play. So much did Aquinas value playfulness that he argued the one who does not play risks falling into sin. Yet this affirmation of play as a part of life was not the main point that Aquinas was seeking to make. Having established the value and virtue of play and laughter as a common activity of daily life, he then went further and discerned in play something more essential and more spiritual. The second stage in Aquinas’s observation about play is that it is parallel in nature to contemplative