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 PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY. 183 An endeavour to answer a few questions of this kind shows how very difficult the application of the distinction may be. This consideration, however, is not fatal to a definition. We always expect difficult marginal cases, and my aim is rather to take large groups of activities which seem favour- able or unfavourable to the theory, such as the spontaneous activities of genius. X. PHILOSOPHY OF PLAY (iii.) PREPARATION THEORY, n. Play, as we have said above, on this theory, is regarded as a divinely appointed means, whereby the functions of adult life are prepared for. Evolution itself, in so far as man and the higher animals are in advance of the lower, is rendered possible by a long period of adolescence which is regarded as opportunity for play. And this view would seem to be sup- ported by the general truth that an increasing period of im- maturity seems characteristic of the higher animals, however much we may doubt the teleological explanation given. It is interesting and valuable to compare with this view the general conceptions which underlie our notions of precocity. Precocious people are those who manifest at an unusually early age the characteristics which are mostly exhibited at a later one. There seems a very direct preparation in many cases for the work of adult life. In the biographies of men of genius no characteristic is more striking than the early age at which their especial bent becomes apparent. Psy- chologically, it is true, we might call such activities play, but they are not Vorilbung, nor Emubung, but Ausubung ; and the Preparation theory can hardly call these activities its own. A long period in which the animal plays before entering upon the work of life is, on that theory, demanded as a sine qua non of evolutionary progress. The lower animals, on this view, are the lower animals because they begin their life work almost at once, with very little preliminary play. Yet the genius, the progressive force par excellence, differs from or- dinary mortals in beginning his life work very early. Nor is it possible to dismiss this argument by reference to the ad- mittedly abnormal and irregular character of genius. For if we descend a little lower in the scale and take that much larger class, the men of ability, to whom Galton applied the rm genius, what shall we find ? We do not see, indeed, so early a specialisation in any par- icular direction ; that is readily admitted. Nor should we pect it, for the characteristic of ability as distinct from nius is its relatively unspecialised nature. But we do find