THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AKIMAL PLAY. 295 



cording to agreement^ is all outward aim done away 

 with? By no means. It reappears in a modified 

 form, in the desire to impress the hearers or specta- 

 tors, and is at bottom our familiar pleasure in power, 

 delight in being able to extend the sphere of our abil- 

 ity, a motive which should never be underestimated. 

 Even the artist does not create for the mere pleasure 

 of it; he too feels the force of this motive, though a 

 higher external aim to him is the hope of influencing 

 other minds by means of his creations, which, through 

 the power of suggestion, give him a spiritual supremacy 

 over his fellow-creatures. This suggestive effect is his 

 real aim, for while it is true in a sense that the artist 

 should not regard applause by the multitude, but listen 

 rather to the voice in his own breast, it is yet non- 

 sense to say that a great artist has no thought of the 

 effect on others.* \Yh.at is nobler or more kingly 

 than to rule by natural right? Spiritual supremacy 

 is the aim of the highest art, and there is no real genius 

 without the desire for it. 



So we find in this pleasure in the possession of 

 power the psychological foundation for all play which 



* Grosse is mnch too clear a thinker not to recognise this. In 

 his " scaffolding " of definitions he has this sentence : "Esthetic 

 effort is not a means to an end outside of itself, but is its own end " 

 (p. 46). But soon after he says : " The artist works not for himself 

 alone, but for others; and if it is too much to say that he creates 

 solely with a view to influencing others, it is yet true that the form 

 and trend of his effort are determined essentially by his conception 

 of the public whom he addresses. A work of art always reveals as 

 much of the public as of the artist, and Mill was guilty of a serious 

 mistake when he said that the characteristic quality of poetry is 

 that 'the poet never thinks of a hearer.' On the contrary, the 

 poet would probably never give expression to his thoughts if there 

 were no hearers " (p. 47). 

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