Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/50

36 w. H. WINCH : occurrences in an individual consciousness are its data. It is not for psychology to concern itself with the objects or purposes except in so far as those objects and purposes are recognised as such by the individual mind. The philosophy of play, however, transcends the individual view and aims at connecting play with general conditions, biological and other. To take an illustration ; instinct, psychologically, has no reference to end or purpose ; but, philosophically, it is regarded as explained by such a reference. And the play theories which we have to discuss will be found to be philosophical in so far as they obtain an explanation other than that given in the conscious life-history of the individual. Psychologically, a man of genius is playing when his activities neither subserve his life interests nor those of his family or nation ; or rather when he so appraises them. It is a commonplace that in tbe records of the genius nothing is more common than the enor- mous force of the connate proclivity. He neglects the work allotted to him, he alienates his friends by his abstention from social duties. Oh, why did he write poetry who" hereto was so civil, To sell his soul to vanity, to rhyming and the devil ? It may be urged that social acclaim of some sort is required. So it is, but in the play of children such claim for recogni- tion is not absent. But the genius acts for the community, though often for an ideal one, and philosophically, at least, we must regard much, if not all, of the activity of genius as work. This discussion is very far from being a verbal one, for from the neglect of the distinction many difficulties have arisen. For instance we read 1 : "the essential point in the definition of play is its quality of practice or preparation ". But this is not a psychological definition, though it occurs under the heading " Psychology of Play"; for it would be generally admitted that, if the notion that the game was a preparation for an end other than itself entered the mind of the player, he would very soon cease to regard it as play at all. A possible definition from the standpoint of the onlooker it may be, though here I should consider it unsatisfactory, even if play were, in any sense, a preparation ; for if play does possess such a quality, youthful educational work, whether of man or animals, possesses it still more abundantly. It would seem rather that such a philosophical definition is by no means identical with possible psychological ones, for the very point of the game to the player is that it is self-sufficing, l Play of Animals, Prof. Karl Groos, p. 288.