Chapter XIII: Part II (2)

Imitation, too, plays the part of a first cause here, as Spinoza points out in pursuance of his definition of emulation. As, however, this subject will come up for discussion later, let it suffice to say here that imitation is exceedingly important for all mental and physical development, and is accordingly especially conspicuous in the play of children. The effort to say “I can, too,” easily takes on a certain hostile character when there is difficulty in attainment, and so imitation becomes actual rivalry as soon as the effort is for “I can do better,” and the struggle becomes sharper in proportion to the consciousness of a desire to surpass. Thus we are justified in regarding the impulse of jealousy which is related to the fighting instinct as the foundation of rivalry as well.

Before going on to investigate this playful rivalry it may be useful to inquire into its social significance. G. Tarde, in his interesting sociological study, Les lois de l’imitation,[404] attempts to prove that imitation is the mainspring of social evolution. But along with the peaceful operations of imitation, the fighting instinct, too, makes itself felt in manifold ways, as a principle of progress (as I remarked above in discussing combativeness), in conjunction it is true with imitation and usually under the form of rivalry. It is evident that social progress would be slow indeed if men only imitated and never opposed what is done in their presence. Rivalry in ownership, power, and authority is the force which urges each to do his utmost in the struggle for life, and which has produced the most advanced civilizations. A people without ambition is lost; not merely stationary, but actually decadent. As in art bald imitation of even the best models results in weakness, so in society. Men must will to do better in order to do as well.

In spite of their variety we can very quickly review the physical imitative games, since under movement-plays we have already noticed a considerable number belonging to this class, and since it is their psychological side alone that chiefly appeals to us. The following examples, then, are merely chosen to show by means of their variety the great importance of imitation in human play.[405] Children learn most of their bodily movements by such play in a way which clearly illustrates the mingled effects of imitation and emulation. When one child jumps off the second step, another child who sees him immediately tries to cover three; and when boys are practising their leaps each makes a mark in the sand beyond the others as his goal. To lift a heavier weight, to throw farther, to run faster, to jump higher, to make a top spin longer, to stay longer under water, to shoot higher, farther, and with better aim than his comrades can, is the burning wish of every childish heart. In order to see the same enthusiastic rivalry in physical prowess exhibited by adults, we must turn to the half-civilized peoples to whom such acquirements are of surpassing value in the struggle for life. Among the ancient Germans, for example, such contests were carried to the highest degree of perfection, and, in spite of their avowedly playful character, conducted with such seriousness that they often became matters of life and death. Skill, prowess, and endurance in leaping, running, lifting and throwing huge stones, the use of bow and arrow, diving and swimming, riding and rowing, were all the subjects of contest, and each victor sought to surpass the achievements of the former one. All warlike peoples of whom ethnology is cognizant show much the same picture, and highly civilized nations, too, accord an important position to athletic contests, as the Greek and Roman games bear witness, as well as the championships and records of our own day. Rivalry enters, too, into such games as tenpins, billiards, croquet, golf, etc., all of which are favourite amusements. The pleasure they afford is complicated, including display of one’s own strength and skill, the pleasure of watching others, the stimulus of rivalry and the satisfaction of overcoming an opponent. Sometimes, and especially in croquet and billiards, the contest closely approaches fighting play, since the participants not only try to attain the object of the game, but are apt to engage in direct hostilities.

We now turn to some examples that are better calculated to exhibit the many-sidedness of rivalry, which is, of course, an element in all the games of skill which we have mentioned. We are not so well prepared to find it in games requiring patient effort, yet even the Eskimos, in their Fadenfiguren, indulge in fierce emulation,[406] and a play as peaceful as kite-flying is not exempt. “The Hervey Islanders believe that once the god Tane challenged the god Rongo to a kite-flying contest, in which the latter won because his cord was longer.”[407] In drinking there is rivalry in the effort to withstand the power of alcohol, and students have a time-honoured tradition that the man is a fine fellow and worthy of all respect who can drink the rest of the company under the table. It is more charitable to attribute this practice to rivalry rather than to love of drunkenness.[408] The instance of the two boys holding burning matches illustrates how readily the ability to suppress any manifestation of pain lends itself to rivalry. The old Germans tested their endurance by sitting at feasts after their battles, and when they were covered with wounds. In a grotesquely exaggerated saga it is related of the wounded sons of Thorbrand: “Thorodd got such a blow in the neck that his head hung sideways; his hose were all bloody and would not meet. Snorri could see and feel that a sword was sticking in his thigh, but Thorodd said nothing. Among the gayest of the gay is Snorri, son of Thorbrand, who sits with the others at table, but eats little and looks white. When asked what ails him he says, ‘When the vulture has won the fight he is not in haste to eat.’ Then Gode looks at his neck and finds an arrow head at the root of his tongue.”[409] The jeering of Walthar and Hagen, who vie with one another in mocking at their wounds, is another case in point. Finally, the passion for making collections, which is so strong in both children and adults, may be considered as a form of competitive rivalry which reaches its climax in the miser.

4. _Mental Rivalry_

The space devoted to the more general kinds of emulation has purposely been curtailed in order to devote more to the special case of gaming, as much of the ground has been covered already.

Children are fond of displaying their mental acquirements even before they are old enough to go to school, but it is there, of course, that the best opportunity is afforded them. Colozza tells us how the Italian children use their recess time for contests over the multiplication table.[410] During school hours recitation is easily transformed to emulation which can be turned to account by the judicious teacher with better results than are attained by one who tries to draw the line too rigidly between work and play.

The intellectual rivalries of adults are exceedingly varied. Music offers unlimited opportunities when people are far enough advanced to have any sort of society, and even primitive tribes indulge in this sort of entertainment. Among the Eskimos the contestants compete in public for the prize for singing, and then fall into actual combat, thus combining the two forms of rivalry. Grosse quotes from Rink the following musical dialogue between two East Greenlanders. “Savdlat: ‘The south, the south, oh, the south over there! As I stood on the headland I saw Pulangitsissok, who had grown fat upon halibut. The people of this land know not how to speak. Therefore they are ashamed of their language. They are dumb over there; their speech is not like ours. In the north we speak in one way, different from those in the south. Therefore we can not understand their talk.’” To this challenge Pulangitsissok responds: “‘There was a time, as Savdlat knows, when I was a good sledger, when I could take a heavy load on my kajak. Four years ago he found this out. That was the time when Savdlat bound his kajak to mine for fear he might capsize. Then he could carry a good load on his kajak, too. As I was tugging along you cried out pitifully, and were afraid and almost overturned. I had to hold on to my ropes to keep us up.’”[411] Such sarcastic dialogue often leads to direct contests, in which the singers try to rout one another by means of their witty improvisations. A later form is the contest in oratory and song on an assigned theme, opening with a direct challenge between the contestants. The poem of Wartburg-Krieg is especially famed, while Plata’s symposium may be instanced as a fine example of competitive oratory on a given theme.

Other kinds of rivalry frequently arise in social gatherings, such as recounting experiences in love, hunting, and battle, as was pre-eminently the custom among the ancient Germans. “One after another,” says Weinhold,[412] “boasted of his prowess and sought to prove it by tales of his wonderful deeds. To heighten the effect, each chose an opponent worthy of his mettle. Thus it happened that Eystein and Sigurd, the crusader, both Norwegian kings, once had a controversy in court. Eystein advanced the proposition that it was impossible to live aright in society, and called on his brother to sustain the contrary. Then the travelled warrior Sigurd, who had filled all lands with the fame of his deeds, and the peace-loving, home-staying Eystein, each related what he had done and could do: the one his battles, his fame in the East; the other that he had built huts for poor fishers, made roads over rugged mountains, opened harbours, widened Christendom, and strengthened the Church—in short, extended his kingdom by every peaceable method. The talk became warm, and the silence which followed was ominous, but as they were both noble-hearted no harm came of it.” Very characteristic, too, is the Harbardhslied in the Edda, where the gods Wotan (under the name Harbardh) and Donar emulously recount their achievements:

_Donar_: “Do you ask what I did to Rungner,
The giant with sturdy heart and head of stone?
I felled him then, he lies at my feet.
And what did you, Harbardh, the while?”

_Harbardh_: “For more than five full winters
Was I on an island that is called Allgrün;
There I found men to fight and enemies to fell,
Many things to prove, and many maids to free,” etc.

Singing the praise of one’s future deeds is another form of such boasting. A company of carousing men have need of a wild boar or some other sin offering to go through their midst as they perjure themselves with oaths concerning the hazardous and difficult deeds which they mean to perform.

Before taking up games of chance again I mention once more the fact that many reasoning games are also rivalries—dominoes, for example, and backgammon[413]—since the chief effort is to reach a certain goal first and direct efforts are made to embarrass and retard the adversary, so that genuine fighting play results.

In chance games proper, however, the contestants do not attack one another directly, but seek to conquer by the better solution of some problem, the point of departure from other rivalries being that the reward of solution, at least in games of pure chance, is entirely accidental, and not dependent on the player’s strength or skill. We will now attempt to review the more important phenomena connected with such games, and later study the question in its psychological bearings.

The wager is akin to play with chance and arises from the holding of opposite opinions, which can only be settled by future events. Even if the bet concerns something which is past or present, still the decision must be in the future, and the fighting element comes in in the striving of each to prove his superiority, the interest being much enhanced by pooling the stakes. The bettor’s conviction as to the correctness of his opinion may be strong or weak[414]—absolute certainty destroys the validity of the bet, while absolute uncertainty makes it a mere game of chance, whereas it should depend, like the best card games, on a union of reasoning and hazard. For this reason future events are the proper subjects of the wager, and we will confine ourselves for brevity’s sake to such bets. Schaller says rightly: “The future is pre-eminently the object of conjecture, of the reckoning of probabilities. Even when present circumstances seem to tend inevitably to a certain result, there are still infinite possibilities that other results may transpire. Therefore the wager should concern something yet to come.”[415]

One of the earliest forms of betting was on physical or mental superiority, and the stakes formerly so common in reasoning games may be regarded in the same light. There was much betting on the victor in the old German riddle contests and life itself was sometimes staked, if we may depend on the ancient accounts. More often, though, physical prowess was the subject of the wager. “Indeed, Tacitus may be right,” says Schuster, “when he records that the Germans disdained to be praised for ordinary physical vigour, yet they gave prizes to the victors in their contests and liked to claim the glory when it set them above others. Reputation with them must not be mere empty words; one must work for it to the full extent of his powers. Many examples illustrate this spirit; for instance, Welent and Amilias, the smiths, each boasted that he could not be surpassed in his art. The latter offered to bet on it, and Welent replied, ‘I have not much property, but I will stake it all.’ Then said Amilias, ‘If you have nothing else, stake your head, and I will stake mine, and whichever of us is the better man shall cut the other’s head off.’ Two of Olaf Trygvason’s retainers boasted of being superior mountain climbers, one wagering his ring on it, and the other his head.”[416] Schuster cites, too, the famous contest in the Nibelungenlied, to which Brunhild thus challenges King Gunther:

“She said: If he is your lord and you are in his hire,
Tell him that I have sworn that whoever can resist my play,
And prove himself my master there, him will I wed,
While if I win you must go alone from hence.”

Fable makes animals wager in the same way; the old tale of the hare and the hedgehog is found even in Africa, although there the hedgehog has become a tortoise.[417]

The stakes are not always, however, on one’s own ability, but quite as often on the performances of others, or on the speed and endurance of animals. This is indeed the most popular form of the sport, doubtless because the agreeable tension of expectation is thus prolonged until the very moment of the _dénouement_, as it is not likely to be in the more personal contests. In riding, rowing, sailing, and running contests spectators, as well as participants, bet on the result.[418] “Betting on races,” says E. v. Hartmann, “is the most dangerous and exciting form of gambling, being dependent purely on chance, and yet offering a false appearance of being essentially influenced by intelligence and judgment. The custom is fostered of raising the stakes at the last moment under the influence of artificial stimulation to interest during the race itself. Immature boys, sons of respectable labourers, are thus initiated in the fascinations of the passion for gaming who would otherwise have little inclination for it.”[419] In various parts of the world wagers are laid on the result of fights between animals. In ancient Greece gamecocks were bred with special care, and Tanagra, Rhodes, Chalcis, and Delos were famous for the achievements of their respective breeds. The birds were fed with garlic before the fight to augment their excitement, and were armed with artificial spurs. The stakes were often enormous.[420] Cock-fights in which betting seemed to be the principal feature were held during the middle ages in most European cities, and in some localities have survived to the present day. Malays are especially devoted to this sport. It only remains to add in conclusion that lifeless things, too, may be the subject of bets. The Gilbert Islanders set two sailboats, about four feet long, afloat, and bet as to which will sail fastest.[421] This is very near to being play with pure chance, and the wager of Canning with an English duke is even more so. They staked a hundred pounds on the question of who should meet most cats on a certain road.

There is but one opinion as to the origin of games of pure chance—namely, that they grew out of the serious questioning of Fate in the form of oracles, and colour is given to the theory by the custom of jesting with the oracle. The Greek custom of pouring wine into a metal cup and from the sound it made reading one’s prospects in love, drawing straws—a practice which Walther von der Vogelweide has made famous—the various flower oracles, counting the cuckoo calls, observing the flight of birds—as, for example, how many times the kite circles—and many other such customs[422] were originally conducted seriously, with a view to gaining some knowledge of the future, and even when playfully practised smack of superstition. Tylor says, in his admirable study of this subject: “Soothsaying and games of chance are so closely allied that the instruments of each are used interchangeably, as among the clever Polynesian magicians cocoanuts are skilfully rolled about in a circle. In the Tonga Islands the chief use made of a holiday is to inquire whether the sick will be cured. They offered loud prayers to the family deity that he would place the nuts aright, then spun them, and from their position judged of the god’s will. Under other circumstances, when the cocoanuts are rolled simply for amusement, no prayer is offered and no significance attached to the result. The Rev. G. Turner found the same custom in the Samoan Islands in another stage of development. There a company sits in a circle, the nuts are rolled about among them, and the oracle’s answer depends on whether the monkey face of the nut is turned toward the questioner when it stops rolling. The Samoans formerly used this method to detect a thief, but now it is a forfeit game.”[423] In this sort of play with chance there is nothing special at stake, yet it is no doubt closely connected with those forms which have this feature.

Another of the earliest of the manifold forms of chance games is the casting of lots. New Zealand wizards decide the fortunes of war by throwing staffs. If the stick which represents their own tribe falls on that of another, then a favourable outcome may be confidently expected to the battle. The Zulus have a similar ceremony, and the Hindus cast lots before the temple and supplicate the gods for victory. In the Iliad the crowd prayed with outstretched hands while the dice in Agamemnon’s helmet decided who should be the first to fight Hector. Tacitus tells us that the German priests tossed three dice on a white cloth before they attempted to reveal the future.[424] The origin, then, of the use of dice in games of chance is indubitable. The ancient form of backgammon common in India and Mexico was played with lots instead of dice, as was also the case with the Arabian Tâb. Some Indian tribes use the simple casting of lots for gambling purposes. The Arabian does not throw, but draws lots as a substitute for the Meisir forbidden in the Koran.[425] The complicated Chinese game lotto is well known, and Bastian found a similar one used in Siam.[426] E. von Hartmann refers repeatedly in his Tagesfragen to our European lottery, combating the popular idea that it is reprehensible, and should not be fostered by the state. He sees in a well-conducted state lottery the best means of directing the ineradicable tendency to play games of chance into harmless channels. Money speculation is, as a rule, little different from a lottery, since the great majority of speculators have no more intimation of the outcome than is furnished by the law of probabilities which governs pure games of chance. Returning now to simpler manifestations, we find many which are closely related to the use of lots. North American Indians, who are zealous gamblers, use marked or coloured stones, seeds, and teeth, and stake their clothing, furniture, weapons, and, in fact, all that they possess. In Burmah a favourite game is played with beans, and in many of the villages a thrashing floor is erected for the express purpose of supplying the demand.[427] In Siam the children play with shells, and everything depends on whether the opening falls up or down.[428] A similar game was known to the Greeks, and in Rome a coin was tossed with the cry, “Caput aut navis!” equal to our “Heads or tails!” We must suppose that such play by children is derived from adult games of chance.

Astragalus and dice were the implements used in many such games. The former are peculiarly shaped bones from the ankles of sheep, goats, or calves, and their use for such purposes is very ancient. They are capable of resting on any one of four sides which may vary in value, as the six sides of dice. The Schliemann collection in the Berlin Museum contains some of them which were found in the “second city.” In ancient Greece four astragali were used in the games of adults, and were thrown either from the free hand or from a cup. Special names were given to the various throws, such as Aphrodite, Midas, Solon, Euripides, etc., and the worst throw was called, there as in Rome, the dog. The children of antiquity also played with these bones a game partly of chance and partly of skill, and Hellenic children use them to this day. Ulrichs saw them at Arachola on Parnassus. “The children there,” he says, “play with the astragalus, which is a small four-sided bone rounded at the end and so shaped as to be capable of resting on any of its sides. In the game the uppermost side is read, the commonest throw being that which brings the round end up and is called the baker or the donkey. Then follow the thief, the vizier, and, rarest of all, the king, the side which looks like an ear and is opposite the vizier.”[429]

The name vizier seems to point to Mohammedan influence, and indeed the children of Damascus have a special game of chance with astragalus in which the terms vizier and thief are both used.[430] Some think that ordinary dice are derived from the astragalus, but it would be difficult to prove, though their imitation in other materials seems to suggest it, as in the case of the oblong dice used by the Romans with cubical ones, and several hundred prehistoric dice found in Bohemia are of similar form. The Berlin Museum, too, has oblong dice from India and China, showing that they were widely used in the Orient, and Hyde points out in his history of games of chance that the Greek word κύβος is related to the Arabic _Kab_, which meant simply made of lamb’s bones. On the other hand, cubical dice with spots like ours are found in Theban graves, so that we can not be positive as to the priority of the astragalus.

Possibly cocoanut rolling was the primitive form of roulette as we have seen it used in half-religious, half-playful manner by the South Sea Islanders. The Berlin Museum has Chinese rolling dice through which a peg passes, projecting on each side or with the peg on one side only, and the ball tapering to a point on the other. According to Egede, Greenlanders have a sort of roulette, an oblong ball about which the players sit with the stake before them.[431] Another form of chance game is the morra, which was probably known to the ancient Egyptians, and was in all likelihood at first a clever method of calculating.[432] As a play the hands of all the players are thrown simultaneously into the air, and each must guess at the number of outstretched fingers without taking time to count. This amusement, still very popular among Italian peasants, was called by the Achæans “micare digitis.” In China, where it is zealously cultivated, it bears the name of “tsoey-moey.”[433] The North American Indians have a modification of it in their cane guessing—namely, the effort to locate a small object passed quickly about in a company. It is used for gambling purposes, the Indians staking all that they have, even to their wives sometimes.[434] The “Kyohzvay” play is taken quite as seriously in Burmah. For this a stick is fixed among the folds of a tightly wrapped cord, and the game is won or lost[435] according as it is or is not successfully concealed.[436] The various games of cards afford by far the most important instances of play with chance, and their name is legion. We have not time even to glance at such games as faro, lansquenet, rouge et noir, trente et quarante, etc., except to say that they all depend on a combination of reason with chance, and so more speedily put an end to suspense as to who is the victor than do purely chance plays. We are now confronted by the difficult question of what it is that constitutes the demoniacal charm of gaming, whose power is demonstrated by the value of the stakes with which a man will tempt Fate. Every one is familiar with Tacitus’s description of the ancient Germans who, when they had lost everything else, staked their freedom and their life on the last throw. H. M. Schuster gives a long list of examples of Germans staking freedom, wife, and children, the clothes on their backs, life itself, yes, even their souls’ salvation when their passion for play was at its height. That this is a universal Aryan trait is shown by the Indian poem of Nala and Damayanti. The former, under the power of a hostile demon, loses at play with Pushkara his ornaments, jewelry, horses, wagons, and clothes. In vain his wife and followers seek to restrain his madness; for many months the ruinous play goes on until Nala has lost all his property and even his kingdom. Then as Pushkara, with loud laughing at the unlucky fellow, cried out that now he must put up his wife Damayanti, Nala rose from the table and walked away with his faithful wife, stripped as he was of all else. The Chinese, Siamese, and Burmese, too, are all passionate gamblers, and the Malays are famous for their wagers on animal fights. This is sufficient to show that the wonderfully strong attractive power of gaming, “le jeu-passion, dont le rôle tragique est vieux comme l’humanité,”[437] is the result of numerous causes whose aggregate, according to Fechner’s principle, is far greater than their numerical sum. Taking account of the essentials only, we still have a threefold phenomenon; these are, desire to win the stake, the stimulus of strong effects, and the impulse given by the fighting instinct.

Winning the stake is so important that without it games of chance become very flat and most unimpressive, as forms of entertainment. How is this to be explained? Sometimes it appears as veritable cupidity, the “fascination d’acquérir d’un bloc, sans peine, en un instant.”[438] The seductive chink of gold pieces is heard and visions of new names of wealth open before us, promising to deliver us from all burdens and dangers which in spite of their distance and vagueness we strive to get possession of by a single turn of Fortune’s wheel; the gold fever is at home in gambling dens. Yet—and I think this is important—as a rule, it is not mere greed for gain as such, but a feeling more refined. It is boundless delight in sudden good fortune that makes the unearned winnings so enticing. That inward striving after the absolute, which is so deeply rooted in the human breast, is concerned in the longing to experience at least one moment of exhilarating joy with which a single stroke of Fortune’s wand sets our hearts aflame:

“From the clouds it must fall,
Such is the gift of the gods;
And the strongest power of all
Is that which belongs to the moment.”

It would be misleading to suppose that all wagers in a game of chance are attributable to a desire to win, even in this refined sense. In so far as it is the chief motive, there is no real play at all, for it constitutes a serious aim wholly outside the sphere of play. There must be some other meaning to the intense delight in winning, and Lazarus, as usual, puts his finger on it. “Even for an onlooker, not pecuniarily interested, the charm increases with the value of the stake.”[439] The stake serves not only to enhance the thought of winning the game, but intensifies the decisive moment.[440] A gambler must have excitement at any price, and he also wants to risk something; betting satisfies both demands.

The need for intense stimuli which we are so constantly encountering in the course of this inquiry appears as the second motive in our classification, and it is met by a storm of effects which betting excites. Consequently gambling is pre-eminently suited to supply this demand. I have already pointed out that betting on the performances of others is an especially popular form of gambling, since in this way alone can the excitement be enjoyed unimpaired by personal considerations. So, too, in games of pure chance, which relegate the player to comparative inactivity and impart a feeling of externality among its other effects. By far the most important of these effects is the contrast of the emotions of hope and fear, and often this simultaneous action of opposing passions is sufficient to stir the soul to its depths, since, as Lazarus penetratingly remarks, the result is in either case positive; the question is not, winning or not winning, it is winning or losing. This is another point which renders games of chance peculiarly fit for the production of exciting effects. Also besides fear and hope there is the tension of expectation and the shock of surprise to render the mental agitation more intense and varied. This explains why gambling is the last resort of the dissipated, worn-out man who needs sharp stimuli to arouse his exhausted powers.[441]

Gambling is, moreover, a fighting play, and this is doubtless one of its most important phases. There is no other form of play which displays in so many-sided a fashion the combativeness of human nature and with so slight expenditure of time and strength. There is the charm of danger as such, enjoyment of bold betting which in the changing course of the game is constantly renewed, and further indirect as well as direct battle with an opponent, for he who makes the best throw gets the best card. Besides all this there is the desire to win his wager, and by means of the steady augmenting of stakes it differs from all other fighting plays in affording at the last moment, when all seems lost, an opportunity of retrieving everything by a sudden overwhelming victory. And finally there is the defiance of the power of chance, or rather, if a religious rearing makes one scruple to put it in this form, we may call it a struggle with the powers of darkness.

The question now arises whether this is properly called a fight when the player can not influence the outcome, but must submit absolutely to the incalculable hazards of fortune. What right has he to congratulate himself on a victory for which he is in no way responsible? To this it may be answered that in addition to this subjective, psychological condition there is an active contest; for an illusion exists in connection with every game of chance that in some way the outcome is dependent on the capacity of the player, and a little reflection will show that this is characteristic of human nature. How else arises our naïve sense of worth or of shame? Are we not vain of physical beauty, of inherited advantages, and of riches which we have not earned? Does not the consciousness of deformity, stupidity, weakness, awkwardness, or even a lowly origin impart a feeling of shame and a sense of responsibility for our own shortcomings? We feel as if we had had a voice in the fashioning of our bodies and souls and a choice of our position in life—in short, as the vulgar saying has it, as if we had not been careful enough in the choice of our parents. Just in the same way we are proud of our luck in play. Luck is genius, and he whom it smiles upon is a hero.[442] This failure to discriminate between fortunate circumstance and personal merit is shown in a striking manner in popular poetry. Its heroes are often armed with magic weapons or directly assisted by higher powers who lend them supernatural strength or work ruin to their enemies. Such advantage is thus given them that the reflecting person has some difficulty in regarding their exploits as especially praiseworthy, yet the average hearer is undisturbed by such considerations. For instance, consider the invulnerability of Achilles and Siegfried’s Tarnkappe, which gave him in the fight with Brunhild “the strength of twelve men.”

In the case which we are considering, however, this habit of mind has a twofold significance: First, there is the personification of chance as fate, with whom the player struggles. Lazarus says: “Instead of blind chance, he pictures before him a reasoning intelligence whose laws he tries to fathom, and in the face of many failures and mistaken conclusions he persists in attempting to calculate his chances and to count on them, forgetting that the reckoning of probabilities is useful only in generalities and is practically worthless when applied to a single case. By and bye he endows luck with moral qualities as well. He will risk everything on a single card, and either can not believe that Fate will be inexorable, that his faith and perseverance must at last be rewarded, or else assumes an attitude of defiance to a hostile being.”[443] In the second place, the gambler regards the implements of his trade as does the magician among primitive peoples the means of performing his incantations. It is actual fetich worship in which personification assumes proportions quite different from those it bears in the general idea of fate. Demons who sometimes obey the player’s will, and sometimes mockingly defy him, seem to dwell in the dice and cards, transforming play into a contest in magic arts. This is perhaps not so strongly felt by cultivated people of the present day as I have represented it, yet it is present in a more or less rudimentary form in all devotees of the game. While some scoff at it, even they avoid those things which are traditionally supposed to bring ill luck. Thus, when I was a student, in our games with dice which were very popular, the following rules were rigidly observed: In order to throw double sixes, the player took the dice cup in his right hand, placed the left over it and shook it solemnly three times up and down before making the final throw. If low numbers were desired, the inverted cup was held slantingly and drawn carefully back on the table so that the dice glided out rather than rolled. For medium throws there was a choice between two methods over whose comparative efficacy there was serious controversy: either to rise from the table and empty the cup from a height, or to propel the dice suddenly by a sidelong movement from the cup, held at a slant. Was all this mere joking? To a certain extent certainly it was, yet the boys half believed in it and had a poor opinion of beginners who did not know how to handle the dice. Among the lower classes, however, and among peoples of less advanced civilization this fetichism is much stronger. Konrad von Haslan, says Schuster, testifies to having seen and heard “how on the one hand dice are honoured, greeted, and kissed, and have offerings of booty made to them, while on the other they were beaten and abused as if they possessed life. Often the player who has lost by them takes revenge by picking out the spots or smashing the dice with a stone or biting them in two to make them suffer.”[444] All these circumstances combine to make gaming a fighting play not alone with men, but also with supernatural powers whose inscrutable decisions possess a peculiar power and whose favour lends to the fortunate player a special nimbus, while the vanquished does not suffer in his own esteem as if he had been conquered by a human foe.

Finally, we should note that gaming has various mental connections with experimentation, since enjoyment of the excitation of hope and fear and the feeling of suspense as well as the shock of surprise is experimental in every case. With this is combined great activity of attention and imagination to whose agency the personification of which we have spoken must be ascribed; reason’s part in the process is displayed in the complex calculation of probabilities, and that of the will most conspicuously in the effort to appear outwardly calm while the wildest excitement reigns within, and hope and despair surge in alternate waves across the soul.

It is difficult to say which of these stimuli ought to be placed at the head of the list, but two appear to me to be rather more important than the others. First, the combative impulse, whose influence is particularly strong here; and, second, pleasure in intense effects, as when the “gold fever” takes the form of longing for a supreme moment which shall fill the soul to the brim, something which will transcend all other transporting agents. Both find their satisfaction at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and importance of its revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the extraordinary persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the table, as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of the game. The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated action tends to lead to the production of the first part again.

5. _The Destructive Impulse_

Turning our attention now to the third of our principal groups of fighting plays, the first subject—namely, the destructive impulse—will not occupy us long, as we have already given some consideration to it in the section on analytic movement-play. There we were chiefly concerned with the experimental element as manifested in the desire to take things to pieces. Here we shall emphasize the fighting instinct which is so easily aroused even toward a lifeless object, and frequently becomes a sort of delirium which is only appeased by the entire destruction of the object, as if it were a vanquished foe. And here, too, belongs the inquiry under what circumstances the discharge of this impulse, whether directed against a living or a lifeless object, may be considered as playful. As soon as rage ceases to be the chief influence, and the destruction is continued simply for the sake of its intoxicating effects, it takes on more or less of a playful character, though it is inexpedient to attempt to set clearly defined limits to what is earnest and what is play.[445] When children tear paper or overturn structures laboriously erected by themselves, how often the interest is cumulative, developing finally into passionate eagerness from action which was at first indifferent! The paper is seized in the teeth, the building kicked to bits, objects which are breakable entirely destroyed, flowers pulled to pieces, etc. Education should interfere at this point and direct the play, imposing proper checks. Madame Necker de Saussure relates of a previously gentle and tractable girl of eighteen months that “one day when she was alone with her mother, who was confined to her bed from illness, the child, without the least provocation, broke into open rebellion. Clothes, hats, fans, and every movable object that she could lay her hands on were piled in the middle of the floor, and she danced around the pile and sang with the greatest delight. Her mother’s serious displeasure had no restraining effect.”[446] “A girl three years old,” says Paolo Lombroso, “was left alone for a few moments, and proved her ability to improve the time. She at once began most energetically, and with full consciousness of what she was doing, to pull to pieces a basket of vegetables. She reduced all these to fragments, and then emptied an inkstand in her lap, amusing herself by smearing it on the wall and floor with her fingers. When that palled she took a corkscrew and punched her apron as full of holes as a sieve.”[447] A little later in life the impulse leads to more violent misdemeanours. The destruction of garden borders, smashing of furniture in public parks, and many other acts of vandalism which we prosecute, are practised by half-grown lads, and sometimes even by students.[448] Some may object to calling such roughness play, but play it surely is if there is no malicious intention, as is usually the case. Such mischief is often reprehensible, and deserves to be checked, yet such antics as those of the subalterns as described by Eugen Thossan can not be taken seriously. He says: “Suddenly a beer mug flew across the table and hit Sergeant Putz square in the face. This was the signal for a general free fight. Steins flew through the air like cannon balls. Four lamps borrowed from the officers’ rooms were on the table; one was struck and the chimney fell off. Somebody called out ‘When the chimney is gone the lamp may as well follow,’ and a blow from a fist shattered the lamp. A mad rage for destruction was kindled, and with anything that came to hand all the lamps were beaten to pieces. In the general hullabaloo no one noticed the wounds that he received from the splinters and blows. When every vestige was demolished, a frightful war whoop rose to the hall above.” It is more than probable that such orgies as this often have a certain connection with the sexual life. We find among animals—deer, buffalo, etc.—a similar rage for destruction during their breeding season.

My last example refers to mature men. It is the vigorous description in Vischer’s Auch Einer of the argument of two friends in an inn about the china displayed around them. “At last Auch Einer called out: ‘That is enough; they are condemned.’ He bought the whole collection from the innkeeper and then let himself loose. He handed me the pitcher with the remark that I should have the honour of opening the ball. I was not slow to obey, and as a massive granite block stood opposite the window I sent the pitcher crashing against it. Auch Einer was delighted, and, seizing a vinegar cruet, followed suit. Then we took turns with plates, dishes, glasses, and whatever came to hand. A crowd of villagers soon collected outside and cheered the rare sport; loud laughter and cries of ‘Go it, there!’ greeted each act of justice.”

Injurious treatment of living creatures, too, is often due to the same instinct. In the desire to investigate, the principle of the golden rule is forgotten. It would be too optimistic, however, to assume that such things are never done from cruelty. Fischart says that even well-disposed children reveal the demon of fighting and destruction when there is a beetle or a broken-winged bird or a wounded cat to torment. Most readers will recall some reminiscence of their own youth when they really enjoyed inflicting injury on some living thing. It may assume a dangerous form when directed against other persons. Some years ago a number of children at play intentionally drowned a comrade; and Fr. Scholz tells us, “An eight-year-old girl with an angelic face secretly put some pins in her little brother’s food, and calmly awaited the catastrophe, which fortunately was averted.” “A girl twelve years old pushed a child of three, with whom she was playing, into a pile of paving stones for no other reason than that she might have the opportunity to tickle him cruelly.”[449] Among criminals murders may sometimes result from following this impulse. Some time ago three peasants were tried for the murder, with incredible cruelty, of a servant. They were father, son, and mother. After the old man had throttled his victim he said to his accomplices, “Now he is dead enough.” But the woman, to make sure, dealt a hard blow on the poor fellow’s head. “Now I think he has had enough, this fine rabbit that we have caught.”[450] Here the bounds between play and earnest are hard to place, but probably belong at the point where the prearranged plan is no longer the leading thought, it having given place to mad delight in inflicting injury. These matters are, after all, only on the threshold of play, and we will now turn our attention to subjects more important to our inquiry.

6. _Teasing_[451]

The fighting instinct of mankind is so intense that all the playful duels, mass conflicts, single combats, and contests which we have described, do not satisfy it. When there is no occasion for an actual testing of their powers, children and adults turn their belligerent tendencies into a means of amusement, and so arise those playful attacks, provocations, and challenges which we class together under the general name of teasing. The roughest if not the earliest form of such play is that of bodily attack, such as is often observed among animals. A female ape which Brehm brought to Germany loved to annoy the sullen house dog. “When he had stretched himself as usual on the greensward, the roguish monkey would appear and, seeing with satisfaction that he was fast asleep, seize him softly by the tail and wake him by a sudden jerk of that member. The enraged dog would fly at his tormentor, barking and growling, while the monkey took a defensive position, striking repeatedly on the ground with her large hand and awaiting the enemy’s attack. The dog could never reach her, though, for, to his unbounded rage, as he made a rush for her, she sprang at one bound far over his head, and the next moment had him again by the tail.”[452] We all know how children delight in just such teasing. To throw an unsuspecting comrade suddenly on his back, to box him or tickle and pinch him, to knock off his cap, pull his hair, take his biscuit from his hand, and if he is small hold it so high that the victim leaps after it in vain—all this gives the aggressor an agreeable feeling of superiority, and he enjoys the anger or alarm of his victim. When I was in one of the lower gymnasium classes our singing on one occasion was suddenly broken into by a shrill scream. One of the pupils had found a pin which he energetically pushed into an inviting spot in the anatomy of the boy in front of him. The culprit could only say in palliation of his offence that he did it “without thinking,” which excuse was received rather incredulously. Schoolboys often pull out small handfuls of one another’s hair, and it is a point of honour not to display any feeling during the process. Becq de Fouquières records an ancient trick of this kind, consisting of a blow on the ear in conjunction with a simultaneous fillip of the nose. Cold water is a time-honoured instrument of torture. To duck the timid bather who is cautiously stepping into the pond, to empty a pitcher on a heedless passer-by, to place a vessel full of water so that the inmate of a room will overturn it on opening the door—these are jokes familiar wherever merry young people are found. The lover of teasing naturally seeks such victims as are defenceless against him, especially those who are physically weak or so situated as to be incapable of revenge. Yet there are ways of annoying the strong and capable. A good-natured teacher is apt to be the subject of his pupils’ pranks, though in this case they seldom take the form of physical assaults. It is not an unheard-of thing, however, for a paper ball to hit his head or for his seat to be smeared with ink or perhaps with glue as in Messerschmidt’s Sapiens Stultitia.[453]

Youths and grown men are little behind the children in such jests. There is, for instance, the christening on board ship in honour of crossing the line which Leopold Wagner thinks is derived from the ancient religious ceremony celebrated on passing the pillars of Hercules.[454] Tossing in a blanket, which made such a lasting impression on Sancho Panza, was known to the Romans by the name of _sagatio_. Such rough sports were practised in the time of the Roman emperors by noble youths. Suetonius relates of Otho that the future emperor as a young man often seized, with his companions, upon weak or drunken fellows at night, and tossed them on a soldier’s mantle (distento sago impositum in sublime jactare).[455] In popular festivities fighting with pigs’ bladders is a fruitful source of amusements to which tickling with a peacock’s feather is a modern addition, and lassoing with curled strips of paper which cling about the neck. Students make a specialty of such pranks. A favourite one was crowding, when the streets had only a narrow pavement for pedestrians, while in bad weather the rest of the road was a mass of unfathomable mud; another was to deal a hard blow on the high hat of some worthy Philistine, plunging him suddenly into hopeless darkness, or tracing a circle on the bald head of a toper asleep over his wine, etc. In an inn in Giessen there is still in existence a bench through whose seat a nail projects when a hidden cord is pulled—a pleasant surprise for the unsuspecting guest who reclines upon it. On entering the gymnasium I was initiated in an æsthetic little practice which is of ancient date and serves as an instance of the coarse jesting that is so common there. One of the company secretly fills his mouth with beer and reclines on two chairs. With a handkerchief spread over his face he plays the part of The Innkeeper’s Daughter. They all sing the familiar song, and two accomplices play the rôle of two of the peasants while the novice is asked to be the third. The veil is thus twice withdrawn from the daughter’s face, and twice replaced without any suspicious revelations, but when the innocent third lover arrives he is greeted with the stream of stale beer full in the face. A suitable companion-piece to this decidedly disgusting trick is this incident related by Joest as occurring among the Bush negroes of Guayana: “As I was tending the wound of a young negress whose breast was badly cut, she wearied of the operation, and suddenly seizing it in both hands she sent a stream of warm milk into my face and fled laughing away.”[456]