The Five Great Philosophies of LifeHyde, William De Witt
Philosophy
The Five Great Philosophies of Life
Hyde, William De Witt
Ethics; Philosophy, Ancient
Foot-ball, for instance, gives the student of to-day the essential joy
in combat of his barbarian ancestors, with the modern field-marshal's
delight in subtle tragedy thrown in. Base-ball gives the intense zest
that comes of speed, accuracy, and cunning exercised in emergencies.
Golf, in milder form, gives us the pleasure that comes of accuracy of
aim and calculation of conditions in good company and in the open air.
Billiards give to the clerk cramped all day over his desk the joy of a
delicate touch which otherwise would be the exclusive property of his
artisan brother. The various games of cards give the mechanic and the
housewife a taste at evening of the eager interests that fill the
banker's and the broker's days. Checkers and chess give to the humblest
in their homes some touch of the pleasures of the general and admiral.
Dancing carries to the limit of orderly expression that delight in the
person and presence of the opposite sex which otherwise would have to be
postponed until youth was able to assume the more serious
responsibilities of permanent relationships. Sailing, tramping, camping
out, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, are all devices for bringing
into the lives of studious, strenuous, city people the elemental
pleasures which otherwise would be the monopoly of sailors, fishermen,
foresters, and explorers. Swimming, skating, bicycle riding, driving a
horse or an automobile, all give the keen joy that comes of the mastery
of graceful and forceful motion.
The theatre, which embodies so distinctively the peculiar essence of
play that its performances have appropriated the name, takes us in a
couple of hours through the epitomised experience of many persons
extending over many years in circumstances far removed from our
individual lives. Poetry, novels, biographies, histories, painting,
music, and all the forms of art perform for us this same function. They
take us out of our local and temporal situation, and let us live in
other days and other lands, in other customs and costumes; and so
enormously widen the world of experience we imaginatively make our own.
Besides in all the forms of play and art the ends are made artificially
simple, the means are made supernaturally accessible; so that instead of
toiling for years in doubt of results as in actual work, we experience
in play, and witness in artistic representation, the whole process of
selecting materials and moulding them to a successful issue in a few
minutes, or a few hours at most. All this reacts upon our power to
prosecute with confidence the remoter ends, and marshal the more
obdurate means of real work. It expands and limbers our capacity to
subordinate means to ends and find delight in the process as well as in
the outcome. Hence a man who goes a year without a considerable period
given over to play, or a week without at least one or two solid periods
of it, or lets many days go by without any play whatever, is selling his
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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