Civilized Man's Need of A Mental Stimulus We are often told that, instead of watching football, cricket, boxing, a horse-race, or boat-race, we should ail of us play some game, says a writer in a Home contemporary. It is commonly assumed that a large gate' witnessing one or other of our popular forms of sport points to national decadence, if not degeneracy.
But excitement to civilized peoples is both natural and necessary while excitement caused by sport whether in the player or in the spectator, is healthy and beneficial—a view which is supported by eminent psychologists, and phy-biologists.
For what is excitement but a quickening or awakening of the mind, a stimulation of the nervous system, and therefore, in occasional] moderate doses of benefit to all normal beings?
Tas Love or Ptay.
Among the higher animals the Jove of excitement is abundantly manifest, most noticeably, perhaps, in the horse and dog. Beyond doubt "a race horse thoroughly enjoys the excitement of the race. A healthy dog seeks all kinds of excuses to perform wild antics. The sense of play—and play means excitement—one finds even among elderly lions in captivity. Almost all animals possess the sense of play; while most birds, from the tiny golden-crested wren to the sea-faring albatross, have their playful interludes.
Tt is the lack of excitement in remote and more or less desolate parts of the country that causes the intelligent worker to seax employment in town or city. It ts the need of excitement that creates the world traveller, the best type of adventurer, the best type of sailor and soldier. Largely its craving acts as the mind-engine of the explorer—of those whose life-mission is to discover unknown regions, terrestrial, or even celestial. May it not also go far to explain the politician, the big financier, and—the millionaire?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.