he could have at once this twofold experience in which he would have the consciousness of his freedom and the feeling of his existence together, in which he would simultaneously feel as matter and know himself as spirit, in such cases, and in such only, would he have a complete intuition of his humanity, and the object that would procure him this intuition would be a symbol of his accomplished destiny, and consequently serve to express the infinite to him—­since this destination can only be fulfilled in the fulness of time.

Presuming that cases of this kind could present themselves in experience, they would awake in him a new impulsion, which, precisely because the two other impulsions would co-operate in it, would be opposed to each of them taken in isolation, and might, with good grounds, be taken for a new impulsion.  The sensuous impulsion requires that there should be change, that time should have contents; the formal impulsion requires that time should be suppressed, that there should be no change.  Consequently, the impulsion in which both of the others act in concert—­allow me to call it the instinct of play, till I explain the term—­the instinct of play would have as its object to suppress time in time to conciliate the state of transition or becoming with the absolute being, change with identity.

The sensuous instinct wishes to be determined, it wishes to receive an object; the formal instinct wishes to determine itself, it wishes to produce an object.  Therefore the instinct of play will endeavor to receive as it would itself have produced, and to produce as it aspires to receive.

The sensuous impulsion excludes from its subject all autonomy and freedom; the formal impulsion excludes all dependence and passivity.  But the exclusion of freedom is physical necessity; the exclusion of passivity is moral necessity.  Thus the two impulsions subdue the mind:  the former to the laws of nature, the latter to the laws of reason.  It results from this that the instinct of play, which unites the double action of the two other instincts, will content the mind at once morally and physically.  Hence, as it suppresses all that is contingent, it will also suppress all coercion, and will set man free physically and morally.  When we welcome with effusion some one who deserves our contempt, we feel painfully that nature is constrained.  When we have a hostile feeling against a person who commands our esteem, we feel painfully the constraint of reason.  But if this person inspires us with interest, and also wins our esteem, the constraint of feeling vanishes together with the constraint of reason, and we begin to love him, that is to say, to play, to take recreation, at once with our inclination and our esteem.