PART I PLAYFUL EXPERIMENTATION

I. Playful Activity of the Sensory Apparatus

1. Sensations of Contact

The newborn infant is susceptible to touch sensations. Movements and loud cries can be induced directly after it has for the first time become quiet, by pinching the skin or slapping the thigh.9 Experiments with the hands and mouth are most satisfactory, as these organs are extremely sensitive from the first. During its first week the child makes many purely automatic motions with its hands, and frequently touches its face. When contact is had in this way with the lips, they react with gentle sucking movements, and later follows the playful sucking of the fingers so common among children. It is, of course, difficult to say when such movements are conscious or when they are the result of taste stimuli.10 According to Perez, a two-months-old babe enjoys being stroked softly, and from that moment it is possible that it may seek, by its own movements, to provide touch stimuli for itself. Here play begins. “Touch now controls. At three months the child begins to reach out for the purpose of grasping with his hand; he handles like an amateur connoisseur, and the tendency to seek and to test muscular sensations develops in him from day to day.”11

a. We will first notice grasping with the hand as it is connected with taste stimuli. The merely instinctive movements of the first few days are multiplied and fixed, by means of inherited adaptation, progressively from the beginning of the second quarter year. The child begins by handling every object which comes within his reach, even his own body, and especially his feet, and one hand with the other.12 In all this not only the motor element, of which we will speak later, but also the sensor stimulus becomes an object of interest, as Preyer’s observation shows. “In the eighteenth week, whenever the effort to grasp was unsuccessful its fingers were attentively regarded. Evidently the child expected the sensation of contact, and when it was not forthcoming wondered at the absence of the feeling.”13 This practice in grasping promotes the opposition of the thumb, which first appears toward the end of the first quarter, and from that time the refinement of the sense of contact progresses rapidly. At eight months Strümpell’s little daughter took great pleasure in picking up very small objects, like bread crumbs or pearls.14 This illustrates the familiar fact that play leads up from what is easy to more difficult tasks, since only deliberate conquest can produce the feeling of pleasure in success. At about this time, too, the child’s explorations of its own body are extended, and their conclusions confirmed by the recognition of constant local signs. “As soon as she discovered her ear,” says Strümpell of his now ten-months-old daughter, “she seized upon it as if she wished to tear it off.” In her third year Marie G—— found on the back of her ear two little projections of cartilage, which she examined with the greatest interest, calling them balls, and wanting everybody to feel them. The nose, too, is repeatedly investigated. Although it is seldom large enough to be grasped, still, as Stanley Hall says, it is handled with unmistakable signs of curiosity, and often pulled or rubbed “in an investigating way.”15

The value of the sense of touch for the earliest mental development is testified to by the fact that the child, like doubting Thomas, trusts more to it than to his sight. Sikorski says: “At tea I turn to my eleven-months baby, point to the cracker jar, which she knows, and ask her to give me one. I open the empty jar and the child looks in, but, not satisfied with that, sticks her hand in and explores. The evidence of her eyes does not convince her of the absence of what she wants.”16

In Wolfdietrich one verse runs:

Older children lose the habit of playful investigation quite as little as any of the other manifestations of experimentation, even when the sensations encountered are not particularly agreeable. Richard Wagner liked to handle satin, and Sacher Masoch delighted in soft fur. In later life as well, Perez continues, all the senses strive for satisfaction; when the adult is not forced by necessity to put all his faculties at the service of “attention utile” he becomes a child again. He easily falls back into the habit of gazing instead of looking, of listening instead of hearing, of handling instead of touching, of moving about merely for the sake of sensations agreeable or even indifferent which are produced by these automatic acts.18 We all know how hard it is for school children to keep their hands still during recitation. “I knew a little girl,” says Compayré, “who would undertake to recite only on condition that she be allowed to use her fingers at the same time, and she would sew and thread her needle while she was spelling.”19 The knitting of women while they listen is perhaps of the same nature. Wölfflin remarks: “We all know that many people, especially students, in order to think clearly need a sharp-pointed pencil, which they pass back and forth through the fingers, sharpening their wits by the sensation of contact.”20 Then, too, there are the innumerable toying movements of adults, such as rolling bread crumbs and the like, all of which serves to introduce a short ethnological digression. “In the year 1881,” relates the brilliant W. Joest, “when I was travelling through Siberia, ... I noticed that many of the men, requiring some occupation for their nervous hands during leisure hours, played absently with walnuts, which had become highly polished from constant use.” He saw stones, brass and iron balls, and the Turkish tespi, whose original use is devotional, employed for the same purpose; indeed, Levantines, who are not Mohammedans, often regard these latter as special instruments of gaming and vice.21

Carrying a walking-stick is another playful satisfaction in which the hand’s sensation of contact has a part, while the lead pencil, small as it is, will sometimes satisfy the demand for “something in the hand.” This is a genuine craving, which betrays itself in all sorts of awkward movements if we try to deny its indulgence. Carrying a cane is a remarkably widespread custom, and some think that the very small stone hatchets so common in ethnological museums as relics of a prehistoric time were used as cane handles in the stone age. Joest says, in the article cited above, that walking-sticks are used in millions of forms, on every continent and island of our earth. The naked Kaffir uses a slender, fragile cane of unusual length, and, according to P. Reichard,22 his ideal of peace and prosperity is embodied in “going to walk with a cane,” since this implies freedom from the necessity of bearing arms. I close this digression with an instance which borders on the pathological. Sheridan was waiting for the celebrated Samuel Johnson, well known to be eccentric, to dine with him, and saw the doctor approaching from a distance, “walking along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment and an awkward sort of measured step. At that time the broad flagging at each side of the streets was not universally adopted, and stone posts were in use to prevent the annoying of carriages. Upon every post, as he passed along, I could observe he deliberately laid his hand, but, missing one of them, when he had got at some distance he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and, immediately returning back, carefully performed the accustomed ceremony and resumed his former course, not omitting one till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, however odd it might appear, was his constant practice.”23

b. The mouth of an infant is, of course, very sensitive to touch stimuli, and the lips and tongue are especially so. When Preyer put the end of an ivory pencil into the mouth of a child whose head only was born as yet, it began to suck, opened its eyes and seemed, to judge from its countenance, “to be very agreeably affected.”24 It happens very soon that automatic arm movements accidentally bring the fingers near the mouth, and such automatic sucking results. From it the familiar habit of thumb sucking is formed, as well as the practice of carrying every possible object to the mouth. “Your finger, a scrap of cloth, a bottle, fruit, flowers, insects, vases, objects large and small, attractive or repulsive, all seek the same goal.”25 I think Compayré is right when he says that it is not merely a case of duped appetite which Preyer points out. “The child enjoys the mere contact; it gives him pleasure to test with his lips everything that offers an occasion for the use of his nerves and muscles.”26 We find that in later life many persons like to play about the lips with fingers, penholder, etc. Many, too, who have outgrown the fascinations of thumb sucking, still lay a finger lightly on the lips when going to sleep or when half awake.27 The pleasure derived from smoking is due perhaps more than we realize to this instinct, and the common habit of holding in the mouth a broken twig, a leaf, a stalk of grass or hay, so far as it is not practice in chewing, belongs here. In K. E. Edler’s romance, Die neue Herrin (Berlin, 1897, p. 137), portraits of the extinct species of young lady are described. “In this one the lips pressed a cigarette, while in other pictures a rose stalk, the head of a riding crop, or some other object, not excluding her own dainty finger, was held against them, showing that in those days the mouth must have something to do as well as the hands, feet, eyes, and all the rest of the body.”

Finally, it must be remembered that much of the enjoyment of delicate food is due to the sense of contact. When certain viands are consumed without hunger, because “they slip down so easily,” we have play with touch sensations. This has something to do with the popularity of oysters and of effervescing drinks. “It tastes like your foot’s asleep,” said a small maiden on being allowed to taste something of the kind—a proof of the close connection with touch stimuli.

A few words may suffice in regard to playful use of touch sensations in other parts of the body. We have seen that an infant enjoys being softly stroked, and we may assume that a soft bed is appreciated early in life. The question is, whether the child or the adult voluntarily produces such sensations for the sake of the pleasure they afford. Perhaps this is why we like to roll about on a soft bed, and more unmistakably playful is the fondness of children for throwing themselves repeatedly into a well-filled feather bed or on piles of hay, to feel themselves sink into the elastic mass. Violent contact is indulged in in many dances. In the Siederstanz, which I myself learned in the Gymnasium, the thighs were beaten with the hands. Somewhat similar, but decidedly more violent, is the Haxenschlagen of the Bavarian dances, and the ancients practised the ῥαθαπυγίζειν, an alternate striking of the foot soles on the back. A verse is preserved, written in praise of a Spartan maiden who succeeded in keeping this up longer than any one else—one thousand times.28

Water affords delightful sensations of touch; in the bath, of course, enjoyment of the movements and temperature is more conspicuous, but the soothing gentleness of the moist element is not to be despised. For confirmation I will cite Mörike’s beautiful verses:

Here, as in all specialized pleasures, intensive emotion betrays itself. In sea bathing the principal stimulus is found in the sharp blow from the waves as they break repeatedly over one. Last of all, we notice the sensation of movement in the air. We take off our hats to let the wind play with our hair, and fanning is not always indulged in merely for the sake of cooling off, but also for the sake of the touch stimuli excited by the soft contact with waves of air.

2. Sensations of Temperature

There is a scarcity of material under this head, since the occasions to produce such sensations, except for the serious purposes of cooling or warming ourselves, are comparatively rare. Among the few that may safely be called playful, the most prominent is the seeking for strong stimuli for their very intensities’ sake, and because like all powerful excitation, they give us the feeling of “heightened reality” (Lessing). When we court the stinging cold of a winter day, or sit in spring sunshine to get “baked through for once,”29 we are as much playing, I think, as when watching rippling water, or gazing at heaven’s blue dome.30 Cool air has the same refreshing effect as a cold bath, while even in a warm bath the pleasantness of the temperature sensation is a satisfaction quite apart from its cleansing and sanitary effects, and most bathers will stretch themselves out to enjoy it for a little while after soap and sponge have done their duty. Among the refinements of the sense of taste, too, the stimulus of heat and cold is conspicuous, as ices and peppermint, hot grog, spices, and spirits witness.

3. Sensations of Taste

Brevity of treatment is accorded to this class of sensations as well, though in this case from no lack of data.

Kussmaul’s investigations31 show that, as a rule, the child prefers sweets from its birth, and will reject anything bitter, sour, or salt, although, until the later developed sense of smell is perfected, it is incapable of more delicate taste distinctions.32 On the whole, we find that with children such distinctions are less varied than among adults, the sweet of candy and the acid of fruits furnishing the staple material for their playful use of the sense. It is true that the pleasure which they derive from these is extreme. I well remember what unheard-of quantities of these viands were consumed at our birthday fêtes at school in Heidelberg, by children from six to nine years of age, not at all because they were hungry, but from mere pleasure in the taste. For we find even in children that enjoyment of eating is no more confined to the satisfaction of hunger than is æsthetic pleasure limited to the contemplation of the beautiful. When Marie G—— was barely three years old she displayed an unmistakable preference for piquant flavours; even those which were evidently disagreeable in themselves she enjoyed, trying them again and again for the sake of the stimulus they afforded—a taste which is much more common among adults than with children.

A review of the pleasures and practices of the table at various periods and among various peoples is an alluring but here impracticable undertaking. Let it suffice to cite one example from the ancients, that most celebrated of all descriptions of revelry at the board, the cœna Trimalchionis of Petronius, which W. A. Becker has made use of in his Gallus. The following will serve as a characteristic ethnological instance of the enjoyment of flavours, which are, to put it mildly, decidedly equivocal. In Java the durian tree bears green prickly fruit, about the size of cocoanuts and with a flavour which, according to Wallace, furnishes a new sensation well worth journeying to the Orient for. The smell of it is something frightful—a cross between musk and garlic, with suggestions of carrion and “overripe” cheese. The taste is aromatic, satisfying, and nutty, like a combination of cream cheese, onion sauce, and burnt sherry. This fruit is rigidly excluded from the hotels, as its odour would instantaneously pervade every room, but it is sought elsewhere by the guests and eaten with avidity. Semon says of it: “This fruit, like our strong, rich cheeses, is detested by those who are not fond of it.”33 What various associations are connected with the pleasures of the palate is shown by the epitheta ornantia of a wine list, such as strong, fiery, soft, fresh, lovely, sharp, elegant, hard, spicy, fruity, and smooth. Huysmans, in his novel A Rebours, gives a pathological example of amusement derived from taste association in the following passage. After describing the life of the nervously diseased Des Esseintes, he goes on: “In his dining room was a closet containing miniature casks on dainty sandalwood stands, each one fitted with a silver cock. Des Esseintes called this collection his mouth organ. A rod connected all the cocks, and they could be turned with a single movement answering to the pressure of a knob concealed in the woodwork, filling all the little glasses at once. The organ was standing open, the register with the inscriptions of flûte, cor, voix céleste, etc., displayed, and all was ready for use. Des Esseintes sipped here and there a few drops, playing an inner symphony and deriving from the sensations of his palate pleasure like that produced on the ear by music.”

4. Sensations of Smell

The ability to distinguish the character of odours seems to be a later development than taste differentiation. At least this is the case with regard to the enjoyment of agreeable smells. Among children of various ages experimented on by Perez, one of ten months showed some appreciation of the perfume of a rose,34 but most children are probably first rendered susceptible to pleasure from scents by their association with flavours. Girls, however, seem to enjoy sweet smells as such more than boys do, though M. Guyan relates that he recalls vividly the émotion penetrante which he experienced on inhaling for the first time the perfume of a lily.35

With reference to adults, the same writer may be cited: “In spite of its relative incompleteness, the sense of smell has much to do with our enjoyment of landscape, whether actually viewed or vividly portrayed. No portrayal of Italy is complete without the softened atmosphere which recalls the perfume of its oranges, nor of Brittany or Gascony without the crisp sea air which Victor Hugo has so justly celebrated, nor of pine forests without suggestions of its aroma.” “The passion for smoking,” says Pilo (I give this to show how complicated our apparently simple enjoyments may be), “is so general because almost all the senses are flattered impartially by it; visceral, muscular, and taste sensations are involved in the use of the lungs which it calls for, the lips, tongue, teeth, and salivary glands through feelings of temperature; the senses of taste and smell through the piquant, aromatic flavour; hearing, in a very direct and intimate way, through the crackling of the leaves and the rhythmic inhaling and exhaling of the breath; and, finally, the sense of sight in gazing at the glowing cigar and soft, gray ashes and curling smoke which winds and glides upward in a fantastic spiral; while the brain, under the soothing influence of the narcotic, enjoys a repose enlivened by dreams and visions.”36 Complete as this description appears, it yet misses one point—namely, the sucking movements which, from the recollections of the earliest months of life, we associate with pleasurable feeling. We may find the Des Esseintes of Huysmans’s romance useful once more. “Wishing now to enjoy a beautiful and varied landscape, he began to play full, sonorous chords, which at once called up before the vision a perspective of boundless prairie lands. By means of his vaporizer, the room was filled with an essence skilfully compounded by an artist hand and well deserving of its name—Extract of the Flowery Plain.... Having completed his background, which now stretched itself before his closed eyes in bold lines, he breathed over it all a light spray of essences, ... such as powdered and painted ladies use—stephanotis, ayapapa, opoponax, chypre, champaka, sarkanthus—and added a suspicion of lilac, to lend to this artificial life a touch of natural bloom and warmth of genuine sunshine. Soon, however, he threw open a ventilator, and allowed these waves of heavy odour to pass out, retaining only the fragrance of the fields, whose accent and rhythmical recurrence emphasized the harmony like a ritornelle in poetry. The ladies vanished instantly, the landscape alone remained; after an interval, low roofs appeared along the horizon with tall chimneys silhouetted against the sky, an odour of chemicals and of factory smoke was borne on the breeze his fans now produced, yet Nature’s sweet perfumes penetrated even this heavily weighted atmosphere.”

5. Sensations of Hearing37

In the consideration of this important sphere of play activity we encounter one of the special problems of our subject. Since Darwin’s time it has been customary to explain the art of tone and the musical element in poetry as an effect of sexual selection. But while I am convinced that these arts do on one side bear the very closest relation to sexual life, yet I believe that Spencer is right in warning us that the exclusive reference of such phenomena to sexual selection is hardly warranted. The courtship arts of birds, it is true, are sufficiently striking, yet we must remember, aside from the fact that prominent investigators have raised serious objections to the application of the theory even to them, that birds have but a distant kinship to man. As regards our closer relatives in the animal world, Darwin himself says, “With mammals the male appears to win the female much more through the law of battle than through the display of his charms.”38 And among mammals, again, monkeys are not distinguished by any special arts of courtship. The acoustic phenomena cited by Darwin are summed up in the cry of the howling ape and the musical notes of the species of Gibbon from Borneo and the Sumatran ape described by Selenka.39 Of other such arts, only one is noteworthy in monkeys as being also practised by man, and even that not directly in connection with love-making—namely, the disposition to display the back. It has not yet been proved that the monkey’s wonderful dexterity serves him especially in courtship. The supposition has much in its favour, it is true, but finds little support from what we know of his sexual life. Brehm covers the ground pretty well when he says, “Knightly courtesy serves him little with the weaker sex; he must take by force the rewards of love.” Ethnology shows us, too, that an exclusive or even a preferential reference of music and poetry to sexuality can not be assumed among primitive races. Having thus stated the doubts in advance, it may be interesting to glance once more over the psychology of play, with a view to discovering which arts and æsthetic pleasures may have arisen independently of sex. In such a review of hearing plays we are likely to find much which tends to expand and also to limit the Darwinian theory—nothing which will refute it.

Hearing plays may serve merely as a means for the satisfaction of acoustic impulses, or to give necessary exercise to motor apparatus, and, while this whole inquiry can not be said to penetrate further than to the antechamber of æsthetic perception and artistic production, an obvious distinction at once becomes apparent—namely, that between the receptive or hearing function and the production of sounds and tones. From the suckling’s delight in his own guttural gurglings to the most refined enjoyment of a concert-goer, from the uncouth efforts of the small child to produce all sorts of sounds, to the creative impulse which controls the musical genius, there is, in the light of history, a progressive and consistent development.

(a) Receptive Sound-Play

Pleasure in listening to tones and noises shows itself remarkably early, although, as is well known, the child is born deaf. Infants but two or three days old will stop crying in response to a loud whistle, and Perez has noted signs of enjoyment of vocal and instrumental music during the first month. Preyer reports of the seventh and eighth weeks: “There seems to be a marked sensitiveness to tone, and perhaps to melody as well, for an expression of the most lively satisfaction is discernible on the child’s face when its mother soothes it with lullabys softly sung. Even when it is crying from hunger a gentle sing-song will cause a cessation such as spoken words can not effect. In the eighth week the baby heard music for the first time—that is, piano playing. Unusual intentness of expression appeared in his eyes, while vigorous movements of his arms and legs and laughter at every loud note testified to his satisfaction in this new sensation. The higher and softer notes, however, made no such impression.”40 The little boy in Sully’s Extracts from a Father’s Diary manifested displeasure at first on hearing piano playing, but soon became reconciled to it, and his mother noticed that while his father was playing the child became heavier in her lap, “as if all his muscles were relaxed in a delicious self-abandonment.”41 Perez relates of a child six months old, on a visit to two aunts: “As the first of the young women began to sing he listened with evident delight, and when the other one joined in with a rich and melodious voice the child turned toward her, his face expressing the utmost pleasure, mingled with wonder and astonishment.”42 This seems to indicate that agreeable tones and variety of movement are at first more appreciated than is the actual beauty of the melody. According to Gurney, appreciation of melody as such first appears in the fourth or fifth year.43 It is otherwise with rhythm. Just as ethnology shows us that from the first inception of music rhythm was more prominent than melody, so it seems that the child too, as a rule, is sensitive to rhythmical cadence even when the beauty of melody is lost upon him. The regular ticking of a watch excites lively interest in the merest infant. Sigismund says: “I have often seen three- and four-year-old children skip about when they heard enlivening band music, as if they wished to catch the time of the rhythmic movement, an impulse which indeed affects adults as well,44 as all well know.” Here we have inner imitation, the central fact of æsthetic enjoyment, displayed by the veriest babes. Children show their enjoyment of rhythm, too, in their preference for strongly accented poetry.45 Even half-grown boys and girls take but little note of sense, compared with the interest which they bestow on rhythm and rhyme. That a normally endowed girl could interpret the words of a poem, Singing on its Way to the Sea, as Singing on its Waiter, etc., without having her curiosity aroused, can only be explained by this fact.46 Is it not a frequent experience of full-grown men to be suddenly struck with the profound truth hidden in some epigrammatic form of expression whose euphony has a hundred times delighted them? They have actually failed up to that time to grasp the clear, logical meaning of the verse or passage. Indifference to the words of their songs is most marked among primitive peoples, while with children an instinctive demand for some employment of their organs of hearing has much to do with their pleasure in harmony and rhythm. The following facts justify this statement: The disposition toward acoustic expression is particularly susceptible to satisfaction from sensuously agreeable stimuli, such as are responsive to harmony, melody and rhythm, partly on known and partly on unknown grounds. Here Fechner’s principle of co-operation is applicable—namely, that two pleasure-exciting causes working together produce a result which is greater than their sum—and is so strong, in fact, as to extend the sphere of sound-play far beyond that of the sensuously agreeable. Absolute silence makes us uncomfortable, and, when it is lasting, conveys to the mind a special quality of emotion, as in optics there is a positive feeling of blackness. So it happens that we take pleasure in noise as such even when it is not agreeable. This applies especially to children. “Les bruits choquants, aigus, glappissants, grondant,” says Perez, “ne leur sont pas désagréable de la même manière qu-aux grandes personnes.” Marie G—— manifested in her third year the liveliest joy in the grinding and squeaking of an iron ring in her swing. To small boys it is a treat to hear a teamster crack his whip. My brother-in-law when a boy cherished for years the ambition to make all the electric clocks in our house chime in concert with a great musical clock. A sense of discomfort is produced sooner, however, by a variety of discordant sounds to which we are passively listening, than when the din is self-produced—a distinction which extends into the domain of art, as testifies many a piano virtuoso.

Among adults it is probably true that sound-play is either entirely or in part connected with the pleasure we derive from ringing and resonance, subject to much the same limitations as we have applied to children. Underlying it all we find, though it is not always easily recognisable, enjoyment of the stimulus as such. I would instance the cheery crackling of flames in a fireplace, the frou-frou of silken garments, the singing of caged birds, the sound of wind, howling of storms, rolling of thunder, rustling of leaves, splashing of brooks, seething of waves, etc. Most of these, it is true, contain elements of intellectual pleasure as well, and so through association link themselves to genuine æsthetic enjoyments. Yet the satisfaction in mere sound as such is also unmistakably present, being most evident perhaps where strong stimuli are involved, since these have a directly exciting effect, while weaker ones, on the contrary, are soothing. Edler’s romance, Die neue Herrin, gives a good instance of this emotional sensibility abnormally exaggerated. “Thomasine was exactly like a child in her dread of silence, and spared no effort to enjoy pleasant sounds, whether produced by herself or from other sources.... When her birds were silent she resorted to the music room, with its musical box and two grand pianos.” This seems to confirm the idea that mere desire for sound as such is an important element in the attention given to music. The art of primitive races illustrates this as well as our own marches, dances, etc. Gurney distinguishes two methods of listening to music: the one accompanied by intelligent appreciation, the other “the indefinite way of hearing music,” which is only cognizant of the agreeable jingle or harmony. I think there is a form of the satisfaction still more crude; when we note the indifference of many habitual concert-goers to fine chamber music we must infer that the power of stimulus is the principal source of their apparently absorbed enjoyment. Gurney, too, seems to recognise this elementary factor when he says: “While it is natural to consider as unmusical those persons in whom a musical ear is lacking or is only imperfectly developed, and who therefore can not at all reproduce or perhaps recognise melodies, such persons often derive extreme pleasure of a vague kind from fine sound, more especially when it rushes through the ear in large masses.”47

Not to penetrate too far into the realm of æsthetics, we will attempt to answer but two of its more obvious questions, which, however, are by no means simple ones. Whence is derived the strong emotional effect (1) of rhythm and (2) of melody? (Some thoughts on the acoustic effects of poetry will be presented in the next section.) Rhythm may be regarded as the most salient quality of music, and seems to have antedated melody considerably among primitive peoples. While nothing is easier than to recognise the pleasure it affords, the derivation of its exciting effect on the emotions is most difficult to trace. Widely diverse theories have been advanced in the various attempts to solve this riddle. Rhythm is a conspicuous instance of the unity in variety which characterizes beauty. It satisfies this intellect, and is calculated to rivet the attention by exciting expectation. It answers to our own organization; the step, the heart-beat, breathing, the natural physical processes, are all rhythmic, as well as the alternation of waste and repair in the nervous system. But while these facts undoubtedly contribute to our enjoyment of rhythm, they can hardly account adequately for its intense emotional effects.

At this point the Darwinist comes to the rescue, and says that its employment in courtship sufficiently explains these effects, taking into account their hereditary association. He dwells on the sexual excitation which quivers in the purest enjoyment of music, and is “likely to excite in us in a vague and indefinite manner the strong emotions of a long-past age.”48 Far be it from me to discard this hypothesis hastily, particularly as I have no better one to offer, but since it appears to afford but a meagre chance of solving the problem, we may venture to seek enlightenment in another supposition. It is to be found in Souriau’s system of æsthetics, which in my opinion is not yet fully appreciated. As Nietzsche has said, “As in art, so with any æsthetic fact or appearance, a physiological condition of transport is essential,”49 so, too, Souriau insists that art employs every possible means to induce in us a semi-trance or hypnotic state, and through it renders us approachable to a degree which would be impossible when we are normally alert.50

Now, rhythm is to the last degree such a transporting agency, owing to its strong hold on the attention. Weinhold and Heidenhain have induced hypnosis by means of the ticking of a watch, and in so doing have only employed an agency which has similar uses the world over. Just as most of the inhabitants of the earth have learned the use of narcotics, so too are they eager to adapt such an intoxicant as rhythm proves to be.51

We may read numberless statements of hypnotic conditions being turned to account for religious and magical ends. Next to measured movements of one’s own body, we find that listening to rhythmic sounds and the monotonous repetition of incantations is the surest key to this state of dreamy consciousness.52 In Salvation Army methods the catchy, swinging songs are an indispensable means of eliciting the ecstatic condition, though, through the power of auto-suggestion, the expectation of the state is also strongly influential. It is the singing, however, as Souriau says, which throws the hearer into a state of mild hypnosis and renders him accessible to any suggestion.53 When the end in view is a religious one, the ecstatic subject sees all sorts of visions, and can swear to the appearance of saints or gods. When the measure is martial in its suggestions, the subject becomes belligerent; when it excites sexual feeling, he responds in that direction; in short, his soul, being entirely under the influence of the hypnotist, will reflect, and involuntarily respond to, every suggestion. We see, then, that these intense emotional effects are only in part attributable to sound as such; rhythm is not entirely responsible for them, but figures rather as a contingent cause through which suitable suggestions act as the immediate cause of emotional disturbances. “Hypnotism,” says Souriau, “is but a means, never an end. Art employs this means the better to control our minds and keep our imagination in the limits prescribed by her suggestions. What we owe to her is not sleep, but the dream.”54

This view seems to correspond with the facts. When we drum a familiar air with the fingers the regular time-beat is not at all stirring, indeed it is sometimes quite the contrary. When, however, agreeable or interesting associations are connected with it the rhythm at once induces in us a condition of the utmost susceptibility to suggestion. Any change in intensity or time then calls forth our capacity for “embodiment” (Einfühlung) or inner imitation in such force and completeness as would be altogether unattainable without this deep-seated propensity of ours for measured rhythm. In many cities it is customary, when fire breaks out, to ring a church bell in quicker time than its usual stroke, and by reason of the indirect factor—namely, their significance as a warning—the uniform sounds produce the most profound effect on æsthetically sensitive persons. Even those who would be unaffected by the announcement that another part of the city was in flames are deeply moved on hearing the tolling bell. The harmless tones become appalling. They seem to proclaim the destruction of the world, and the imagination dwells on the idea that nothing will be left in existence but these terrific, all-pervading waves of sound. The intense feeling aroused by drum-beats is similar to this. Since every loud sound is calculated to arouse our involuntary attention, a rhythmical succession of loud sounds irresistibly holds our consciousness, and, in the case of martial or festive music, association aids in casting the spell and, with the acoustic pulsations, forms a strong combination to which for the moment our whole being is subjected.

It is, however, when rhythm develops into melody that we experience the utmost force of its suggestive power.55 It is interesting to see how well Hanslick describes this preliminary condition of musical enjoyment—this trance-like state—only to censure it. “The elements of music, sound, and movement hold many emotional music lovers willing captives. It is surprising how large the number is of those who hear, or rather feel, music in this way. Since they are susceptible only to what is elementary, they attain but a vague supersensuous and yet sensuous excitement, answering to the commonplace character of the music which appeals to them. Lounging half asleep in the boxes, they yield themselves to the swing of the melody without taking note of the exalted passages which may swell, yearn, jubilate, and throb with increasing appeal. These people, sitting in a state of undefined ecstasy, form the body of ‘the appreciative public,’ and do more than any other class to discredit what is best in music. Science can now supply these hearers who are void of spirituality and seek only the effects of rhythm in music with what they need, by means of an agency which far surpasses art in this effect—namely, chloroform. It will plunge the whole organism into a lethargy pervaded by lovely dreams, and, without the vulgarity of drinking, will produce an intoxication which is not unlike its effect.”56 Hanslick is quite right in one respect: the trance condition as such is not confined to musical enjoyment; but he overlooks what Nietzsche makes so clear, that it is an indispensable physiological condition of the most intense form of æsthetic pleasure. His position is more that of the critic than that of the pleasure seeker. His saying that “the laity ‘feel’ music most and the cultivated artist least” shows this. First and foremost to him is his “intellectual satisfaction in following and anticipating the motive of the composition, in being confirmed in his judgment here or agreeably disappointed there.”57 The element of æsthetic enjoyment in this I have characterized, in my Einleitung in die Aesthetik (p. 187), as internal imitative creation. But the purest, highest, and most spontaneous pleasure is that in which we have no thought for the artist, but yield ourselves whole-heartedly to the beautiful object. Here is the essence of the problem, and here the condition of transport becomes most prominent, though it is never entirely wanting, even in the outer circles of æsthetics, where it becomes comparatively unimportant, as, for instance, in the satisfaction afforded us by the happy arrangement of the heads of a discourse.

In trying to find out just what it is that rhythm suggests to us in simple tones that succeed one another at agreeable intervals we may advance the hypothesis—to use a somewhat strained expression—namely, that it makes the impression of a dancing voice. By this I mean that in the enjoyment of melody there is a mental fusion of two kinds of association, one the analogue of pleasing movement in space, and the other the analogue of vocal expression of mental and emotional processes. The two are so incorporated as to produce a new entity which, as a whole, is unlike any other. The fact that we represent tone-beats by up-and-down motion in space has never been satisfactorily explained, although the greatest variety of reasons has been advanced.58 Yet it is unquestionable that we do, and that the act is one of our most cherished mental recreations; to use Schopenhauer’s expression, nothing else produces the “idea of movement” in such purity and freedom as do tone-beats. A series of tones more or less rapid, says Siebeck, can adequately reproduce the rhythm of movement “without a visible physical basis, which, by reason of its relation to other associated images, would tend to destroy the impression of movement considered purely as such.”59 On this, too, depends the extraordinary facility of tone movement, of which Köstlin says that it “glides, turns, twists, hops, leaps, jumps up and down, dances, bows, sways, climbs, quivers, blusters, and storms, all with equal ease, while in order to reproduce it in the physical world a man would have to dash himself to pieces or in some way become imponderable.”60 All this goes to prove that our pleasure in the realization of movement is never more perfectly ministered to than in music. Spellbound by the magic of rhythm, our consciousness repeats, voluntarily and persistently, the varying dance of tones, and, freed from all incumbrances, floats blissfully in boundless space, like Musa in Keller’s dance legend.

But melody is more than a mere alternation of tone. It is also a kind of language, by means of which the soul’s deepest emotions seek expression. While it does suggest up-and-down motion in space, at the same time it stands for the audible expression of our mental life. It would be misleading to attempt to explain this illusion from simple analogies between speech and music, since it is itself primarily a mode of expression, and we involuntarily make known our feelings and desires by means of it; by such association of tone with voice the former comes to point for us to life and its manifestations. There are, however, many points of resemblance between melody and the verbal expression of feeling. Dubos has devoted some attention to this relation, and, among contemporary writers, Spencer has most clearly set forth the analogy. But he makes the mistake of applying it to the origin of music, rather than as an explanation of our enjoyment of it, and is decidedly at fault in the statement that music originated in passionate and excited speech.61 It can attain reflection only by means of the changing time and stress of melodic and rhythmic movement, as well as the appropriation of the numerous sounds and intervals which are hidden in feeling speech, and which take effect on the listener. Yet even this statement must not be interpreted too literally. Just as scenery often owes its impressiveness to vague suggestions of human interest, just as thunder sounds like an angry voice without being an exact copy of it, so the analogy between music and speech may be very real without their becoming identical at any point. The song of birds will perhaps best illustrate my meaning. Why does the nightingale’s note seem plaintive and that of other birds cheerful or bold? Certainly not because we know the bird’s feelings, but because there is an indefinable likeness between our own vocal expression of emotion and the bird’s song, which, in spite of its vagueness, calls forth in us the most direct response. And it is exactly so in the other case. We can not expect to change an emotional declamation into the same kind of melody simply by fixing the pitch and regulating the intervals, for melody has its own laws, to which speech is not amenable. We see, then, that though the analogy is a real one and a constant, it must not be carried too far. How far variation of stress is concerned with emotional expression is interestingly shown in Wundt’s attempt to classify temperament on this basis:

Strong.Weak.

FastCholeric.Sanguine.

SlowMelancholic.Phlegmatic.

With regard to intervals, let any one attempt a mournful “O dear!” and a jubilant “All right!” in the major and minor thirds, and he will not remain in doubt for a moment as to which is the suitable one for each occasion. Gurney’s experiments with children resulted in the same emotional effects when the piano was very much out of tune as when it was correct,62 and the attempt of Helmholtz to find a physical explanation signally failed. All these facts point to the independence of the musical interval.

In concluding, I repeat that these two analogies are capable of fusion, as my figure of “dancing voice” implies.63 If we try, for instance, to determine what constitutes the masculine, almost harsh, quality of Bach’s melodies, we will find on inspection that his best arias have a variety of formal qualities of which it is difficult to say whether they pertain more to movement in space or to voice expression. There is pre-eminently a fulness of accent which imparts even to the weaker notes a certain impetus (Béreíté dích Zîón). Moreover, his propensity to begin with two strong accents directly contiguous (Méin gläúbiges Heize, In Déine Hände), which impart to the whole a massive character from the very first, as well as the many repetitions abruptly introduced in a different pitch, and the strongly accented final syllables where again two frequently come together; all these are characteristics which tell in two directions. Here is melody governed by the laws of harmony in its forceful, clear, and irresistibly progressive movement, as well as in the expression which it gives to a purely masculine personality, full of earnest purpose and sure of himself and his aims. Only by the fusion of these two lines of association do we get at the full significance of the piece.

(b) Productive Sound-Play

An embarrassing copiousness of material greets us when we turn to the subject of sounds and tones spontaneously produced. In them too we recognise the beginnings of, or rather the introduction to, art. Adherence to facts requires our classification to distinguish between vocal and instrumental music, and we will first consider voice practice and afterward the production of acoustic effects by means of other agencies, both in their playful aspects.

The child’s first voice practice consists in screaming. So far as it is a merely reflex expression of discomfort it does not concern us, but it is probable that the crying of children becomes practice for the organs of speech. Discomfort may still be its first occasion, but the continuation of the cry is playful. “L’enfant qui crie,” says Compayré, “a souvent plaiser à crier.”64 Children of two and three years show this very plainly; the howl begun in earnest is often prolonged from playful experimentation.65 And the same is probably true of the customary moaning wail of women over their dead. O. Ludwig says somewhere that a woman subdues pain when she can not escape it by means of the sensuous relief which she finds in noisy moaning.

More important than crying are the babbling, chattering, and gurgling of infants, which begin about the middle of the first three months. This instinctive tendency to motor discharge produces movements of the larynx, mouth, and tongue muscles, and the child that attains now to the voluntary production of tone is fairly launched in experimentation. Without this playful practice he could not become master of his voice, and the imperative impulse to imitation which is developed later would lack its most essential foundation. From among the numerous reports of the first efforts of infants in the direction of speech we will select Preyer’s very satisfactory observations: “At first, when the lall-monologue begins the mouth assumes an almost infinite variety of forms. The lips, the tongue, lower jaw, and larynx are all active, and more variously so than in later life; at the same time the breath is expelled loudly, so that now one, now another sound is accidentally produced. The child hears these new sounds, hears his own voice, and delights in making a noise as he enjoys moving his limbs in the bath.66... On the forty-third day I heard the first consonants. The child, being comfortably seated, gave utterance to numerous incoherent sounds, but at last said clearly am-ma. Of the vowels, only a and o could be distinguished then, but on the following day the baby astonished us by pronouncing the syllables ta-hu with perfect clearness. On the forty-sixth day I heard gö, örö, and five days later ara. On the sixty-fifth day a-omb sounded in his babbling, and on the seventy-first, at a time when he was most contented, the combination ra-a-ao. On the seventy-eighth day, with unmistakable signs of satisfaction, habu was pronounced. At five months he said ögö, ma-ö-ĕ, hӑ, ŏ, ho, ich. The rare i (English e) was clearer here than in the third month, and at about this time began the loud crowing as an expression of delight. The unusually loud breathing and the clearly voiced h in connection with the labial r in brrr-hà, are specially indicative of pleasure, as are also the aja, örrgö ā-ā-i ŏā sounds which, toward the end of the first half year, a child lying comfortably, indulges in. To this list, too, should be added the constantly repeated eu and oeu of the French heure and cœur, and the German modified vowels ä and ö. It often happens that the mouth is partly or entirely closed by the various movements of the tongue, causing the imprisoned breath to seek any possible outlet and giving rise to many sounds that are not employed in our speech, such as a clearly sounded consonant between b and p or b and d, and also the labial brr and m, all of which evidently please the child. It is noteworthy that without exception these sounds are expiratory, and I have never known any attempt to produce similar inspiratory ones.67 In the eleventh month the child began to whisper; he also produced strong, high, and full notes of varying tone, as if he were speaking in a language strange to us. In his monologue a vowel sound would be repeated, sometimes alone, sometimes in a syllable, as many as five times without a pause, but usually three or four times.68 The mechanical repetition of the same syllable such as papapa, occurs oftener than alternation with another, as pata, and the child will frequently stop short when he notices in the midst of his complicated lip and tongue movements and the expansion and contraction of his mouth that such a variation of acoustic effects is being produced. He actually appears to take pleasure in systematically exercising himself in all sorts of symmetric and asymmetric mouth movements, both silently and vocally.”69

Not to prolong this section unduly, I devote only cursory notice to the various voice plays of older children and adults, which may be said to correspond with the lall-monologue of infants and give expression to delight by shouting, whistling, yelling, crowing, humming, smacking, clicking, and the like. An example from the ancients is the “stloppus”: “C’est un amusement qui consiste à enfler see joues et à les faire crever avec explosion en les frappant avec les mains.”70

Another example, which, however, distorts the idea of play and makes it border on the pathological, is given in Boswell’s Life of Johnson: “In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth, ... sometimes making his tongue play backward from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly, under his breath, loo, too, too; all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally, when he had concluded a period in the course of a dispute by which he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale.”71

Two specially interesting motives are operative in producing playful voice practice—namely, the stimulus of what is agreeable and the stimulus of difficulty—and these we will find introducing us to the formal side of poetry. The pleasurable stimulus here takes the form of enjoyment of the repetition of like and similar sounds of a particular stress. This pleasure in repetition is a remarkable thing from many points of view; on the motor side there is a tendency to use the original sound as a model for the new one (Baldwin’s circular reaction), while in listening to self-originated tones and sounds primary memory is employed, that lingering of what has been heard in the consciousness which makes it possible to secure harmony of the new note with the previous one. The rhythm which we have been investigating is a simple form of such repetition, and a child will enjoy it in poetry as much as in music. At about the beginning of the fourth year children are often observed to make the attempt to talk in measure and assume the rôle of the productive artist. In general, the result is a senseless succession of words and syllables arranged rhythmically.72 Marie G—— frequently pretended to read such jingles to her dolls. The measure most popular with children seems to be the trochaic.73 This partiality still earlier takes in whole groups of sounds, as the mechanically measured repetition of the lall-monologue bears witness. Perez gives two good examples. “A little girl,” he says, “repeated from morning till night, for fourteen days, toro, toro, toro, or else rapapi, rapapi, rapapi, and took great delight in the monotonous rhythm. Another child, nearly three years old, kept up these refrains in speaking or crying, and would take a great deal of trouble to use them in answering questions, although his parents made every effort to rid him of this vagary. For three months this little parrot continued to repeat in a loud voice the syllables, unintelligible to himself or any one else,74 tabillè, tabillè, tabillè.” R. M. Meyer, who sees in the meaningless refrain the germ of poetry, will find in such extraordinary persistence a confirmation of his view.75 It is difficult to say whether there is not an inherited tendency connected with courtship in the instinctive impulse toward the gratification of such motor and sensor apparatus as is involved in this.

Be that as it may, it is undeniable that the repetition of meaningless rhymes, as well as of reasonable words and passages, is important to poetry as a whole. I would refer in this connection to Grosse’s Beginnings of Art, and for my own part confine myself to selecting a few interesting examples. The first is the chain rhyme, such as always delights a child. The following is from a favourite song of theirs:

A negative form is:

A chain rhyme which dates back to the fourteenth century has this same echoing effect, and, as Zingerle remarks, “affords a striking proof that the children’s verses of that period had the same form as our own.”76

A striking analogue of this is found in many poems of the Molukken dwellers. They consist of four-lined strophes, whose first and third lines form the second and fourth of each preceding one. This often results in absolutely inconsequent insertions, whose only office is to promote the echo effect and onward77 swing, yet sometimes the thought is well sustained. Here is an instance:

While the genuine refrain originated in the chiming in of the chorus with the other singers, this chain singing must have begun from new voices taking up the verse where others dropped it. For a last word on the subject, take this exquisite poem of Goethe’s, which combines the chain repetition with the charm of a refrain:

When the repetition is of single letters and syllables, instead of whole sentences, we call it alliteration and rhyme. A few examples will suffice to show that both are as important to the sound plays of children as to the poetry of adults. The alliteration may be mere repetition, as even the babbling babe loves to duplicate sounds, and while sometimes logical connection of ideas is conveyed as well (Haus und Hof, hearth and home), children enjoy meaningless sound-play quite as well.

As an example of original production, take this composition of Willie F——’s, which he liked to recite as he pushed his wagon about the room:

The verse of Ennius, “O Tyte, tuti Tati, tibi tanta, tyranne tulisti,” shows that adults, too, enjoy such alliteration, not only as a promoter of poetic beauty, but also for the mere play of sound.

Rhyme is often mere reduplication,79 its agreeableness being due to the actual musical quality to which identity and variety contribute, to repetition as such, and to its unifying effect on the two words or lines concerned. Children show enjoyment of rhyme at a very early age, and as soon as they can talk often amuse themselves with such combinations as Emma-bemma, Mutter-Butter, Wagon-Pagon, Hester-pester, and the like.80 And there are many counting out rhymes where the original meaning of the words is lost, and only the jingle remains, as:

To regard these rhymes as the direct inventions of the children themselves would be as mistaken as to attribute folk poetry to the masses. Most songs for children originate with grown people, yet they are childish and contain only what children can appreciate, for the principle of selection decides their fate. At the same time, original artistic production is exhibited by children in alliteration and rhythm as well as in rhyme. Thus, I noticed in Marie G——, when she was about three years old, a disposition to sportive variation of familiar rhymes appearing simultaneously with the rhythmic arrangement of words. The first rhyme evolved entirely from the profundities of her own genius came to light at the beginning of her fourth year, in the shape of this strange couplet, which she repeated untiringly:

Another child, Rudolf F——, also in his fourth year, declaimed persistently this original poem:

Pleasure in overcoming difficulties is an essential feature of all play. The determined onset against opposition, which is so conspicuous in play, shows how important is the fighting instinct, so deeply rooted in us all. Even in the lall-monologue, when the child accidentally produces a new sound by means of some unusual muscular effort, he intentionally repeats it (Baldwin’s persistent imitation82). Older children playfully cultivate dexterity of articulation by repeating rapidly difficult combinations of sounds. The commonest are those where the difficulty is mainly physiological, as Wachs-Maske, Mess-Wechsel; Der Postkutscher putzt den Postkutschkasten; L’origine ne se desoriginalisera jamais de son originalité; Si six scies scient six cyprès; She stood at the door of Burgess’s fish-sauce shop welcoming him in; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? And many similar ones. Others require quickness of wits as well, as in these verses:

Occasionally some obscurity in the language used involves a comic element, as—

A. Bastian relates of the Siamese children that they delight in repeating difficult sentences and alter their meaning while speaking rapidly, as Pho Pu Khün Me Pu (The grandfather near the grandmother) is changed to Pho Ku Khün Me Ku (My father near me, his mother), or Pit Patu Thöt, Pit Patu Thot (Shut the door, Shut the temple door), Mo Loi Ma Ha Phe, Phe Loi Pai Ha Mo (The floating pot bumped against the boat, and vice versa), etc.85 “Negro mothers on the Loango coast,” says Pechnel-Loesche, “teach their children verses which trip the tongue when spoken rapidly.”86

A similar sport for adults is afforded by the students’ song, Der Abt von Philippsbronn, in which the syllable “bronn” must be repeated four times. After the first time there is a “Pst!” sound, after the second a “Pfiff!” after the third a “Click!” and after the fourth a snore, all given as rapidly as possible. The accelerated tempo in the country song in Don Juan and in the wedding feast of the dwarfs in Goethe’s Hochzeitslied are of the same character.

Other instruments besides the human voice are employed in sound-play. Even parrots and monkeys have found pleasure in other noises than the practice of their own voices. The young gorilla, in his exuberance of spirits, drums on his own breast, or, with even more satisfaction, on any available hollow object, such as a bowl, a cask, etc. The child’s first auditory satisfaction derived from any act of his own is probably the splashing of water; another is the rustling of paper. Preyer says: “The first sound produced by himself which gave the child evident satisfaction was the rattling of paper. He often indulged in this, especially in his nineteenth week.”87 Strümpell noticed the same thing at six months, and also that it gave his little daughter pleasure to pat the table with the palm of her hand88 (rhythmic repetition again). The boy observed by Sully was in the beginning of his eighth month when he one day accidentally dropped a spoon from the table where he was playing with it. “He immediately repeated the action, now, no doubt, with the purpose of gaining the agreeable shock for his ear. After this, when the spoon was put into his hand he deliberately dropped it. Not only so, like a true artist, he went on improving on the first effect, raising the spoon higher and higher, so as to get more sound, and at last using force in dashing and banging it down.”89 At nine months Preyer’s child beat twelve times on the stopper of a large caraffe with increasing force. “On the three hundred and nineteenth day,” he goes on, “occurred a notable acoustic experiment which denoted much intellectual progress. He struck the spoon on his tray just as his other hand accidentally moved it. The sound was deadened, and the child noticed the difference. He took the spoon in his other hand and struck the tray, deadening the sound intentionally, and so on repeatedly. In the evening the experiment was repeated, with the same result.”90 Possibly Preyer is right in regarding this as a sort of scientific experiment on the part of the child to investigate the causes of the deadening of the sound, but Perez thinks the child’s action is accounted for by his desire to feel in both hands alternately the effect of the blow and of the shock.91 However that may be, we are forced to agree with the German student entirely when, from these observations, he finally draws the conclusion: “The restless experimentation of little children and of infants in their first attempts at accommodation, and even their apparently insignificant acts (such as the rattling of paper in the second quarter), are not only useful for the development of their intelligence, but are indispensable as a means of determining reality in a literal sense. We can never estimate how much of the common knowledge of mankind is attained in this way.”92

Without pausing to enumerate the various instrumentalities employed in childish sound-play, we will leave the infant and pass on to consider the insatiate demands of our sensory organism. It seems that, in order to maintain our present life, an incessant rain of outer stimuli must beat upon us, like that atomic storm which many believe pours constantly upon the heavenly bodies and accounts for gravitation. Indeed, the opinion has been advanced, and apparently supported by some pathological phenomena, that the cessation of all peripheral stimuli marks the dissolution of psychic existence. Certainly the sense of hearing has large claims to notice in this connection—we all know the gruesomeness of absolute silence. This may be why children are so indefatigable in making noises, patting their hands, cracking their knuckles,93 snapping and drumming with the fingers, stamping and beating with the feet, dragging sticks about, creaking and slamming doors, beating hollow objects, blowing in keys, banging on waiters, clinking glasses, snapping whips, and, in short, delighting in tearing and smashing noises generally.94 And adults are not much behind them. These same sounds in other forms please us too, as, for example, the clinking of spurs, snapping a riding whip, rattling sabres, the tinkling of tassels and fringe, the rustle of flowing draperies. The versatile walking cane, too, comes in for a thousand uses here—in striking, beating, and whistling through the air. Going for a walk one winter day, I fell behind two worthy scholars who were deep in an earnest discussion. We came to a place where the drain beside the road was filled with beautiful milk-white ice. Crack! went the older man’s cane through the inviting crust, in the very midst of his learned disquisition. The student everywhere is a past master in such sport, as his unfortunate neighbours find out to their sorrow in the watches of the night. The measured hand clapping, which the child learns so early, occurs in the dances of the people. I have mentioned the maddening rapidity of the Haxenschlagen. Enjoyment of crushing or rending destructible objects is characteristic of every age. I will cite as an example Goethe’s famed boyish exploit. After throwing from a window and smashing all his own store of breakable ware, incited by the appreciative cheers of the neighbours, he descended to the kitchen and seizing first upon a platter found that it made such a delightful crash that he must needs try another. He continued the entertainment until he had demolished all the dishes within his reach. In such a case, of course, enjoyment of the sound is not the only source of pleasure. Joy in being a cause is conspicuous when the clatter is self-originated, and sometimes renders even unpleasant sounds attractive, like scratching with a slate pencil, for instance. Besides, there is the satisfaction of impulses to movement, and often, too, the destructive impulse like that for overcoming difficulties is closely related to the propensity for fighting.

In all this we have not yet touched on the subject of acoustic playthings, and it is so large that I can only throw out a few suggestions as to the likeness between primitive musical instruments and the noise-producing toys of children. We have seen that even the ape has discovered the principle of instrumental music, and puts it to practice by pounding with his hand on a stick or some hollow object. A baby does the same thing, and will take great delight in beating persistently and with a certain regularity on a table with his hand, on the floor with a stick, or on his tray with a spoon. If we regard these sounds thus playfully produced by beating on some foreign object, together with some notion of time, as affording probably the first suggestion of a musical instrument, we are met by two possibilities: either the stick itself is considered as the source of the noise or else the object it strikes is so regarded. In the simple instruments of savages both possibilities are realized. The Australian bell is a thick, bottle-shaped club of hard wood which, on being struck, gives forth a peculiar long note, and the drum with which the women accompany the dancing of the men is only a tightly stretched opossum skin, which they have been wearing on their shoulders.95 Stringed instruments were derived from the bow; Homer sang of the clear sound which Odysseus drew from the tightly strung bow, and Heraclitus uses a complex figure of speech involving the bow and the lyre. The South African “gora” is only a modified form of this trusty weapon of the Bushman. The modification consists in introducing on one side, between the end of the cord and the bow, a trimmed, leaf-shaped, and flattened quill, which is placed upon the lips of the performer and set in motion by his breath.

How can we explain these inventions otherwise than as the results of indefatigable experimentation on the part of either children or adults? Wind instruments no doubt arose from contracting the lips and blowing through the fist or from playful investigation of the properties of arrows and the hollow ornaments worn on the neck, while vibratory ones, like the gora, no doubt find their prototype in the blowing on leaves and grass blades, which children are so fond of. Where there is no such thing as scientific experimentation, playful experimentation becomes the mother of invention and of discovery.

While it is thus not improbable on the whole that child’s play has had much to do with the origination of primitive instruments, we find, too, that children have borrowed many of their toys from the grown people. Things which, from the crudest beginnings, have been brought to a high degree of perfection are reproduced in miniature and simplified form for the little ones. Instances of this are too common and familiar to require illustration here. Even in remote ages it was the custom to give children little bows, wagons, dolls, etc., as well as copies of musical instruments. In the province of Saxony queer clay drums, shaped like an hourglass, have been unearthed; they must belong to the stone age, and among them is a tiny specimen, which can hardly be anything else than a toy.96 It often happens that instruments which have entirely gone out of use among adults continue to be playthings for the children for thousands of years. This is the case with the rattles which are now the merest plaything, having no interest for grown people, except as a means of quieting an infant, yet their original connection with it was probably much closer, as our progenitors used such instruments at dances, feasts, etc., for the pious purpose of driving off evil spirits.97 There is a widespread custom among savage tribes of frightening away the enemies of the stars by noisy demonstrations, especially during the absence of the moon. As these observances gradually become obsolete, the rattling instruments are saved from oblivion by being handed down as toys to the hospitable little people, without, however, entirely losing the glamour of their religious office. Becq de Fouquières says, in speaking of the many religious practices that are connected with children’s toys: “Ses premiers joujoux dont en quelque sorte des talismans et des amulettes.”98 Many rattles have been found in the graves of prehistoric children, together with clay figures of animals, marbles, etc. Schliemann found a child’s rattle, ornamented with bits of metal, in the “third city” at Hissarlik, and Squier found a snail shell filled with tiny pebbles, with the mummy of a child, in Peru.99 Amaranthes, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, in his remarkable Woman’s Lexigon, defines a child’s rattle as “a hollow instrument made of silver, lead, wood, or wire, trimmed with bright coral and with little bells either inclosed in it or attached to the outside.”100 Older boys make a rattle of a dried bladder, with peas in it.

As I have dwelt on the probability of the invention of the first musical instruments by means of playful experimentation, I will now touch briefly upon another view. Karl Bücher, in his admirable treatise on Arbeit und Rhythmus, develops the hypothesis that rhythmic art is derived from physical labour. Physical labour which employs the limbs with perhaps some simple implement assumes spontaneously a rhythmical character, since this tends to conserve psychic as well as physical force. The sounds arising as the work proceeds suggest the germ idea of instrumental music and lead to involuntary vocal imitation. Thus, poetry and music are engendered in the very midst of toil, and only later, when they attain to independent existence, are dance motions substituted for the movements of physical labour, and frequently become adaptations of them (as in pantomime dances, for instance).

Convinced as I am that this theory contains a genuine though perhaps one-sided101 contribution to the proper explanation of rhythmical art, I am unable to concur in what Bücher regards as its logical consequence—namely, that musical instruments are adaptations of the labourer’s tools. “We know,” he says, “that labour rhythmically carried on has a musical quality, and since savages, having no appreciation of pitch or harmony,102 value rhythm alone, it is only necessary to strengthen and purify the tone produced by the implement and to complicate the rhythm, in order to produce what is in their estimation high art. Naturally, to accomplish this the tools were differentiated; varying conditions, as they arose in their labours, became the occasion of further efforts for the perfecting of tone and timbre, and the art instinct, struggling for expression, first found it in such rude music. So originated musical instruments from these tools of manual labour, and it is a noteworthy fact that beaten instruments were the first to appear, and are to-day the favourites of savages. We find among them the drum, gong, and tam-tam, while with many tribes the only instrument is the kettledrum, which clearly proclaims its origin, being in many cases nothing more than a skin tightly stretched across the grain mortar or a suitable pot or kettle. Primitive stringed instruments also were struck, like the Greek pleptron, the tone of a violin and of the strings themselves being a later discovery. Wind instruments, too, are of very ancient origin, the commonest being the flute and reed pipe, both of which are rhythmic. The ancient Greeks used them first to mark time and as accompanying instruments.”103

I hardly think that this view will meet with general acceptance. The wind instrument, whose importance to primitive peoples Bücher somewhat underestimates, did indeed serve the purposes of rhythm principally, but it would be difficult to trace its derivation from any manual tool. Nor does it follow that rattles and flappers came from the use of hammers; while the drum, whose prototype he finds in the grain mortar, is in use by tribes who have no mortars. I conclude, therefore, that musical instruments can, with more probability, be accounted for as the result of instinctive sound-play and the experimentation with noise-producing implements, which accompanies it.

6. Sensations of Sight

Turning his face toward the light is about the only manifestation of sight sensation displayed by the infant during his first few days. Many young animals find themselves very much at home in the outer world as soon as they are born, but such is not the case with a child. He must attain to a clear perception of external objects by toilsome experimentation, which commonly requires about five months for its completion, though the fifth week as well as the fifth month marks an epoch in the practice of sight. “The average time is about the fifth week,” says Raehlmann, “when the capacity to ‘fix’ an object is attained—that is, to take cognizance of the retinal picture of what comes within the line of his vision, as it is thrown on the macula lutea. About this time, too, the eye movements, which till then are not definitely co-ordinated, become regulated, while associated movements, such as elevating and depressing the line of vision (the latter somewhat later than the former), also appear.... But movements for the purpose of directly subjecting to fixation objects which lie in the periphery of the field of vision are entirely wanting at this period. The second epoch, that at five months, is marked by the development of orientation in the field of vision. At this time begin actual glancing movements, which shift the line of vision and bring peripheral retinal images on to the macula lutea. Contemporaneously with this, a definite system of innervations is established, especially for those muscles which are employed in shifting the line of vision. Secondly, the winking reflex is perfected by the approach of objects from the periphery of the field of vision. Thirdly, at this time the first experiments in touch controlled by sight are instituted, and serve to bring tactile perceptions into relation with those of sight. The interval between birth and the fifth week, as well as that from this time to the fifth month, is employed in the acquirement of such sense perceptions as react collectively on the organ and commit it to special uses and control. So, on the authority of repeated experience, whatever is unsuitable is gradually excluded, and only those eye movements are retained which further the proper convergence of the two retinal images.”104 Of course, the power of vision is by no means completely developed at five months, though the technique of the function, so to speak, is by that time essentially perfected. Now begin the real tasks of visual practice: acquiring familiarity with external objects, imprinting the visual images on the mind, and widening the scope of association. On entering the subject of child’s play which is connected with vision it is evident that there are four points for us to keep in mind—brightness, colour, form, and movement. The inner images and concepts, which go hand in hand with such perception (especially with the notion of movement), do not, so far as I can see, form part of our study, since while an effect of the highest importance they do not constitute one of the objects of play.105

(a) Sensations of Brightness

Sensations of brilliance seem to arouse feelings of pleasure at a remarkably early period. Thus Preyer says: “Long before the close of the first day the facial expression of the babe held facing the window changed suddenly when I shaded his eyes with my hand.... The darkened face looked much less satisfied.”106 Toward the end of the first week the child turned his face toward the window when he had been placed otherwise, and seemed pleased to see it again. During the second week a child will sometimes cry when taken into the dark, and can only be quieted by having the sensation of brightness restored. Thus, we see that in the very first week there is at least a premonition of experimentation. In his second month the infant will break out into joyful cries at the sight of gilded picture frames or lighted lamps, illuminated Christmas trees or shining mirrors. Even in Wolfdietrich the delight of children in bright and shining things is recorded:—

And it seems to grow with his growth in other directions. The following are some of Sigismund’s notes on his daughter’s third quarter: “The child is now passionately fond of light, and in the evening, when the darkening room is lighted up, she regularly shouts aloud and dances for joy.... This coincides with the fact that artificial illumination stimulates adults also to a genuine and boisterous gaiety. Our feasts and dances are always held at night, and indeed it is difficult to attain the requisite dithyrambic pitch in the daytime.”108 Nansen wrote, when the electric light blazed for the first time on the frozen-in Fram: “What a tremendous influence light has on the spirits of men! This light enlivened us like a draught of good wine.”109

To what degree this feeling is universal is shown by the fact that bright and shining objects are highly prized the world over. The school child, the savage, the cultured man, display the same preference; there is no essential difference whether it is a scrap of glass for which the negro gives a generous portion of his worldly goods, or the blazing diamond coronet for which the lady in society parts with hers. That our coins are made of gold and silver is attributable to the high polish which they take, and which won great favour for them in prehistoric times. Poets of all ages have celebrated the brightness of the human eye, and because light makes us cheerful we speak of the brilliancy of an entertainment, the beaming joyousness of the golden day. The strongest light effects are produced by flame and by the heavenly bodies. The strange attraction which flame exerts on insects, fish, and birds is familiar to all. Romanes’s sister relates in the journal which she kept, about a capuchin ape, that the clever little fellow rolled strips of newspaper into lamplighters and stuck the end into the fire, to amuse himself watching the flame.110 Primitive men must have experimented with fire in the same way when they came in contact with it in lightning strokes and volcanic phenomena, and in their earliest use of it for boring their stone hatchets. Without playful experimentation, this most important acquisition of mankind, the mastery of fire, could hardly have been attained. The little ones in our homes would find playing with fire one of their favourite diversions if we did not use every means to prevent it, on account of the danger. In spite of all warnings, the untoward fate of little Polly Flinders of nursery memory is daily becoming the experience of numberless children.

With grown people the light and glow of fire are of the first importance in both religious and secular festivities. I need only refer once more to Sigismund’s saying, quoted above. The charm of moonlit and starlit nights is one of the deepest joys that Nature affords us, which only the regal splendour of sunshine can surpass. Perhaps it has never been more worthily sung than in these verses of Mörike’s, which the very spirit of Shakespeare seems to have dictated:

The human longing for light is so strong that it becomes for him the natural symbol for divinity, a fact on which we have not time to dwell, except to note the significance of the heavenly bodies and of fire in religion. The self-devised Nature worship of young Goethe, who greeted the rising sun with an offering, is interesting, and still more so is the statement of the deaf-mute Ballard that, as a boy of eight years, he arrived by his own unaided efforts at some sort of metaphysical and religious thought, and felt a kind of reverence for the sun and moon.112 This is the effect of light which has so great a part in the mythology of all peoples. Even in the Old Testament account of the creation light is the first thing which God called out of chaos. “And God saw that the light was good.”

We find brightness of aspect especially affected in the industrial arts and in painting, and the employment of shining and glowing substances in decoration is too familiar to need comment. They are found in the ornaments of the Stone period, such as necklaces of animals’ teeth, bits of ivory and shells, as well as among savage tribes of the present day. Grosse says: “The ornaments of these people may be called brilliant not in a figurative, but in a literal sense, and there is hardly any quality which contributes so much to the decorative effect of an object in savage estimation as brightness. The natives of Fire Island frequently hang fragments of a glass bottle on their neck band, considering them very superior adornments, and Bushmen are happy when they are made the proud possessors of iron or brass rings. However, they are by no means dependent on such windfalls from a higher race, and when the ornaments of civilized man and barbarian are both wanting and precious stones are not available they betake themselves to Nature, who can well supply their needs. The sea tosses up polished shells upon the beach, vegetation furnishes bright seeds and shining stalks, and animals give their shining teeth, as well as fur and feathers.”113

In painting, light effects in connection with colour are of the greatest importance, and are skilfully managed by many masters of the art. Rembrandt may be said to possess the highest genius for their treatment. Without going into particulars of technique, I may note that the pleasure which we derive from light effects in painting may be referred to two opposite extremes. We know that it is out of the question for the painter to transfer to his canvas Nature’s extremes of light and shade, only about half of the eight hundred ascertained degrees of brilliancy being available to him.114 Helmholtz has shown in an interesting manner how the artist may triumph over this difficulty. It proves to be a special case for the application of Weber’s law; the adjustment of intensities is not in proportion to the actual force of the stimuli, but to their relative force. Thus, when the painter tempers the brilliance of Nature he actually gives a more faithful representation, because the toned-down light against the deepened shadows of a picture produces the same effect on the senses as the clear beams of sunlight in contrast with its luminous shadows.115 This so-called normal technique is objected to on diametrically opposite grounds. Some painters, refusing to darken and falsify Nature, seek to make their shadows as bright as are those in the diffused light of day. As it is impossible, however, to represent the actual intensity of the light, their attempt to reproduce the actual is only half realized. The true contrast between light and dark fails, and the result is the faded, obscure, hazy appearance which characterizes the work of extremists of this school. In the other direction the attempt is sometimes made to darken the shadows so excessively as actually to make the difference between light and shade greater than it is in Nature. Caravaggio and Ribera, Lenbach and Samberger, furnish examples of this kind of painting. Their work is done on the principle of darkening the shade, in order to bring out the light more sharply; eyes, brow, and hands in their pictures seem to surpass the clearness of Nature because of this difference, which is greater than that of reality. These artists are true lovers of light.

(b) The Perception of Colour

The exact period in a child’s life when susceptibility to colour impressions arises has not been determined. Preyer’s son seemed interested in a rose-coloured curtain, with the sun shining on it, on his twenty-third day,116 but who knows whether it was the colour that pleased him or only the brightness? And the same doubt hangs over a hundred other observations taken in the first months of life, as, for example, this of Sully’s: “Like other children, he was greatly attracted by brightly coloured objects. When just seven weeks old he acquired a fondness for a cheap, showy card, with crudely brilliant colouring and gilded border. When carried to the place where it hung, ... he would look up to it and greet his first love in the world of art with a pretty smile.”117 Since we can not be certain that it was not the mere brilliancy which produced this effect, Sully is quite right when he says: “The first delight in coloured objects is hardly distinguishable from the primordial delight in brightness.”118 Raehlmann thinks, however, judging from the child’s positions and actions, that one can—though not till considerably later than the fifth week—be sure that it perceives a difference between objects of similar form and complementary colour.119 And it is probably quite safe to assume that there is pleasure in gay colours by the end of the first three months.

Here we are met at once by the question, Does the child prefer any particular colours? Most observers agree that the child displays more interest in the warm colours—red and yellow—than in the colder ones.120 Baldwin, on the contrary, found from his experiments with a baby nine months old (not using yellow, however) that blue was chosen oftenest.121 Although Preyer denies the validity of Baldwin’s experiment, it seems to me quite possible that here, as well as elsewhere, there is room for the manifestation of individual preference.122 The choice of yellow and red can hardly be a necessary one. For example, I find Grosse’s rule, that children will always empty the vermilion cup in a paint box first and will, when allowed to choose, always take a flaming red, by no means invariable. Marie G—— (five years old) turns oftener to the blue in her paint box than to the red. She herself pointed out lilac as her favourite colour, and weeks before my question she persisted in using bits of lilac silk in her embroidery, though her mother had taken them away from her. Having chosen the lilac, she however added, after a pause for reflection, “Red is pretty, too.” Another little girl, Deti K——, at the same time answered the question as to what colour she liked best, “Lilac too, but bright.” Still another named first lilac, then rose, and after these red and yellow. I consider it not improbable that in many children of fine sensibility the stimulus of crude red and yellow is too strong to be particularly agreeable. This supposition perhaps explains the exceptions to the rule, and also seems to interfere with the likening of children to savages, which was formerly so useful. Observations of the children of such tribes have never been made, to my knowledge.

Before going on, however, to consider the case of savages, we must look briefly into the problem suggested by the fact that there is choice of any colour. The child’s susceptibility to the cooler colours, and even its perception of them, especially blue and gray, has been questioned. Preyer says: “The inability of my two-year-old child to recognise blue and gray can be argued not only from his occasional failure to do so, but also from the evident difficulty he encounters in connecting the commonly used and familiar names ‘blue’ and ‘gray’ with any special sensations, while ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ were correctly applied several months ago. Were the sensations of blue and gray as clear as those of red and yellow there would be no failure to recognise the colours. The child does not know what green and blue mean, though he does know red and yellow.... Even at four years blue was oftener called green in the morning twilight, though to me it was clearly blue. The child was greatly astonished to find that his blue stocking had become gray overnight. For years very dark green was called black.”123 These striking observations seem indeed partially to confirm the hypothesis of Geiger, Gladstone, and Magnus, who came to the conclusion, from the study of ancient picture writing, that primeval man distinguished only the three primary colours (the Young-Helmholtz theory)—red, green, and violet. From these were derived orange and yellow, while blue was the very last to be discovered. Yet, indeed, so far as any philological support is concerned, the hypothesis can hardly be maintained either in regard to the ancients or to modern low-standing tribes.

In the remains of buildings and plastic works, which are older than any picture writings, traces are found of all the colours of the spectrum, and the philological test, when applied to civilized peoples, does not yield the confirmation which advocates of the theory desire. While it is true that the Esthonians have no word of their own for blue (their sini is borrowed from the Russian), but the apparent deduction from that fact is rendered doubtful, to say the least, by this passage from Raehlmann: “Some time ago I tested an old Esthonian peasant woman with a gray starling. She was not quite sure of the name of the colour, and changed it often. On closer questioning about her ideas of colour, she seemed to have the spectral series correctly in mind, distinguishing the colours as blood, wax, grass, and sky. She had never needed other terms with which to express her sensations, but she took pains to convince me that she had perfectly clear ideas on the subject of colour.”124