PLAY AND INSTINCT. 75 



through the play of the young furthers the fulfilment of 

 Goethe's profound saying: " What thou hast inherited 

 from the fathers, labour for, in order to possess it." 



At this point the full biological significance of play 

 first becomes apparent. It is a very widespread opinion 

 that youth, which belongs, strictly speaking, only to the 

 higher orders, is for the purpose of giving the animal 

 time to adjust itself to the complicated tasks of its life to 

 which its instincts are not adequate.* The higher the 

 attainment required, the longer the time of preparation. 

 This being the case, the investigation of play assumes 

 great importance. Hitherto we have been in the habit 

 of referring to the period of youth as a matter of fact 

 only important at all because some instincts of biological 

 significance appear then. Now we see that youth proba- 

 bly exists for the sake of play. Animals can not be said 

 to play because they are young and frolicsome, but 

 rather they have a period of youth in order to play; for 

 only by so doing can they supplement the insufficient 

 hereditary endowment with individual experience, in 

 view of the coming tasks of life. Of course this does not 

 exclude other grounds, physiological ones, for instance, 

 for the phenomenon of youth; but so far as concerns the 

 fitting of the animal for his life duties, play is the most 

 important one. 



I may now briefly recapitulate. Our leading ques- 

 tion seems to be as to the play of the young. That once 

 adequately explained, the play of adults would present 

 no special difficulties. The play of young animals has 

 its origin in the fact that certain very important in- 

 stincts appear at a time when the animal does not seri- 



* See J. Mark Baldwin, Mental Development in the Child and 

 the Race, 1895, p. 28 f. 



