ON LAUGHTER. 359 



in the evolution of play. Taking merely traditional forms of play 

 into account, this a 2>fiori statement seems to be hardly warranted 

 by anthropological data. The hypothesis seems to underlie this 

 statement that play is a single impulse, a faculty-of-the-mind affair, 

 whereas it is simply protean in its concrete forms. But leaving this 

 point aside, we can safely lay claim to some actual historical data. 

 Buecher, in his 'Arbeit und Ilythriaus,'^'^ clearly proves that many 

 songs, dances, and early forms of literature had their origin in the 

 work activities of early men. It is needless here to repeat the evi- 

 dence adduced to prove the assertion. Then, again, many ancestral 

 adult activities have been modified to suit childish needs ; many 

 present-day adult activities are modified in the same way. But far- 

 ther back than all this we may go and say that play entered into 

 those species in which parental care began to shield their plastic 

 young from the incidence of natural selection. Then propaedeutical 

 selection entered, whereby the preliminary, introductory, educative 

 activities and occupations suitable to the particular species in ques- 

 tion survived, building and moulding for the larger life of the adult. 

 That joy accompanied such a process we can reasonably believe, 

 taking as an analogy the exuberance and fullness of life of youth 

 wherever we find it. 



University of Colorado. 



(•) Followed, and to some extent extended by Gummere. 'The Beginnings of Poetry." 



