Febeuaey 26, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



551 



in the imagination of scientific tliinkiug or of 

 artistic creation are not both the goal and the 

 process strenuous enough? This, indeed, leads 

 Professor Groos to a view of art which allies it 

 closely with the play function, but to that I re- 

 turn below. 



The second element in the play or ' Schein ' 

 consciousness is the feeling of freedom {Frei- 

 heitsgefuhl) (331f). In play there is a sense, 

 so to speak, of ' don't-have-to,' which is con- 

 trasted both with the necessity of sense and 

 with the imperative of thought and conscience. 

 This idea seems to be part of Schiller's theory 

 of play. So Groos thinks the general feel- 

 ing of freedom holds in consciousness only 

 while there is a play of motives to which the 

 agent may put an end at any moment — a sense 

 of ' don't-have-to' in the life of choice. This 

 sense of freedom keeps the Schein conscious- 

 ness pure and prevents our confusing the play 

 content with the possible real contents of life. 

 This is very interesting and suggestive. The 

 sense of freedom is certainly prominent in play. 

 Whether it should be identified with the sense 

 of control which has been used by some writers 

 as a criterion (both in a negative and in a posi- 

 tive sense) of the belief in realities already ex- 

 perienced, or again with the freedom with 

 which choice is pregnant, is more questionable. 

 Without caring to make a criticism of Professor 

 Groos' position, I may yet point out the dis- 

 tinction already made above between the two 

 sorts of imagination, one of which has the 

 ' don't-have-to ' feeling and the other of which 

 does not. So also in our choices there are 

 those which are free with a 'don't-have-to' 

 freedom, but there are choices — and these are 

 the momentous ones, the ones to which free- 

 dom that men value attaches — which are strenu- 

 ous and real in the extreme. Indeed, it seems 

 paradoxical to liken the moral life, with its 

 sense of freedom, to a ' game of play,' and to 

 allow the hard-pressed sailor on the ethical sea 

 to rest on his oars behind a screen of Schein 

 and plead, 'I shan't play.' Seriously, this is 

 something like the result, and it comes out 

 again in the author's extremely interesting 

 sections on art, of which I may speak in con- 

 clusion. 



Those who have read Professor Groos' former 



stimulating book, Einleitung in die ^sthetik, 

 will anticipate the connection which he finds 

 between play and art. The art consciousness 

 is a consciousness of Schein • it is also a play 

 consciousness, inasmuch as it is the work of 

 imagination — both the creative and the appre- 

 ciative art consciousness — and the meaning of 

 imagination is just that it takes Schein for 

 reality. The ' self-conscious ' illusion of the 

 play consciousness is felt in extreme form in 

 the theatre, and the pleasure of it is felt even 

 when we play with painful situations, as in 

 tragedy. In art the desire to make an impression 

 on others shows the 'pleasure of being cause.' 

 This intent to work on others is a necessary in- 

 gredient in the art impulse (312f). Groos differs 

 from K. Lange, who holds a similar view of the 

 necessary division of consciousness between 

 reality and Schein in the sesthetic psychosis, in 

 that Lange thinks there must be a continual 

 oscillation between the two poles of the divided 

 consciousness, while Groos thinks there is rather 

 a settling down in the state of illusion (as in an 

 artist's preoccupation with his creations, a 

 novelist with his characters, and a child with 

 her doll (323). In art the other great motive 

 of play, ' experimenting,' is also prominent, 

 and is even more fundamental from a genetic 

 point of view ; of that a word below. 



Here, again, the question left in my mind is 

 this : whether the play motive is really the 

 same as the art motive. Do we not really dis- 

 tinguish between the drama (to take the case 

 most favorable to the theory) as amusement 

 and the drama as art. And does the dramatist 

 who is really an artist write to bring on self- 

 illusion in the spectator by presenting to him 

 a Schein scene; Possibly, art theorists would 

 divide here ; the realists taking more stock in 

 Schein, since realistic art is more nearly ex- 

 hausted by imitation. This sort of illusion un- 

 doubtedly gives pleasure, and it is undoubt- 

 edly part of art pleasure. Yet there does seem 

 to be, in a work of fine art, a strenuous out- 

 reach toward truth, which is additional to the 

 instrument of appearance used by the artist — 

 both in the production and also in the enjoy- 

 ment. It may be that we should distinguish 

 between truth which comes to us didactically 

 and truth which comes artistically, and make 



