The dance is an effort to give symbolic expression to affairs and moods of everyday life. Thus the Zulu wedding dance is self-evident in its purpose. The second illustration depicts a strange religious dance of the Australian natives, associated with totemism or animism. The third picture shows dancers in Kandy endeavouring to banish evil spirits, and the last illustrates an Australian corroboree. From such sources the drama has been slowly evolved.
LARGER IMAGE
Art & Play in the Life of Man
Play is a degeneration of the dance, and it arises less from the instinct for beauty than from a desire to realise whatever entertainment and excitement may be got from any incident or occurrence. From another special inclination originate those satirical songs of Northern peoples, written in alternating verses, in which the national tribunal and the voice of the people are given expression at the same time. Thus they have a truly educative character. These are the preliminary steps to the free satire and humour that gleam through the lives of civilised peoples, now like the flicker of a candle, now like a purifying lightning flash, freeing men from life’s monotony, and illuminating the night of unsolved questions. Capacity for organised play is a characteristic that lifts man above the lower animals. The expression of individuality without any particular object in view, the elevation of self above the troubles of life, and free activity, uncoerced by the necessities of existence, are characteristic both of play and of art. Thus play, as well as art, exhibits to a pre-eminent degree man’s consciousness of having escaped, if only temporarily, from the coercion of environing nature; being without definite object, it proves that he can find employment when released from the pressure of the outer world—that is, when he is momentarily freed from his endeavour to establish a balance between himself and the necessities of life, with a view to overcoming the latter. Man stands in close connection with his environment and with the immutable laws of nature; but in play and in art he develops his own personality—a development that neither in direction nor in object is influenced by the outer world and its constraint.
Fall of Man and Rise of the Race
The step that leads to the overcoming of custom is the recognition of right. “Right” is that which society strictly demands from every individual member. Not all that is customary is exacted by right; a multitude of the requirements of custom may be ignored without opposition from the community as a whole, although, of course, detached individuals may express their displeasure. The aggregate, however, grants immunity to all who do not choose to follow the custom. In other words, the separation of custom from right signifies the development of a sharper line of demarcation between that which is and that which ought to be. In primitive times “is” and “ought to be” are fairly consonant terms; but gradually a spirit of opposition is developed; cases arise in which custom is opposed, in which the actions of men run counter to a previous habit. Man is conscious of the possibility of raising himself above the unreasoning tendencies toward certain modes of conduct, and he takes pleasure in so doing—the good man as well as the evil. Whoever oversteps the bounds of custom, even through sheer egotism, is also a furtherer of human development; without sin the world would never have evolved a civilisation; the Fall of Man was nothing more than the first step toward the historical development of the human race.
This leads to the necessity for extracting from custom such rules as must prove advantageous to mankind, and this collection of axioms—which “ought to be”—becomes law.
Custom, Right, and Morality
The distinction between right and custom was an important step. The relativity of custom was exposed with one stroke. Many, and by no means the worst members of communities, emancipate themselves from custom. It is the opening in the wall through which the progress of humanity may pass. Nor do the demands of right remain unalterable and unyielding. A change in custom brings with it a change in right; certain rules of conduct gradually become isolated owing to the recession of custom, and to such an extent that they lose their vitality and decay. And as new customs arise, so are new principles of right discovered. In this manner an alteration in the one is a cause of change in the other—naturally, in conformity with the degree of culture and contemporary social relations. Custom and right mutually further each other, and render it possible for men to adapt themselves to newly acquired conditions of civilisation.
Together with right and custom a third factor appears—morality. This is a comparatively late acquisition. It, too, contains something of the “ought to be,” not because of the social, but by virtue of the divine authority or order based on philosophical conceptions. Morals vary, therefore, as laws vary, according to peoples and to times. The rules of morality form a second code, set above the social law, and they embody a larger aggregate of duties. The reason for this is that men recognise that the social system of rules for conduct is not the only one, that it is only relative and cannot include all the duties of human beings, and that over and beyond the laws of society ethical principles exist.