Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/399

 WORK AND PLAY 383

kitten playing with the ball is perfecting itself in those mental and motor co-ordinations that are involved in the peculiar modes of chase and capture of the feline tribe in its feral state, and so it is getting ready for the serious business of finding its own food when its parents will cease to provide for it. It may hap- pen, of course, that under domestication the kitten will not need to employ the skill it has thus gained ; but nature provides against all contingencies by leading the young to rehearse the activities of their ancestors, whatever may be the environmental conditions of the present. Nature seems to have instituted the developmental epoch in ontogenesis for the purpose of recapitu- lating ancestral development, even though some of the activities recapitulated alienate the individual from the environment in which he is placed at the time. In some cases, of course, an animal not needing to make use of ancestral activities in serious ways will play at them beyond the developmental period. A household tabby, well fed and cared for by the hand of its mis- tress, will play with a ball of yarn during its entire life; and this is but typical of phenomena that may be witnessed in the con- duct of all animals in domestication, and to a lesser degree in that of animals in captivity.

But the point that I want to emphasize is that all activities that can be characterized as work are done under necessity, coercion ; the performer does not feel at liberty to discontinue them whenever he chooses. But all that he does over and above what he has to do may be regarded as play. Viewed from the standpoint of the race, it may be that everything the animal does is necessary to the accomplishment of some ultimate end ; but, regarding the matter from the standpoint of the individual, we see that he does some things simply because he finds pleasure in the doing of them, and he is not aware that he derives any profit from them. The child playing with the doll may be get- ting ready for serious activities in maturity, but she is not con- scious of any such end, and she feels no necessity of keeping at her play, but continues in her activities merely because of the pleasure they give her.

Now, the situations in which an animal may be placed requir-