382 Appendix C 



I shall remark on the solution of it below, in speaking of 

 Professor Groos' psychology of play. It will be interesting 

 to see how he treats this problem in his promised work on 

 the Spiele der Menschen;^ for the imitative element is very 

 marked in children's plays. 



Other points of great interest in this biological part are the 

 emphasis which Groos finds it necessary to put on ' tradition,' 

 instruction, imitation, etc., in young animals, even in enabling 

 them to come into possession of their natural instincts ; in this 

 the book tends in the same direction as the new volume of Pro- 

 fessor C. Lloyd Morgan. Again, there is a remarkably acute 

 discussion of Darwin's Sexual Selection, which the author finally 

 accepts in a modified form by saying that the female's selection 

 is not necessarily conscious, but that she has an inherited sus- 

 ceptibility to certain stimulating colours, movements, etc., in the 

 male. It is not so much intelligence on her part as increased 

 irritability in the presence of certain visual and other stimula- 

 tions. 2 Over against the charms of the male he sets the reserve 

 or reluctance (Sprodigkeif) of the female, which has to be over- 

 come, and which is an important check and regulator at the 

 mating time. Again, the imperfect character of most instincts is 

 emphasized, and the interaction with imitation and intelligence. 

 He finds a basis for the inverse ratio between intelligence and 

 instinct in an animal's equipment on natural selection principles, 

 i.e., the more intelligence develops the less does natural selec- 

 tion bear on special instincts, and so they become broken up. 



Finally, I should like to suggest that a possible category of 

 ' Social Plays ' might be added to Groos' classification- -plays 

 in which the utility of the play instinct seems to have reference 

 to social life as such. Perhaps in such a category it might be 

 possible to place certain of the animals' performances which 



1 See the note above which indicates that Professor Groos, in the Play of 

 Man, considers play an ' impulse,' taking on different forms. 



2 'Sexual' is thus referred back to 'natural' selection (p. 274), although 

 the direct results of such preferential mating would still seem to give very 

 'determinate' direction to evolution under natural selection. (Cf. Scifnce, 

 Nov. 13, 1896, p. 726; see Chap. XL 2, above.) 



