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that intelligence is, in its elements, of the nature of an inhibitive selection, it seems necessary to assume some such chain of idle and irrelevant response to account for the further course of the elements eliminated in giving the motor response the character of a reasoned line of conduct. So that associated with the prag- matic attention there is found more or less of an irrelevant atten- tion, or idle curiosity. This is more particularly the case where a higher range of intelligence is present. This idle curiosity is, perhaps, closely related to the aptitude for play, observed both in man and in the lower animals. 2 The aptitude for play, as well as the functioning of idle curiosity, seems peculiarly lively in the young, whose aptitude for sustained pragmatism is at the same time relatively vague and unreliable.
This idle curiosity formulates its response to stimulus, not in terms of an expedient line of conduct, nor even necessarily in a chain of motor activity, but in terms of the sequence of activities going on in the observed phenomena. The "interpretation" of the facts under the guidance of this idle curiosity may take the form of anthropomorphic or animistic explanations of the "con- duct" of the objects observed. The interpretation of the facts takes a dramatic form. The facts are conceived in an animistic way, and a pragmatic animus is imputed to them. Their be- havior is construed as a reasoned procedure on their part looking to the advantage of these animistically conceived objects, or looking to the achievement of some end which these objects are conceived to have at heart for reasons of their own.
Among the savage and lower barbarian peoples there is com- monly current a large body of knowledge organized in this way into myths and legends, which need have no pragmatic value for the learner of them and no intended bearing on his conduct of practical affairs. They may come to have a practical value im- puted to them as a ground of superstitious observances, but they may also not. 8 All students of the lower cultures are aware of
1 Cf. Gross, Spiele der Thiere, chap. 2 (esp. pp. 65-76), and chap. 5 ; The Play of Man, Part III, sec. 3 ; Spencer, Principles of Psychology, sees. 533-35.
- The myths and legendary lore of the Eskimo, the Pueblo Indians, and
some tribes of the northwest coast afford good instances- of such idle creations. Cf. various Reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology ; also, e. g., Tylor, Primitive Culture, esp. the chapters on "Mythology" and "Animism."
