Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/52

 38 w. H. WINCH: " If the play of young animals be explained satisfactorily," says Prof. Groos, " then adult play would not offer any difficulty." "All genuine play is at first youthful play." 1 And these statements occur under the heading " Psychology of Play ". Should we not rather place the emphasis on adult play as possessing more clearly than youthful play the characteristics which common consent would regard as implied by the word ? Complete and conscious dissociation from the practical needs and work of life is found more clearly in cases of adult play. The struggles of very young children are apt to be very fully charged with the emotional accompaniments of strife ; much later does fighting become football, and a high stage of development is attained before a " scrimmage " engenders no ill feeling. Prof. Groos has himself traced the development of play from the early stages in which, as he says, " subjectively there is no difference between practical activity and this kind of play," and in which " play appears psychologically as quite serious activity ". But if subjectively there is no difference, would it not be better, at least from a psychological standpoint, to refuse the name play to such activities as these? So far from accepting the view that " all genuine play is at first youthful play," I regard youthful play as very much less genuine as play, because more real in other ways. For, psychologically, we must admit that the conscious dissociation between work and play is much more complete in adult life. Play and Work, Fiction and Eeality, Imagination and Perception, as the years go by, have their respective scopes more clearly defined and distinguished ; we know better which is which. I am concerned to press my point that psychologically we can best describe play when it is in the most conscious con- dition, and, as Prof. Groos says, "We often do not know whether even a child is conscious that it is only playing". After all, and the point requires continual emphasis in com- parative psychology, when we treat of animal play, or even the play of children, we have to indulge very largely in in- ferential and analogical conclusions. It is safer to start psychologising concerning the play whose mental accom- paniments are more directly known the play of human adults. I now propose to follow Prof. Groos in his more strictly psychological distinctions : 1 Play of Animals, Prof. Karl Groos, p. 287.