[199]. For this discussion, Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. xi., and Réville, Religions des Peuples non Civilisés, i., pp. 10 et seq., may be consulted.
[200]. Hack Tuke says he has met with only a single case among Catholics. (Dict. of Psychol. Medicine, Art. “Religious Insanity.”)
[201]. For some recent observations see Krafft-Ebing, op. cit., vol. ii. § 1; Dagonet, Maladies mentales, pp. 321 et seq.
[202]. For further details respecting ecstasy I refer the reader to my Maladies de la volonté, ch. v., and to Godfernaux, Le Sentiment et la Pensée, p. 49. Purely medical works contain little that is instructive with regard to the psychology of this state; the works of the mystics themselves may be studied with far more profit.
[203]. This theory of play, however, appears, from recent researches, to be of English origin, and due to Home (1696-1782), so that, when taken up again by Herbert Spencer (Principles of Psychology, vol. ii., last chapter), it would seem only to have returned to its original home.
[204]. In a recent book, very rich in observations on the play of animals (Die Spiele der Thiere, 1896, the only existing monograph on the subject), Groos substitutes for the thesis of a superabundance of energy that of a primary instinct, of which play, in all its forms, is the expression. I cannot see that the two theses exclude one another. Some base their argument on external manifestations. Groos connects them with an instinct—i.e., a motor disposition sui generis. I am inclined to take Groos’s view, the more so as the fundamental idea of the present work is that of finally reducing the affective life to the sum of a set of tendencies fixed in the organisation.
For the rest, the psychology of play is still awaiting treatment in its totality. The word, in fact, denotes several entirely different psychical manifestations. In its first stage, it is unconscious in its origin, spontaneous, an expenditure for the mere pleasure of spending; but, however disinterested in its source and its aim, it is useful; in children, play is often a form of imitation, often a form of experimentation, an attempt at easy and unconstrained exploration of beings and things. In the second stage, it has become reflective; pleasure is sought for its own sake, and with full consciousness of the reason; it is a complex state formed by the fusion of variable elements. In a special study, which, however, is merely tentative (Die Reize des Spieles, 1883), Lazarus adopts the following classification: (a) games connected with physical activity, (b) the attraction of all kinds of spectacles, (c) intellectual games, (d) games of chance. This last item alone might well prove a tempting one to a psychologist. It has a quasi-passive, somewhat blunted form, being what Pascal called a diversion (that which turns aside, distracts), a way of pretending to work, or filling up the blanks of existence, of “killing time.” It has an active form, the gambling passion, whose tragedy is as old as humanity, and which is made up of attraction towards the unknown and the hazardous, of daring, of emulation, of the desire of victory, the love of gain, and the fascination of acquiring wealth wholesale, instantaneously, without effort. These and other elements show that, in play as in love, it is complexity which produces intensity. The absence of any complete first-hand studies on this subject shows once more the scarcity of monographs relating to the psychology of the feelings.
[205]. For a detailed criticism of this view, see Guyau’s Problèmes de l’esthétique contemporaine, p. 12. This writer, afraid of dilettantism, substituted for the theory of play that of life, as a source of art. I do not see what is to be gained by substituting a vague formula for a definite one. Moreover, are not all emotions connected with life?
[206]. We must except Sergi, from whom I have borrowed the above definition. In his Psychologie Physiologique, Bk. IV., chap. vi., sec. 374, he gives some interesting historical details.
[207]. Weismann, Essais sur l’hérédité (French ed., p. 475); Wallace, Darwinism, chap. xv. Before these, Schneider (Freud und Leid, pp. 28, 29), an adherent of the English theory of the inherent uselessness of the æsthetic activity, has tried to connect it with the conservation of the individual and the species by an extremely bold and problematical hypothesis resting on heredity. If we experience different feelings before a stormy sea, or a calm, blue lake, covered with boats, or a vast plain, or snow-covered mountains, “it is because our feelings are those of primitive man, when he lived really in the midst of nature and had to wrest his daily bread from it. Through countless generations our ancestors, on finishing their daily task, in the evening have thought with satisfaction of the work accomplished; it was in this frame of mind that they looked on the approach of evening and the sunset. Why does a landscape representing it produce on us an impression of repose and peace? We have no other answer than this: for countless generations past the evening sky has been associated with the consciousness of work finished and a feeling of rest and satisfaction.” Apart from its extreme flimsiness, this hypothesis would not be applicable to all the arts.