20 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



a long walk, and who at last, evidently tired out, trotted 

 behind me in a spiritless manner very different from 

 his usnal behaviour, as soon as he was in the garden and 

 spied a piece of wood, sprang after it with great bounds 

 and began playing with it. Just so we see children out 

 walking who are so tired with their constant running 

 about that they can only be kept from tears by coaxing, 

 yet quickly set their tired little legs in motion again and 

 deny their fatigue if an opportunity offers for play. Of 

 children and young animals it is true that, except when 

 they are eating, they play all day, till at night, tired 

 out with play, they sink to sleep. Even sick children 

 play, but only to the extent that their strength admits 

 of it, and not as it exists overabundantly. Similar 

 observations may be made with regard to the playing 

 adult in many cases. A student who has worked all 

 day with a mental strain, so that he can hardly collect 

 his thoughts for any serious effort, sits down in the even- 

 ing to the mock battle of a card table and takes his part 

 in the game with spirit for its complicated problems. "If 

 any one will analyze the mental operations belonging to 

 a single game of cards, the chains of reasoning which 

 each player carries on for himself and attributes to the 

 others, in order to plan for circumventing them, he will 

 be much surprised at the variety and inexhaustible rich- 

 ness of mental activity displayed." * Can we speak in 

 such cases of a superfluity of mental energy that origi- 

 nated from the fact of longer rest than usual? 



A soldier or a banker who is engaged day by day in 

 an exciting struggle with the caprices of fortune hurries 

 to the gaming table, and for half the night, wavering 

 between hope and fear, strives to produce the same sen- 



* Lazarus, Reize des Spiels, p. 116. 



