 In Letters 26 and 27, Schiller imagines the circumstances that must have been necessary for early humans to develop an aesthetic sense. Traces of play can be found in nature whenever there is an abundance of resources: lions play when they have excess energy and are not under threat; plants send out more shoots than necessary when they are adequately nourished, squandering energy “in a movement of carefree joy” (NA XX, 406/E 173). Similar abundance among humans inspires “indifference to reality and interest in semblance [Schein]”: interest, that is, in a new layer of meaning and significance that humans recognize as their own creation. Semblance is positioned between “stupidity” and truth, both of which “seek only the real” (NA XX, 399/E 165). A nature that delights in semblance, by contrast, is “no longer taking pleasure in what it receives, but in what it does” (NA XX, 399/E 167; Sharpe 2005: 161–2). Semblance is evident in adorned weapons, the transition of movement into dance, and the evolution of desire into love. When we find such “traces of a disinterested and unconditional appreciation of pure semblance”, the people in question have “started to become truly human” (NA XX, 405/E 171–2).