ABSTRACT
Having attempted to classify and describe games, we shall now endeavour to find an interpretation of them by an examination of their position in the general context of the child’s thought. The task is not easy: the many theories of play expounded in the past are clear proof that the phenomenon is difficult to understand. But the reason for the difficulty lies perhaps in the fact that there has been a tendency to consider play as an isolated function (as has been the case with “imagination”) and therefore to seek particular solutions to the problem, whereas play is in reality one of the aspects of any activity (like imagination in respect to thought). The prevalence of play among children is therefore to be explained not by specific causes peculiar to the realm of play, but by the fact that the characteristics of all behaviours and all thought are less in equilibrium in the early stage of mental development than in the adult stage, which is, of course, obvious.
