VII. Amusements

OHAPTER VII.. AMUSEMENTS. § 225. I have closed the last chapter with a division, the subject Inatter of which links it on to the subject nlat ter Qf this chapter. We pass insensibly from the activities and passivities implied py msthetic culture, to sundry of those which come under the head of relaxations and amuse ments. These we have now to .consider from the ethical point of view. To the great majority, who have imbibed nlore or less of that asceticism which, though appropriate to times of chronic militancy and also useful as a curb to ungoverned senualism, has swayed too much men's theory of life, it will seem an absurd supposition that amusements are ethically warranted. Yet unless, in common with the Quakers and some extreme evangelicals, they hold them to be positively wrong, they must either say that amusements are neither right norwrong, or, they n1ust say that they are positively right-are to be morally approved.

That they are sanctioned by hedonistic ethics goes with out saying. They are pl~asure-giving activities; and that . is their sufficient justification, so long as they do not unduly interfere with activities which are obligatory. Though most of our· pleasures are to be accepted as concomitants of those various expenditures of energy con ducive to self-sustentation and sustentation of family; yet the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake is to be sanc524 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. tioned, and even enjoined, when primary duties have been fulfilled. So, too, are they to be approved frorn the physiological point of vie\\r. Not only do the emotional satisfactions which accolllpany normal life-sustaining labours exalt the vital functions, but the vital functions are exalted by those satisfactions which accornpany the superfluous expenditures of energy. implied by amusements : rnuch rnore exalted in fact. Such satisfactions serve to raise the tide of life, and taken in due proportion conduce to every kind of effi ciency.

Yet once Inore there is the evolutionary justification. In § 534 of The Principles of Psychology, it was shown that whereas, in the lowest creatures, the small energies which exist ar:e wholly used up in those actions which serve to maintain the individual and propagate the species; in creatures of successively higher grades, there arises an 'increasing amount of unused energy: every improvement of organizatioil achieving some economy, and so augnlent ing the surplus power. This surplus expends itself in the activities we call play. Among the superior vertebrata the tendency to these superfluous activities becomes con spicuous; and it is especially conspicuous in JYIan, when so conditioned that stress of competition does not make the sustentation of self and family too laborious. The ilnpli cation is that in a fully developed fonn of human life, a . considerable space will be filled by the pleasurable exer cise of faculties which have not been exhausted by daily activities.

§ 226. In that division of The Principles of Psychology above referred to (§§ 533-540), in which I have drawn this distinction between life-sustaining activities and activities not of a life-sustaining kind, which are pur sued for pleasure's sake, I have not drawn the further distinction between those of the sensory structures and .

AMUSEMENTS. 525 those of the motor structures. There isa distinction between gratifications which ffisthetic perceptions yield and those yielded by gaInes and sports. This distinction it was left for Mr. Grant A.llen to point out in his Physiologi cal .LEsthetics. It cannot be made an absolute distiIl~tion, however; since gratifications derived {roIn certain excite ments of the senses are often associated with, and de pendent upon, muscular actions; and since the gratifi cations of .muscular actions, whatever their kind, are achieved. under guidance of the senses. Moreover, with each of them there usually exists a large emotional accom paniment more important than either. Still the division is a natural one, and }\tIr. Grant Allen has established it beyond question. Even ascetically-minded people do not repudiate those en joyments, intellectual and emotional, ,vhich travelling yields.

Pursuit of the ffisthetic delights derived from beautiful scenery, the mountains, the sea-primarily those due to the visual. impressions which forms and colours give, but sec ondarily .and mainly those due to the poetical sentiments aroused by association-is approved by all. So, too, in a -measure, is pursuit of the gratifications yielded byexplora,. tion of the unknown forms of human life and its products~ foreign peoples, their towns, their ways. One is sometirnes . saddened to think what a vast rnajority of meil come into the world and go out of it again knowing scarcely at all what kind of world it is. And this thought suggests that while· it is to be sanctioned for gratification's sake, travel ling is to be further sanctioned for the sake of culture; since the accompanying enlargement of the experiences 'profoundly affects the general conceptions and rationalizes them. Modern social changes and changes of belief, are in considerable measure due to facilitation of intercourse with unlike forms of life, and character, and habit, which railways have brought abont.

After the pleasures given' by actual presentations of new 526 THE ETHIOS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. scenes, may fitly be named the pleasures yielded by pictorial representations of thein. While in lnany cases these fall short of those which the realities give, in rnanyother cases they exceed then1. By its reproduction on canvas there is given to a rural view or a dOinestic interior an artificial interest; so that sOlnething intrinsically commonplace is transfigured into something beautiful: possibly because the mind in presence of the object itself was so Inuch occupied with its other aspects as to give no attention to its resthetic aspects. Be the cause what it may, however, works of art open new fields of delight, and" by hedonisru acceptance of this delight is sanctioned, or rather enjoined. Few pleas ures are nl0re entirely to be approved, and less open to abuse, than those yielded by paintings, and of course also by sculptures.

It seems undesirable to insist that there is an ethical sanc tion for the pleasures given by light literature, seeing that there is so general a tendency to excess in the pursuit of them. Perhaps such exaltation of feeling as the reading of good poetry produces, is not sought in an undue degree; but, unquestionably, there is far too much reading of fiction; often excluding, as it does, all instructive reading, and caus ing neglect of useful occupations. While ethical approval must be given to occasional indulgence in that extreme gratification produced by following out the good and ill fortunes of inlaginary persons n1ade real by vivid charac ter-dravving; yet there much IYlOre needs ethical reproba tion of the too frequent indulgence in it which is so COIU luon: this elnotional debauchery undermines mental health. Nor let us omit to note that while sanction may rightly be claimed for fiction of a humanizing tendency, there should be nothing but condelnnation for brutalizing fiction -for that culture of bloodthirst to which so many stories are devoted.

Of course much that has just been said concerning fiction may be said concerning the draina. Higher even AMUSEMENTS. 52'7 than the gratification yielded by a good novel, is that yielded by a good play; and the demoralization caused by excess of it would be still greater were there the sallie opportunity for continuous absorption. Pleasures which are intense must be sparingly partaken of. The general law of \vaste and repair implies that in proportion to the excitement of a' faculty must be its subsequent prostration and unfitness for action-an unfitness which continues until repair has been rnade. lIenee, overwhelming-sym pathy felt for personages in a fiction or drarna, is felt at the cost of some subsequent callousness. As. the eye by exposure to a vivid light is nlomentarily incapacitated for appreciating those feeble lights through which objects around are distinguished; so, after a tearful fellow-feeling ,vith the sufferers of imaginary woes, there is for a time a lack of fellow-feeling with persons around .. Much theatre going, like much novel-reading, is therefore to be ethically reprobated.

Perhaps among gratifications of the oosthetie class, that which nlusic yields is that which may be indulged in Inost largely without evil consequences. Though after a concert, as after a fiction or a play, life in general seems tame; yet there is a less marked reaction, because the feelings excited are more rernotely akin to those associated with daily inter course. Still, the pleasures of music are frequently enjoyed to an excess which, if not otherwise injurious, is injurious by the implied occupation of time-by the filling of too large a space in life. § 22'7. Throughout the foregoing class of pleasures, result ing from the superfluous excitements of faculties, the indi vidual is mainly passive. We turn now to the class in which Ire is mainly active; which again is subdivisible into two classes-sports and games. With sports, ethics has little concern beyond graduating its degrees of reprobation. Such of them as involve the direct infliction of pain, especially on 35 528 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

fellow-beings, are nothing but means to the gratification of feelings inherited frorn savages of the baser sort. That after these thousands of years of social discipline, there should still be so Inany who like to see the encounters of the prize ring or witness the goring of horses and riders in the arena, shows how slowly the instincts of the barbarian are being subdued. No condenlnation can be too strong for these sanguinary amuseluents which keep alive in IneH the worst parts of their natures and thus profoundly vitiate social life. Of course in a Ineasure, though in a smaller measure,condemnation Inust be passed on field sports-in smaller measure because the obtainment of food affords a partial motive, because the infliction of pain is leEs conspicuous, and because the chief pleasure is that derived frolH successful exercise of skill. But it cannot be denied that all activities with which there is joined the conscious ness that other sentient beings, far inferior though they may be, are made to suffer, are to some extent demoralizing.

The sympathies do, indeed, admit of being' so far special ized that the same person who is unsympathetic towards wild anhnals nlay be in large lueasure sympathetic towards fellow-men; but a full amount of sympathy cannot well be present in the one relation and absent in the other. It lnay be added that the specializing of the sympathies has the effect that they become smaller as the renloteness from human nature becomes greater; and that hence the killing of a· deer sins against them more than does the killing of a fish. Those expenditures of energy which take the form of games, yield pleasures from which there are but small, if any, dra"rbacks in the entailed pains. Certain of them, indeed, as football, are as much to be reprobated as sports, than some of which they are more brutalizing; and there cannot be much ethical approbation of those gaInes, so called, such as boat-races, in which a painful and often injurious overtax of the systelu is gone through to achieve .AMUSEMENTS. 529 a -victory, pleasurable to one side and entailing pain on the other. But there is ethical· sanction for those games in ,vhich, with a moderate amount of Inuscular effort, there is joined the excitement of a competition not too intense, kept alive from moment to llloment by the changing inci dents of the contest. Under these conditions the muscular actions are beneficial, the culture of the perceptions is useful, while the einotional pleasure has but srnall drawbacks. And here"I am pronlpted to denounce the practice, now so gen eral, of substituting gymnastics for games~violent rnuscular actions, joined with slnall concomitant pleasures, for Inoder ate muscular actions joined vvith great pleasures. '. This usurpation is a sequence of that pestilent asceticism ·which thinks that pleasure is of no consequence; and that if the same anlount of exercise be taken, the same benefit is gained: the truth being that to the exaltation of the vital functions ","'hich the pleasure produces, half the benefit is due.

Of indoor games which chiefly demand quickness of perception, quickness of reasoning, and quickness of judg ment, general approval may be expressed with qualifica tions of no great importance. For young people they are especially desirable as giving to various of the intellectual faculties a valuable training, not to be given by other llleans. Under the stress of competition, the abilities to observe rapidly, perceive accurately, and infer rightly, are increased; and in addition to the immediate pleasures gained, there are. gained powers of dealing III ore effectually withlnany of the incidents of life. It should be added that such drawbacks as there are, .from the elnotions ac companying victory and defeat, are but small in games which involve chance as a considerable factor, but are very noticeable where there is no chance. Chess, for ex ,ample, which pits together two intelligences in such a w"ay as to show unmistakably the superiority of one to the other in respect of certain '··powers, produces, mu~h more than 530 THE ETHICS OF INDIVIDUA.L LIFE.

whist, a feeling of hUlniliation in the defeated, and if the sympathies are keen this gives some annoyance to the victor as well as to the vanquished. Of. course, such ethical sanction as is given to games, cannot be given where gambling or betting is an accom paniment. Involving, as both do, in a very definite way, and often to an extrerne degree, the obtainment of pleasure at the cost of another's pain, they a!e to be condemned both for this irnmediate effect and for their remote effect-the repression of. fellow-feeling. § 228. Before passing to the altruistic aspect of amuse ments, there should be noted a less fanliliar egoistic aspect. Unless they have kept up during life an interest in pastimes, those who have broken down from overwork (perhaps an overwork entailed on them by irnperative duties) usually find thelnselves incapable of relaxing in any satisfactory \-vay: they are no longer amusable. Capacities for all other pleas ures are atrophied, and the only pleasure is that \vhich busi ness gives. In such cases recovery is, if not prevented, greatly retarded by the lack of exhilarating occupations.

Frequently dependents suffer. This last consideration shows that these, like other classes of actions which prin1arily concern the individual, concern, to some extent, other indi viduals. But they concern other individuals in more direct and constant ways also. On each person there is imposed not only the peremptory obHgation so to carryon his life as to avoid inequitably interfering with the carrying on of others' lives, and not only the less perelnptory obligation to aid under various circuulstances the carrying on of their lives, but there is imposed some obligation to increase the pleasures of their lives by sociality, and by the cultivation of those powers vvhich conduce to sociality. A man Inay be a good economical unit of society, while renla~ning other wise an almost \vorthless unit. If he has-no knowledge of AMUSEMENTS. 531 the arts, no resthetic feelings, no interest in fiction, the drall1a, poetry, or music-if he cannot join in any of those arIlusements which daily and at longer intervals fill leisure spaces in life-if he. is thus one to wholn others cannot readily give pleasure, at the saIne time that he can give no pleasure to others; he becolnes in great measure a dead unit, and unless he has SOUle special value might better be out of the way.

Thus, that he may add his share to the general happiness, each should culti vate in due measure those superfluous activities which primarily yield self-happinesso CHAPTER VII~. MARRIAGE. § 229. Up to the present point there has been maintained, if not absolutely yet with tolerable clearness, the division between the ethics of indi vidual life and the ethics of social life; but we COlne, in this chapter and the chapter which follows it, to a part of ethics which is in a sense intermediate. For in the relations of marriage and parenthood, othe~s are concerned, not contingently and indirectly, but in ,vays that are necessary and direct. The implied divisions of conduct, while their primary ethical sanctions refer to the proper ful filment of individual life, are yet inseparable from those divisions which treat of conduct that is to be ethically approved or disapproved because of its effects on those around.