psychology of relaxation

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Digitized by tine Internet Arciiivein 2010 witii funding from

University of Britisii Columbia Library

http://www.arGhive.org/details/psychologyofrelOOpatr


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THE PSYCHOLOGY OFRELAXATION


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THE PSYCHOLOGY OFRELAXATIONBY

George Thomas White Patrick, Ph.D.Profettor of Philosophy In the State University of Iowa

BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

(3C&e Siibecjiitie pcejtfjj Cambcibge


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COPYRIGHT, I916, BY GEORGE T. W. PATRICKALL RIGHTS RESERVEDPublished February iQi(f


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**/ ain't gwine a work till my dyin* day;*F I ever lays up enough

' I 's gwine a go off a while en stay^1 7/ be takin' a few days off.Case de jimson weeds donU bloom but onceEn when dey 's shed dey 'j shed.En when you 'j dead, tain't jis a few monthsBut you's gwine be a long time dead.''*

* * *"An American was once getting some money on

a letter of credit in a banking office in Damascus andfell into conversation with the grave Oriental whowas serving him, and who asked what struck him asthe most obvious difference between Damascus andNew York. The American, after a moment's hesita-tion, replied that he thought life moved with morerapidity in New York. * Yes,' said the Oriental, *youcall that hustle. We tried that in Damascus a thou-sand years ago and found there was nothing in it andgave it up."*

The Outlook, Sept. 29, 191 5.


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**An old negro woman had worked for years in asouthern family, and during that time she had beenuniformly patient and kind and always cheerful.One day her mistress asked her, 'Aunt Mandy, whatmakes you so cheerful all the time?' She threw backher head and laughed, saying, *Lawd, chile, I jesweahs de wurl lak a loose gyarment."*

* * *"The racially old is seized by the individual with

ease and joy."Luther H. Gulick.

* * **EoTtv ovv Tpayu)8ia fiifjLri(TL


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PREFACETO select for psychological treatment, andto bring together in one book such sub-jects as play, sport, laughter, profanity, alco-hol, and war, may seem to some capriciousto others, possibly, even sensational. Let meassure the reader that nothing could be fartherfrom my purpose than to make any suchappeal to popular favor. I have attempted aprosaic, and, so far as lay in my power, astrictly scientific treatment of these subjectsfrom the psychological and psychogeneticstandpoint.These subjects have been chosen, as I have

explained in the introductory chapter, be-cause they all illustrate one fundamental law,that of relief from the stress and tensionwhich characterize our modem life. The con-necting idea which links together these severalthemes is the catharsis idea, but the catharsisidea itself, as it appears in Aristotle andmodem writers, I have found it necessary tosubject to a new interpretation.Of the seven chapters in this book, four have


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VIU PREFACEappeared in somewhat different form in va-rious periodicals. The chapter on Play isan enlargement and revision of two articles,one on the "Psychology of Relaxation," whichappeared in the Popular Science Monthly inJune, 1914, and one on the "Psychology ofPlay," from the Pedagogical Seminary ofOctober, 1914. The chapters on Profanity,Alcohol, and War are revisions of three ar-ticles, one on the "Psychology of Profan-ity," published in the Psychological Reviewof March, 1901; one entitled "In Quest ofthe Alcohol Motive," in the Popular ScienceMonthly of September, 191 3; and one on the"Psychology of War," in the Popular ScienceMonthly of August, 1915. My thanks are dueto the editors of these periodicals for permis-sion to use the articles here.

I wish especially to acknowledge my in-debtedness to President G. Stanley Hall, asall writers must do who love to dwell uponthe significance of racial history in the in-terpretation of the mental life of the childand the man.

G. T. W. Patrick.Iowa City,

January /, igi6.


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CONTENTSI. Introduction I

II. The Psychology of Play 27III. The Psychology of Laughter 97IV. The Psychology of Profanity 143V. The Psychology of Alcohol 173VI. The Psychology of War 217VII. Conclusion 253


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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONCHAPTER IINTRODUCTION


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THE PSYCHOLOGY OFRELAXATIONCHAPTER IINTRODUCTIONTHE Gospel of Relaxation was the sub-ject of a speech made by Mr. Herbert

Spencer at a dinner given in his honor inNew York City in 1882. Mr. Spencer calledattention to the extreme form of "persistentactivity" which characterizes the Ameri-can people. The energy of the savage, hesaid, was spasmodic. He could not applyhimself persistently to work. He lived inthe present and did not worry about thefuture. Civilized man more and more pur-sues a future goal and applies himself towork until it becomes a passion.

In America, said Mr. Spencer, thisstrenuous and high-pressure life has be-come extreme, and a counterchange a re-action must be imminent. We take ourmultitudinous responsibilities too seriously.There are too many lines in our faces, our


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4 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONgray hairs appear too early, our nervousbreakdowns are too frequent. Damagedconstitutions and a damaged posterity areamong the results. Emerson, with his say-ing that the first requisite of a gentleman isto be a perfect animal, is a safer guide for usthan Carlyle with his gospel of work.More recently, Professor James, AnniePayson Call, and other writers ^ have elo-

quently preacTied this same gospel of re-laxation. We are told that we are too breath-less; that we live under too much stress andtension; that we are too intense and carrytoo much expression in our faces; that wemust relax, let go, breathe deeply, and un-burden ourselves of many useless contrac-tions.There seems to be a good deal of truth

in this. Some of us manage to escape neu-rasthenia, but few of us are free fromfatigue, chronic or acute. We hear withamazement now and again some one say,"I was never tired in my life." Surely un-der normal conditions we ought not to beso tired as we are, nor tired so often.

* For references, see bibliography of " Play " at theend of chapter ii.


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INTRODUCTION 5Impressed with the strenuous character

of American life and the need of more restand recreation, practical common sense,not waiting upon theory, has turned to dis-cover means for relieving the excessive ten-sion incident to our present habits of living.Some, as we have said, preach the gospelof relaxation, content to tell us that we aretoo intense. Others have established schoolswith practical and helpful rules and methodsfor relaxation and have brought comfortand relief to many. Again, a new and uniqueinterest has suddenly arisen in play. Menand animals have always played; but nowwe have first become conscious of play andcurious about it. We insist on play. If chil-dren do not play, we teach them to play.And we are anxious to know about thetheory of play.

Finally, a score of movements, perhapsmany score, have sprung into notice, whosepurpose is to encourage or provide someform of relaxation. We recall the recreationmovement; the physical-culture movement;the playground movement; the Boy Scouts;the Camp-Fire girls; the ever-increasinginterest in athletics, not only in our colleges,


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6 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONbut also in our high schools and grammarschools; the radical change in Young Men'sChristian Associations from devotional to hy-gienic and athletic religion; the renaissance ofthe gymnasium and the Olympic games; theincreased interest in outdoor life of all kinds;the renewed devotion to outdoor sports, liketennis, golf, baseball, and football; the rapidextension of the play motive into abnost everybranch of education; the new vacation schoolsand school excursions; finally the supervisedplaygrounds, supervised folk-dancing, super-vised swimming, wading, tramping, garden-ing, singing, and story-telling. Even with veryyoung children the Montessori system seeksto relieve the tension of the old task methodsby making the child's activities natural andinteresting as well as useful.More than twenty-five hundred regularly

supervised playgrounds and recreation centersare now maintained in about six hundred andfifty cities in this country. A brand new pro-fession has appeared, that of play leader, em-ploying nearly seven thousand professionalworkers.The legislatures of some States have passedlaws requiring every city of a certain size to


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INTRODUCTION 7vote on the proposition of maintaining play-grounds. New York City expended more than^15,000,000 on playgrounds previous to 1908.The city paid ^1,811,000 for one playgroundhaving about three acres. Chicago spent$11,000,000 on playgrounds and field housesin two years. Formerly the boy could play onthe street, in the back alley, in the back yard.Now, the alley and back yard have disap-peared, the street is crowded with automo-biles, and the few remaining open spaces aregiven over to the lawn-mower and keep-off-the-grass signs, while more and more the schoolhas encroached on the boy's precious periodof growth, filling at least nine of the twelvemonths of the year and adding the evils ofevening study and the dread of examinations.For reasons which will be shown pres-

ently, boys must play. Take away the op-portunity for legitimate play, and the playinstinct, the instinct of rivalry, of adven-ture, of initiation, will manifest Itself inanti-social ways. Hence the juvenile courtand the reform school, "Better, playgroundswithout schools," says one writer, "thanschools without playgrounds."Up to the present time this is about as


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8 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONfar as we have gone into the subject ofrelaxation. Its psychology has not reallybeen studied at all. We have simply beenimpressed by the tense and strenuous char-acter of our manner of life and have con-nected this with the increase of nervous dis-orders and nervous breakdowns and perhapswith the increase of insanity, and havefelt the need, accordingly, of more recrea-tion and play, and more harmony and poisein our way of living, and have taken, there-fore, a few practical steps in this direction.But suddenly within the most recent days

things have happened which have causedsome of us to begin to think more deeplyon the whole subject of work and play, andhave suggested that it is not a local Ameri-can problem at all, but a world problem ofthe present age, and that perhaps greatsocial questions may be involved. Theoutbreak of recreation crazes in Americawas the first of these events, but it was thecalamity of the European war which mostdistinctly called our attention to the needof a more careful study of the psychologicalconditions of our modern life.

Just as we thought the world to be get-


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INTRODUCTION 9ting very serious, and settling down to workand to problems of social and individualwelfare and to political and moral reform,it has suddenly gone amusement-mad inAmerica and reverted with unparalleledferocity to primeval bloodshed in Europe.These amusement crazes have taken manyforms, but the most virulent form was seenin the dancing mania, which has passedthrough various stages in North and SouthAmerica and has been so widespread and socompelling that it has reminded us of theepidemics of the Middle Ages. At its height,according to the newspaper reports, a tribeof Indians in Nevada built a great dance-hall in the midst of their village, and im-ported a teacher of the tango.Then came the moving-picture craze,which has seized the world like an obsession.No one can suppose that this colossal socialphenomenon is to be explained by the merefact of the discovery of the cinematograph,and that the people were merely waitingupon the invention in order to flock to thespectacles. The invention was an incident.The real significant fact was the psycho-logical situation.


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10 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONConsider the following editorial from a

recent number of the "Nation":The historian will come to grief if he attemptsto describe the cause of frivolity in the NewYork of 191 5 A.D. as historians have depictedthe frivolity of Rome under the early emperors,and to compare bread and the circus with lob-ster a la Nezvhurgh and the cabaret. Going backto Rome, and assuming the grand manner, hewill speak of a city that drew to itself thebooty of the civilized world, of a populationenervated by the largess of politicians dolingout the plunder of three continents, of a citizen-ship lulled into civic indifference by gifts andamusements in other words, an imperial citygone rotten with prosperity. If the parallelholds for New York, the historian would haveto describe a city that went mad over cabaretsbecause it had more money than it could spendwisely, because it had no serious interest in theproblems of the civic and social life, because itsserenity was undisturbed by wars or the fearof wars, because there was no unemploymentproblem, no city-budget problem, no work-men's compensation problem, no widows' pen-sion problem, no Mexican problem, no Germanproblem. Else how account for a city gone madover the fox trot and the white lights.'' Lifewas much simpler in imperial Rome than it isin New York to-day, though even under theearly Caesars the picture was not so uniform


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INTRODUCTION iias the average historian has painted it. At leastwe know to-day that the fact of 400,000 unem-ployed in New York City does not militateagainst the prosperity of the "movies," whichare the circenses of the masses; and the factof Wall Street's unemployed has not inter-fered with the prosperity of the cabarets.Quite the contrary. There is good reason forbelieving that not all the young men at theafternoon teas are professional idlers and para-sites, but that a good many business men andbrokers have taken to dancing in the after-noon because there was nothing to do down-town. Perhaps the grasshopper in La Fontaine'sfable, who sang all summer, did so because busi-ness was rotten, and when the ant told him togo and dance in winter, he was only advisinghim to do the best possible thing under the cir-cumstances.^To be sure it is no longer possible to dispose

of such things as these by referring them to"frivolity" or to "luxury," but neither is itpossible to say that they are due to idleness.For instance, a correspondent in a smallmining-camp near the Mexican border writesthat the Mexican laborers, who comprise six-sevenths of the population, are strictly amuse-ment-mad, spending their last pennies at the

* Nation, June 3, 1915, p. 613.


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12 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATION"movies" or the merry-go-round or for in-toxicants. May it not be that these amuse-ment crazes are a form of reaction against amanner of Hfe that is too serious and tense.May they not be indications of a lack ofphysiological adjustment. We are makinggreat efforts in these days to secure bettersocial adjustment through the study of socialand economic conditions ; but is it not possiblethat the trouble is not in the lack of socialadjustment, but in the lack of physiologicaladjustment in the individual, so that what wehave to strive for is not so much improvedsocial conditions, as improved health and im-proved physical constitutions, to be gained bya different manner of life, a different kind ofeducation, and a different proportion of workand play.Then there is another cloud which has re-cently appeared on the social horizon leading

us to think that the problem of work and playneeds further study. We refer to the remark-able increase in the number of deaths fromdiseases of degeneration. A few years ago, re-joicing over the discoveries of Pasteur and hisfollowers, we had great hope of increasing thespan of human life by the conquest of the


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INTRODUCTION 13devastating parasitic diseases. These diseaseshave, indeed, to some extent been conquered.We have now less dread of typhoid, tubercu-losis, pneumonia, and diseases of this classdue to microscopic enemies, but the expectedincrease in racial stability has not come. Some,therefore, are beginning to ask whether thebetter way to lengthen human life is to removethe enemies which threaten it, or to increaseour power of resistance to these enemies.

According to Mr. E. E. Rittenhouse,president of the Life Extension Institute,there is a marked decline in the power ofAmerican workers to withstand the strainof modern life. They wear out sooner thanthey did a few years ago. The chances ofdeath after reaching the prime of life haveincreased because of the extraordinary in-crease in the death-rate from the breaking-down of the heart, arteries, kidneys, and ofthe nervous and digestive systems. Mr.Rittenhouse's conclusions as to the seriousinroads of these diseases in modern life arebased not on mortality records of the idlerich and such classes, but upon actual phys-ical examination of a large number ofmale workers, including officials, clerks, and


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14 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONemployees of banks and commercial houses,averaging about thirty years of age. The re-sults show that these diseases of degenera-tion, so-called diseases of old age, are " reach-ing down into middle life and below, andincreasing there, and apparently at all ages."These diseases, not being so quickly fatalas the parasitic diseases, produce decreasedefficiency and increased misery, oftentimesthrough many working years.The lesson which investigations such as

this teach is that the problem of publichealth and longevity is not altogether aproblem of hygiene in the narrower sensein which this word is commonly used. Itis rather the deeper question of vitality, ofbiological adjustment, of racial stability;and it involves questions of heredity, ofmental and physical balance, of manner oflife, of physical education, of work and play.

Sociologists are becoming acutely con-scious of the fact that our cultured classesare not self-perpetuating. The increasingnumber of childless marriages and smallfamilies in these classes indicates that a

1 E. E. Rittenhouse, Protecting the Human Machine.Life Extension Institute, New York.


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INTRODUCTION 15process of displacement is taking place infavor of peoples of hardier stock and sim-pler habits, depriving us at once of the ad-vantages of physical heredity and makingprogress depend very largely upon social he-redity alone. A given stock of people maycultivate its brains to the highest point ofintellectual and moral efficiency, but, if itneglect the corresponding development ofsomatic vitality, if it neglect strength andvigor of muscles, heart, lungs, stomach, andreproductive system, it is doomed to ex-tinction and cannot pass on to posteritythe intellectual and moral power which ithas itself inherited.

Finally, the increased desire for narcoticsin the form of drugs, tobacco, and alcohol,prevalent in all civilized countries, is afurther indication of some serious lack ofbalance between body and brain.There is a lack of adjustment somewhere,

and the problem of the day is to find outwhere it is and how it may be remedied.It is not our purpose in this book to studythis great problem, but rather a single phaseof it, namely, the relation of work and playand the results both to the individual and


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i6 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONto society of excessive work and insufficientrelaxation.It is very probable that our modern stren-uous life is bringing too heavy a strain uponthe brain, particularly those parts of thebrain immediately connected with the men-tal powers which condition that peculiarkind of progress which the world is nowmaking. The tendency of the times istoward a very swift industrial, commer-cial, professional, and intellectual activity.It is an age of great effort and endeavor,of stress and tension, of labor and strain, ofscientific and inventive ability; an age ofgreat efficiency and striving for efficiency;an age of variegation; a centrifugal age. Itis not an age of peace, of calm, of poise, ofrelaxation, of repose, of measure, of har-mony, of conservation. It is not a centripe-tal age. The spirit of the age is that ofFrancis Bacon. It is not the spirit of suchgreater minds as Buddha and Jesus andSophocles and Plato and St. Francis.What is likely to be the outcome of suchtendencies as these? Our current sociologyspeaks almost exclusively of the proximatesocial results. What is perhaps more im-


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INTRODUCTION 17portant is to speak of the immediate phys-iological and psychological results, becausethey throw light upon certain ultimate andstill more important social consequences.The immediate social results of an age of

such great activity and great expenditureare clearly pointed out, for instance, byProfessor Giddings in his "Democracy andEmpire." These are, in brief, (i) an increaseof wealth, culture, and refinement, followedby a marked increase of population; (2) amovement of the people toward the largecities; and (3) a displacement of the highertypes of people by the lower, followed byan increase of crime, vagabondage, suicide,and feeble-mindedness.These social results we may leave to the

sociologist. But what is the effect of suchan age of great activity and great expen-diture upon the individual .^ This we believeto be just now the important question, andit is to the answer to this question that wehope the studies in this book may be acontribution.The result, in a word, is a rapid and ex-treme fatigue of the higher brain and an

unusual and imperative demand for rest


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i8 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONand relaxation. Nature has provided variousmeans for rest and relaxation, in sleep, play,sport, laughter, etc. But what will happenwhen the claims made upon the workingbrain are in excess of the powers of repairprovided by these natural means of relax-ation, or when these means themselves areneglected? There will be increasing irritabil-ity and probably reactions more or less vio-lent and spasmodic, and if there are anyartificial means of relieving the strain andtemporarily restoring the balance, there willbe recourse to such aids. The craving fornarcotic drugs, tobacco, and alcohol, will bean example of the latter, and the recurrenceof recreation crazes will be an illustrationof the former. Finally, it is altogether pos-sible that society as a whole may sufferfrom such excessive mental activity andsuch excessive tension, and that great socialupheavals may follow, such, for instance, aswar. Thus we may understand why the psy-chologist in treating the laws of relaxationmay bring together in one volume subjectsapparently so unlike as play, sport, laughter,profanity, alcohol, and war.The principle involved in all the forms of


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INTRODUCTION 19relaxation here studied is relief from tensionor release from some form of restraint. Al-though this tension and restraint on the partof the individual are necessary conditions ofall social evolution, they have been greatlyintensified by the manner of life which char-acterizes the nineteenth and twentieth cen-turies. The repression of primitive impulsesto the end of growing social needs is the fun-damental law of human progress. Such con-tinual repression necessitates constant effort,constant strain, and constant exercise ofvoluntary attention. It involves those higherbrain centers whose development has con-ditioned human progress, and brings uponthem a severe and constant strain, makingrest and relaxation imperative.When this everlasting urge of progress Is ex-cessive, as it has been in recent times, we maysay that there is in a way a constant subcon-scious rebellion against it and a constant dis-position to escape from it, and the method ofescape is always the temporary reversion tosimpler and more primitive forms of behavior, a return to nature, so to speak. Sudden mo-mentary and unexpected release from this ten-sion, with instinctive reinstatement of prim-


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20 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONitive forms of expression, is laughter. Daily orperiodic systematic return to primitive formsof activity is sport or play. War is a violentsocial reversion to elemental and natural in-ter-tribal relations. Profanity is a resort toprimitive forms of vocal expression to relievea situation which threatens one's well-being.Alcohol is an artificial means of relieving men-tal tension by the narcotizing of the higherbrain centers.Thus the reader may understand why we

have associated in a single volume these seem-ingly diverse kinds of human behavior theyare all forms of relaxation. That which is com-mon to all these phenomena is the relief fromthe tension of our modern strenuous life bymeans of a return to nature, or a return toearly and elemental forms of behavior whichoffer rest or release from the burdens of life.All therefore appear as forms of relaxation,some helpful and normal, others abnormaland brutalizing.

If we should succeed in tracing all of thesemodes of human behavior to their psychologi-cal sources, we may contribute something tothe clearing-up of certain difficult social prob-lems of the day. We may, for instance, be


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INTRODUCTION 21enabled to see very clearly that evil and de-structive forms of relaxation cannot be ban-ished except by substituting normal andhealthful forms.The growing world-wide craving for alco-

hol, tobacco, and other narcotic drugs and thefatal and inevitable recurrence of war, withits fearful toll of human life and its still morefearful toll of hard-earned human savings,perplexing though they are as social problems,nevertheless might become much clearer in thelight thrown upon them by the study of thelaws of mental relaxation.

In the present stage of human culture, warseems like a species of insanity. It is no longertaken for granted. It no longer fits in as a partof the natural order of events. It seems anom-alous and grotesque. It has lost its glory andseems now barbaric. We have been so longaccustomed to have our disputes settled bycourts of law, whose decisions are based uponprinciples of justice, that an appeal to merebrute force in the settlement of internationaldisputes appears to us more and more absurd.Recently the reversionary character of warhas been startlingly revealed to us by thereversionary logic and the reversionary morals


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22 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONwhich accompany It. And yet wars one afteranother, each more terrible than the last, areflaunted in the face of nineteenth and twenti-eth century civilization, are flaunted directlyin the face of world-wide movements for in-ternational conciliation.

In like manner the use of alcohol, from thestandpoint of modern science, appears as akind of insanity. Scientific study has nowshown that alcohol has none of the goodeffects upon the body or mind which formerlyit was supposed to have, and that it is not evena stimulant. Yet the consumption of alcoholsteadily increases.Under these circumstances we should wel-

come any light, however small, which psy-chology can throw upon these subjects. Thedesire for alcohol and the instinct for war arephenomena which lie in the field of psychol-ogy, and reformers will make little headwayagainst these evils unless they take into ac-count the psychological motives.We may, if we choose, redouble again ourefforts against alcohol, but it would be the partof reason to find out, if we can, the causes ofthis growing desire in order that they may,if possible, be removed. So we may, if we


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INTRODUCTION 23choose, redouble our efforts toward universalpeace, but a more rational method wouldseem to be to find out the deep-lying causesof war and see whether anything can be doneto remove them.In the chapters which follow, an attempt ismade to treat these subjects psychologically

and in particular to consider them from thestandpoint of phylogenetic experience. Wemust call to mind not only the animal andsavage past from which man has emerged, butalso the forces or tendencies which are mani-fest in his development. It is not sufficient toexplain war by recalling that man is a fightinganimal, that he has literally fought his way upto manhood. It is far more important to un-derstand that his constant advance has beenattended by conditions of tension and stresswhich have made his periodic and temporaryreversion to primitive habits an actual condi-tion of renewed progress. It is still more im-portant to learn how the supreme intelligencewith which evolution has finally crowned man-kind may be used to devise some means, bywhich these periodic reversions to savagerymay be made unnecessary.

Lately we have seemed to forget that hu-


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24 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONman progress is rhythmical, that mankindadvances by a series of relapses and recoveries,and that after each recovery there is newground gained, sometimes very much newground.

It may be that we have here the explanationof war, and it may be that there are conditionspresent in the social life of our times whichintensify these rhythmical reversionary tend-encies, so that no manner of himianitarianeffort can withstand the periodic demand forwar, just as no manner of prohibitive legisla-tion and no manner of science sermons canstem the desire for alcohol. Especially in thelast century has "progress," as it is called, beenvery rapid, progress in science, in industry,in invention, in everything, and the tensionand rapidity of our lives have become corre-spondingly great. After great tension theremust be great relaxation. There is a limit tothe strain which the social mind can stand. Itis imperative that we study the laws of mentaltension and mental relaxation. The psychol-ogy of play may throw much light on thepsychology of war.No engineer or architect undertakes to builda bridge or skyscraper without an accurate


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INTRODUCTION 25knowledge of the strength of material. Modernlife is a kind of social skyscraper. The minds ofthe individuals who constitute society are thematerial. This material is put under too muchtension. A collapse necessarily follows. In oursocial life these collapses appear as reactionsor reversions, sometimes cataclysmic, as in thecase of the war in Europe, sometimes sporadic,as in the dancing crazes and the amusementcrazes in America.

In the following pages an attempt has beenmade to study the strength of this humanmaterial, to study the causes of the socialstrains and the forms and directions taken bythe social reactions. If these studies teach usnothing more, they will at least show thatthe folly of explaining war by referring it tomere political rivalries is no less than that ofreferring amusement crazes to "frivolity" andthe desire for alcohol to "depravity."


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CHAPTER IITHE PSYCHOLOGY OF PLAY


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CHAPTER IITHE PSYCHOLOGY OF PLAYTT THEN we think of play, we usually haveVV in mind the play of children. Butgrown-ups likewise play, and to their plays we

sometimes apply the word "sport." Since it isour purpose in this book to study relaxation inits various forms, evidently it is sport, ratherthan play in its narrower sense, that we areespecially interested in, for one could hardlyspeak of the play of children as a form of re-laxation.Many books have been written about play,and it is the play of children that they usuallydeal with, a subject indeed of the greatest in-terest and the most vital importance. Little orno study has been made of the psychology ofthe play of adults, and this is unfortunate fortwo reasons : first, because of the importanceof the subject itself in its relation to certainfundamental problems of our social life, and,second, because the play of children receivesnew and valuable light when it is studied in


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30 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONits relation to the play of man in the widersense.While our interest, then, in this chapter is

primarily in the play of adults considered as aform of relaxation, nevertheless it is very evi-dent that we could make no progress in thisstudy without first examining the nature ofplay in general and without first consideringthe theories of play which other writers haveproposed. It will be interesting, then, to fol-low this plan and see whether the old theoriesof play are satisfactory, and if not, whether itis possible to propose a new theory which shallbring the plays of children and the plays ofmen into harmony with each other, and at thesame time into harmony with the laws ofrecreation and relaxation in general.Many theories of play have been offered,but they may all be referred to three principalones, which have been named the Schiller-Spencer theory, the Groos theory, and theRecapitulation theory. An examination ofthese theories will no doubt show that none ofthem are wholly incorrect. They are ratherpartial views, not necessarily inconsistent withone another, but in need of more careful defini-tion and limitation.


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PLAY 31Herbert Spencer's theory is that play activi-

ties are those which do not directly subservelife processes, but are due to an inner need ofusing those bodily organs which are over-rested and under-worked. In the lower ani-mals, therefore, the occasion for play wouldnot arise, since all their energies are constantlyexpended in the maintenance of life; but in thehigher animals and in man, time and strengthare not wholly absorbed in providing for im-mediate needs. There is thus a surplus ofvigor and this surplus is expended through theusual channels; not, however, in real activities,that is, in work, but in simulations of realactivities, that is, in play. Play is thus thedramatizing of real life. Kittens chasing ballsand children nursing dolls are illustrations.Although modern writers might state this in

somewhat different form, the theory is essen-tially sound so far as it goes. The rather hy-percritical objection which has often beenurged, namely, that we sometimes play whenwe are tired, is easily answered and need notbe considered here. The real weakness of thetheory is that it is incomplete. It explains whypeople that is, grown people tend to beactive all the time when they are not sleeping.


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32 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONIt explains nothing more than this and thisneeds no explanation, since It Is characteristicof all animal life to be active. To explain howprocesses of nutrition lead to the accumulationof energy, which results In muscular activity,and that when there Is no work to do this takesthe form of play, Is only a longer way of sayingthat an animal Is alive and necessarily active.To speak of that energy which Is not expendedin life-serving processes as "surplus energy"Is to assume that man exists to work, andthat play Is something extra, a kind of after-thought, to fill up the time.A further difficulty with Spencer's theory isthat it does not apply to the play of children atall, for the reason that the child is not a work-ing animal, and does not provide his own sus-tenance. Hence there could be no "surplusenergy." His whole life is a play life. Ofcourse, if the theory had been stated a littledifferently, It would apply perfectly to theplay of children. Children are alive and ac-tive, and their activity, not being directed toimmediate life-serving ends, we call play.But the most serious difficulty with Spen-

cer's theory Is that it does not explain theform taken either by the plays of children or of


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PLAY 33adults. His view is that men and animals intheir surplus-energy moods that is, in theirplay would simply go on doing in a drama-tizing way what they are accustomed seriouslyto do in their working moods. The horsewould run, the tiger would jump, the catwould chase imaginary mice, and the manpresumably would plough and reap and digand write books and give lectures. But this isprecisely what the man does not do. He goesfishing, plays golf and baseball, goes to horse-races, and rides in automobiles. The Spencertheory, therefore, misses the whole point. Itis true because it is a truism.The Groos theory of play attempts to sup-

ply what the Spencer theory lacks, that is, toaccount for the actual form taken by theplays of children and young animals. Unfor-tunately, it gives little attention to the playsof adults.

According to the Groos theory of play, theplays of animals and children are instinctswhich have arisen through the action of nat-ural selection because of their usefulness as apractice and preparation for life's later seriousduties. Profcssor Groos has written twovolum-


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34 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONinous books on the play of animals and theplay of man containing a wealth of materialon these subjects, but the reader cannot failto be impressed by the lack of connection be-tween the facts and the theory. The authorseems, indeed, to have arrived at his theoryof play through a purely deductive process.Since play is an instinct, and since, as we can-not admit the inheritance of acquired charac-ters, every instinct has arisen in response tosome definite practical need, and since it isevident that play has no immediate life-serv-ing function, it must serve as a practice andpreparation for life's serious pursuits. In thisargument the premises may be sound, but theconclusion has no necessary connection withthem. Plays, indeed, are instinctive, and nodoubt all instinctive reactions have had atsome time in our racial history some life-serving meaning. But the fact that naturalselection has not yet eliminated the greatmultitude of old racial habits with which theyoung child's nervous system teems does notprove that they have been retained becauseof their usefulness as a practice and prepara-tion for future life. In any animal species,such as man, that lives in a changing environ-


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PLAY 35ment and has a long period of youth followedby a period of great rational power of trans-formation, we may expect behavior to belargely determined by inherited habit. AsProfes


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36 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONstinct which sometime in the life of the indi-vidual may be useful, as when a tree showersdown ten thousand seeds, of which one onlymay germinate. So the fighting plays of boysmay be simply old racial habits, the line ofleast resistance for boyish activities.

In one sense, to be sure, if one should wishto look at the matter teleologically, play, likefood or sleep, or like growth itself, is a prepa-ration for manhood. But it is better to regardthe child as a playing animal, realizing in him-self his own end. Play, like growth or lifeitself, belongs to the concept of childhood.Play is just the name we give to the child'sactivities. In the Groos theory, as in that ofSpencer, there seems to lurk the belief thatthe child is naturally quiescent, and that if heplays, his play must look forward to that par-ticular aspect of life which we call his seriousor bread-winning activity.When we consider what, the plays of chil-dren actually are, we discover, except in alimited number of imitative plays, but faintresemblance between them and the seriouspursuits of adult man. They resemble ratherthe pursuits of primitive and prehistoric man,and many of them are like the sports of adults


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PLAY 37of the present day. The plays most dear tothe hearts of boys are running, jumping,climbing, coasting, skating, wrestling, wading,swimming, boating, fishing, hunting, shootingwith darts, spears, arrows, or guns, buildingbonfires, robbing birds' nests, gathering nuts,collecting stamps, eggs, beetles or other things,flying kites, digging caves, making tree houses,spinning tops, playing horse, playing marbles,jackstones, mumblepeg, hide-and-seek, tag,blackman, prisoner's base, leap-frog, baseball,football, tennis, cricket, golf, etc. Children ofall ages have the greatest interest in pet ani-mals, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, horses, etc.No small part of the child's life is occupiedwith playing with these pets and in earlieryears with toy animals of all kinds. To theseplays should be added, of course, the countlessindoor games, such as checkers, chess, cards,dominoes, etc.These children's plays have so little in com-mon with the later pursuits of adult life that

it is evident that some quite other theory isneeded to explain them than the practice andpreparation theory. When the boy is grownto manhood he will not be found doing thesethings, except in his hours of relaxation. His


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38 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONserious pursuits will take other forms. Hewill be found cultivating the soil, harvestinghis crops, shoveling dirt, sand, or coal, blastingrocks from quarries and minerals from mines,building houses, buying, selling, manufactur-ing or transporting goods, teaching school,healing diseases, preaching sermons, practic-ing law, engaging in politics or commercialtransactions, giving lectures or conductingscientific research. This is the "serious" lifeof to-day and the life of the ancient Greeksand Romans was much the same, and it isall far removed from the play life of the child,which likewise is much the same in ancientand modern times, and involves altogethersimpler forms of response. If the serious lifeof to-day consisted in escaping from enemiesby foot, horse, or paddle, in living in closeproximity to domestic animals, in pursuit ofgame with bow or gun, in subsisting on fishcaught singly by hand, in personal combatwith fist or sword, in throwing missiles, strik-ing with a club or pursuing an enemy, in seek-ing safety in trees or caves, in living in tentsor tree houses, and in sleeping and cooking bya camp-fire, then we might venture to explainthe play life of the child as "an instinctive


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PLAY 39activity existing for purposes of practice orexercise and without serious Intent." Butthese are not the pursuits of adult men, exceptin their hours of sport. Most of the plays ofchildren find their significance, not in theirlikeness^ but in their unlikeness to man's la-borious duties. In fact, the plays of childrenbear a striking resemblance to the sports ofmen, and the latter would not be sports if theydid not stand in direct contrast to work.As regards the imitative plays of children,

their resemblance to the serious activities ofadult life is, of course, closer, and to themthe Groos theory of play would seem to be lessstrained In its application. But the imitativeplays themselves are not instinctive for thereason that they are imitative. If it is meantmerely that Imitation itself is an Impulsewhich has been perpetuated by natural se-lection owing to Its usefulness In preparingchildren for mature life, this view might bemaintained, of course, if one still wished toput so much emphasis upon natural selection.Other objections to the Groos theory may

be passed with a mere reference. Perhaps themost serious of them Is the lailure of thistheory to explain adult sports and to correlate


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40 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONthem with the plays of children. Again, oneis troubled by the frequent use of the word"serious" as applied to the activities of theadult, while the plays of children are spokenof as "sham," "make-believe," or "self-illu-sory." This distinction can no longer be made.Child life and its plays are quite as serious andquite as real as the life of the man. If we areto speak of "ends," it would be difficult indeedto show that the life of the grown-up is anymore final or purposeful than the life of thechild. Would it not be just as appropriate tosay that the man's toil and sweat are a prepa-ration for the radiant childhood of the son anddaughter whom he may beget, as that theplays of childhood are a preparation for theprosaic work-life of the father.? And as forseriousness, to the boy hastily swallowing hisdinner or rushing through some uninterestingtask to join his fellows in a game of ball or atrip to the river, it is the latter and not theformer that are serious and real. It is a no-table fact that most children take but a pass-ing or trifling interest in what they eat, andscarcely remember their food of yesterday. Itis a peculiarity of the adult masculine mindto be very intent on the bread-winning aspect


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PLAY 41of life and on the preservation of the species.Perhaps nature exploits man for these particu-lar aspects of life, which in themselves are butpartial views. They might even be lookedupon as necessary evils, subordinate in "pur-pose" to childhood, play, sport, art, and sym-pathy, which are more real and final.

In reference to the Groos theory of play,some critics have been misled by the fact thatcertain games, like baseball, seem to providevaluable training in such qualities as obedi-ence, cooperation, quickness of decision, for-titude in defeat, and endurance. That thegame cultivates these virtues to some extentis doubtless true. One can hardly suppose,however, that natural selection has operatedto form an instinct for baseball because of itsespecial usefulness in providing such train-ing. Other explanations for the fascinationof this game are much simpler, as we shall see.Women, also, have need of these virtues, butthey do not care to play baseball.

Professor Groos has more recently supple-mented his work by a catharsis theory of play,^already anticipated by American writers. Ac-

1 "Das Spiel als Katharsis," Zeitschrijt Jur Pad. Psych,u. Ex. Pad., December 7, 1908,


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42 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONcording to this particular form of the catharsistheory, play is a kind of safety-valve for theexpression of pent-up emotion, as for instancein the fighting plays of children, where thepent-up emotion is anger. According to thisview, one would understand the emotions tobe some kind of internal forces which woulddo damage if they could find no escape. It isnot, however, probable that Professor Groosor any one holds this naive view of the emo-tions, and the whole relation may be moresimply expressed if we suppose that the fight-ing plays are among the natural or spontane-ous activities of children and as long as theyare freely indulged in, the child is free fromhurtful emotions. If these activities are re-pressed, then no doubt would occur cer-tain internal disturbances of a less healthfulcharacter. Where spontaneous responses areinhibited, readjustments are necessary andemotions are present. When the spontaneousresponse is resumed, the emotion subsides. Inthis way children's plays might seem to havea catharsis effect. In spontaneous unrestrictedplay, however, there would seem to be no suchelement present or necessary.

, In the sports of men, indeed, a decided


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PLAY 43catharsis eflFect is present. They are essen-tially purifying. But, as we shall learn in thesestudies, the catharsis effect is primarily due toa restoring of disturbed balance in the psy-chophysical organism. It is thus more nearlydescribed as rest than as purification. Playbrings relief from that peculiar form of fatiguewhich follows from our modern strenuous life.It rests those parts of the nervous systemwhich our daily work most stresses.But adult play has probably a catharsis

effect of another kind. It has been shown bythe researches of Walter B. Cannon and hisassociates ^ that under the influence of strongemotion, say of fear or anger, a whole series ofinternal changes takes place in the organism,which are adaptive in their character and pre-pare the muscular system for the strenuousresponses which the threatening situation de-mands. Of these the increased blood-sugarand the increased adrenin in the blood aretypical. In the life history of our race theseinternal preparations for great muscular ac-tivity have been followed normally by theactivity itself, say flight or combat. The circle

^ Walter B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Fear, Hunger,Pain, and Rage.


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44 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONis thus completed as nature meant it to be.But in our modern life of constant inhibition,where the emotions themselves are presentoften enough and the internal preparation forgreat muscular exertion takes place, the mus-cular responses themselves, owing to socialrestrictions and other causes, are necessarilygreatly limited, if not altogether repressed.Hence arises a feeling of irritability, having itssource perhaps in the poisoning of the bloodby the presence of these unused actiy_atingsubstances. All kinds of active sports, there-fore, involving muscular activity serve as sub-stitutes for the original responses phylogeneti-cally determined. Thus it would appear thatsports have an actual catharsis effect in thecase of adults, and that in children, while thiseffect is theoretically absent, it is, of course,actually present in increasing degree as thechild becomes a man. This catharsis effect ofplay, laughter, and profanity should not, how-ever, be interpreted in such a way that theseforms of relaxation are considered to be m.eredrainage channels for shunting off accumu-lated energy.^ All forms of play and sport, as

1 Compare Dr. George W. Crile's discussion of laughterin his book, The Origin and Nature of the Emotions, pp.77-1 I I.


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PLAY 45well as laughter and profanity, have them-selves been phylogeneticaily determined. Theyare indeed the older and more original re-sponses, and their principal catharsis effect isnot due to their draining off accumulatedenergy and using up the various energizingsubstances in the blood, but rather to the com-plete rest which they afford to parts of thebrain over-stressed in our modern life of work.The third theory of play has been called the

Recapitulation theory. This takes full cogni-zance of the phylogenetic significance of play,and indeed is based upon it. As regards thelatter, all future theories of play must takecarefully into account the numerous and strik-ing similarities between the plays of childrenand the pursuits and customs of primitive andprehistoric man as they have been pointed outby President G. Stanley Hall and his associ-ates.^But the question arises as to the reason for

this resemblance, and if the correct reason isnot found, the whole significance of play may

^ Compare especially the writings of Hall, GuHck, Guil-let, Robinson, Patrick, Bolton, Johnson, Brewer, andQuantz. See bibliography at close of this chapter.


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46 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONbe lost. The theory in question does not ex-plain this resemblance except by referring itto a so-called law, the law of recapitulation,according to which each individual passesthrough a series of stages in his developmentcorresponding to the stages of racial develop-ment. Even in the sphere of embryology thevalidity of this law has been much questioned,and it is looked upon with increasing distrustwhen applied to the period of post-natal orpsychological development. It should be said,however, that this theory of play is the onlyone that has successfully attacked the specificproblem of accounting for the form taken bychildren's play. Perhaps the most serious dif-ficulty with this theory is its failure to explainthe plays of adults and to correlate themproperly with those of children.Our main purpose in the present chapter isto examine more carefully the grounds of the

resemblance between children's plays and thepursuits of primitive man and, more parti-cularly, to explain if possible the similaritywhich exists between both of these and thesports of the mature man of the present time.To this end the following introductory defini-tions and propositions may be offered, which,


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PLAY 47if found useful and valid, will considerablysimplify the psychology of play.

I. The term "play" may be applied to allthose human activities which are free andspontaneous and which are pursued for theirown sake alone. The interest in them is self-developing and they are not continued underany internal or external compulsion. Playwill thus include practically all the activitiesof children and the larger share of those ofadults, such, for instance, as baseball, foot-ball, tennis, golf, polo, billiards, and countlessother games and sports; diversions such astraveling, hunting, fishing, yachting, motor-ing, flying, dancing; vacation outings, games,races, spectacles, fairs, tournaments, and expo-sitions; the theater, opera, moving pictures,lectures, and entertainments; the enjoymentof music, painting, poetry, and other arts ; thedaily paper, the magazine, the short stor>',and the novel.The term "work," on the other hand, will

include all those activities in which by meansof sustained voluntary attention one holdsone's self down to a given task for the sake ofsome end to be attained other than the activity


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48 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONitself. Such activities involve mental stress,strain, effort, tension, concentration, and in-hibition. ^

2. The plays of children and the sports ofadults are to be closely coordinated and ex-plained by reference to the same general prin-ciples.

3. There is a striking similarity betweenthe plays of children and the sports of men onthe one hand and the pursuits of primitiveman on the other. This similarity is due to thefact that those mental powers upon which ad-vancing civilization depends, especially volun-tary and sustained attention, concentration, an-alysis, and abstraction, are undeveloped in thechild and subject to rapid fatigue in the adult.

^ The question may be asked how, according to theabove definitions of work and play, we shall classify thatform of work which becomes so interesting as to be self-developing and requires no effort of attention to pursue it.A man may become so interested in his garden or in hisinventions or in his professional pursuits that his work maytake on some of the characteristics of play. Nevertheless,this kind of work demands the exercise of mental powersof a high degree of complexity, and is far more fatiguingthan play or sport as above defined, though far less so thanthat kind of work which has been called toil, or drudgery,where interest fails and the strain of attention is at itsmaximum.


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PLAY 49Hence the child's activities and the play activi-ties of the adult tend always to take the form ofold racial pursuits. ^

If we look at the matter physiologically, itis very evident, in the case of the adult, thatthere are some brain centers, or some braintracts, or some forms of cerebral functioning,that are put under severe strain in our mod-ern strenuous life and that there must be somekind of activity which will relieve these centers,or these tracts, during a considerable portionof each waking day and involve other cen-ters not so subject to exhaustion. Such activ-ity we call play or sport. Perhaps the word"relaxation" would be a more exact descrip-tion of it. For our present purpose it does notmatter in the least what these centers are orwhat manner of cerebral functioning this is.It is only necessary to note the evident factthat there is some kind of cerebral activityassociated with those peculiar mental powersthe development of which has made possiblehuman progress.Nor, again, is it necessary for our present

purpose to make any exact enumeration ofthese so-called higher mental processes which


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so PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONdistinguish the modern civiHzed man. Gen-xerally speaking, however, they include a con-stantly increasing power of sustained attentionof the voluntary kind, controlled association,concentration, and analysis, together with aconstantly increasing power of inhibition. Theindividual becomes increasingly able to holdsteadily in view the image of a desired end, toinhibit the old and habitual responses whichare no longer appropriate to that end, to an-alyze a given situation in thought, so thatthe response may be to certain elements inthe situation rather than to the situation asa whole, and thus to meet a given situationwith a new response. Only the fully developedadult mind is capable of much thinking of thiskind, and at best it is highly fatiguing and can-not be continued through many hours of the wak-ing day, so that all, or almost all, the hours ofthe child's day and the larger number of hoursof the adulUs day must be filled with responsesof the simpler, more elemental, and racially olderkind. Consequently children's play and adultsport tend to take the forms of old racial ac-tivities, involving brain tracts that are old,well worn, and pervious.

It is well known that the present tendency


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PLAY SIin both historical and anthropological study-is to place less emphasis on the differences inthe mental constitution of different races ofmen.^ All existing races and all historical ones,so far as we can see, are much alike in theirmental powers. But from our present point ofview these races are all modern. It Is clearlyevident that in comparing modern civilizedman with the highest of the lower animals orwith his prehistoric, If not even with his prim-itive, ancestors, there has been an unmeasuredadvance in the powers above mentioned. Eventhis assumption, however, is not necessary sofar as our present theory is concerned. It ismerely necessary to notice that in seekingrelief from the fatigue involved in that sus-tained and voluntary attention, controlledassociation, analysis, and abstraction whichare essential to our or to any advancing civi-lization, we fall back upon a set of activitieswhich no longer involve these processes, butwhich through ages of use have become fa-miliar and easy.

All the evidence that we have points to thevalidity of the law that those peculiar forms of

^ Compare Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man, andThorndike, Ed. Psych., i, 240.


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52 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONmental activity which have developed late inthe evolution of man are most affected by fa-tigue a law fully sustained by the study ofpsychasthenics and their incapacity for highermental operations, as well as by the observa-tion of people normally fatigued, while it isknown that the disintegration of the nervoussystem in disease follows the reverse order ofits development.Hence we understand why children's play

and adult sport take the form of hunting,fishing, camping, outing, swimming, climbing,and so on through the long list. The moreelemental these activities have been in thehistory of racial development, the greater re-lease they afford, when indulged in as relaxa-tion, from the tension of our modern life.Those forms of mental response which are

developed late in the history of the race, andlate in the life of the child, that tense andstrenuous activity upon which modern prog-ress depends, the power to hold ourselves bysustained attention and sustained effort downto hard and uninteresting tasks for the sakeof some ultimate end, the concentration of themental forces upon problems of science, phi-losophy and invention, and the inhibition


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PLAY S3of old and undesirable responses, all thesebring quick and extreme fatigue, and demandrest for the corresponding parts of the brain.In sleep these higher mental processes enjoyalmost complete suspension. But the exerciseof these powers during the long hours of ourwaking day would result in speedy collapse.It is clear therefore that our daily activitymust be made up quite largely of responses ofthe simpler type, which shall give exercise toour muscles and sense organs and invoke olderand more elemental forms of mentality, andat the same time allow the higher ones to rest.Such is relaxation in all its forms, and of suchconsists almost wholly the life of the child.For the brain tracts associated with the above-"'mentioned forms of mental activity are unde-veloped in the child, as they are in early man,so that we may say with considerable truthnot that the child ought not to work, but thathe cannot work.

In the following pages we shall review someof the instances of the striking resemblancebetween the habits of our human ancestorsand the plays of children and men, beginningwith the simpler illustrations drawn from the


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54 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONplays of children and proceeding to the moreinstructive ones connected with the sports ofadults.Haddon and Tylor have studied the history

of the kite and the top and of marbles, andhave shown their very ancient character andtheir connection with early religious and divin-atory rites. The same may be said of cast-ing lots, throwing dice, games of forfeitsand games with common playing cards. Themental habits of our ancestors, as we know,survive in the counting-out rhymes, in thecharms and talismans and superstitions ofchildren. One recalls the magic formula usedby Tom Sawyer for driving away warts :You got to go by yourself in the middle of

the woods where you know there is a spunk-water stump, and just as it 's midnight you backup against the stump and jam your hand in andsay:

Barley corn, barley corn, injun meal shorts,Spunkwater, spunkwater, swaller these warts;

and then walk away quick eleven steps withyour eyes shut, and then turn around threetimes and walk home without speaking to anyone, because if you speak, the charm's busted.' The mental habits of the child seem like


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PLAY 55echoes from the remote past, recalling the lifeof the cave, the forest, and the stream. Theinstinct exhibited in infancy, as well as inboyhood, to climb stairs, ladders, trees, lamp-posts, anything, reminds us of forest life; thehide-and-seek games which appeal so power-fully even to the youngest children recall thecave life of our ancestors, or at least somemode of existence in which concealment fromenemies, whether human or animal, was thecondition of survival ; while the instinct of in-fants to gravitate toward the nearest pond orpuddle, the wading, swimming, fishing, boat-ing proclivities of every youngster, seem likea reminiscence of some time when our fatherslived near and by means of the water.During a long period in the evolution of life

among the higher animals and in the earlyhistory of man, the one all-important factorwas speed, for upon it depended safety in flightfrom enemies and capture in pursuit. Thisancient trait has persisted and survives to-dayin a deep instinctive joy in speed, whetherexhibited in running or coasting or skating orin the speed mania which lends such delightto motoring, flying, fast sailing, and fastriding.


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S6 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONAgain, the ancient life of pursuit and cap-

ture persists upon every playground in thefamiliar games of tag, blackman, pull-away,and a hundred others. Indeed, for the exhi-bition of this instinct, no organized game isnecessary. Sudden playful pursuit and flightare seen wherever children are assembled.The ancient life of personal combat is mirroredin the plays of children in mimic fighting andwrestling. The passion of every boy for thebow and arrow, sling, sling-shot, gun, or any-thing that will shoot, reveals the persistenceof deep-rooted race habits, formed during agesof subsistence by these means.There was a time when man lived in close

relation with and dependence upon wild anddomestic animals. This period is reflected inmany forms in the child's life, in his animalbooks, his animal toys, his Teddy bears, inhis numerous anunal plays. The former de-pendence of man upon the horse Is shown inthe instinct of the child of to-day to playhorse, to ride a rocking-horse, or a stick, oranything. The child's first musical instru-ments, the rattle, the drum, and the horn,were the first musical instruments of primitiveman.


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PLAY 57These Illustrations could be multiplied in-

definitely. They show the limitations of theGroos theory of play, for none of the plays ofthis class have much to do in preparing thechild for the life of to-day, or in giving himspecial practice for his future work. We our-selves are so much slaves of the past in ourhabits of thought that we do not easily realizehow far from the actual life of the present dayis this play-life of the child. The real worldof to-day is that of the laboratory, the school,the library, the bank, the office, the shop, thestreet, the factory, the farm and the railroad.Notwithstanding the child's imitative bent,his world, as shown in his tales, his dreams,and the plays he loves best, is that of theforest, the stream, the camp, the cave, thehunting-ground, and the battlefield.Those things which have such a vital and

absorbing interest for the boy have had at onetime in our racial history an actual life anddeath interest for mankind. Take, for instance,the jack-knife. How many knives has yourboy had and lost, and what rich joy there is inevery new one ! We see how the practice andpreparation theory of play fails here. Theknife has no significance in society now. It


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58 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONhas degenerated to mere finger-nail purposes.But at one time it meant life in defense andfood in offense. Your boy's supreme interestin the knife is a latent memory of those ancientdays. Those who could use the knife and useit well survived and transmitted this trait totheir offspring. The same could be said of thesling, the bow and arrow, and of sports likeboxing, fencing, and fishing.

Consider the fascination of fishing. This isnot a practice and preparation for the real lifeof to-day, but a reverberation of phyletic ex-perience. In a summer resort where the writerwas a visitor the past summer, day after daythe whole male population of the hotel resortedto the fishing grounds. They paid two dollarsand a half a day for a guide, seven dollars a dayfor a motor-boat, and a cent and a half each forworms. Surely a stranger uninitiated into ourhabits would have been amazed to see thesereturning fishermen at night indifferently hand-ing over their catch to the guide. It was thefishing they desired, not the fish, and yet greatwas their woe when one large fish was lost inthe act of landing. It is estimated by the NewYork "Times" that on Sundays and holidayswhen the weather is fine, twenty-five thousand


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PLAY 59people in New York City go fishing at a mini-mum cost of one dollar each, and of these nodoubt more than ninety-five per cent go forfun and not for the fish. At some stage in thehistory of human development fishing waswithout doubt a general means of subsist-ence. Those who could catch fish survived andhanded down this instinct. Likewise the fas-cination of gathering wild nuts and berries isout of all proportion to the value of themwhen gathered. But nuts and berries wereonce of vital concern to our fathers.

It is in baseball and football, however, thatwe best see the phylogenetic significance ofplay. The daily paper is a good index of popu-lar interest. Here we shall often find perhapsseven, perhaps twenty columns devoted tobaseball, while no other single subject whetherin politics, art, literature, or science, aspiresto two columns. How shall we explain theabsorbing interest in baseball and footballas well as in horse-racing and prize-fighting?Here again, phylogenetic experience becomesthe key to the problem of modern sports.

In baseball we have a game combining threeof the most deep-seated racial instincts, theinstinct to throw, to run, and to strike. During


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6o PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONuntold periods of the life history of our race,survival has come to him who could throw thestraightest, run the swiftest, and strike thehardest. To throw something at somethingis ahnost as natural for a boy as to breathe.Throwing, batting, running are no longer ofany service in this age of mind, but they werethe conditions of survival in the distant past.Baseball reinstates those ancient attitudes andbrings a thrill of cherished memories. Any onewho has ever held a bat in hand and assumedthe expectant attitude of the batter knows thepeculiar thrill which is explained only by re-calling that his distant ancestors in just thatattitude beat down with a real club many anopposing foe, whether man or beast, and thosewho held clubs in this position and struck hardand quickly survived and transmitted this in-stinct. Dr. Gulick says :

Baseball is a complex of elements all of whichdate back certainly to our prehuman ancestors.The ability to throw a stone with accuracy andspeed was at one time a basal factor in the strug-gle for survival. The early man who could seizea bough of a tree and strike with accuracy andgreat power was better fitted to survive in thebrutal struggles of those early days than theman not so endowed. He could defend his


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PLAY 6ifamily better, he was better fitted for killinggame, he was better fitted for overcoming hisenemies. The ability to run and dodge withspeed and endurance was also a basal factor.^The instinct to throw, as the same author

shows, belongs to boys only, scarcely appear-ing in the case of girls. The awkward throwof girls, like the left arm throw of boys, is wellknown. The plays of girls reveal their own setof instincts recalling the habits of primitivewoman. "We are the descendants of thosemen who could throw and those women wholoved children."

Football excites still greater enthusiasmthan baseball because it reinstates still moreprimitive forms of behavior. The fascination offootball, like that of other sports which havea deep appeal to the human mind, is explainedonly by the facts of mental evolution. We haveto go back in human history to those ancientscenes and those ancient pursuits which haveleft an indelible imprint on the human brain,and we have to remember that in our hours ofrelaxation we demand a complete release fromthose newer forms of mental activity which

* LutherGulick,M.D., "Interest in Relation to Muscu-lar Exercise," Amer. Phys. Ed. Rev.y vii, 2.


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62 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONcondition progress and civilization, and a tem-porary return to the older and easier ones.The one great elemental fact in humanhistory is the fact of war. Mankind has comeup through a history of warfare. It has beenman against man, group against group, tribeagainst tribe, nation against nation, from thebeginning. Man is at home on the battlefield.There he has received his training and gainedhis strength. His soul is full of latent memoriesof strife and conflict. The football field is amimic representation of this age-old field ofbattle. Here again is found the face-to-faceopposition of two hostile forces, the rudephysical shock of the heavy opposing teams,the scrimmage-like, melee character of thecollisions, the tackling, dodging, and kicking,and the lively chases for goal as for cover.

Football is more fun than baseball andattracts larger crowds,^ because it is moredramatic, more like a fight. It awakens in usdeep-seated slumbering instincts, permits usto revel for a time in those long-restrained

^ According to the press reports, seventy thousand spec-tators have witnessed at one time the Rugby game inAmerica, and one hundred thousand, the Association gamein England.


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PLAY 63impulses, relieves completely the strain of thewill, and so serves all the conditions of relaxa-tion.By inner imitation the spectators themselvesparticipate in the game and at the same timegive unrestrained expression to their emotions.If at a great football game any one will watchthe spectators instead of the players, he willsee at once that the people before him are nothis associates of the school, the library, theoffice, the shop, the street, or the factory. Theinhibition of emotional expression is the char-acteristic of modern civilized man. The childand the savage give free expression in voice,face, anns, and body to every feeling. Thespectators at an exciting football game nolonger attempt to restrain emotional expres-sion. They shout and yell, blow horns anddance, swing their arms about and stamp,throw their hats in air and snatch off theirneighbors' hats, howl and gesticulate, littlerealizing how foreign this is to their wontedbehavior or how odd it would look at theirplaces of business. So also the defeated play-ers cry like babies, as did the heroes of an-cient Troy.The excitement of the spectators cannot


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64 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONbe explained by the importance of the scenesbefore them, for, as in the case of the horse-race, they have Httle or no relation to theserious life of the present; but the scenes arethose which were once matters of life anddeath.The prevalence of gambling in connection

with football, as well as in horse-racing, prize-fighting, and other popular sports, illustratesthe reversion to primitive morals accompany-ing the return to early pursuits.^This prevalence of gambling and of other

obvious evils 2 connected with intercollegiateathletics has suggested to some the desirabil-ity of abolishing these sports. A very differentconclusion, however, seems to be forced uponus by the study of the laws of relaxation in itsbroader aspects. Not until we understand thepsychology of alcohol and of war and of thefoolish amusement crazes shall we recognizethe full significance and the full value ofathletic contests and intercollegiate rivalries.The evils mentioned are real enough and most

* Compare also G. T. W. Patrick, "The Psychology ofFootball," Jmer. Jour. Psych., xiv, 104-17.

' For a full list of these evils, see the article by PresidentFoster, "An Indictment of Intercollegiate Athletics," inthe Atlantic Monthly for November, 1915.


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PLAY 6sdeplorable, but it does not follow that theywould not be present in other or worse formsin different connections if there were no inter-collegiate athletics.The intense interest aroused in intercol-

legiate sports is no doubt to some extent anecho of the old ancestral rivalries between so-cial groups. They appeal, therefore, to deep-seated human instincts and fulfill to a markeddegree all the requirements of relaxation andrecreation.

It should, of course, be remembered thatthe social value of these sports relates ratherto the spectators than to the players. Forthe latter, indeed, they may become a formof work. But the participants as spectatorsare numbered by the thousands, and for allof these the games serve as valuable forms ofrelaxation. The substitution of intramuralfootball and baseball for the intercollegiategames would result in the loss to a large ex-tent of the valuable holiday and festival as-pects of the latter sports.

Furthermore, the intense interest in inter-collegiate football and baseball has resultedin a very wide actual participation in thesegames by the students in colleges, universi-


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66 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONties, and In public and private schcx)ls through-out the country.^The law that the more elemental the char-acter of our responses, the greater their valueas relaxation and release from the tensionof the strenuous life, is well illustrated inthe circus and amphitheater of the Romans.When we recall the sports of ancient Rome,we see again that In sport we have a psycho-logical factor of the greatest importance anda profound psychological problem. Juvenal'sphrase "bread and games" has become fa-miliar. The popularity of any emperor wasnearly proportional to his liberality in the mat-ter of games and spectacles. Emile Thomassays: "After the sack of Rome by Alaric, themiserable remnant of the original inhabitants,and the peasants who flocked in from the en-virons to the number of ten thousand, loudlydemanded games in the Circus, which had tobe celebrated among the smoking ruins."The Colosseum, whose magnificence receivesa new meaning from our point of view, accom-modated eighty-seven thousand people. TheCircus Maximus was one of the most imposing

^ Compare the article by Lawrence Perry, "The IdealGallege Game," in Scribmr^s Magazine for June, 1915.


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PLAY 67of Roman structures. It Is said that four hun-dred and eighty-five thousand spectators werein actual attendance at once upon its spec-tacles.^ The shouting could be heard in thesuburbs of Rome. The upper wooden seatscollapsed at one time, killing eleven hundredpeople. Rome had theaters, too, but the larg-est of these, that of Pompey, had seats for onlyforty thousand spectators, and despite the po-litical interest which attached to many of thetheatrical exhibitions, we must believe thatthe interest in the theater was insignificantwhen compared with that of the amphitheaterand circus. Trajan gave a single entertainmentlasting one hundred and twenty-three days.Now, what was the character of theseamusements which so fascinated the Romanpopulace? They were horse-races, gladiatorialcombats, and the exhibition and contests ofwild animals. Man's racial history has beenone long battle with the lower animals, defen-

* The seating capacity of the Circus was probably aboutthree hundred thousand. Some manuscripts of the Notitiagive the number as four hundred and eighty-five thousand.Some modem critics believe that the actual seating capac-ity of the Circus was only about two hundred thousand atits greatest enlargement. Great crowds, however, wit-nessed the events from the surrounding hills and houses.


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68 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONsive for life and safety, offensive for food andsustenance. So far as the workaday world oftheRomans is concerned, it was much the sameas ours, taxing the same higher mental pow-ers and demanding relaxation in the form ofolder and simpler pursuits. In the gladiatorialcombats we see the hand-to-hand encountersof early man, almost as far removed fromthe actual daily life of the Romans as' it isfrom ours. In the display of wild animalsand in their deadly combats with each Qtherand with man, we see mirrored in Romansports the old life of the forest and plain.The mood of the spectator at the Colosseumchanges also to suit the character of thespectacle, and for the time he is no longer thecivilized Roman of the second century, butboisterous, cruel, intoxicated with the sight ofblood. So strong was the craving for the oldferal scenes that professional hunters werekept in the remotest parts of Asia and Africato capture alive every species of beast to beexhibited and killed for the amusement ofRome. Eleven thousand animals we're pro-duced by Trajan at a certain spectacle. Muchhas been said about the brutalizing effect ofthese games upon the Romans; but if tve have


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PLAY 69correctly outlined the psychology of sport, we seein such games as these not a brutalizing agencybut an afterglow of brutality left behind. Themodern circus, menagerie, and zoological gar-dens offer similar entertainment on a smallerscale, and appeal to the same instincts.The human race has reached a stage of

evolution in which such sports as gladiatorialshows, prize-fights, and bull-fights hark too farback and are no longer endured, but before wecondemn them too harshly it would be wellto compare the number of men and animalskilled in these ancient exhibitions with thenumber of men and horses killed in a modernwar.

Success to-day does not depend upon swift-ness of foot or swiftness of horse, yet oursports take the form of foot-races and horse-races. There was a time when swiftness offoot and swiftness of horse were vital. So inour sports these old scenes are reenacted.Stage managers, story-writers, and moving-picture shows seek always for a new thrill. Itis sometimes thought that the new and un-expected is thrilling. The reverse is true. Thethrilling is the old and elemental. When loveand warfare fail, the story-writer can always


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TO PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONfall back on the horse-race for thrills. Thehorse has little significance for the life of to-day and it is fast becoming less, but he hashad an intimate relation with the life history ofthe race. It is difficult to read any well-toldstory of a horse-race or chariot-race, or anyaccount of human rescue by means of equineor canine intelligence, without an emotionaldisturbance out of all proportion to the im-portance of the events. In fact they have nosignificance now. They belong to the past.^

In this connection it is interesting to recallthat some years ago an English magazine pub-lished the results of a census which it hadmade of the order of popularity of Browning'sshorter poems. The list contained about fiftyof these poems, including such matchless gemsas "Evelyn Hope," "Abt Vogler," "My LastDuchess," "Rabbi Ben Ezra," etc. But thefirst place of all the fifty was given to the poementitled, "How they brought the Good Newsfrom Ghent to Aix," a poem without signifi-

^ A fine linguistic record of the importance of the horsein one branch of our Aryan ancestors is seen in Greekfamily names, of which a great number contain theroot-word for horse; e.g., Philip (horse-lover), Hippocrates(horse-tamer), Leukippus (white horse), Chrysippus (gol-den horse), etc.


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PLAY 71cance of thought or sentiment, but dependingfor its interest upon the incident of a desperatehorseback ride from Ghent to Aix. The com-pelHng force of this poem will be felt by thereader, if we quote some of the first and lastlines :I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;I galloped, DIrck galloped, we galloped all three;"Good speed!" cried the watch as the gate-bolts

undrew;"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;Behind shut the postern, the Ughts sank to rest,And into the midnight we galloped abreast.And there was my Roland to bear the whole weightOf the news which alone could save Aix from her

fate,With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear.Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without

peer;Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise,

bad or good.Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.And all I remember is friends flocking roundAs I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;


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72 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONAnd no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,As I poured down his throat our last measure of

wine,Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)Was no more than his due who brought good news

from Ghent.From the phylogenetic standpoint which we

have thus gained, both children's play andadult sport come into clearer Hght. Thus weunderstand why adult sport resembles the ac-tivities of early man. The older, the morebasal, the more primitive, so to speak, thebrain patterns used in our hours of relaxation,the more complete our rest and enjoyment.Just in proportion as the sport is primitive, somuch greater is the sweet peace which it seemsto bring to the troubled soul, simply becauseit involves more primitive brain tracts andaffords greater release from the strenuous life.So while we find one hundred and fifty spec-tators at an intercollegiate debate, we find athousand at an automobile race, five thousandat a horse-race, thirty thousand at a greatbaseball game, seventy thousand at a greatfootball game, and three hundred thousand ata gladiatorial show. The nervous tracts whichfunction in such activities as hunting and fish-

1


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PLAY 73ing and swimming and boating and camping,in football and baseball and golf and polo,and in horse-racing and bull-fighting, are deepworn, pervious, and easy. During countlessgenerations the nerve currents have flowedthrough these channels. Witnessing these rudecontests, pictures of former ages, or takingpart in these deep-seated, instinctive actionsbrings sweet rest and refreshment. "The ra-cially old is seized by the individual with easeand joy." The soothing restfulness of the opengrate fire is thus probably due to latent orsubconscious memories of the camp-fire, whichso long brought rest and comfort to the earlyman.From this point of view, the dancing craze is

less difl&cult to understand. In explaining suchphenomena it will not do to rely too much onthe behavior of the crowd, as some writershave done. To call it a craze, a fashion, anepidemic, and to refer it to the laws of imi-tation which govern a crowd, is not to explainit. Imitation alone is a very feeble social force.It becomes a powerful force only when theimitated action satisfies some need. The de-sire to dance, whether it be conscious or un-conscious, may be very strong, but, as long


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74 PSYCHOLOGY OF RELAXATIONas it is under the ban of social disapproval,the desire may be largely repressed. Whenthese social restrictions are removed, then thepractice may become general, and if the desi

psychology of relaxation

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