In concluding, we are confronted by the question whether this
faculty of inner imitation belongs exclusively to a special group of
individuals—namely, the distinctly motor type. If this is so, then
a very important part of the æsthetic satisfaction is confined to a
fraction of the human race. One hesitates to affirm that we of the
motor type labour under the disadvantage of taking intense pleasure in
a state which is lacking in physical resonance, so to speak; and yet,
if this is the case, we still can boast that fusion with past processes
which after all leaves the plus sign in our favour. I am convinced,
however, that no such sharp distinction of types is warranted by
the facts, the difference being as a rule one of quantity or degree
of individual endowment. Ability to observe such movements in one’s
self is no criterion. There may be individuals with very strong inner
imitative movements who are unable to separate the motor element from
the _tout ensemble_. To illustrate the difficulty: A man who glances
suddenly to the right imparts to surrounding objects an apparent motion
to the left (this may help to account for the “fluidity of form”), yet
to many it is impossible to get a clear perception of this, even under
the most favourable conditions. In the same way there are probably many
who deserve to be reckoned with the motors in æsthetic enjoyment who
are yet unable to make their own movements a matter of observation.
IV. SOCIAL PLAYS
Much discrimination is required in the attempt to single out a special
group of social plays proper to our subject. I am, however, well
aware that it is an essential feature in any system of play, and that
Baldwin is quite right when he says in his valuable preface to The
Play of Animals, “Finally, I should like to suggest that a possible
category of ‘Social Plays’ might be added to Groos’s classification.”
The great difficulty is that it is well-nigh impossible to make
separate observations on them as a distinct class, for as a rule the
social impulse furnishes the incentive to the special games which we
have considered. To take a familiar example: Society chat is a social
play _par excellence_, and yet the indulgence in this element of it
appeals to consciousness as but a vague and undefined satisfaction
compared with the influence of the impulses to combat and to courtship.
For this reason the present section must be of a somewhat different
character from the foregoing ones. It must be theoretic, and thus form
a connecting link with the second part of the book.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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