272 TlMEHRL 



Probably one of the simplest games of ail, one which 

 has originated again and again, spontaneously among 

 almost all people, is ball-play. And the development of 

 this most simple game has been marvellously great, greater 

 perhaps than in the case of any other game. At different 

 times and in different places, ball-play has become asso- 

 ciated with the rhythmic movements of the dance. 

 Ulysses, wrecked and cast up by the sea on the shores 

 of Phceacia, watched from his hiding place the rhythmic 

 ball-dance, accompanied by song, of Nausicaa and her 

 fellow Greek maidens. And to this day, though the use 

 of the ball has long been dissociated from the more 

 civilized forms of dance and song, we still speak of cer- 

 tain forms of dances as balls and ballets, and of certain 

 songs as ballads.* 



Disassociated from the dance, the simple game of ball- 

 play has developed, when, as Dr. Tylor well expresses 



it, the passion of play arose, in quite other dire&ions, 

 through polo into hockey, and thence into the innumer- 

 able games which are more or less familiar to us, as 

 stool-ball, pall-mall, croquet, foot-ball, cricket, and 

 tennis. 



It must be taken on trust, at least for the present, 

 that each, at any rate of the earlier stages in these lines 

 of development of ball-play, has been brought about by 

 some great change in the circumstances of the players. 

 And more often than not this great change has probably 

 been a migration from the old to some distant new 

 quarters. Consequently, phases of this ball-play, in a 

 greater or less degree of development, have to be looked 

 for all over the world and among all people Ball-play, 



* See Tylor, Fortnightly Review, May, 1879, p. 737. 



