EDITOR'S PREFACE. ix 



Turning now to the interesting question of the psy- 

 chological theory, we find it developed, as it would have 

 to be, in a much more theoretical way. The play con- 

 sciousness is fundamentally a form of "conscious self- 

 illusion " — bewusste Selbsttauschung. It is just the 

 difference between play activity and strenuous activity 

 that the animal knows, in the former case, that the situ- 

 ation is not real, and still allows it to pass, submitting to 

 a pleasant sense of " make-believe." It is only fair to 

 say, however, that Herr Groos admits that in certain 

 more definitely instinctive forms of play this criterion 

 does not hold; it would be difficult to assume any con- 

 sciousness of self-illusion in the fixed courting and pair- 

 ing plays of birds, for example. The same is seen in the 

 very intense reality which a child's game takes on some- 

 times for an hour at a time. Indeed, the author distin- 

 guishes four stages in the transition from instincts in 

 which the conscious illusion is absent, to the forms of 

 play to which we can apply the phrase " play activity " 

 in its true sense — i. e., that of Scheinthdtiglceit. The 

 only way to reconcile these positions that I see is to hold 

 that there are two different kinds of play : that which is 

 not psychological at all — i. e., does not show the psycho- 

 logical criterion at all — and that which is psycho- 

 logical as " conscious self-illusion." Herr Groos does 

 distinguish between " objective " and * subjective " 

 Scheinthatigkeit (p. 292). The biological criterion of 

 definite instinctive character might be invoked in the 

 former class, and the psychological criterion in the other ; 

 and we would then have a situation which is exemplified 

 in many other functions of animal and human life — 

 functions which are both biological and instinctive, and 

 also psychological and intelligent, as, e. g., sympathy, 

 fear, bashfulness. Then, of course, the further question 



