Now it is clear that non-adjustment may arise, not only from the presence of unsuitable characteristics in the mode {63} of stimulation, but from some antagonistic force in the child’s previous state of mind. The acceptance of the attack in good part depends on the preceding attitude. The dreadfully serious, “on-the-alarm” attitude of the child when nursed by a stranger is an effectual bar to playful overtures. A child when cross will not, says Dr. L. Hill, give genial response, even if the attacker be his familiar tickler, father or nurse; and the same is true, he adds, of a child when suffering from vaccination, or when mentally preoccupied with some hurt for which he is seeking for sympathy, or with a story which he wants you to tell him. As Darwin puts it, the great subjective condition of the laughter of tickling is that the child’s mind be in “a pleasurable condition,” the state of mind which welcomes fun in all its forms. Possibly the position of lying on the back, which, according to Dr. L. Robinson, makes children more responsive to tickling, may, through a relaxation of the muscles, favour this compliant attitude of self-abandonment to the tickling fingers. We may perhaps sum up the special conditions of the laughter-process under tickling as follows: when a child is tickled he is thrown into an attitude of indefinite expectancy. He is expecting contact, but cannot be sure of the exact moment or of the locality. This element of uncertainty would in itself develop the attitude into one of uneasiness and apprehensiveness; and this happens save when the child is happy and disposed to take things lightly and as play. In this case we may suppose that the half-developed mild form of fear is each time swiftly dissolved into nothing by a recognition of the unreality of the cause, of the fact that the touches are harmless and come from the good-natured mother or nurse by way of play. This recognition becomes clearer as the process is continued, and so there supervenes a new attitude, that of play, in which all {64} serious interpretation is abandoned and the gentle attacks are accepted as fun or make-believe.