30 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



21. the instinct or impulse to " Play " ; he conceives of man 



Schiller's 



"piay- as rising out of a complete dependence on nature, and 

 as exhibiting a superabundance of life and energy in 

 the freedom of Play. " The animal plays when a super- 

 abundance of life stimulates it into action." This is 

 the lowest stage of play, which in a higher stage 

 becomes creative. Play creates a world and forms of 

 its own. This world of its own is the world of 

 semblance or beautiful appearance. This appearance 

 may be gained by imitation or by free action, but 

 imitation becomes beautiful and real when it rises to 

 independence ; and free action becomes beautiful when 

 it contains within itself its own end, when it is not 

 only the means but an end in itself. Thus, before 

 man is ripe for the exercise of moral freedom he passes 

 through the stage of aesthetical freedom ; before the 

 seriousness of life sets in, the child is introduced 

 to the sphere of freedom through play ; it learns to 

 use its powers without constraint before it advances to 

 the use of them for a definite end and purpose. The 

 unconstrained freedom of play, within the limits of the 

 beautiful, precedes the self-constrained freedom of action 

 according to the moral law. It has been remarked 

 that Schiller's speculations contain an antinomy, an 

 inherent contradiction. "Two questions press upon us. 

 We are told that out of the aesthetical stage the moral 

 is produced easily and with certainty, and as such is 

 and remains the higher. On the other side we are 

 assured that with the aesthetical condition the moral 

 is already fulfilled, that its task is performed, that 

 therefore moral exertion is not any more required but 



