THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ANIMAL PLAY. 319 



thetic idealism, we find that it culminates in the feeling 

 of freedom; when indulging in it a man is free — that 

 is to say, he is wholly human only when he plays, for 

 there is no real freedom in the sphere of experience. 

 In real life the man is a plaything of opposing forces. 

 On the animal side of his nature, the sensuous, he is 

 restrained by Nature's laws, while reason forces him 

 to obey imperious moral mandates, and a perfect recon- 

 ciliation of these forces is impossible. " Between pleas- 

 ure of the senses and peace of mind man has but a 

 sorry choice.^' Only in playing and indulging in beau- 

 tiful dreams can a man find relief from this contention. 

 Schiller expressed this conviction when he was in 

 Mannheim, as far back as 1784. " Our nature,'' he 

 says, " alike incapable of remaining in the condition of 

 animals and of keeping up the higher life of reason, 

 requires a middle state, where the opposite ends may 

 unite, the harsh tension be reduced to mild harmonj^ 

 and the transition from one condition to the other be 

 facilitated. The sesthetic sense, or feeling for beauty, 

 is the only thing that can fill this want." And what 

 is the governing idea in this middle state? "This: to 

 be a complete man." * By reducing in his play the harsh 

 tension to mild harmony he relieves himself of the 

 double law of Nature and Eeason, raises himself to a 

 state of freedom, and so first attains his full humanity. 

 The result achieved in play is " the symbol of his true 

 vocation." f 



Schiller says: "The sensuous impulse must be ex- 

 pressed, must attain its object; the form impulse ex- 

 presses itself and produces its object; but the play im- 



* Schiller, Die Schambuhne als eine Moralische Anstalt be- 

 trachtet. 



t Aesth. Erziehung, fourteenth letter. 



