THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ANIMAL PLAY. 293 



before the pleasure-giving quality of the act itself, the 

 transition to art takes place. At this point the out- 

 ward aim has but a very slight significance, though never 

 vanishing entirely ; for it can not be denied that in artis- 

 tic execution it regains very considerable importance in 

 an altered form. 



Let us take an example that follows all these devel- 

 opmental stages. If a very young puppy is tapped on 

 the nose with the finger, he snaps at it. This is a play- 

 ful expression of the fighting instinct, where the pro- 

 pensity to obey hereditary impulse is the sole cause 

 for the act, since neither feeling nor an idealized ex- 

 ternal aim can be alleged as such; it is clearly a reac- 

 tion to stimulation without higher psychic accom- 

 paniments. Going a step further, we will suppose a 

 young dog that chases his brother for the first time and 

 seizes him by the throat. Here the most probable sup- 

 position is that subjectively there is no difference be- 

 tween practical activity and this kind of play. The 

 dog has the serious purpose to take the skin in his teeth, 

 to throw his comrade and hold him fast on the ground. 

 It is altogether improbable that he is making believe 

 at first. Here, then, play appears psychologically as 

 quite serious activity, and a little attention to the sub- 

 ject will show that this is a very common condition 

 among human beings.* In the third stage the dogs 

 are grown larger and can bite effectively if they choose; 

 nevertheless, they seldom hurt one another in their 

 tussles. A consciousness of make-believe is rising gradu- 

 ally, and to the force of instinct is being added the 

 recollection of the pleasure-giving qualities of play. 



* For instance, a little girl two or three years old will seriously 

 try to feed her doll with soup, or beat it severely. And how many 

 billiard or chess players take defeat seriously ! 



