258 THE FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS 
conative impulses. The pleasure is the animal’s ; the conception 
of causality and of self as a continuous person, still the same 
amid diversity of conscious situations, is ours. If we bear this 
in mind there can be no objection to our attributing to 
animals joy in ability or power. It is the pleasure derived 
from that successful conation whereby animals fall into the 
category of causes within the scheme of our rational thought. 
In fighting-play and hunting-play, too, there arise in 
more specific forms the pleasures of successful conation with 
the antithetical feelings accompanying thwarted conation. 
And these are distinguished from earnest, partly because the 
companion or the inanimate substitute for prey is the centre 
of a different situation from that afforded by an enemy or the 
natural object of the chase; partly by the absence of certain 
insistent emotional states which characterize earnest and 
the serious business of life. In fighting, this is anger. And 
we often see the tendency of this to arise in the midst of 
fighting-plays, and at once say that it becomes serious and 
passes into fighting in earnest. Indeed, some tinge of earnest, 
with its fuller emotional tone, forms part of the preparation 
for future life, and so far falls within the definition Professor 
Groos gives of play. From which we may see that play is not 
easily marked off from other forms of conation. 
Brief reference to the element of ‘ make-believe,” which 
Dr. Groos assigns to the higher forms of play, may be reserved 
for our fourth section; and some further discussion of its 
psychological aspect to the concluding chapter. 
III.—CovurtsHie 
We have seen that Professor Groos regards play as the 
practice and preparation for the serious business of animal 
life. Founded on instinctive tendencies, it has its biological 
value in the acquisition of practical acquaintance with the 
environment, and of skill in dealing with it effectually. It is 
an education in behaviour of the utmost service in view of the 
struggle for existence, It is full of the pleasure derived from 
