MAMMALS 75 



we are the cause of the phantasm. In this we find 

 the highest pleasure of play and art. The projecting 

 ourselves into the unreal is voluntary on our part, 

 and this feeling of our freedom accompanies us, often 

 unconsciously, as long as we indulge in the fiction. 

 The reality, on the contrary, presses itself on us 

 even against our will ; it gives us a feeling of 

 dependence. 



Thus it is the sense of freedom that accounts for 

 the highest form of pleasure in play and in art. This 

 sense of freedom gives its peculiar colour to the 

 world of fancy, and consequently "in conscious play 

 the whole pretence of action is converted by the 

 accompanying sense of freedom into something higher, 

 finer, and lighter, which we cannot confuse with the 

 reality of things." 



In play we feel ourselves really free. We do just 

 what we wish to do, and we know that we can halt 

 and abandon the play at any moment we desire. 

 We do not feel ourselves to be a link in the pitiless 

 chain of cause and effect ; we seem to have escaped 

 from inexorable necessity. 



All these feelings are found in a rudimentary state 

 in the playing animal. Now that we have learned 

 the cause and the meaning of play, we will recall the 

 chief forms of the play of animals. 



The animal plays on the first day of its existence. 

 The stretching of its limbs, the gnawing of objects, 

 the rolling about, are nothing but play, with the object 

 of teaching the young one to gain control of its own 

 body. And the young animal not only learns to master 



