THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ANIMAL PLAY. 311 



I am fully convinced of the truth of the central 

 proposition of this luminous passage, the more since 

 I have come to a similar conclusion in investigating the 

 relation of the sublime to the comic* But a close 

 examination proves it to be doubtful whether this oscil- 

 lation between a condition of self-deception and the 

 consciousness of it should be regarded as always a qual- 

 ity of play. Lange seems to me to go too far in mak- 

 ing it essential to aesthetic and play enjoyment of all 

 kinds. Self-observation reveals a high degree of satisfac- 

 tion in long-continued play, during which the real I, as 

 Hartmann justly says, remains quietly in the back- 

 ground and does not assert itself. I do not believe that 

 boys romping together often realize the unreality of 

 their contests while the game is going on ; and if we are 

 witnessing the prison scene in Faust our intense enjoy- 

 ment may last through it all, and our real ego be en- 

 tirely lost sight of. Only when the curtain falls do we 

 return with a long breath to reality and " come to." 

 Our return to waking consciousness is accomplished 

 more by a sudden leap than by oscillation, and the 

 higher our enjoyment the more rarely do we make 

 the leap. 



It will be seen that Lange's proposition is supported 

 less by observation than by logic; he tries to prove his 

 theory of oscillation by the unthinkableness of the re- 

 verse. " Since the feeling for reality, on the one hand, 

 and for the apparent can never coincide," he thinks this 

 motion must be regular, but in view of what we know 

 of divided consciousness this seems to me improbable. 

 The examples cited above show that two entirely differ- 



* Groos, Einleitung in die Aesthetik, pp. 337 f, 404. So also 

 Kant, Critique of Judgment. 



