Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/478

 464 F. H. BEADLEY : we have a limited sphere of caprice and amusement and in a- word of play. But there is no hard division in life between play and earnest,, and there is in short no genuine human end which in principle excludes play. The absolute separation in life of optional and necessary, of play and work, leads essentially to error. And the error is palpable where everything except maintenance of life is identified with play. Certainly my bare subsistence is an end which may be said to come first, because everything in life is lost if there is no more living. But on the other hand a mere living which is not good itself or for the sake of some- thing good, is neither necessary nor desirable. Work for the sake of work and practice for practice sake are in fact ends which no one apart from illusion could accept. 1 And generally the sundering of life into spheres of work and spheres of play is indefensible. It is true that in life there are things which are everywhere necessary. There is a certain amount of physical well-being and a certain degree of mental and moral development which are fundamental. Human life is impossible except on this basis of individual and social virtue. But beyond this common basis are those special stations in social life the occupation of which is more or less a matter of choice. And lastly there are non-social modes of human self-realisation which in a sense are higher and in a sense are still more optional. They are optional in the sense that deprived of them life could be lived, and that with regard to them the individual has a right and a duty to choose. But on the other hand to treat these higher functions as mere play would be obviously absurd. 2 We have in the next place what may be called the minor graces of life, things the detail of which is more or less variable at our pleasure. And finally we end in what are called amusements. Here^ where the amusement is mere amusement, the detail is op- tional. It has no value in itself but is desirable solely for the sake of its effect on human welfare. Play may be called necessary in the sense that without play human life is not fully realised, and hence we may speak of a general duty and obligation to play. But on the other hand the obligation stops short of prescribing the 'What Prof. Taylor has well called "the Gospel of Drudgery" is still too much with us. But labour without joy in labour is no moral end. It is a necessity, tolerable, if at all, only for the sake of something else.. And, preached as in itself a duty, it is nothing short of inhuman nonsense and cant. 2 In connecting fine art with the play -impulse it is easy, I may remark in passing, to fall into serious error.