AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xx iii 



the various arts of the chase, so from such crude efforts 

 at wooing, that courtship has finally developed, in which 

 sexual passion is psychologically sublimated into love. 

 According to this theory, there is choice only in the sense 

 that the hare finally succumbs to the best hound, which 

 is as much as to say that the phenomena of courtship 

 are referred at once to natural selection. It follows, too, 

 that however useful attractive form and colouring may 

 be in relation to other ends, they certainly contribute to 

 that of subduing feminine coyness, and hence further 

 the sexual life. 



The last chapter treats of the psychological aspects 

 of play. Setting out from the physiological side, I 

 lead up to the central idea of the whole conception, 

 namely, " joy in being a cause "; which seems to me to 

 be the psychic accompaniment of the most elementary 

 of all plays, namely, experimentation. From here as 

 a starting point it permeates every kind of play, and 

 has even in artistic production and aesthetic enjoyment a 

 significance not sufficiently appreciated. 



But the principal content of the closing chapter is 

 the investigation of the more subtle psychic phenome- 

 non that is connected with the subject, namely, * make- 

 believe," or "conscious self-illusion." The remarks 

 on divided consciousness and the feeling of freedom 

 during make-believe activity prove that the attempt to 

 penetrate into the modern aesthetic problem is a serious 

 undertaking. They point to a field beyond the limits 

 of the subject of this treatise, which I hope to discuss 

 exhaustively in my next work, having human play for its 

 subject. 



Karl Gboos. 



Giessen, October, 1895. 



