PLAY AND INSTINCT. 49 



" Not only our savage ancestors but even those of later 

 times who have not had the good fortune to live, as we 

 of the present do, in circumstances rendered secure by 

 orderly government, could not undertake the slightest 

 journey, especially by night, with the carelessness with 

 which we now in middle Europe tramp through the 

 loneliest mountain pass or traverse the densest woods 

 by day or night. They had much to fear from wild ani- 

 mals, especially bears, and from men, such as highway- 

 men and the famous robber knights, and in lonely woods 

 and passes were never safe. Moreover, the feeling of 

 fear which besets the young, especially when travelling 

 alone on a dark night in a lonely wood or valley, is so 

 universal that we are forced to connect it with the com- 

 mon experience of earlier generations, and consider it 

 an inherited feeling." * 



If this reference of instinct to the inheritance 

 of acquired characters which we find is so general be 

 correct, play can be explained about as follows: Our 

 ancestors have throughout their whole lives made use of 

 their arms and legs for ever}^ possible movement; ac- 

 cordingly, their descendants have in their earliest in- 

 fancy the impulse to kick with the legs and to grasp 

 everything in their hands. The forbears hunted ani- 

 mals; hence the hunt and chase games of the descend- 

 ants. Our ancestors were obliged to hide from their 

 enemies in a thousand ways; hence the hiding games of 

 children. Thus Schneider says: " The boy does not 

 now eat the sparrows, beetles, flies, and other insects 

 that he eagerly seizes and perhaps tears to pieces, nor 

 does he intend to devour the young birds that he takes 

 from their nests in high trees, often at the peril of his 



* G. H. Schneider, Der menschliche Wille, Berlin, 1882, p. 68. 



