Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/227

 MORAL INFL UENCE OF PUBERAL DEVELOPMENT 2 1 3

numerous and powerful the emotions of a sthenic nature that animate a given labor, the greater will be the physical and moral ease in executing it and maintaining it at length.

"Take a boy," wrote Paulo Fambri, "and say to him : 'I want to see how you run ; go straight to that wall.' If you have some authority over him, he will obey, but with little enthusiasm, and hardly without changing capriciously speed and direction, and taking his ease about resting, if the distance is a little long.

" But if, instead of one, you take three or four boys, and after getting them in line you say to them, 'When I clap my hands the second time, start, and we shall see who will be first,' the running will be lively, and each one will put into it all his breath and energy.

"Best of all, if you announce and show them some prize for the winner, readiness becomes enthusiasm, and often mischievous enthusiasm, since you will often see these boys, just as at the races, try to get in one another's way and block one another, even at the risk of hurting themselves."'

In the conditions in which the emotions reign supreme in the life of man, on account of the scantiness of the ideative field, the activity shows itself especially impulsive, as that which par- takes of the nature of the determinant, and such is generally the sj)ontaneous activity of the child or of the savage. The savage, incapable of attending to the labor of the fields or of any other nature for a few hours, dances for many consecutive hours, hunts entire days, gives himself up to the fatigues of war for many hours and days, without showing signs of weariness. The two essential instinctive tendencies which are at the base of all human action, that of self-preservation and that of reproduc- tion, act powerfully and directly on the mind of the savage. In hunting and fishing the objective is evident: it is the speedy satisfaction of the instinct of self-preservation which prevails in such employments. In the dance it is the satisfaction of another sentiment, that of vanity, a sentiment in direct relation with the sexual instinct ; and it is also this which generally presides over the games which have over professional labors the advantage of 'Paulo Fambri, Za £i»«aj/»V<2 *;7/iVa, pp. 158, 159. Roma, 1895.