1879.] Mr. E, B. Tylor on the History of Games. 125 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, March 14, 1879. 



William Spottiswoode, Esq. MA. D.C.L. Pres.R.S. Vice-President, 



iu tlic Chair. 



Edward Burnett Tyloh, Esq. F.R.S. 

 The History of Games.* 



Before examining some groups of the higher orders of games, with 

 the view of tracing their course in the worki, it will be well to test 

 by a few examples the principles on which we may reason as to their 

 origin and migrations. An intelligent traveller among the Kalmuks, 

 noticing that they play a kind of chess resembling ours, would not 

 for a moment entertain the idea of such an invention having been 

 made more than once, but would feel satisfied that we and they and 

 all chess-players must have had the game from one original source. 

 In this example lies the gist of the ethnological argument from arti- 

 ficial games, that when any such appears in two districts it must 

 have travelled from one to the other, or to both from a common 

 centre. Of course this argument does not apply to all games. Some 

 are so simple and natural that, for all we can tell, they may often 

 have sprung up of themselves, such as tossing a ball or wrestling ; 

 while children everywhere imitate in play the serious work of grown- 

 up life, from spearing an enemy down to moulding an earthen pot. 

 The distinctly artificial sports we are concerned with here are marked 

 by some peculiar trick or combination not so likely to have been hit 

 uj)on twice. Not only complex games like chess and tennis, but even 

 many childish sports, seem well-defined formations, of which the 

 spread may be traced on the map much as the botanist traces his 

 plants from their geographical centres. It may give us confidence 

 in this way of looking at the subject if we put the opposite view to 

 the test of history and geography to see where it fails. Travellers, 

 observing the likeness of children's games in Europe and Asia, have 

 sometimes explained it on this wise : that the human mind being alike 

 everywhere, the same games are naturally found in diff'erent lands, 

 children taking to hockey, tops, stilts, kites, and so on, each at its 

 proper season. But if so, why is it that in outlying barbarous 

 countries one hardly finds a game without finding also that there is 



* Extracted from the ' Fortnightly Keview ' for May, 1879. 



