320 THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



pulse strives to receive as if itself had produced the 

 object, and to give forth what sense is labouring to ab- 

 sorb. The sensuous impulse excludes from its subject 

 all self -activity and freedom; the form impulse ex- 

 cludes all dependence and passivity. But the exclusion 

 of freedom is physical necessity, and the exclusion of 

 passivity is moral necessity. Both impulses constrain 

 the soul, one by natural laws, the other by moral laws. 

 The play impulse, then, uniting them, affects the mind 

 both morally and physically, lifts it above both acci- 

 dent and necessity, and sets man free, physically and 

 morally."* "The term f play impulse ' is justified by 

 the usages of language, which signifies by the word play 

 (Spiel) all that is neither contingent subjectively or ob- 

 jectively, nor yet either internally or externally com- 

 pelled. Thus the mind, by beholding the beautiful, 

 is placed in a happy mean between law and necessity, 

 and relieved from the oppression of either, because it 

 is divided between the two." f 



Passing over Schiller's hair-splitting method of es- 

 tablishing the equilibrium between the two opposing 

 impulses — which he suspended like two equal weights 

 in a balance, being still controlled by the old theory of 

 faculties — and without elaborating these ancient ideas, 

 we will rather attempt to translate them into modern 

 psychological language. First, then, Schiller is perfect- 

 ly right in designating the feeling of freedom as the 

 highest and most important factor in the satisfaction de- 

 rived from play, and further in finding it closely re- 

 lated to the feeling of necessity. We feel free although 

 we are compelled; this is indeed the very essence of 



* Aesth. Erziehung, fourteenth letter. 

 f Ibid., fifteenth letter. 



