A happier age than ours once made bold to o call our species by the nzlme of. Homo Sapierw. In the course of time we have come to realize that we are not so reasonable after all as the Eighteenth Century,rnwith its worship of reason and its naive optimism, thought us; hence modern fashion inclines to designate our species as Homo Faber: Man the Maker. But though laber may not be quite so dubious as sapiens it is, as a name speciftc of the human being, even less appropriate, seeing that rnany ani- mals too are makers. There is a third funetion, however, applicable to both human and animal life, and iust as important as reasoning and making-namely, playing. It seems to me thatnext to Homo Faber, and perhaps on the same level as Homo Sapiens, Homo Ludens, Man the Player, deserves a place in our nomenclature.