consciousness, with the fulfilment of its end, that the joy arises. The impulse or desire may be felt as more or less pleasant. In proportion as it progresses to its end it tends to become more pleasant; but while there is something impelling it beyond its present state, it cannot be satisfied with the incomplete result, and feel joy in contemplating that. Even at those stages of a prolonged desire where we contemplate the progress we have made and rejoice in it, it is just then that the feeling of the impulse passes out of consciousness. It would seem as if the joys of exercise and games would be an exception to this law and a contradiction of the form in which we have expressed it. For is not the continuance of the impulse to take exercise necessary to the continuance of the exercise? But the question is how far this impulse obtrudes in consciousness. In difficult games, like golf or cricket, an impulse is strongly felt while we are in process of learning them. We try to accomplish complicated and co-ordinated movements, and fail. Our desire is eager; but joy is not felt because of our failure. Yet even here we sometimes find that we have enjoyed ourselves on the whole. At other times it is the reverse; for the striving to make the proper movements and the frequent failures exclude enjoyment. And where we have enjoyed ourselves on the whole, we seem able to distinguish the enjoyment of a novel experience, that of the fresh air, and of the exercise itself, from the striving to master the game. Thus the case is complicated; and the game itself is a succession of impulses and actions. We have to play each stroke, or to make the right movement; if we do one better than before we have the enjoyment of success or progress. The enjoyment of the game comprises a series of enjoyments, that do not seem to be felt in those moments in which we feel a strong impulse or striving, but in the moments of complete or partial success; and in the enjoyment of the exercise or of muscular sensation, of the air, of the novelty, and of the presence and co-operation of other human beings. And these fuse in retrospect, in our 'enjoyment on the whole.' But our greatest enjoyment is reached,—which, in our youthful enthusiasm, we so often anticipate in thought,when we begin to play the game well, and almost automatically, so that impulse and striving obtrude but little in consciousness; our instrument seems to become part of ourselves, the right movements occur naturally, and almost of themselves, and there is the joy of final success and satisfied ambition. The joy of exercise and sports seems then to conform to the same law: to become complete in proportion as the feeling of impulse or striving passes out of consciousness, and to be mixed or incomplete so far as this feeling is prominent. In those sweet, but rare moments in which thinking is felt as enjoyment, there is absent the painful striving to gain a clear conception, to gain the right thoughts and the right words to express them; but these come spontaneously, and without effort, and often with a pleasant shock of surprise and novelty. But when we are in a hurry, and desire to get to the end, and our mind is confused, and there is an opposition we cannot overcome, and only common thoughts and expressions occur to us, here, where the feeling of impulse or striving is greatest, and the degree of success least, enjoyment has ceased, and distaste and disappointment have replaced it. The six laws that we have distinguished in this section are cumulative evidence that joy is a system and has an end ; and that the system is more comprehensive than the emotion; so that when the emotion of joy is momentarily effaced by the intrusion of anger, or by the prominence of its own impulse, the system works to restore it. What then is the end of joy? The first three laws define it. It is to maintain attention to the object of joy or the representation of this object, to maintain this object in the same relation to self, and in its present state. It is, in short, to produce no change in, but simply to conserve the existing situation. And this appears to be the common end of all varieties of joy, which we have here reached before, and not after considering the particular ends of these varieties. Let us first notice how two out of the three laws referred to distinguish the end of joy from the ends of fear and anger. For neither fear nor anger endeavours to maintain the object in its present relation to self, and in its present state. When we turn to another side of the system of joy the difference is still more manifest. What instinctive behaviour and what instincts are there in this system? When we compare joy with fear and anger, what a difference! There the variety of the instincts was so great, the difference of their behaviour so marked, that we could find no other than a very abstract end common to all, and which failed to distinguish them. Here it is the common end which is distinctive; for, as regards variety of tendency, there seems to be none. Variety of another kind there is, but this depends on the difference between the objects of joy: that primarily unimportant difference which we have avoided in the preceding chapters. Variety of particular end determined by particular instincts, that we have not yet found. Instead of a most complex body of behaviour, here is at bottom a uniformity of behaviour, arising out of the uniformity of tendency and end. For notwithstanding the striking differences between the joys of exercise and rest, the joys of the appetites and the tender joys of affection, they are all doing the same thing, maintaining that state of the object and relation to self which already exist, and maintaining them unobtrusively as far as possible, by excluding the impulse from notice. But we have not yet considered a characteristic achievement of Joy, and yet not a late one in evolution, nor confined to man, but widely distributed in the animal world,-the Joy of Play, the Play-impulse, wherein we shall find an astonishing variety, and the exercise of a number of instincts belonging to widely different systems. CHAPTER VIII JOY (II) 4. The Play-Impulse and the Behaviour of Play WHEN we watch animals at play we see a kind of behaviour unique in its way and yet containing many imitations of what they do in their 'serious' moods. For the difference between play and work or 'serious' activity strikes every one. Spencer goes so far as to call play a "tendency to superfluous and useless exercise," and Groos, for whom it has a very important use, still speaks of it as "an instinct, producing activity without serious motive."2 Has then play its instinct, and is it through this that it becomes play and not serious activity or work? A conspicuous feature of play is that it exhibits the instinctive activities which belong to the other and serious sides of life. Thus the instincts connected with pursuit, flight, concealment, fighting, destruction, and many others are constantly exercised in animal play. But if play involves the exercise of the same instincts as does the serious sides of life, what constitutes it play? Is there in addition a special instinct, as Groos suggests? The answer sometimes given is that in play the instincts exhibited are not directed to any useful or serious end. But the theory now widely adopted is that animal play does subserve a useful end, because by means of it an animal exercises its instincts before the necessity of employing them arises, thus learning 1 'Prin. of Psy.' vol. ii. ch. ix. p. 630. 2 'The Play of Animals,' ch. iii. 2, p. 102. to perfect them by practice. From this point of view, play seems to have, not only a useful, but also a very serious end, and without it the animal would often perish. "The tiger, for instance, no longer fed by his parents, and without practice in springing and seizing his prey, would inevitably perish, though he might have an undefined hereditary impulse to creep upon it noiselessly, strike it down by a tremendous leap, and subdue it with tooth and nail, for the pursued creature would certainly escape on account of his unskilfulness." 1 Again, whoever says that play does not subserve, at least directly, any useful or practical end, cannot mean to deny that the ends of the instincts are practical, and that these ends they inevitably pursue. For instance, the instincts of flight are directed to the end of removing the animal from the neighbourhood of danger by rapid movement. The instinctive behaviour may be different in different animals according to their different modes of locomotion, but it is directed to the same end. Similarly the instincts of concealment are directed to the end of concealing the presence of the organism by getting into cover, or into a hole of the ground; here too the behaviour differs from one group of animals to another, though it is directed to the same end. And these instincts of flight and concealment must be directed to these practical ends of flight and concealment, whether they are active in the system of fear or in that of play. That is to say if animals in their play call such instincts into activity, they too will flee from one another and conceal themselves. Similarly with other instincts. How then is this clear line of division established between earnest and play where both involve the activity of the same instincts, and in employing them have to accept their ends? If an instinct has always to pursue its own proximate end, it may still make a great difference in what system it is organised. For instance, an instinct of concealment is subordinated to a different end in fear from that to which it is subordinated in anger when that system employs it. So also is it subordinated to a different end in play. Here there is another and ulterior end to be considered, the end of the 1 Groos, op. cit. ch. ii. p. 74. |