6 jo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing but a sort of attempt to remodel the human body itself an at- 

 tempt still better shown in the various tattooings, tooth-filings, sear- 

 ings, and other mutilations that are practiced by savage tribes. As for 

 habitation, there can be no doubt that the instinct to seek a sheltered 

 nook, open only on one side, into which he may retire and be safe, is 

 in man quite as specific as the instinct of birds to build a nest. It is 

 not necessarily in the shape of a shelter from wet and cold that the 

 need comes before him, but he feels less exposed and more at home 

 when not altogether uninclosed, than when lying all abroad. Of 

 course the utilitarian origin of this instinct is obvious. But to stick 

 to bare facts at present and not to trace origins, we must admit that 

 this instinct now exists, and probably always has existed, since man 

 was man. Habits of the most complicated kind are reared upon it. 

 But even in the midst of these habits we see the blind instinct crop- 

 ping out ; as, for example, in the fact that we feign a shelter within a 

 shelter, by backing up beds in rooms with their heads against the wall, 

 and never lying in them the other way just as dogs prefer to get 

 under or upon some piece of furniture to sleep, instead of lying in the 

 middle of the room. The first habitations were caves and leafy grot- 

 toes, bettered by the hands ; and we see children to-day, when playing 

 in wild places, take the greatest delight in discovering and appropri- 

 ating such retreats and " playing house " there. 



Play. The impulse to play in special ways is certainly instinctive. 

 A boy can no more help running after another boy who runs provok- 

 ingly near him, than a kitten can help running after a rolling ball. 

 A child trying to get into its own hand some object which it sees 

 another child pick up, and the latter trying to get away with the 

 prize, are just as much slaves of an automatic prompting as are two 

 chickens or fishes, of which one has taken a big morsel into its mouth 

 and decamps with it, while the other darts after in pursuit. All 

 simple active games are attempts to gain the excitement yielded by 

 certain primitive instincts, through feigning that the occasions for 

 their exercise are there. They involve imitation, hunting, fighting, 

 rivalry, acquisitiveness, and construction, combined in various ways ; 

 their special rules are habits, discovered by accident, selected by in- 

 telligence, and propagated by tradition ; but unless they were founded 

 in automatic impulses, games would lose most of their zest. The 

 sexes differ somewhat in their play-impulses. As Schneider says : 

 " The little boy imitates soldiers, models clay into an oven, builds 

 houses, makes a wagon out of chairs, rides on horseback upon a stick, 

 drives nails with the hammer, harnesses his brethren and comrades 

 together and plays the stage-driver, or lets himself be captured as a 

 wild horse by some one else. The girl, on the contrary, plays with her 

 doll, washes and dresses it, strokes it, clasps and kisses it, puts it to 

 bed and tucks it in, sings it a cradle-song, or speaks with it as if it 

 were a living beim*. . . . This fact that a sexual difference exists in 



