Finally, we will notice dancing movements. It is not only among birds
that the courted female gazes with interest at the dancing of the
male; we see it in all public dancing. This is one of the instances
where visual play is as important as the movement, for even among the
participants pleasure is heightened by the exciting spectacle of the
other dancers,[152] and it is true the world over that spectators of
a dance always become as passionately aroused as do the performers
themselves. The piercing trills with which the women of some negro
tribes at intervals accompany the dance of the males are surely not
merely invitations to the latter, but indications as well of their own
excitement. For this reason many onlookers are impelled to keep time
with the rhythmic dance by clicking the tongue or clapping the hands.
“The feeling of pleasure which is kindled in the performer,” says
Grosse, “sheds its rays on the beholder as well.... In this way both
become passionately excited, intoxicated by the sounds and movements;
the transport constantly increasing, swells at last to veritable
madness, which often results in violent outbreaks.”[153] The solo
dances of primitive peoples presuppose an onlooking public more than
mass dances do. Among Bushmen and Eskimos the men dance alone, while,
according to Eyre, Australian women do it sometimes alone and sometimes
in companies to, arouse the men.[154] Among the civilized people of the
Orient professional dancing girls perform in the presence of men, in
which case the spectators alone can be said to play. And the same is
true of our ballet, which, indeed, except for its direct sexual effect,
possesses but little pleasurable quality.[155]
II. PLAYFUL USE OF THE MOTOR APPARATUS
In this new section we by no means cut loose from what is sensory
in a subjective sense, for of course we become conscious of our
own movements only through the sensory paths of sight and what is
collectively called touch, chiefly sensations of contact, and tendon
and joint sensations. Yet from an objective standpoint we must enter
upon the investigation of an entirely new province, where we shall be
concerned not so much with the senses as with the manifold co-ordinated
muscular movements of which our bodies are capable, and which are
necessary or at least useful for the accomplishment of the tasks of
life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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