ABSTRACT
The definition of play applied to infant activities. In endeavouring to trace the first beginnings of play in the infant we are met with a difficulty we generally meet when trying to apply to the earliest stages of mental life a definition framed for a more mature level. We may start with a definition of play as ‘ any activity which is carried out entirely for its own sake \ 1 This, of course, does not rule out the validity of the theory of Groos that play is biologically valuable as a preparation for more serious activities of life later on. Nor indeed does it rule out entirely Herbert Spencer’s theory that play is an outlet for excess of energy, that is if we refer the ‘ excess of energy ’ only to the particular special impulse or interest, which may be consistent with a considerable degree of general fatigue. Neither do we rule out entirely the theory of play as a biological repetition, in the young, of activities as they have developed in the race. For there is normally delight in an activity indulged in for its own sake, all successful activity indeed tending to be pleasurable ; and such delight is likely to be specially strong in the successful performance of some new activity or the experience of some new capacity. Hence there will tend to be play with each capacity or innate impulse as it develops partly because of its mere novelty ; and here we see an element of truth in the theory of play as biological repetition.
