The Play of Man

by Karl Groos

Our third ground is to be sought in a very real aim, which is ever beckoning to the artist. It may be designated in a general way as the sympathetic interest of others, manifested in admiring recognition and appreciation of the powers displayed, or in subscribing to the convictions, views, and ideals of the artist. In so far as this is an effective motive, art is no play. Strictly artistic temperaments are especially liable to its influence at the beginning of their career. Indifference, when sincere, is usually a later development, the product of experience.

Having thus fortified our position against misconstruction, we are prepared to proclaim the proper relationship between artistic production and play. It seems to me to be more and more conspicuous as we approach the springs of art. The primitive festival, combining as it did music and poetry with dancing, had indeed a tremendous effect on its witnessers, and its manifestations were essentially playful. Skill acquired in childhood through playful practice was playfully exhibited with original variations. The epic art, too, was playfully employed by the primitive recounter, with no indication of toilsome preparation or serious treatment, and the case is not widely different with what we know of the beginnings of pictorial art. So long as primitive sculpture served no religious purpose, simple delight in its use was much more prominent, since all inherited the capacity, and none was opposed to the mass as the exponent of a specialty. We meet the same conditions in studying the child’s artistic efforts; his poetic and musical efforts as well as those in drawing are essentially playful. The idea of making an impression on others does appear, but it is still very much in the background; enjoyment of his own productive activity predominates in the infantile consciousness. Although highly developed art does so transcend the sphere of play, it too is rooted in playful experimentation and imitation, and we can detect their later growth of joy in being a cause in the work of fullfledged artists of our own day. Indeed, it is present in all creative activity, gilding earnest work with a sportive glitter. In artistic production, however, it has the special office of differentiating it from ordinary toil and making appreciation of the thing created go hand in hand with its production. Each new-found harmony of tone or colour or outline appealing to criticism of its creator causes him intense enjoyment all through the progress of its production, and the indifference sometimes felt toward the finished work results from frequent repetition which has dulled the edge of appetite.

5. The Sociological Standpoint

A still more summary method may be adopted in treating of the social significance of play, since the section already devoted to it is of a more theoretic character. The practice theory, as we have seen, makes youthful play intelligible, but finds no lack of application to adults as well. When we reflect on the unavoidable limitations and mechanical routine of a regular calling we see how valuable is the cheering and humanizing effect of play, both physical and mental, and especially of those games which are calculated to strengthen the social tie. The practice afforded by these is more important to the adult than to the child, since the latter has always a certain social sphere in his relations with his elders, while the wider demands of an adult are not always so well provided for.

Two distinct impulses underlie the foundation of society—namely, the desires for aggregation and for communication. Both are probably derived from the parental relation, which expands as the culture of the group develops. For this reason it is probable that Baldwin’s principle of organic selection may take effect in this special case. In general I hold to the view that play makes it possible to dispense to a certain degree with specialized hereditary mechanism by fixing and increasing acquired adaptations. On the social side we find much the same conditions, though we may perhaps assume that comradeship in play has an orthoplastic influence on the intensity of the social impulse. When a society (a primitive race, for example, which is forced by circumstances to wander about a great deal, or to conduct a war) undertakes new tasks which lead to stronger and more extended social organization, play alone can supply the necessary conditions. Under its “screening” influence natural selection has time to eliminate the variations which are not coincident, to further those which are, and so to strengthen gradually the social impulses.

These two original social impulses find satisfaction in the social circle as soon as the individual has outgrown the narrow limits of the family, and the first social group into which he voluntarily enters is that of his playmates. This is the social school for children; here, says Jean Paul, “the first social fetters are woven of flowers,” and here, too, does the adult find the perennial spring for renewing the influence of the “socius”[684] in himself. Where association presents only its more pleasing features, the voluntary subordination which is sometimes irksome is natural enough both to the recognised leader and to abstract law. Kant’s moral requisite that a person shall never be made use of as a means is applicable to public life only when individuals voluntarily fit themselves into the social mechanism. In clubs for amusement, social sympathy and good comradeship undergo a sort of artificial expansion which society could hardly attain without the games and festivities that characterize them. This fact is apparent among savages as well as in the most advanced social group of modern times. The union of early tribes for their dances and feasts made it possible for them to work together for serious purposes, and, to take an illustration from the other extreme, a group of university teachers, in spite of their peaceful calling, is best preserved from disastrous dissension when their good comradeship is promoted by frequent and regularly recurring social gatherings.

The effect of ordinary play is supported by social imitation. To do what the others do, and so get the advantage of the stimulus which belongs to collective activity; to thrill with the feeling that moves the masses; to get out of the narrow circle of one’s own desires and efforts—these the child learns with his playmates, and the grown man in æsthetic sports and in festive gatherings. Thus play contributes to the “experimental verification of the benefits and pleasures of united action,”[685] and such experience must advance the ends of society, since it forms habits which extend beyond the sphere of play. Hence arises, too, the imitation of individuals who are especially prominent in the social group. When among children or grown people some master spirit takes the lead by virtue of his courage, wisdom, presence of mind, or quick adaptability, his example is of quite incalculable influence on his fellows. The effects of æsthetic sympathy when the model is one of social excellence takes deep hold on the life around it. In modern poetry, too, we have a powerful means of bringing the social and ethical ideal home to each appreciative soul in the privacy of his own home.

We have found, too, that the various aspects of the impulse of communication which ground the inner spiritual association of the group are also available for play. While in the animal world self-exhibition may serve sexual purposes almost exclusively, such is not the case with man. As his personality develops in response to his everchanging relations to his social environment, he feels the need of finding all that moves him, his joys and sorrows, his strivings and attainments, reflected in the consciousness of other men. This is why I have insisted that the various forms of rivalry which are so essential to the preservation of the species are only in part derived from the fighting impulse. The higher motive of proving to one’s associates what one is capable of, is also operative, and play which exhibits it not only serves to develop the social impulses, but also assists materially in the struggle for life. Besides giving expression to individual importance, the desire for self-exhibition includes a disposition to depreciate others, and the friction which ensues is a most effectual corrective of the vanity and overweening pride which are so easily associated with it, giving rise at last to a just estimate of the value and limits of our capacities.

The second and higher form of the communication impulse also—namely, the desire to influence other wills and to direct and control public action; in short, to become a social leader—finds full scope in play, which affords good preliminary practice of the art of ruling, just as it is the first school for voluntary subordination to social law. Here the masterful mind learns how to control milder spirits and to identify his own with the common interest, and here awakens the feeling of responsibility and the wish to become by his example an inspiration to his fellows. Any form of activity which develops sturdy independent leaders is to be encouraged, for it is these that society is most in need of.