feels that the interest has somehow shifted. Still more dimly does the animal feel that, apart from external interests which prompt nine-tenths of its behaviour, chiefly through the senses of sight, hearing, and smell, there are also matters in which the interest has somehow shifted to his own body. For the germ of self is essentially an embodied self. And perhaps the emotions, which ring through the system for some time after the external cause has been removed, serve in some degree to aid in this dimly felt shifting of interest. Whatever may be the exact psychological nature of the emotions-and there has been much discussion of the question -it may be regarded as certain that they introduce into the conscious situation elements which contribute not a little to the energy of behaviour. They are important conditions to vigorous and sustained conation. And so closely interwoven are these elements with the whole situation in its impulsive aspect, that their disentanglement, in psychological analysis, is a matter of extreme difficulty. I have elsewhere devoted some space to the consideration of the matter. I there follow Professor William James in regarding organic effects, other than motor sensations, as specially characteristic of the emotions in their primary genesis. The cold sweat, the dry mouth, the catch of the breath, the grip of the heart, the abdominal sinking, the blood-tingle or blood-stagnation-these and their like, in varied modes and degrees, characterize the emotions of fear, dread, anger, and so forth, when they rise to any pitch of intensity, and contribute largely to their sharpness and piquancy. These organic effects may be regarded as part of the private and individual business of the body; but in experience they closely coalesce with the motor effects through which the animal has to deal in practical behaviour with that which evokes the emotion. On this view these organic states which contribute characteristic elements in the emotional consciousness are due to afferent data from the vascular system and visceral organs, just as motor consciousness is due to afferent data from the "Habit and Instinet," ch. ix., p. 186. parts concerned in overt behaviour. But, associated with emotional states, there are also certain motor reactions, which we speak of as their "expression "-so carefully discussed and elucidated by Darwin,-and these unquestionably contribute data to consciousness which coalesce with those afforded by the visceral and vascular elements. The whole is commonly suffused with feeling-tone, and the object which excites the emotion is a centre of pleasurable or painful interest. Representative elements, as experience develops, crowd into the conscious situation and render it more complex. And in addition to all this, there is, apart from the motor expression, the strenuous behaviour of flight or attack, or other mode of vigorous procedure which we commonly speak of as the outcome of the emotional state. The conscious situation, in the case of an enraged or scared animal actually behaving as such, is thus exceedingly complex. And it should be understood that in urging the importance of vascular and visceral elements, this complexity is nowise denied. What is suggested is that these elements are essential, and that they serve to characterize the distinctively emotional factor in the situation, that in any case they heighten the conative tendency. Suflicient has now been said to indicate-but scarcely more than indicate the importance of feeling-tone, interest, and emotion in determining the nature, character, and effective energy of the conscious situations which arise in the course of animal behaviour. They largely influence, and in part direct, the course of the conative tendency. But they also occur as its sequel. In animal, as in human life, the successful attainment of the end towards which conation sets is highly pleasurable. The equilibrium that is reached after instability, though it marks the close of present endeavour, leaves aftereffects in consciousness in a sense of satisfaction which enters re-presentatively into later situations and helps to further more strenuous endeavour. II.-PLAY "There are two quite different popular ideas of play," says Professor Groos, in his admirable work on "The Play of Animals." "The first is that the animal (or man) begins to play when he feels particularly cheerful, healthy, and strong; the second that the play of young animals serves to fit them for the tasks of later life." The former view, in which the latter may be included incidentally as a result, is closely associated with the names of Schiller, who suggested it, and of • Mr. Herbert Spencer,† who developed it. Mr. Wallaschek expresses the conception briefly and clearly when he says, "It is the surplus vigour in more highly developed organisms, exceeding what is required for immediate needs, in which play of all kinds takes its rise, manifesting itself by way of imita tion or repetition of all those efforts and exertions which are essential to the maintenance of life." That surplus vigour is often a condition favouring the manifestation of play is prob able enough, and seems to be supported by observation and experience; but that it is likewise a condition favouring the chase, combat, mating, and much of the serious business of animal life seems equally unquestionable. Success in all these matters is largely determined by overflowing energy. In play, however, this surplus vigour finds vent when there is no serious occasion for its exercise. But, as Professor Groos says,§ "while simple overflow of energy explains quite well that the individual who finds himself in a condition of overflowing energy is ready to do something, it does not explain how it happens that all the individuals of a species manifest exactly the specific kind of play expression which prevails with their own species, but differs from every other." And if to this it be replied, that the specific kind is determined by repetition or * "Letters on the Esthetic Education of Mankind," xxvii. "On the Origin of Music," pp. 231, 232. "The Play of Animals," Eug. trans., p. 12. imitation of what we have called the serious business of animal life, Professor Groos's rejoinder is, that "the conception of imitation here set forth-namely, as the repetition of serious activities to which the individual has himself become accustomed-cannot be applied directly to the primary phenomena of play-that is, to its first elementary manifestations" prior to any experience of these serious activities. The repetition (with a difference 1) is in such cases not the re-enactment of what has been previously performed in full carnest by the individual, but rather the reappearance in the young of ancestral modes of procedure-in other words, its specific character is such because it is a piece of instinctive behaviour or arises from instinctive proclivities.. And this is the central point of the interpretation elaborated with great skill and candour by Professor Groos. Play is instinctive; and its biological value lies in the training it affords for the subsequent earnest of life. Before leaving the surplus energy theory of play one more point made by Professor Groos may be mentioned. He contends that, though superabundant energy is a favouring condition of animal play (as it is, indeed, of all animal behaviour), still it is not a necessary condition. Animals often play when they are tired out. "Notice a kitten when a piece of paper blows past. Will not any observer confirm the statement that, just as an old cat must be tired to death or else already filled to satiety if it does not try to seize a mouse running near it, so will the kitten, too, spring after the moving object, even if it has been exercising for hours and its superfluous energies are entirely disposed of? Or observe the play of young dogs when two of them have raced about the garden until they are forced to stop from sheer fatigue, and they lie on the ground panting, with tongues hanging out. Now one of them gets up, glances at his companion, and the irresistible power of his innate longing for the fray seizes him again. He approaches the other, sniffs lazily about him, and, though he is evidently only half inclined to obey the powerful impulse, attempts to seize Op. cit., p. 7. his leg. The one provoked yawns, and in a slow, tired kind of way puts himself on the defensive; but gradually instinct conquers fatigue on him too, and in a few minutes both are tearing madly about in furious rivalry until want of breath puts an end to the game. And so it goes on with endless repetition, until we get the impression that the dog waits only long enough to collect the needed strength, not till superfluous energy urges him to activity." Coming now to Professor Groos's interpretation of play, we find in it, perhaps for the first time in the literature of the subject, adequate stress laid on its biological value. “The play of young animals," he says, "has its origin in the fact that certain very important instincts appear at a time when the animal does not seriously need them. . . . Its utility consists in the practice and exercise it affords for some of the more important duties of life, inasmuch as selection [in the higher animals] tends to weaken the blind force of instinct, and aids more and more the development of independent intelligence as a substitute for it. At the moment when intelligence is sufficiently evolved to be more useful in the struggle for existence than the most perfect instinct, then will selection favour those individuals in whom the instincts in question appear earlier and in less elaborated forms-in forms that are merely for practice and exercise,-that is to say, it will favour those animals which play. . . . Animals cannot be said to play because they are young and frolicsome, but rather they have a period of youth in order to play; for only by so doing can they supplement the insufficient hereditary endowment with individual experience, in view of the coming tasks of life.” Some stress is here laid on the fact that important instincts appear at a time when the animal does not seriously need them. It seems to imply the doctrine of what biologists term "acceleration "which means the development of an organ or mode of behaviour at an earlier period in the descendants than that at which it appeared in the ancestors. Thus the adult fighting or hunting instinct of past generations appears in the young * Op. cit., p. 19. † Op. cit., pp. 75, 76. |