Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/827

Rh The theory itself appears to be at variance with our modern thought of psychology. (4) There is a special group of plays, particularly among adults, that Professor James claims as being a development of the aesthetic feelings. They consist of ceremony, of the dance, of gorgeous rites and festivities. It is the individual's share in the collective life, as James puts it. We find these both in animals and men, but they are hardly the side of play that we are discussing. (5) Different writers on psychology, particularly James, have advanced the idea that plays are genetic. We are familiar with the thought that the body, in reaching the adult stage, must briefly rehearse the history of the race. The body starts from a single cell, and with greater or less faithfulness travels the road to adult life that the race has traveled. I do not know of any scheme of physical training that has been deliberately founded upon this conception of the genetic psychology. It appears to be not only true that the body rehearses the life of the race; it appears to be true that the mind must do so also, and that the plays of children are the rehearsal of the activities of the race during forgotten ages—not necessarily the selfsame activities, but activities involving the same bodily and mental qualities. Putting it exactly, play is the ontogenetic rehearsal of the phylogenetic series. It could not be true that our savage ancestors should have depended for their livelihood upon such a game as "one old cat," that boys play during later childhood, but it is true that their lives depended upon the quick-sense judgments, the ability to strike with rapidity and vigor, the accurate muscular co-ordinations, the spirit of individualistic competition that characterizes the child play during this period. Many of the plays of adolescence, on the other hand, certainly represent the identical occupations of our far-removed ancestors, and the play of adult life when fulfilling most perfectly the conditions of play, expresses itself in these elementary forms: hunting, fishing, sailing, swimming, mountain-climbing, and the like.

Why should there be fun in connection with play? We are accustomed to associate pleasure, partly at least, with the discharge of the highest function of which the individual is then capable. I believe that upon this ground the fun of play can be explained. It represents the deeply founded functions of the race. During play the child experiences the deep satisfaction of living through and satisfying these elemental, racial functions.

Plays are progressive, and that which is the greatest fun at one period is not the greatest fun at another, because the life itself is progressive, and, while play is interesting to adults, normally developed individuals should find their chief enjoyment not in play, but in the discharge of the higher functions of present-day living. Recreation will be found by reverting to the more perfectly organized