uzzle games as chess and draughts are
not mathematicians, though it is just possible that often they may have
undeveloped mathematical minds.

It is extraordinary what fascination a good puzzle has for a great many
people. We know the thing to be of trivial importance, yet we are
impelled to master it; and when we have succeeded there is a pleasure and
a sense of satisfaction that are a quite sufficient reward for our
trouble, even when there is no prize to be won. What is this mysterious
charm that many find irresistible? Why do we like to be puzzled? The
curious thing is that directly the enigma is solved the interest
generally vanishes. We have done it, and that is enough. But why did we
ever attempt to do it?

The answer is simply that it gave us pleasure to seek the solution--that
the pleasure was all in the seeking and finding for their own sakes. A
good puzzle, like virtue, is its own reward. Man loves to be confronted
by a mystery, and he is not entirely happy until he has solved it. We
never like to feel our mental inferiority to those around us. The spirit
of rivalry is innate in man; it stimulates the smallest child, in play or
education, to keep level with his fellows, and in later life it turns men
into great discoverers, inventors, orators, heroes, artists, and (if they
have more material aims) perhaps millionaires.

In starting on a tour through the wide realm of Puzzledom we do well to
remember that we shall meet with points of interest of a very varied
character. I shall take advantage of this variety. People often make the
mistake of confining themselves to one little corner of the realm, and
thereby miss opportunities of new pleasures that lie within their reach
around them. One person will keep to acrostics and other word puzzles,
another to mathematical brain-rackers, another to chess problems (which
are merely puzzles on the chess-board, and have little practical relation
to the game of chess), and so on. This is a mistake, because it restricts
one's pleasures, and neglects that variety which is so good for the
brain.

And there is really a practical utility in puzzle-solving. Regular
exercise is supposed to be as necessary for the brain as for the body,
and in both cases it is not so much what we do as the doing of it from
which we derive benefit. The daily walk recommended by the doctor for the
good of the body, or the daily exercise for the brain, may in itself
appear to be so much waste of