedy), and in the instances cited by Ribot it is usually less the bloodiness of the episode than its character as a fight which attracts us. The feeling of power in combat, not the cruelty of destructiveness, is most prominent. The reason that spectators of an animal fight are not satisfied until one of the fighters is either killed or disabled is surely not because they delight in injury as such, but because the fight can not be decisive until some injury is done.
While, then, we can not adopt this theory of the destructive impulse, yet we can learn from it, especially on one point to which we have given too little attention. We do take a certain pleasure in the catastrophe involving the personages of a drama which differs from our satisfaction in a fighting play; we sympathize with the sufferer, and yet experience feelings of pleasure. So long as the crisis delays, the case is indistinguishable from all other fighting plays; but how can we take part by inner imitation in the general collapse and yet enjoy the spectacle? In answer to this I must say that I am extremely doubtful whether the moment of the catastrophe is always enjouable; I am inclined to think that quite often the sources of pleasure are insufficient to outweigh genuine grief. In this case inner imitation persists because the spectator is hypnotized by the extraordinary tension, and is unable to desist. I think, for example, that no one experiences lively feelings of delight while
(250) Wallenstein is being murdered behind the scenes, in spite of the intense stimulus, importance of the interests involved, etc. It is not essential that every instant of aesthetic contemplation should be filled with unadulterated pleasure. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly instances in which the catastrophe is actually enjoyed; and since we are not prepared to accept the explanation of this given above, let us inquire whether we can find one more satisfactory from the standpoint which we have adopted—namely, that of fighting play strictly speaking. An example will make my view clear, and one which may be explained in two ways. Let us picture to ourselves a Roman amphitheatre with the spectators assembled to witness a fight between a " bestiaries " and a lion, and suppose that the man, in spite of wonderful agility, receives more and more serious wounds and is finally slain by the maddened brute. Suppose, further, that inner imitation on the part of the spectators is engaged by the man, as is natural, so that their pleasure can not be referred to triumph in the lion's victory. To us the most conspicuous feature of the whole thing is the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the spectators, and reading modern descriptions of these old Roman customs only strengthens this idea. The barbarity was undoubtedly there, but was it the ground of their enjoyment? I think not, for thousands of the breathless spectators. On the contrary, that which moves these people is one of the strongest and most stirring stimuli known to us, sympathy with the courage and persistence of fighters to the death. For the best and probably the most of the spectators the satisfaction is not in mere witnessing cruel horrors, but first in the invincible courage which is undaunted in their presence, or in case of the hero's defeat it consists in a victory over their own sympathetic terror. How clearly this passage from Cicero indicates this! " When you see the boys in Sparta, the lads in Olympia, or barbarians in the arena suffer the severest blows and bear them silently, will you wail like a woman when you feel pain? Boxers never lament when they are beaten from the ring, and what wounds they get! Can you not put up with a single hurt from the buffetings of life? What fighter, even an ordi-
(251) -nary one, ever sighs or groans or goes about with a downcast face? Which of them has tamely submitted to death? "
In a similar way the sight of misfortune in tragedy may give pleasure because the outward undoing of the hero is calculated to awaken in us a feeling of triumph in which imitation gives us a part. As I have said, I do not believe that this is always the case, but rather that while the tragedy as a whole gives pleasure the supreme moment may be painful; and in still other circumstances the storm of emotion, one of all-conquering Fate, etc., may cause feelings of satisfaction when there is no inner victory. It is never so intense, however, as when this is present—a proof of the importance of fighting play. The utmost triumph for a fighter is the victory over his fear of defeat, and such victory is afforded by our playful sympathy with a tragic incident. Then fighting play becomes a source of such pleasure as is attributed ordinarily to exalted influences. Such side lights on a subject are seldom without important significance, and our problem is now thrown into somewhat this form. Tragedy most perfectly represents combat when it is pursued to a catastrophe. Since we habitually sympathize with the human element, the contradiction ensues of our experiencing pleasure in the suffering which we deplore and are involved in. We explain this apparent contradiction by assuming that the catastrophe becomes the foundation for an inner victory which converts it into a triumph. An examination of the various elevating effects which Volkelt's analysis discloses reveals much that is irrelevant from our standpoint. The most salient of these points is his tragic opposition, whereas we have found that the catastrophe is in itself enjoyable only when exultation in the triumph of desolation is based on dread of that very thing. When the exhilaration depends merely on the overwhelming nature of Fate or when a moment of respite is snatched for the doomed hero, the poignancy of our sympathy with the final suffering is softened. Independent satisfaction in the catastrophe is present only where there is an element of fighting play, and herein lies the essence of our theory—that is, when inner imitation transforms defeat
(252) into victory. ° Courage and self-possession in the presence of a powerful enemy, of threatened danger or calamity, or of difficult and anxious questions—this is what the tragic artist displays. All that is martial in us holds saturnalia in the presence of tragedy."[140]
The study of fighting play has thus led us from its rough and cruel manifestations to the culminating point of tragedy. What Volkelt says in a general way of the supreme moment we may apply to our own position: " Even in suffering and grief, in fear and defeat, must the tragic personage, if he would not fall below the requirements of his art, always appear great. When a man quails in the hour of extreme suffering or wavers before the severest test, however superior he may have appeared previously, there is an end of tragic effect. But let him display greatess of soul at the crucial moment, he then makes an elevating impression which is subverting to pessimism and encouraging to the idea that the severest and most outrageous attacks of Fortune can not make a man small, that the human spirit bears within itself a principle of growth and of supremacy which is able to cope with the might of Fate itself.[141]
I close with the remark that this study of the tragic is advanced with a full sense of its inadequacy. My main intention is to indicate the scope of my conception of fighting play. The general idea of play has been developed by others and applied advantageously in the treatment of contrast of ideas in the tragic. Tragedy, like all other sources of higher aesthetic pleasure, extends beyond the sphere of play because, to put it briefly in the words of Schiller, we can descry through the veil of beauty the majestic form of truth.
