3U THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



play ego. " So it comes about that the happiness pro- 

 duced by aesthetic enjoyment appears as something ob- 

 jective, belonging to the play-scene, and not as a condi- 

 tion of the beholder's soul. It is like a great ocean of 

 bliss on which he floats and moves about at will, having 

 no further influence than to stir it a little, just as a 

 bather gives himself up to passive enjoyment in the en- 

 compassing element." * 



This appears best in the contemplation of supreme 

 beauty which produces aesthetic pleasure depending on 

 sensuous pleasure. Here sensuous pleasure, an emo- 

 tion belonging to the real ego and susceptible of physi- 

 ological explanation, has come, by means of an uncon- 

 scious connection, into the sphere of make-believe, and 

 lent to the object that divine effulgence which is an 

 attribute of absolute beauty, f 



We see, then, that there are many ways and occa- 

 sions for the use of this unconscious connection be- 

 tween the two states of consciousness, and we must 

 suppose that even in the most absorbing play a constant 

 influence is mutually exerted between them. But what 

 is the character of this influence? It would, of course, 

 be easiest to say that, though the real ego is hidden, it 

 manages to convey its own idea, " This thing is not 

 real," into the sphere of the play-ego. But Lange's 

 objection answers this; he says that while it is possible 

 for a fraud and faith in it to exist side by side in two 

 separate consciousnesses, it is inconceivable that they 

 could be present simultaneously in one and the same 

 sphere. He is right, and if we observe ourselves care- 

 fully we will find that it is as far from the truth as 



* Von Hartmann. Aesthetik, vol. ii. p. 67. 



f Cf. Groos, Einleitung in die Aesthetik. pp. 254 f. 



