THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 2G5 



of the bird's plumage, but, independently of that, pro- 

 duce excitation. If a human example is allowable, the 

 effect of throwing one hip forward is suggestive of 

 what I mean.* That the Greeks understood this is 

 proved by the " line of Praxiteles," which gave to Greek 

 sculpture a certain sensuous charm while preserving its 

 chaste severity. 



I pass by the lower animals, though an example 

 given above from fishes seems to indicate that they, too, 

 are playful during courtship. On the whole it seems 

 probable, as I said above, that most of the "courtship 

 arts" were simply excitation reflexes. Since they are 

 influential in stimulating the female, they were favoured 

 by natural selection and rendered constantly more pow- 

 erful and complicated, until they became full instincts. 

 This is true even in such exceptional cases as those of the 

 butterfly and the spider. It is only to animals with a 

 high degree of intellectual development that we can even 

 hypothetically attribute pleasure in their movements for 

 themselves, the wish to accomplish something, or the 

 desire to make a display, in addition to the habitual re- 

 flexes of courtship, so that in the midst of the real exer- 

 cise of instinct the voice of play would rise as a psychic 

 overtone; or, as James would say, would form a psychic 

 fringe. Such genuine play as that of youth it can not be. 



3. Courtship oy means of the Display of Unusual or 

 Beautiful Forms and Colours. 



After what has gone before, it is sufficient to say 

 here that in this case, too, the display is playful only 



* Zola furnishes vouchers for this. See especially Nana's ap- 

 pearance in the theatre. There may be some suggestion of this in 

 the pleasure of the waltz. 



