desires is over, and we look around for play and recreation, we make-believe that there is some other end beyond the exercise we are about to engage in.

In such cases there are two co-operating tendencies present. One is to find some activity adapted to the present condition of the organism,-of this we are often not conscious,and on finding it we are so far disposed to feel enjoyment. The other is to find some actual system which gives this need a determinate character. This system may be either that of some game with its make-believe end, or it may be that of some emotion, desire or sentiment with its serious end. The first tendency again may be only a physiological impulse; but if its need of exercise is not responded to, it becomes a felt impulse. Then we want to do something, and wonder, sometimes, what we shall do. If we find no present system to utilise this surplus energy, if the things we think of doing arouse no responsive desire to do them, we experience the emotion of 'ennui.' If, on the other hand, the need of systematic exercise finds some desire awaiting accomplishment, then it incorporates itself in this system.

Now it would seem as if this first tendency must be satisfied by the mere fact of such incorporation, whether the end of that system is, or is not, realised. For its need is only for a systematic activity, which it obtains; and in obtaining this it would tend to evoke enjoyment. And this is what we often seem to experience in playing games. We enjoy the activity because it is the sort of activity we need, and we tend to enjoy it independently of whether or not we realise the make-believe end of the game. Here joy and desire appear to be harmonised, and to co-exist in the same experience. Yet they are frequently in antagonism. For if the desire to play the game is taken seriously-as it often is,—and not in the spirit of play, it excludes enjoyment, except at those moments when a stroke is well-played, or the game successfully terminated; but then desire is either suspended or at an end.

Now take the other case. The need of activity, at a given moment, we may suppose, finds ready to hand some principal system of a man, taken seriously, and not in the spirit of play.

There is the artist's love of his art, the scientist's of his science; the philanthropist's or politician's of dealing with the problems of ignorance, poverty and injustice. The active desire of one of these principal systems, we will assume,-satisfies the physiological need of activity. There will, therefore, tend to arise the joy that accompanies the satisfaction of this need. But this desire is so serious, pressing and important, its end so often in suspense, that it counteracts the former tendency. Here we live wholly in the emotions of our desire, in its hopes and anxieties, its despondencies and disappointments. Here our thought is concentrated on its end and means. We shall not feel joy till we have fulfilled its end, or made some advance toward it.

Yet assuming that the work we are doing is in harmony with the physiological need of activity, its satisfaction must have some influence; and if it cannot make us rejoice, it will probably give a bias to the pleasing emotions of desire, and render us indisposed to despondency, disappointment and despair.

There appears then to be only one type of case in which desire and joy are not in antagonism: that in which we play a game, and the game is in harmony with the kind and amount of activity we need. The game must be played in the spirit of play; and its end must not be taken seriously. But if the end is not serious, the desire for the end is not serious; and if the desire is not serious it need not interfere with our enjoyment.

Now if we take any game such as cricket, or football, or golf, and suppose that it is throughout played in the spirit of play, which it is not, then the desire on either side to obtain the victory is as much a pretence as is the aim of two dogs that engage in mock combat to destroy or to defeat each other. The end of the game is, by playing it according to fixed rules, to make more 'runs' than the opposite side, or to force the ball more frequently between the goal-posts, or to insert a ball successively into eighteen holes in a fewer number of strokes than your opponent. This end is a make-believe, and so is the desire for it. It is there to give coherence to the succession of actions in which the game

consists, and to exhibit the strength and skill which these actions require. That is to say, the apparent end is only the means, and the apparent means, the successive actions which exhibit strength and skill,-are the real end. The end of the game is for the sake of playing the game, and not the game for the sake of its apparent end. Hence the successive actions in which it consists may afford us joy so far as they are in harmony with the kind and amount of activity we need.

It follows that in play we are not, as in real desires, wishing to get the business over in order to attain the end. On the contrary, we like to prolong it, for in it consists the game, We do not want to defeat our opponents too soon or too easily; for then the strength and skill in which consists our enjoyment, will not be fully manifested and will be too soon over. But the delays, uncertainties and prolongation of the action in which the means consist, instead of causing annoyance, are a source and prolongation of our joy; because the means are the end, and the end, the means.

The means afford enjoyment for another reason. The game is a make-believe or pretence. It is this make-believe or pretence which is the source of the characteristic enjoyment of the game as a game. There is a kind of contradiction in it, which occasions a joyful surprise. That dogs should be apparently biting one another, and trying to obtain the mastery when they are not doing anything of the kind, but only providing an opportunity for the display of their strength and skill, is something that makes us smile with joy, so well is the outward action imitated, while the inward feeling is the opposite of what it would otherwise be. That men should be apparently in rivalry, and endeavouring to inflict bitter humiliation on one another, generally in the presence of spectators, while in reality they are only playing at all this, and endeavouring to exercise their strength, skill and endurance, affording themselves enjoyment and recreation in so doing, experiencing different emotions both in victory and defeat from those which they would feel were the end a real one, this pretence and make-believe gives an added and characteristic joy to the game.

We conclude, therefore, that the enjoyment of games consists in the exercise of our instincts or aptitudes at the proper times, and when there is an impulse to exercise them, and in the proper amounts; and, secondly, in the fact that the game and the desire for its end is a pretence or make-believe, and therefore does not interfere with the enjoyment; and thirdly, in the fact that this pretence is itself a source of enjoyment. But in games as actually played, and especially by those nations which have little of the spirit of play, the pretence often gives place to the reality, and the game becomes a serious struggle for victory, which excludes joy till victory is attained. And in most cases there is something of both earnest and play; and we remind ourselves in defeat that it is only a game, and that its end is the exercise, enjoyment, and recreation we have obtained. But the law of these mixed cases appears to be that (143) In all games, the less we desire the end, the more we can enjoy the means.

Thus the law that desire and joy tend mutually to exclude one another appears to hold of all cases; but it applies to Desire only in a strict sense, and to Joy or enjoyment when understood to mean conscious joy, and defined by the essential tendency of its system. The law does not apply to impulse in general; for joy has itself an impulse. It applies only to those impulses that become desires through foresight of their ends, and in which prospective emotions are elicited. Still, the law applies to impulse thus far, that when the impulse of joy becomes prominent in consciousness, the joy itself is diminished or suppressed.1

Thus the system of Desire has its limits, and is not adapted to include Joy; and, as we shall see, is dependent on some other system for its end. It cannot be fully understood by itself. In the sentiment, we find the form of a system, the most comprehensive which the human mind can furnish, which reconciles these antagonistic forces. For love would not be love unless we could sometimes rest in joyful contemplation of its object, as at other times we are driven forward by its impetuous and unsatisfied desires.

1 See supra, B. ii. p. 283, Law 55.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCLUSION

THE complex system studied in this book is the last addition we have to make to that conception of character which it has been one of the principal aims of our work gradually to unfold. Indeed it may seem to many that Desire is the most important of all the systems and forces of character; and that if we could understand the laws of the origin, growth, and decline of its different varieties, we should also understand the laws of the origin, growth, and decline of different varieties of character. But notwithstanding the great part which our desires play in making our characters what they are known to be, yet they are never independent forces they spring originally from our primary emotions and impulses, and have a second and most prolific source in our sentiments.

The old writers who classed Desire with the emotions overlooked perhaps one principal difference between it and them. Desire is an abstraction; however much it predominates in consciousness, and appears there as an independent force, it presupposes and always belongs to some other system from which it has sprung, and from which it derives its determinate end. However charged with emotion, however peculiar desire may be, we cannot, therefore, class it with the emotions.

Anger, fear, disgust, and curiosity have determinate ends. We can describe in general terms what they are, and how distinguished from one another. Desire has no determinate end; it only has some end. It is abstracted from something