named in better terms than "good spirits" and the joy of existence, so forcibly suggested during the free play of youth. On the other hand, there is no more piteous sight than that afforded by the young animal, "cabined, cribbed, confined," suffering from ennui and depression-all its organic processes sluggish and craving to be quickened into the natural vigour of life, not creeping slowly through the veins, but coursing at full flood.

In the psychological aspect of play Dr. Groos assigns perhaps the first place to pleasure in the possession of power, or, as Preyer phrases it, pleasure in being a cause. We must be careful, however, lest in using such expressions we seem to imply that animals-even quite young animals-are capable of entertaining ideas which belong to a much later stage of mental development. Speaking of "joy in ability or power," Professor Groos says, "This feeling is first a conscious presentation to ourselves of our personality as it is emphasized by play. . . . But it is more than this; it is also delight in the control we have over our bodies and over external objects. Experimentation in its simple as well as its more complicated forms is, apart from its effect on physical development, educative in that it helps in the formation of causal associations. The young bear that plays in the water, the dog that tears a paper into scraps, the ape that delights in producing new and uncouth sounds, the sparrow that exercises its voice, the parrot that smashes his feeding trough-all experience the pleasure in energetic activity, which is, at the same time, joy in being able to accomplish something." But those who agree with Dr. Stout, as I do without hesitation, in denying personality (save in a very embryonic condition) and the conception of causation to animals in the perceptual stage of mental evolution, though they may find in Dr. Groos's contention a central core of truth, will be unable fully to accept his manner of presenting it. 'Any single train of perceptual activity," says Dr. Stout, "has internal unity and *Op. cit., p. 290.

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"Manual of Psychology," p. 266.

continuity. But where conscious life is mainly perceptual, the several trains of activity are relatively isolated and disconnected with each other. They do not unite to form a continuous system, such as is implied in the conception of a person. We must deny personality to animals." To this I would merely add that, even where perceptual continuity in animals reaches its maximum, it is not reflectively grasped ns a whole, and the ideal construction of the personal ego is not conceived as antithetical to the impersonal world of objects. With what Dr. Stout says about causality I am in complete agreement. "We must notice," he urges, "the essential difference which separates the merely perceptual category from that of ideational and conceptual thought. The perceptual category is always purely and immediately practical in its operation. It is a constitutive form of thought only because it is a constitutive form of action. The question 'Why?' has no existence for the merely perceptual consciousness. It does not and cannot inquire how it is that a certain cause produces a certain effect. It does not and cannot endeavour to explain, to analyze conditions so as to present a cause as a reason. It does not compare different modes of procedure or different groups of circumstances, so as to contradistinguish the precise points in which they agree from those in which they disagree, and in this way to explain why a certain result should follow in one case and a different result in another case. Causality in this sense can only exist for the ideational consciousness, and the development of the ideational consciousness in this direction is a development of conceptual thinking-of generalization."

Wherein, then, lies the central core of truth in Professor Groos's contention? In the satisfaction that arises from the success of any conative activity. We see that the animal striving and doing falls within our conception of a cause, in the scientific sense of the word,-a relatively constant and continuous antecedent of diverse sequent effects. We infer that pleasure accompanies the satisfaction of the multifarious * Op. cit., p. 314.

conative impulses. The pleasure is the animal's; the conception of causality and of self as a continuous person, still the same amid diversity of conscious situations, is ours. If we bear this in mind there can be no objection to our attributing to animals joy in ability or power. It is the pleasure derived from that successful conation whereby animals fall into the category of causes within the scheme of our rational thought.

In fighting-play and hunting-play, too, there arise in more specific forms the pleasures of successful conation with the antithetical feelings accompanying thwarted conation. And these are distinguished from earnest, partly because the companion or the inanimate substitute for prey is the centre of a different situation from that afforded by an enemy or the natural object of the chase; partly by the absence of certain insistent emotional states which characterize carnest and the serious business of life. In fighting, this is anger. And we often see the tendency of this to arise in the midst of fighting-plays, and at once say that it becomes serious and passes into fighting in earnest. Indeed, some tinge of earnest, with its fuller emotional tone, forms part of the preparation for future life, and so far falls within the definition Professor Groos gives of play. From which we may see that play is not easily marked off from other forms of conation.

Brief reference to the element of "make-believe," which Dr. Groos assigns to the higher forms of play, may be reserved for our fourth section; and some further discussion of its psychological aspect to the concluding chapter.

III.-COURTSHIP

We have seen that Professor Groos regards play as the practice and preparation for the serious business of animal life. Founded on instinctive tendencies, it has its biological value in the acquisition of practical acquaintance with the environment, and of skill in dealing with it effectually. It is an education in behaviour of the utmost service in view of the struggle for existence, It is full of the pleasure derived from

the satisfaction of innate impulse, the success of conative effort, and the diffused sense of well-being which accompanies a life of action, free and unrestrained. This freedom and gladness lead us to call it play; but we must not draw the inference that the playful animal knows that it is playing, or forms any conception of the antithesis between work and play, which is a product of late development.

In laying stress on the biological value of certain modes of behaviour which we thus call play, a value which lies in the practice and preparation they afford for life's more earnest work, Professor Groos deserves our hearty thanks. Nor need our thanks be less hearty if we find that he has in some degree been anticipated by Darwin; for he has elaborated with systematic care what Darwin suggested incidentally. "Nothing is more common," said Darwin," than for animals to take pleasure in practising whatever instinct they follow at other times for some real good. How often do we see birds which fly easily, gliding and sailing through the air, obviously for pleasure! The cat plays with the captured mouse, and the cormorant with the captured fish. The weaver bird, when confined in a cage, amuses itself by neatly weaving blades of grass between the wires of its cage. Birds which habitually fight during the breeding season are generally ready to fight. at all times; and the males of the capercailzie sometimes hold their Balzen, or leks, at the usual place of assemblage during the autumn. Hence it is not at all surprising that male birds should continue singing for their own amusement after the season of courtship is over."

In the behaviour of courtship we have what is essentially part of the serious business of animal life. And in including it under the heading of "Love Plays," Professor Groos may seem to be forgetful of his own definition of play. He is, however, too clear a thinker not to see, and too honest an exponent not to say, that much of the emotional behaviour commonly regarded as courtship falls outside his main thesis "in being, strictly speaking, not mere practice preparatory to "Descent of Man," vol. ii., p. 60, 2nd edit. 1888.

the exercise of an instinct, but rather its actual working." But behaviour of a somewhat similar kind is seen in young animals before the time of mating has arrived, and is exemplified both in young and adults under circumstances different from those which distinguish what we may term the pairing situation. This, at any rate, may be regarded as a form of experimentation and practice in the arts of courtship. On different grounds does Professor Groos attempt to justify the inclusion of actual courtship under the head of play. For it may also, he thinks, even at the time of its serious exercise, be to some extent artful, involving "make believe," and therefore playful in a somewhat different and more subtle sense; but a brief reference to "make believe" we may reserve for our next section.

There can be no question that special modes of behaviour often characterize the pairing situation, and that these not only exemplify an instinctive tendency, but from their constancy and relative definiteness constitute types of instinctive behaviour. They would form parts of any definition of a species founded not on structure but on behaviour. And if animals have feelings and emotions at all-if they are not Cartesian automata, which merely seem to be guided in their actions by consciousness-there can be but little question that the behaviour which characterizes the sexual situation is unusually charged with feeling-tone, and accompanied by all those adjuncts which distinguish an emotional state, broadly considered. This matter is of no little importance in our interpretation of the phenomena described as courtship. Do the accompanying feeling-tone and the state of emotional exaltation influence the behaviour, or would it run a similar course in the absence of any such accompaniments? If, as we can scarcely doubt, the consciousness attending the situation. docs profoundly influence the behaviour, the further question arises-Is this influence mainly the result of the presence and behaviour of an individual of the opposite sex? To this, again, we must answer that, so far as we can learn by observation, "The Play of Animals," Eng. trans., p. 229.