PART I PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTATION (continued 4)

How far the gratification afforded by play is dependent on causality is strikingly shown by the fact that there is not a single form of it which does not exhibit in one shape or another the joy of being a cause as the germ of its attractiveness. It is true that this universal fact directs the attention more to the feeling of being a cause than to the logical idea of causal connection, yet we find enjoyment of logical activity prominent in the categories which we have designated as “hustling things about,” and as destructive and constructive movement play. The tendency toward such play was chosen for our point of departure, and the indications are that it is of the first importance to the child, and that only through frequent repetitions of the post hoc does independent interest in the propter hoc gradually arise. Still, it can not be denied that the true characteristics of play are in inverse ratio to the intensity of the desire for knowledge, and it should be clearly stated that we are now on the frontier territory of play and earnest. The steps by which we have reached this point can be clearly traced by every reader of what goes before; therefore, without stopping to recapitulate, I cite this striking remark of Preyer’s as a fitting climax. He says in reference to the evolution of a feeling of individuality: “Another important factor is the perception of change brought about by his own activity, in the familiar objects by which he is surrounded, and, psychologically speaking, or, indeed, from any standpoint, a red-letter day in the infant’s life is the one on which he first grasps the connection between his own movements and the sense-perceptions caused by them. The sound produced by tearing and crumpling paper was still unrecognised by this child till in his fifth month he discovered that it gave him a new sensation, and he repeated the experiment day after day most energetically until the stimulus of novelty wore away. Still, there was no clear apprehension of causality, but the child had now had the experience of being an originator, and of combined sight and sound perceptions, regular in so far that when he tore paper it became smaller for one thing, and sound resulted for another. Other such amusements were shaking keys on a ring, opening and shutting a box or purse (thirteen months), repeatedly filling and emptying a table drawer, piling up and scattering sand and gravel, rustling the pages of a book (thirteenth to nineteenth month), digging in sand, pulling footstools back and forth, laying stones, shells, and buttons in rows (twenty-one months), pouring water in and out of bottles, cups, and cans (thirty-first to thirty-third month) and throwing stones in water.”333 Miss Shinn also gives a pretty example in the case of her little niece: “In the twentieth month (five hundred and ninetieth day) I saw her outdoors, especially when driving, cover her eyes several times with her hands. I thought the sunlight might be too brilliant, but it is more likely that she was experimenting, for in the following weeks she would often cover her eyes with her hands, and take them away, hide her face in a cushion or on her own arms, often saying ‘Dark,’ then look up, ‘Light now.’”334 Tormenting animals is another direction in which the quest for a causal connection is evident. When André Theuriet was a four-year-old boy he threw a newborn puppy in the water just “pour voir,” and then wept bitterly because he could not rescue it.335 As these demands of reason become prominent we can clearly see that we are approaching the limits of play.

There are other cases, however, where the search for a causal connection can more assuredly be called playful. An essential feature of the enjoyment derived from mental contests is the calculation of the result. Several possibilities are before the player, and he enjoys the intellectual effort of testing each and using the most advantageous. In the solution of whist and chess problems and such like, rivalry becomes an insignificant feature, and logical experimentation forms the central interest. Just so with the common and often ancient mechanical and mathematical puzzles. Pleasure in conquering their logical difficulties is derived from the gratification of a “general impulse or general instinct to exercise the intelligence as such.”336 Causality plays a prominent part in poetry, too, since we require it to reveal to us the inner relations of the events set forth and to exhibit cause and effect in clearer and more orderly sequence than the complexities of reality admit of.337 Especially is this the case with tragedy. In my Einleitung in die Aesthetik I expressed the opinion that the treatment of tragical climaxes as logical necessities is an important means of bracing us for the increasingly painful inner imitation which is so essential, without weakening or modifying its effect. “When the course of the tragic tale is so far developed as to suggest that a catastrophe is imminent, it should also appear inevitable. Stern necessity must urge the hero toward the fearful goal so persistently that escape shall be unthinkable, a logical impossibility. This feeling of necessity is calculated to fix the æsthetic illusion, and consequently help on the effect by rendering more strenuous the mental tension and directing it so forcibly toward the climax that consciousness is a captive to inner imitation until the tragedy has culminated. In other words, fear of the catastrophe is so absorbing as to create the illusion that the apprehended event is just at hand, and consequently all sense of the painfulness of the situation is merged in the stress of this illusion, since it alone is competent to relieve the tension.”338 I might have continued to the effect that such manifestations of the law of cause afford us a positive logical satisfaction, and in spite of the impression forced upon us by the crushing blows of Fate, weave some threads into the intricate texture of æsthetic enjoyment, because in them we recognise a proof of the existence of a universal causal nexus.

A glance over the sphere of inherence, too, will help us to a proper orientation for this inquiry. By the word inherence we signify the relation of a thing to its qualities, or, abstractly speaking, the relation of a concept to its characteristics. A common and well-nigh universal form of play depends on this principle—namely, the making and solving of riddles. The large majority of them involve an effort to find the concept whose characteristics are given, and the task is intentionally rendered difficult, with the result that the solution is attended with a proud sense of success. The exercise easily leads to a contest, but it is grounded in experimentation with the logical faculty, and many persons enjoy the amusement for this reason alone.339

Children as young as four years sometimes indulge in a sort of preliminary exercise in riddle solving, such as the simple game in which one child, noticing the peculiar colour of some object in the room, says, “I see something you don’t see, and it’s yellow,” and his comrade must guess it. The play here is connected with sense perception by the relations of things to their qualities, and there are many games for large companies much like it. In a genuine riddle the enumeration of characteristics must be imperfect or in some way misleading to render the solution troublesome, and still sufficiently complete to make it possible; many are made sufficiently puzzling by the lack of logical ὁριδκός without the introduction of other means of mystification; such, for example, as—

The play is more genuine, however, when the characteristics are more veiled, as in (1) metaphor and (2) apparent contradiction. The riddles which follow are evidently calculated to put one on the wrong scent. On the coast of Malabar two familiar riddles are “Little man, strong voice,” and “A little pig in the woods.” The answer to the former is Grasshopper, and to the latter Pediculus cervicalis.

Apparent contradiction is a favourite means of mystification, as in the questions “What teaches without speaking?” A book. “What two things are together early and late, and yet never touch each other?” Parallel lines. The East African Schamlala have a riddle which is metaphorical. “My grandfather’s cattle low when they are driven away, and are quiet coming home.” This refers to the water gourds carried by the women, which clatter when taken away empty, and are silent as they come back filled.340 A German riddle of this kind is:

I can not here examine other forms of logical experimentation with the exception of the phenomena of wit, which are too important to be omitted from our review. Primarily wit should be classed with the comic, of which we shall speak in another connection, but at times it overreaches these limits, and more general grounds must be assigned for it in logical experimentation. When wit is free from sarcasm and assumes the form of playful judgment, as Kuno Fischer says, then its most natural expression is in the riddle and the proverb. The evolution of such serious wit as Jean Paul’s is possible only to a highly cultured people, and Nietzsche, the most brilliant German exponent of modern witticism, displays a certain tendency to proverb. “To be stiff to his inferiors is wisdom for the hedgehog” has the true flavour of the terse sayings found among all primitive people. The satisfaction afforded by true wit is due to the playful conquest of logical difficulties; some statement is made which confuses by its unusual conjunction of ideas, and we hail as a victory the sudden emergence of the hidden meaning. Therefore it would be a mistake to call the pleasure produced by wit exclusively a play with reason, since constructive imagination and the formulation of the abstract are also involved. When the negro produces this—“God keeps the flies off the ox that has no tail”—he gives us an expression of wit illustrating abstract judgment which may be accompanied by the stronger emotion.

B. EXPERIMENTATION WITH THE FEELINGS

That a man may play with his emotions is a well-known fact, but one which has not to my knowledge been adequately investigated in all its ramifications. While the “luxury of grief” is often referred to, the interesting distinction of its varying degrees has not been gone into. It can not be labelled, I think, simple play with pleasurable sensations, partly because the concentration of attention on the feeling itself instead of on the accompanying sensations and ideas tends to weaken the very feeling in question, and also because the division of consciousness which attends such a survey of one’s own emotional life is less operative in the sphere of pleasure.341 There must be a distinct recognition that it is genuine pain which we are enjoying before the sense of being a spectator arises, and we can become conscious that we are playing with our emotions. The various feelings which may be involved in this process are physical pain, mental suffering, surprise, and fear. Besides these four, the mixed feeling of suspension between pain and pleasure might be mentioned, but as it has already been referred to it will be included in our treatment of surprise.

1. Physical Pain

I have frequently had occasion to note that we commonly enjoy stimuli whose effect is distinctly disagreeable because they are calculated to satisfy our craving for intense impressions. A sensitive tooth is constantly visited by the tongue, a stiff neck is constantly experimented with, any slight wound is repeatedly pressed and rubbed, etc. Hall342 and Allin testify that this is especially the case in childhood. We have already noticed the shock of a cold bath and the sting of sharp drinks. The pleasure which we derive from eating pungent horseradish, which brings tears to the eyes, is a relative, distant and humble it is true, but still unmistakably a relative of our enjoyment of tragedy. Our satisfaction in strong, self-produced excitement is so intense as to make physical pain to a great extent enjoyable. It is true that while these phenomena are so far quite normal, secret but direct paths connect them with the realm of pathology. While some individuals display this in a somewhat anomalous desire for taste stimuli, in others pleasure in petty self-torture develops into a sort of sport, having as its object not merely a test of their power of endurance (of that we shall speak in the section on will) but some obscure delight in actual suffering as well. Cardanus confesses in his autobiography to a diseased condition which could not dispense with pain, so that if he found himself perfectly comfortable he was at once moved by an irresistible impulse to torture his body until tears came. Mantegazza tells of a veteran who took a strange delight in scratching the inflamed edges of an old wound in his leg.343 In some forms of insanity the patient maltreats his person, inflicting the most frightful wounds and mutilations, which would be incredible if his sensibilities were not to a great degree blunted. In the attempt to explain these phenomena some have thought them an exception to the rule that pleasure accompanies only what is in some way useful, but it seems to me that a sufficient explanation of normal cases is found in the utility of the experimental impulse, which in seeking strong stimuli takes a certain amount of pain with the rest. So long as pleasure predominates over pain in the experience, play is possible. In pathological cases sexual excitement is often aroused sufficiently to neutralize the suffering, and where this is not the case we must suppose a perverse directing of the fighting instinct against one’s own body, furthered by the deadening of sensibility to pain.

2. Mental Suffering

Psychologists have given special attention to the enjoyment which is derived from contemplating unpleasant images and subjects. Perhaps the most familiar passage on the subject is that of Spencer’s on the luxury of grief, yet, as he himself admits, his idea of self-pity does not clear it up, and he goes on: “It seems possible that the sentiment which makes a sufferer wish to be alone with his grief, and makes him resist all distraction from it, may arise from dwelling on the contrast between his own worth as he conceives it, and the treatment he has received—either from his fellow-beings or from a power which he is prone to think of anthropomorphically. If he feels that he has deserved much while he has received little, and still more if instead of good there has come evil, the consciousness of this evil is qualified by the consciousness of worth, made pleasurably dominant by the contrast.... That this explanation is the true one, I feel by no means clear. I throw it out simply as a suggestion, confessing that this is a peculiar emotion which neither analysis nor synthesis enables me to understand.”344 This is indeed an unsatisfactory explanation, and the play idea seems to bring us nearer to one, for here, as in the case of physical pain, it is the deep-rooted need of our nature for intense stimuli which enables us to enjoy our own suffering. That unassuageable longing of Faust which had exhausted the meagre emotional recourses of study, and now dragged him out in search of life and experience, was a longing for both pleasure and pain, since both could stir up life’s deep sea, which now lay stagnant:

Contemplative natures, not given to activity, have a tendency to play with their suffering, and by a strange division of consciousness stand as on some rocky height, beholding with pleased appreciation the foaming torrent of their own feelings. In the closing chapter of my Play of Animals I treated the subject of divided consciousness at some length, and will not here repeat what is said there. For a specific instance we need only point to the artist who brings a tragic tale to a close with real regret, and, in spite of the suffering it has caused him, is filled with the joy in being a cause, in his power to create. When Kleist finished Penthesilia in Dresden he went to his friend Pfuel in tears. “She is dead!” he wailed, and yet, in spite of his deep and genuine grief over the death of his heroine, in the depths of his soul he was conscious of joy in his creation. This is a good example of play with mental suffering, and Marie Bashkirtseff furnishes another illustration which I have cited in my earlier work. “Can one believe it?” she writes in her journal, at the age of thirteen; “I find everything good and beautiful, even tears and pain. I love to weep, I love to despair, I love to be sad. I love life in spite of all; I wish to live. I must be happy, and am happy to be miserable. My body weeps and moans, but something in me that is above me enjoys it all.” By these words she reveals most clearly that division of consciousness in which, behind the suffering I, another seems to stand, which has the power to change the grief to bliss. Goethe, too, seems often to have felt the same. His Werther blames himself because he is prone to cower before petty ills. Further than this there is such a thing as emotional pessimism founded on temperament. For Schopenhauer it was an evident satisfaction to work himself up to a condition of the utmost indignation over the evils of the world. Kuno Fischer has sharply exposed this playful characteristic of his pessimism. It is true, he says, that Schopenhauer takes a serious and even tragic view of the world, but, after all, it is only a view, a spectacle, a picture. “The world tragedy is played in a theatre; he sits in the audience on a comfortable divan commanding the stage, using his opera glass with discretion. Many of the spectators forget the suffering world at the buffet, none follow the tragedy with such close attention, such deep earnestness, such a comprehensive glance as his. Then, deeply moved and soul-satisfied, he goes home and writes down what he has seen.”345 Melancholy, too, in the ordinary sense, not the pathological, belongs here, the melancholy of lovers, poets, and artists, the condition typified by the phrase “dégustation complaisante de la tristesse.”346

Finally, pleasure in the tragic, of which we have spoken in another connection, should be mentioned here. Augustine, the great prober into the problems of the soul, has set forth this question with inimitable clearness in the third book of his Confessions. “Why,” says he, “should a man sadden himself by voluntarily witnessing what is painful? The spectator does undeniably feel sad, and the very sadness is a pleasure. How can we explain this sympathy with unreal, theatrical sorrows? The hope of ultimate rescue is not the only thing that appeals to him—it is the actual accumulation of misery as well, and he praises the play in proportion as it moves him. When common woes are so represented as not to affect the hearer, he goes away dissatisfied and complaining. If he is affected, on the contrary, he listens attentively, and weeps with delight.” If I understand Augustine aright, he finds the solution of the puzzle in the idea of a sort of sympathy which he distinguishes from real or moral sympathy, and which is at bottom nothing else than the play of inner imitation, that æsthetic feeling of fellowship of which we shall hear more later. He puts his finger on the real reason why fellow-feeling for the sufferer has a special charm when he admits that tragic representation affected him with sharp, creepy sensations, like the scratching of a finger nail. Thus he concludes, as we have done, that the foundation of enjoyment of tragedy is the result of intensive stimuli. As Du Bos347 remarks, we take the pain accompanying the emotion in the bargain because we like the emotion, the agitation of feeling, so well. This recalls the Aristotelian dogma of the catharsis, but the objection to this theory lies, as its name implies, in the fact that it seeks a practical end for the play of æsthetic pleasure. For Aristotle the question is to establish the purifying effects of a thunderstorm, not the enjoyment of its grandeur, and for this reason the doctrine of the catharsis, however clear it may be, does not directly answer our question. Delight in the tragic element is not concerned with the lull after the storm, but only with the surging might of the tempest itself, in which we are playfully involved. Weil and Bernays seem to me to have the right idea when they speak of the need for violent emotional play, and of enjoyment of ecstatic conditions. And Lessing also, when he says that strong passion gives more reality to feeling. But it is doubtful whether Aristotle considered this side of the question in forming his theory.

3. Surprise

Surprise is connected with fear, and for this reason is in itself a disagreeable sensation; yet, on account of its strong psychophysical effect—namely, the shock which it produces—it becomes highly enjoyable in play, and displays, perhaps more clearly than any of the other cases, the charm of strong stimuli. Children indulge very early in play involving the shock of surprise, and its effectiveness as a means of giving pleasure becomes more and more intense. Darwin relates that his son, from the one hundred and tenth day, was wildly delighted when a handkerchief was laid over his face and then suddenly withdrawn, or when his father’s face was hidden and revealed in this way. “He then uttered a little noise, which was an incipient laugh.” I referred to this in speaking of expectancy, which, indeed, goes hand in hand with surprise, however opposed they may appear, since surprise which is entirely unexpected is of course no part of play. There is always playful experimentation with the shock when we expect it, but do not know when or in what form it will appear. It is just this combination which makes the emotional effect of surprise greater than it would otherwise be. When, for example, we hold a lighted match over a lamp, we are the more startled by the slight explosion because we have attentively awaited it; and there are many games for children in which the combined effect of expectation and surprise furnish an essential part of the pleasure, such as those where persons or objects are hidden. The excitement, too, which is caused by loud and sudden sounds is of the same character. M. Reischle, in his fine paper on child’s play, distinguishes a special group of expectation and surprise games, and points out that the little ones peek while their comrades are hiding, and yet are overjoyed to find them, and apparently surprised. In many throwing and catching games both elements are influential in heightening the stimulus, and special plays grow out of them, such as “Hide-and-Seek,” “Blind-Man’s Buff,” “Drop the Handkerchief,” as well as many games of chance. Indeed, in the last named the stimulus of surprise is often of special importance,348 and one of the chief sources of pleasure is the tension of expectancy followed by the sudden decision on the fall of dice.

Yet more interesting is the significance of surprise in relation to the comic. While the latter is more than a play with surprise, this feature becomes a factor that should by no means be overlooked in studying comic effects, especially when we reflect that previous efforts to explain this modification of aesthetic enjoyment have proved abortive, possibly through failure to give due weight to this very element. E. Hecker advances the theory, it is true, that laughter from tickling accounts for the origin of enjoyment of the comic, but in this purely physiological explanation he seems to overlook the fact that as a rule we laugh only when we are tickled, not when we tickle ourselves—that is to say, that contact with finger tips becomes tickling only when the hand is a strange one. Even in physical tickling, then, there must be some psychic factors, of which surprise may be one, even though it is inadequate alone to explain the phenomena. The fact that surprise not carried far enough to frighten is one of the first causes of laughter in children gives colour to this idea. Zeising has shown conclusively that there is a double surprise in the comic, the first being the intuitive start at something unusual, and contrasted with what is normal and typic, be it occasioned by some anomaly in the object itself or depending only on the momentary milieu—such, for instance, as the ridiculous appearance of a tiny cottage in a row of palatial residences.349 This first shock is followed by a moment of suspense. “When the entirely unexpected happens,” says Goethe in Tasso, “the mind stands still for a moment,” which again is interrupted by the new surprise of finding the first one negatived or reversed.350 Here we have the counter shock, whose pleasurable effect is strong enough to more than neutralize the first, and render their combined result agreeable.351 As Kant, with his unrivalled penetration, has remarked, we play with the error as with a ball, tossing it back and forth and looking after it each time; in this way we are hurried through a succession of tensions and relaxations.

While this illustration shows clearly how the essence of comicality is due to the peculiar character of the double shock, yet it remains true that even in this case surprise as such is pleasurable, and plays its part in the complicated effect.

4. Fear

That even fear, the most abject of all affections, may become the object of playful experimentation is one of the riddles of soul life. Here, too, we can only apply the theory of pleasure in intense stimulus to that of divided consciousness. When Lukrez dwells upon the pleasure of gazing on a stormy sea from the vantage ground of a rocky crag he illustrates this state, only here the soul is both in the midst of the storm and on the rocks as well. Apart from and above the terror-stricken personality stands another, safe and free, and enjoying the fascination of painful excitement. For the power of fear is fascinating, even benumbing in its effect. Souriau says: “I remember, as a child, seeing a snake, cut in two by a spade, convulsively writhing on the garden walk. The sight filled me with terror, which rooted me to the spot. Fascinated, I stood perfectly still, my eyes following the agonized twisting of the creature while I felt waves of pain surging through my own body.”352 Of course, such a condition can be playful only in case of an æsthetic illusion when the fear is but apparent, and may be dispelled at will, and when pleasure is stronger than pain in the experience. Nevertheless, there are transitions between real and apparent fear which are particularly operative when curiosity becomes the counter irritant. Every one’s childhood will furnish an example of this. George Sand tells us how she as a little girl tried with a playmate to get a glimpse into the spirit world by means of mystic oaths and incantations. The children waited long in fear and trembling, for blue flames, protruding devil’s horns, etc. This was only a play, “but a play that set our hearts beating.”353 Although fear in this instance has more the character of a necessary accompaniment than of an object of play, real delight in the gruesome is undeniably evident in the world of art. In the first place, there are legends and stories with horrible fantasies. The child is wrapped in breathless interest in accounts of ghosts, wicked magicians, werewolves, etc., and while safe in his own home enjoys the terrors which these ideas excite. As a small boy I listened with nameless horror to the crude account of the fate of Faust secretly read to me by our gardener out of a popular book. I remember how, when the devil led Faust through the ceiling, his skull was broken and his brains spattered on the wall. For some time after that I was afraid to pass shady places in the garden, even in the daytime. With older boys descriptions of battles and adventures, and, above all, Indian stories, take the place of fairy tales. The Leather Stocking Tales were my chief delight, especially The Pathfinder, and I can still recall the rapt attention with which I followed the frightful perils which threatened my hero, whenever I could get a quarter of an hour off. How meagre is our capacity for æsthetic enjoyment in later years compared with the absolute, unconditional surrender to it of a youthful soul! Adults enjoy the gruesome in poetic creations such as those of Hoffman and Victor Hugo. When we read of the struggle with the polypus in Toilers of the Sea the strong stimulus imparted by fear is certainly the chief source of pleasure. My grandfather in extreme old age liked nothing better than to read such thrilling tales of hairbreadth escapes, and the strong preference for detective stories evinced by the masses is based on the same grounds. Savages, too, like children, always prefer tales which deal with demons and magic.

Finally, we must notice an æsthetic phase which is related to fear—namely, exaltation. Since Kant’s thoroughgoing elucidation the principle is fixed that exaltation is the result of a rebound from fear. First depression, then exaltation. At first, the object of our reverence oppresses us, and for a moment we are painfully conscious of our impotence and nothingness; then comes a reaction; we throw off the oppression and begin to study the revered object with serious pleasure. In my Einleitung in die Aesthetik I did not attribute the first part of this process to æsthetic pleasure, because I found that inner imitation on which I based my investigation only in the second stage.354 While I still regard it as the highest and most important element in æsthetics, yet I am aware that my view as there presented was somewhat one-sided, as is almost unavoidably the case if one attempts to carry out a theory systematically. As I shall return to this point, let it suffice to say here that probably the depression itself is pleasurable, and so forms a part of the æsthetic satisfaction. It is characteristic of our complex natures that along with our demand to control our surroundings we also feel the need of the domination of a higher power. When we encounter an incontestably overpowering force we gladly surrender unconditionally, and take pleasure in acknowledging that we are insignificant and helpless. The significance of this spirit for religion is apparent. Schiller has designated awe as the noblest human trait, and Schleiermacher found the springs of religion in the feeling of dependence. The first stage in the satisfaction derived from exaltation is akin to this when we enjoy our self-abasement in order to render more conspicuous the subsequent expansion of an individuality, in the second stage when by the exercise of inner imitation we identify ourselves with the revered object, thus partaking of the greatness which at first overawed us. While it is true that only the second part of this process attains the summit of enjoyment, the first, too, is playful. “How felt I myself so small—so great?” asks Faust, and attributes both sentiments to the selfsame moment. This play with depression is facilitated by repeating the whole process frequently. The mind is not only attracted to the object, but alternately repelled from it, and in this process of repetition depression assumes more and more the character of play.

C. EXPERIMENTATION WITH THE WILL

Since our inquiry in this closing section is not as to the general use of the will in play, but rather into playful experimentation with the will itself, we must direct our attention to the control of movement. Play requires that those movements which depend on both inherited and acquired brain paths shall be under voluntary control. The pleasure accompanying this control is founded on the feeling of freedom and of mastery over self; and it is to be specially noted that almost all the related phenomena take the form of contests and appeal to the fighting instincts. The majority of cases require the suppression of emotional expression or of such reflexes as are connected with them. Thus, for example, winking is not an expression of emotion in the ordinary sense, and yet when it follows closely on the sudden presentation of some object before the eyes it seems to indicate that the person is startled or even terrified. Children often play with this refractory reflex, one moving his hand rapidly before the eyes of another, who makes desperate efforts to keep them open, and a forfeit game is played as follows: Two persons sit or stand opposite one another; one moves his hand close to the other’s eyes while the following colloquy takes place: “Are you going in the woods?” “Yes.” “Going to take some bread with you?” “Yes.” “And you want some salt on it?” “Yes.” “Are you afraid of the wolf?” If he holds his eyes open all the time he is not afraid, but if he winks he must pay a forfeit.355 The attempt is often made, too, to resist the impulse to laugh while two persons gaze into each other’s eyes. Indeed, such games are too numerous to mention. The effort to repress the expression of pain is still more interesting. Self-control during the suffering of physical pain is everywhere regarded as a proof of manliness, and is earnestly cultivated by savages as by our own boys. The quiet submission to painful tattooing, the endurance displayed by Indian children often in gruesome ways, the effort of our schoolboys to bear corporal punishment unflinchingly, the self-control of students who joke while their wounds are being sewed, and—to carry the struggle against self-betrayal into the field of mental suffering as well—the apparent indifference of gamblers to the reverses of fortune; while all of these can by no means be called playful, still the cases are sufficiently numerous in which there is actual playful experimentation with the powers of endurance. For example, Rochholz describes this test: Two persons strike the knuckles of the doubled-up fists together, and measure their will power by the length of time that they can endure the pain. Another is to strike the first and middle fingers against those of the other person. A friend of mine told me that as a boy (probably after reading some Indian tales) he once wagered with a comrade as to how long they could hold lighted matches in their fingers. He won the bet, but had to go with a bandaged hand for a long time.

A playful exercise of the will which suppresses not only every admission of suffering, but the fighting instinct as well, is related by Goethe of his youth. After remarking that “very many sports of youth depend on a rivalry in such endurance, as, for example, when they strike with two fingers or the whole hand until the limbs are numb,” he goes on: “As I made a sort of boast of this endurance, the others were piqued, and as rude barbarity knows no limits, they managed to push me beyond my bounds. Let one instance serve to illustrate. It happened one morning that the teacher did not appear at the hour of recitation. As long as all the children were together we entertained ourselves very well, but when my friends left after waiting the usual time, the others took it into their heads to torment and shame me and to drive me away. Leaving the room for a moment, they came back with switches from a broom. I saw what they meant to do, and, supposing the end of the hour to be near, I at once resolved to resist them until the clock struck. They lashed my legs unmercifully, and in a way that was actually cruel. I did not stir, but soon found that I had miscalculated the time, and that pain greatly lengthened the minutes. My rage swelled the more I endured, and at the first stroke of the clock I grasped my most unsuspecting assailant by the hair, hurled him to the floor in an instant, pressing my knee upon his back. The second, who was younger and weaker, and who attacked me in the rear, I held with his head under my arm. The last, and not the weakest, remained, and only my left hand was free, but I caught hold of his clothes, and by a dexterous twist on my part and an awkward slip on his, I brought him down too, striking his face on the floor.”

Another impulse whose suppression is sometimes an end in play is imitation. Perhaps the most familiar game illustrating it is “All Birds Fly,” in which one of the children says “Pigeons fly, ducks fly, bears fly,” etc., and raises her hands in the air each time, while the others must follow her example only when a bird is mentioned. The Mufti-comme-ça described by Wagner is similar. All stand in a circle except the one who is in the centre making various motions. When he calls out “Mufti,” all stand still; but when he continues “comme ça,” they imitate him. In the English “Simon says,” the players make all the gestures that he commands, regardless of those which he may be making.356

All these examples are concerned with the repression of inborn reflexes, expressive movements, and instincts, but acquired habits are no less difficult to withstand. Many games are founded on the assumption that the ability to do so is a proof of will power, and emphasizes the freedom and self-control of the subject. It is particularly well illustrated in vocal exercises. To omit a particular syllable in a familiar rhythmic verse, or possibly several verses, requires a sudden check to the accustomed movements. A well-known German example is the song—

in which the first, second, or third syllable of the word Europa, or even the word or all the other words, are omitted. Kreis mentions a similar play for children. It consists simply in substituting other meanings for the words (stretching for bending, for example), so that when the order is given “Bend,” the arm is stretched out, etc.357 There is such a thing, too, as playful resistance of old habits. How many smokers resolve as a sort of jest to do without cigars for a week! It is the merest playful experimentation; they want to see if they are really absolute slaves of the pleasant vice, or whether the habit is still under the control of their will. If the experiment succeeds, they contentedly go back to their cigars; it is not at all a serious effort to reform. Many frivolous persons play thus with their habits, and take a childish delight in the little conquests achieved by their will, yet without permanently or seriously altering their manner of living.