8 THE PLAY OP ANIMALS. 



running after a rolling ball * — all these do not imitate 

 serious action, whose organ has been dormant for an 

 interval "longer than ordinary/' but rather, impelled 

 by irresistible impulse, they make their first prepara- 

 tions for such activities in this way. 



Spencer's theory of play is therefore unsatisfactory, 

 so far as concerns the adequacy of its explanation of 

 the problem by means of the principle of imitation of 

 previously accomplished serious activities of the indi- 

 vidual, f And since in all the cases cited there is really 

 no imitation of other individuals — that is, no " drama- 

 tization of the acts of adults'' of which Spencer else- 

 where treats — it appears that this principle of imitation 

 can not be taken as a universal explanation of play. 

 Nor can I agree with Professor Wundt when he says, 

 in his Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology: 

 "We regard certain actions of the higher animals as 

 play when they appear to be imitations of voluntary 

 acts. But they can be recognised as imitations be- 

 cause the result striven for only appears to be such, 

 while the real end is the production of certain pleasur- 

 able effects, which are connected, though as mere ac- 

 companiments only, with real voluntary action. This 

 is as much as to say that animal play is in general 

 terms identical with that of the human being. For 

 this is, at least in its simpler form, and especially as it 

 appears in the play of children, ' imitation of the busi- 

 ness of practical life' stripped of its original aim and 

 having a pleasurable mental effect." % Wundt, in his 



* W. James, The Principles of Psychology, London, 1891, II, 

 p. 427. 



f See also the fine passage in Von Hartmann, Philos. d. Un- 

 bewussten, 10. Aiifl.. i, p. 179 f. 



X W. Wundt, Vorlesungen iiber die Menschen und Thierseele, 

 2. Aufl., 1893, p. 388 (Eng. trans., p. 357). 



