Play

Extract

There is an interesting little paragraph in St Thomas Aquinas’ works which refers to play. He has been describing how every action is performed towards some end, with some aim in view. Then he breaks off, and says that there are some actions which do not seem to be for any end, such as contemplating, playing—stroking one’s beard! Leaving aside the beard-stroking (which St Thomas accounts for as would a modem analyst), he sees close similarities between contemplation and play. That is to say, contemplation does not have any end outside itself, because it is its own end; likewise with play, for although we sometimes play so as to study better afterwards, we also play for the sheer delight which is in the game itself. Therefore there is obviously a close similarity between the playful and the contemplative attitudes: they have no end outside themselves.

St Thomas begins an exposition of Boethius by quoting from the book of Ecclesiasticus (XXXII, 15) where man is told on rising to run first to his home, and there recollect himself and play. St Thomas uses the quotation to explain that he is undertaking this exposition because to contemplate wisdom (the recollection) is itself a delightful game which requires no exterior aim for its justification. Furthermore, he points out, the Scriptures themselves compare the divine wisdom to the delight of play, for in Proverbs VIII, 30, we hear how ‘I was with him forming all things; and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times’. In view of which one is not surprised to discover St Thomas saying that a man may commit sin by not playing sufficiendy.