GAMES. Robertson Smith has emphasized the joyful character of the ancient religions known to us. When men met their god they feasted and were glad together. Ordinary acts of worship are all brightness and hilarity. This is true also of the religions of primitive peoples And indeed it may be said of any religion that gloom and sadness are signs of degeneracy and decay. Games and the principal forms of art seem to have been born of religion, and for a long time they retained a religious character. Worship was not merely an act of religion but also a form of recreation (in the best sense of the word). " The state of effervescence in which the assembled worshippers find themselves must be trans lated outwardly by exuberant movements which are not easily subjected to too carefully defined ends. In part, they escape aimlessly, they spread themselves for the mere pleasure of so doing, and they take delight in all sort of games. Besides, in so far as the beings to whom the cult is addressed are imaginary, they are not able to contain and regulate this exuberance; the pressure of tangible and resisting realities is required to confine activities to exact and economical forms. Therefore
one exposes oneself to grave misunderstandings, if, in explaining rites, be believes that each gesture has a pre cise object and a definite reason for its existence. There are some which serve nothing; they merely answer the need felt by worshippers for action, motion, gesticula tion. They are to be seen jumping, whirling, dancing. crying and singing, though it may not always be possible to give a meaning to all this agitation " (Emile Durk helm). Durkheim thinks that religion would not be itself if it did not give some place to play, to art, and to all that serves to recreate the spirit which has been fatigued by the too great slavishness of daily work.