374 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
development of one of his most significant aspects can be traced only through the investigation of play among lower animals. One of Professor Groos's chapters — " The Psychology of Animal Play " — indeed indicates clearly the connection of his subject with attributes attaining their best development only in the culminating form of the animal realm. The first chapter is a critique of the surplus-energy
theory of play, commonly ascribed to Herbert Spencer, though the author attributes its origin to Schiller and credits Spencer only with its elaboration ; the theory is discussed trenchantly and finally dismissed as unsatisfactory. Then comes a constructive chapter entitled " Play and Instinct," in which the author's special views are propounded and discussed with reference to the inquiries of others and to the conspicu- ous facts of animal conduct. Next follow two arbitrarily separated chapters on " The Play of Animals " in which a wealth of original and secondhand observation is assembled in such manner as to harmonize with, and strongly support, the author's conclusion. This conclusion may be summed briefly, yet perhaps fairly, in the statement that play is instinctive and prophetic — or, expressed in other terms, that play is a spontaneous expression of hereditary faculty which eventually attains full development in the individual through continued exercise. The fifth chapter (already noted as of special interest to the anthropologist) presents the mental aspects of animal play, explains the preponderance of play in youth, and compares the playful exuberance of animals and man in such manner as to set forth their relations. The
rendering into English seems to be admirable, while the value of the work is enhanced by the preface and appendix contributed by one of our foremost psychologists. The book-making is modest but excellent. To the reviewer, the work of both author and editor seems highly commendable, and the results, so far as they go, quite acceptable ; he would differ only in extending the conclusions further and expressing them more emphatically as a necessary part of the present fabric of science. In an address delivered nearly five years ago, he seriated the developmental stages of vitality, under somewhat arbitrary definitions, yet in such manner as to show that spontaneous action necessarily precedes maturely developed function. 1 This is true of everyday human activity, in which men do before framing rules of doing ; it is true also of the animal realm in which, as Professor Groos so fully demonstrates, play presages the prosaic functions of mature existence ; it is equally true in the vegetal realm, in which the tree springs up- ward before its form is shaped and its tissue conditioned by wind and
1 The Earth the Home of Man, Anthropological Society of Washington ; Special Papers, 2, pp. 3-5.
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