‘The Machine has no rights,’ said the philosopher, ‘let us exploit it.’ Let it once be made the slave of all men and who knows what other Athens shall arise. It is a pity that this vision of happiness should ever have been called the Leisure State; for if there is one thing certain about Leisure States it is that nobody wants them. If men and women want leisure it is only in order to act in a way which pleases them. Play itself is activity, and, very often, the more it resembles hard work the more fun it provides. You may distinguish play from work as fun is distinguished from drudgery, but this is a bad distinction, for there is no reason why Mr. Selfrdge should not be right in saying, ‘There is no fun like work.’ Play is best distinguished from work as means is distinguished from end; play is for work and work is for the Last End, or is the Last End if we can call work that operation by which man apprehends God. Play is a sort of artificial work freely undertaken for the sake of more work afterwards. It is true that little children do not normally play games with any thought of working better when they leave off; but this is because, being little children, their play is their work, in much the same way as the play of lambs and kittens is the serious work of lambs and kittens. Play, in the sense of recreation, does not begin until responsible human work begins; until the ‘age of reason.’ Until then the child’s play is just one of the ways by which it quite seriously adjusts itself to the Universe. Its play is all movement and mimicry. It cannot play without playing ‘at’ something, unless it simply jumps about.