PLAY 



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caves and in the fields. They were surrounded by the domestic 

 animals they had reclaimed from a savage state, such as the goat and 

 the cat, and by the domestic instruments and tools which they had 

 probably invented, such as the broom and the fork. 



Another strong instance of this doctrine of social recapitulation 

 is that of the rite of the blood-covenant. It was once undoubtedly 

 a strong social bulwark. Each participant drank of the blood 

 of the other. Incisions were usually made in the arms, the 

 blood was caught, and an eternal compact was completed by each 

 drinking the other's blood. The relationship established was one 

 supposed to be more lasting and closer than that of brotherhood. 

 Gradually, however, wine was substituted for the blood. To-day we 

 drink each other's health as a mere pleasing, after-dinner pastime, 

 forgetful of the life-and-death earnestness of the times in which the 

 custom arose. The ancestral adult experience has become a play or 

 game. 



Many occupations of predatory origin and nature give rise to 

 forms of play-activity among the young. Those animals descended 

 from predatory ancestors chase, pursue, bark, bite and fight in a 

 theatrical manner indicative of a much sterner reality in the past. 

 The kitten pursuing a moving string, making it roll and catching it 

 again, crouching as if in ambush, then springing upon its prey, pre- 

 sents to the observer an excellent dramatization of the pursuit and 

 capture of prey. It is an excellent dramatic performance because to 

 the kitten it is quite serious business. In the sport of boys, adult 

 predatory occupations are clearly manifested in their combative 

 games, games of pursuit and capture, struggling, wrestling, teasing, 

 bullying, nagging, etc. Yet these games to-day are socialized 

 exceedingly, inasmuch as they aid materially in the process of social 

 integration. The competitive games of boys, to take one instance 

 out of many, are illustrations of a fundamental law of progress 

 according to which ancestral non-social and possibly anti-social adult 

 activities often tend to survive in the forms of plays as social and 

 integrating forces. The modern football survives because of its 

 encouragement of the social habits of co-operation, inhibition, shrewd- 



