In the attempt to form a biological estimate of play independently of the Lamarckian principle we must constantly bear in mind the value and origin of youthful play, and therefore we must begin, with instinct in its more limited sense. We find in all creatures a number of innate capacities which are essential for the preservation of species. In many animals these capacities appear as finely developed reflexes and instincts, needing but little if any practice for the fulfilment of their function. With the higher animals, and above all with man, it is essentially otherwise. Although the number of his hereditary instincts is considerable—perhaps larger than with any other creature—yet he comes into the world an absolutely helpless and undeveloped being which must grow in every other sense, as well as physiologically, in order to be an individual of independent capabilities. The period of youth renders such growth possible. If it is asked why an arrangement apparently so awkward has arisen, we may reply that instinctive apparatus being inadequate for his life tasks, a period of parental protection is necessary to enable him to acquire imitatively and experimentally the capacities adapted to his individual needs. The more complicated the life tasks, the more necessary are these preparations; the longer this natural education continues, the more vivid do the inherited capacities become. Play is the agency employed to develop crude powers and prepare them for life’s uses, and from our biological standpoint we can say: From the moment when the intellectual development of a species becomes more useful in the “struggle for life” than the most perfect instinct, will natural selection favour those individuals in whom the less elaborated faculties have more chance of being worked out by practice under the protection of parents—that is to say, those individuals that play. Play depends, then, first of all on the elaboration of immature capacities to full equality with perfected instinct, and secondly on the evolution of hereditary qualities to a degree far transcending this, to a state of adaptability and versatility surpassing the most perfect instinct.
Our attention so far has been given mainly to special instincts, and their effects are extraordinarily widespread in both human and animal play. We have dwelt upon instinct as it is manifested in fighting, love,[667] and social plays, and in experimentation with the motor apparatus we are pre-eminently on instinctive ground. In sensory experimentation, however, the practice of inborn reflexes (they are gradually differentiated from instincts) is in the background. Ribot, however, designates both these processes as instinctive. Even in experimentation with the higher mental powers, practice in fixing the attention, which is an indispensable prerequisite of all experimentation, and indeed of all play, may be regarded as a motor reaction allied to instinct. On the other hand, as I have pointed out in the preface, the narrower conception of instinct is not suited to our purpose, and we therefore took the more comprehensive idea of hereditary impulse as the ground of our classification. We found the imitative impulse especially important here, and its far-reaching biological significance was dwelt upon in the beginning of the section on imitative play, and need merely be recapitulated.
The imitative impulse is an inborn faculty resembling instinct[668] whose first effect is to supplement instinct by means of individual acquirements; secondly, it preserves those race heritages which survive only through tradition. The first of these functions falls in the biological domain, while the second belongs to social play. The former may be advantageously observed in the world of birds, which learn the characteristic song of their kind by the help of playful experimentation to a great degree, but never get it so perfectly as when they hear the song of older birds as a model. Children, too, exemplify it clearly in the transition from their lall-monologue to speech; in their tussling, where many of the movements are instinctive, but are materially assisted by imitation of older boys; in the nursing of dolls by little girls, who would probably not make any use of the instinct during childhood but for imitation; and in many other cases. Imitation is clearly playful in such instances, so far as it is both unconscious and unpractical.
From the biological standpoint, too, imitative play is an important agent in supplementing instincts, usually tending to render them more plastic, and thus further the opening of new paths for the development of intelligence. Therefore I believe that a general theory of play should keep this thought in the foreground; though under some conditions contrary effects ensue, since, under Baldwin’s principle, imitation gives selection the opportunity to strengthen the hereditary foundations of the activity imitated. It seems to me that in imitative play of avowedly social character the impulse probably aids selection in its gradual upbuilding by means of the furtherance of coincident variations. I touch again upon this point (pp. 395 f.), and will only say here that the two views are not necessarily contradictory, since, while a weakening may take place in the details of the activity, there may be a strengthening of the accompanying feelings—these two elements being very different.
Besides imitation, many other natural impulses come into play, as we discovered in studying experimentation and the higher mental capacities. That the practice theory, too, is applicable we can plainly see. Practice in recognition, in storing up the material collected by memory, in the rise of imagination, reason, and the will, together with the ability to surmount feelings of pain, are all of the greatest, indeed of incalculable, value in the struggle for life. There is some difficulty in meeting the question of the relationship of experimental impulse in the higher psychic life, since, as I pointed out in the introduction to the first chapter, it is still a mooted question whether the assumption should be made of one general impulse to action which, according to circumstances, is directed now to this and now to that psychic discharge; or whether, by reviving the faculty theory, to speak of many central impulses, grounded in our psychophysical nature and pressing for expression as instincts do.
For my part, I incline to the opinion that such central impulses actually exist, though they are probably but vaguely defined. Long ago the attempt was made, especially by Reimarus and Tetens,[669] to include the idea of impulse among the higher mental processes, and the future may yet see this effort renewed. However that may be, there is unquestionably one such impulse which in its motor expression directly suggests instinct, and which in my opinion is directly derived from it—namely, attention. But attention is an essential factor in all experimental play, and indeed in all play, of whatever character, and can therefore, in conjunction with the causal needs which so much resemble instincts, bring about results which would appear to require especial incentive to activity.
Raising this question brings me to another point which I have touched upon in my earlier work. While Schiller speaks of a single-minded play impulse, my own view is that there is no general impulse to play, but various instincts are called upon when there is no occasion for their serious exercise, merely for purposes of practice, and more especially preparatory practice, and these instincts thus become special plays. It seems to me unnecessary to suppose a particular play instinct in addition to all the others, and the fact that selection favours a long period of youth bears this out. When that is assured, and special physiological provision is made to secure it, then the merely ordinary instincts and impulses are quite sufficient to account for the phenomena of play. Still, if the demand is made for the same sort of impulses for all play, I point to attention and causality as expounded by Sikorski, and familiar to us in the joy in being a cause. The actual act of attention is, as before said, very close to instinct, and so-called voluntary attention is not widely different, since we find connected with many instincts phenomena which are influenced by the intelligence and will. Attention, too, is an impulse in that it urges to activity so long as it is not hampered by fatigue. When we complain of being bored, it is not because we have no experiences, but because the experiences are not sufficiently interesting to occupy our attention, and, since it is an active principle in all play, we naturally think of it in connection with the impulse to any sort of activity. Following attention we have pleasure in the production or effects appearing as another element in the general impulse to activity and exhibited more or less clearly in all plays that are connected with external movement. Nor is it wanting either in those which are ostensibly merely receptive, as we shall see. As the categorical standing of causality depends in all likelihood on hereditary capability, and as it first becomes prominent in a motor form—namely, in the active production of effects—we have here a further means of giving to the conception of a general play impulse a concrete form.
In conclusion, adult play must be considered from a biological standpoint. That the grown man continues to play long after he has outgrown the childish stimuli to play has been sufficiently shown in the foregoing chapters. Much of his play, and especially the sensorimotor experimental kind, is of but slight biological significance, though the practice theory is often applicable even in later life to movement and fighting play, and still more so to social play, since the latter serves not merely as ontogenous practice, but is indispensable as well to phylogenetic development of the social capacities. Artistic enjoyment, too—that highest and most valuable form of adult play—is, as Konrad Lange has demonstrated, extremely influential biologically and socially. “Man’s serious activity,” he says, “has always a more or less one-sided character. His life consists, as Schiller has shown in his letters on æsthetic education, in a progressive alternation between work and sensuous pleasure. Indeed, in the various occupations of mankind, as a rule, but a limited number of the mental powers are employed, and these not fully so. Innumerable springs of feeling are hidden in the human breast untested and untried. It is plain that this would have a most disastrous effect on the whole race did not art supply the deficiency of stimulus.... Art is the capacity possessed by men of furnishing themselves and others with pleasure based on conscious self-illusion which, by widening and deepening human perception and emotion, tends to preserve and improve the race.”[670] Schiller’s famous saying—that a man is fully human only when he plays, thus acquires a definite biological meaning.
One word more: If the Lamarckian principle be adopted, the play of adults has a still more specialized significance, since, as it would be essential to a well-rounded culture, its office as preserver of hereditary race capacities[671] is obvious, especially as these require a gentle fostering, not to hamper individual adaptation, and yet preserve the fundamental aim of all adaptation. Since, however, caution forbids our using the Lamarckian principle, I content myself with the mere mention of this possible effect of it.