VARIETIES OF THE LAUGHABLE.
In the preceding chapter we have examined those early and elementary
forms of laughter which arise from the action of such causes as
tickling, the attitude of play, and the sudden uplifting in a feeling
of joy. These do not, it is evident, imply the existence of that
specific faculty which we call the perception of the laughable in
things, or what is commonly spoken of as the sense of the ludicrous.
We have now to inquire into the mode of operation of this more
intellectual cause of laughter, and to connect it, if possible, with
that of the simpler processes of excitation.
The peculiarity in this case is that there is not only an external
excitant, such as tickling fingers, but an object of the laughter. A
tickled child laughs because of the tickling, but not at this as an
object. The same is true of a good deal of the laughter of play: it is
only when play represents something funny, or when the play-illusion is
interrupted by a moment’s critical glance at the poverty of the doll
or other plaything, that it gives rise to a proper enjoyment of the
laughable; and a like remark holds good of the laughter which springs
out of a relief of tension and a sudden transition from grave to gay.
In the laughter of educated men and women we see an intellectual
element, the perception of a laughable quality in an object, and the
justification of the action by a reference to this. The examination
of this intellectual type of laughter will bring {83} us to what is
undoubtedly at once the most interesting and the most difficult problem
in our study.
The objective reference in laughter implied in speaking of the
“laughable” may be illustrated by a glance at the contemptuous laughter
of the victor surveying his prostrate foe. The boy of ten who danced
and screamed and laughed after he had killed his playmate in a street
fight[52] was hardly possessed with what we call a sense of the
comicality of things. The laughter, though directed _at something_,
had not, in the complete sense of the expression, _its object_. The
boy himself would not have laughed at the spectacle at another time,
but viewed it with quite different feelings. And the object would not
have presented itself as laughable to others who chanced to see it. In
other words, the laughter was not caused by a mere contemplation of
an object, but was conditioned by a particular relation between the
laugher and this object.
To say that a thing is laughable, just as to say that a thing is
eatable, implies an element of permanence and of universality. This
is true even when a person says about a spectacle, _e.g._, that of a
drunken man walking, “It is laughable to me,” since he means that for
his experience at least it is a general rule that the sight of such
movements excites laughter. But the word laughable clearly connotes
more than this, a universality which embraces others as well as the
individual. A thing is only rightly so called when it is supposed to be
fitted to provoke men’s laughter in general. Language has been built
up by men living the social life, and interested in common forms of
experience; and the word laughable and all similar words undoubtedly
refer to such common forms. {84}
These common forms of experience may be conceived of narrowly or
widely. Much of what is called laughable by a schoolboy, by a savage,
or even by an educated Englishman, is made to appear so by the special
habits and correlated modes of thought of his community or his class.
This clearly holds good of laughter at strange forms of dress, language
and the like. Its “universality” is thus strictly conditioned. In
dealing with the laughable we shall have constantly to allude to its
relativity to particular customs and expectations. It will be a part of
our problem to disengage from among the common excitants of laughter
what seems to possess a truly universal character.
In speaking of an object of laughter as having universal potency, we
do not imply that it will, as a matter of fact, always excite the
outburst. The expression means only that a man will be ready to laugh
at it, provided that he has certain requisite perceptions with the
correlated emotional susceptibilities, and that nothing interferes with
the working of these. Hence we shall have to speak of the laughable as
answering to a _tendency_ only, and to note the circumstances which are
apt to counteract it. It is obvious, for example, that the limitations
of class-custom, so far as they make laughter relative, will render a
man blind to what is “objectively” laughable in his own customs. In
truth, the adoption of such relative and accidental standards, which
marks all the earlier stages in the growth of intelligence and of
æsthetic sentiment, is the great obstacle to a clear recognition of
what is laughable in a wider and more strictly universal sense.
Again, when we are considering the question of fact, “What do men
really laugh at?” it is important to bear in mind that the tendency
to laugh may, on the one hand, be reinforced by a favourable
psycho-physical condition at the {85} moment, as well as by previously
formed tendencies to apperceive things on their laughable side; while,
on the other hand, it may be checked and wholly counteracted by
unfavourable conditions, such as a sad mood, or an acquired habit of
looking at those aspects of things which excite feelings antagonistic
to laughter. Owing to the action of these forces, we find, not only
that one man may fail to discern the laughable in an object which moves
another to a hearty outburst, but that in many cases in which two men
join in laughing at something they may not be touched by the same
laughable feature or aspect of the presentation. Nothing, indeed, has
more of that appearance of caprice which comes from the influence of
uncertain subjective factors than the laughter of men, even of those
who have a normal sense of the ludicrous.
A word more is needed on the language here used. The terms laughable
and ludicrous may be employed interchangeably up to a certain point
without risk of confusion. At the same time it is well to note that the
second is used in a stricter sense than the first. The term ludicrous
seems to denote particularly what is not only an universal object of
laughter, but an object of that more intellectual kind of laughter
which implies a clear perception of relations. In everyday language we
should speak of incidents and stories, of which the fun is obvious and
broad, as “laughable” rather than as “ludicrous”. Closely connected
with this emphasis on an intellectual element in the meaning of the
term ludicrous, is its tendency to take on an ideal connotation, to
mark off what we deem to be worthy of laughter. Here, as in the case
of other objects of an æsthetic sentiment, there is a half-disguised
reference to the regulative principles of art.
This control by an æsthetic principle or standard is more {86} clearly
indicated in the use of “comic,” a word, by the way, which is used more
freely in some European languages than in our own. A comic spectacle
means, for one who uses language with precision, a presentation which
is choice, which comes up to the requirements of art, and would be
excellent material for comedy.
Our problem may now be defined as an analysis of the objects of our
common perception and imagination which ordinary men tend to laugh at
and to describe as laughable. This inductive inquiry into facts is, as
implied above, a necessary preliminary to a discussion of the nature of
the “ludicrous” or “comic” as an ideal or regulative conception.
In order to find our way with some degree of certainty to the general
characteristics of laughable things, we should do well to take at least
a rapid survey of the objects of men’s laughter as reflected in popular
jests, “_contes pour rire_,” “comic songs” and amusing literature in
general; as also in what may be called the standing dishes in the
repasts of fun served up in the circus and other places where they
laugh. No assemblage of facts of this kind adequate for scientific
purposes has, so far as I know, yet been made;[53] so that it must
suffice here to indicate some of the leading groups of laughable
objects which a brief inspection of the field discloses.
It may be assumed as a matter of common recognition that this field
of laughable objects will lie in the main within the limits of the
spectacle of human life. It is the situations, appearances and thoughts
of men which yield to laughter the larger part of its harvest. At
the same time allusion will be made now and again to provocatives
{87} lying outside these limits, which are certainly found in simple
examples of the laughable.
In attempting to form these groups one must give a warning. It is
implied in what has been said above, that the things we laugh at have
in many cases, perhaps in most, more than one distinguishably amusing
facet. In trying to classify them, therefore, we must be guided by
what seems the most massive and impressive feature; and, as already
suggested, it is not always easy to say what really is the main
determinant of our laughter.
(1) Among the things which are commonly said to be laughable we find
many objects distinguished by _novelty_. A presentation which differs
widely from those of the ordinary type, and so has a stimulating
freshness, may, as we have seen, when agreeable and of sufficient
force, excite to laughter by suddenly relieving the dulness of the
common and oft-repeated, and raising the feeling-tone of the observer
to the level of joyous excitement. The proper effect of a recognised
laughable aspect only appears when experience begins to be organised
and the mind of the spectator to perceive, dimly at least, a certain
contrariety in the new presentation to the usual run of his perceptual
experience, in other words, the aspect of “out-of-the-wayness” or
_oddity_. Much of the laughter of children, and, as we shall see, of
savages, at what is called “funny” illustrates this. A child will laugh
vigorously, for example, on first hearing a new and odd-sounding word,
or on first seeing a donkey roll on his back, a Highlander in his kilt,
his sister’s hair done up in curling-papers, and the like. In some
of these cases, at least, the appreciation of the new object as odd
or singular is aided by the agreeably lively character of the novel
impression. This is true also of the amusing effect of two strikingly
similar faces seen together; for here the look {88} of oddity, which
is explained by the circumstance that our ordinary experience is of
dissimilarity between faces, is supported by the stimulative force of
the likeness itself.
This expansive effect of the new and the odd on our feeling may come
too from the perception of things sub-human. The sight of a crab
walking sideways, of an oddly-marked dog, of an eddy of leaves in
autumn, and so forth will excite laughter in a child.
A glance at the language employed in describing laughable objects
suggests the large scope of the odd. Thus the “whimsical” and the
“fantastic” in the realm of ideas and tastes, the “extravagant” in the
region of sentiment—these and the like seem to refer directly to what
is peculiar, to the point of an amusing remoteness from life’s common
way.
This enjoyable appreciation of the odd is in a particularly obvious
way subject to the condition of relativity. To begin with, the amusing
aspect is determined by, and so strictly relative to the manner of the
hour; so that, as the word “antic” shows, the old-fashioned begins to
take on an amusing aspect as soon as it is so far displaced by a new
custom as to be an out-of-the-way thing.
Again, as already hinted, the odd is always relative to the custom of
a locality or a class. A savage and a civilised man alike are wont to
laugh at much in the appearance and actions of a foreign people; and
this because of its sharp contrast to the customary forms of their
experience.
The chief counteractive to be noted here is the impulse to distrust and
fear the new and unfamiliar. A child may often be noticed oscillating
between laughter and fear as some new strange sight bursts upon him.
A savage must feel himself secure before he can freely indulge in
laughter at all the odd belongings and doings of the white man.
(2) A special variety of the singular or exceptional which {89} is
fitted, within certain limits, to excite laughter is _deformity_,
or deviation from the typical form. It is certain that, for the
unsophisticated palate of the child and the savage, bodily deformity is
a large source of mirth. The dwarf, the hunchback, the cripple, the man
with the big nose, and the like have been great entertainers of youth.
The tendency to regard such deviations from type as amusing extends,
as we know, to our perceptions of animals and of plants. A limping
quadruped or a tree with a wen-like excrescence seems to reflect a
human deformity and to share in its laughable aspect. Even a lifeless
object may sometimes entertain us with its appearance of deformity. A
house shored up affects us in the same way as a man on crutches, and
the back view of a rickety tilted cart, as it wobbles down a street,
may gladden the eye much as the sight of a heavy, ill-balanced human
figure attempting to run.
While we may view the laughable aspect of bodily deformity as an
example of the odd or deviation from the common pattern of our
experience, we must not forget that it appeals to the more brutal
element in laughter. All ugly things had in them for the Greek mind
something contemptible or disgraceful. Much of the point of men’s
laughter at deformity lies in a recognition of its demeaning effect
on the person who is its subject. It is a clear manifestation of
the impulse to rejoice in the sight of what is degraded, base, or
contemptible. It is not difficult to detect this note of contemptuous
rejoicing in the derisive laughter of the coarser sort of boy and
savage, the kind of laughter illustrated in Homer’s description of
the merriment of the Achæan chiefs at the sight of the misshapen
Thersites, with his hump, his sugar-loaf head crowned with stubble,
and his persecuting squint.[54] Here we seem to have an unmistakable
ingredient {90} of malignant satisfaction, of rejoicing at another’s
ills (Aristotle’s ἐπιχαιρεκακία).
Roughly speaking, we may say that the laughable force of a deformity
varies with its extent. The droll effect of an enlargement of the nose
or of a reduction of the chin increases, within certain limits at
least, with the amount of the aberration from the normal dimensions.
Yet it would be difficult to establish any exact quantitative relation
here.
Again, all kinds of deformity are not equally provocative of laughter.
In general, perhaps, positive additions or extensions, such as a big
nose or big ears, are more conducive to merriment than reductions and
losses; they seem to seize perception more aggressively. Then there are
varieties of the deformed which probably involve special kinds of droll
suggestiveness. Certain squints and twistings of the human face divine
may move us as expressions of the roguish; a red nose or a shock of
red hair may owe its force to its supposed moral symbolism. Long ears
and other deformities affect us through their undignified reminder of
affinity to a lower animal species. Much, however, in these preferences
of the ruder sort of laughter looks quite capricious, and can only be
set down to habit and imitation.
The impulse to laugh at deformity has a narrower and a wider
counteractive. The first is pity, the second is the feeling of
repugnance at the sight of ugliness.
The inhibition of laughter at deformity by pity and kindly
consideration is one of the marks of a refined nature. Where the
unsightly feature suggests suffering, whether physical or moral, such
consideration may completely counteract the impulse.
Since deformity is a variety of the ugly, and the perception of the
ugly as such repels us, we have as a further counteractive a fine
æsthetic shrinking from what is {91} unsightly. A person endowed with
this repugnance may have his capacity of enjoying the funny aspect
of a deformity completely paralysed. At the other extreme, we have
a readiness to make fun of all bodily defects, even when they are a
revolting spectacle. The area of enjoyment for most men lies between
these extremes, when the displeasing element of the ugly is mitigated,
so that its effect is lost in the stream of hilarity which its drollery
sets flowing.
It may be added that where deformity has been turned into a laughable
quality the impulse to “make fun” has commonly been aided by other
forces, more particularly a sense of relief from fear and a feeling of
retaliation. This is clearly illustrated in the laughter of the people
in the Middle Ages at the devil, the demons and the rest. Perhaps
children’s rather cruel laughter at the hunchback contains an element
of retaliative dislike for a person who is viewed as vicious and
hurtful.
(3) Another group of laughable objects is closely related to the last.
Certain _moral deformities and vices_ have always been a special dish
in the feast of laughter. We have only to think of popular jokes, the
_contes_ of the Middle Ages, and the large branches of literature known
as comedy and satire, to see how eagerly the spirit of mirth has looked
out for this source of gratification.
So far as this laughter directs itself against a vicious disposition,
or deformity of character, such as vanity or cowardice, and not against
a lighter defect of external manners, it seems to involve a perception
of something ugly, like a bodily blemish, and further some appreciation
of its disgraceful or degrading aspect.
It is a view commonly held, and as we shall see supported by the
practices of art, that all vices are not equally fit subjects for
laughter. Some kinds seem to have a specially {92} amusing aspect.
There may be peculiar features in the expression of the vicious
disposition which give it value for the laughing eye. This is obviously
true of drunkenness, for example; and hardly less so of violence of
temper, which has a large and impressive drollness in its display.
Other vices, such as cowardice and miserliness, have something choice
for the eye of laughter in the meanness of their display, the petty,
contemptible practices to which they commonly lead. The supreme place
given to vanity among laughable moral failings seems to be explicable
in part by this consideration. Nothing is more entertaining than the
inflation in carriage and speech which comes from an overweening
conceit. Hypocrisy, again, together with her kinswomen deceit and
lying, seems to have a peculiar value for the mirthful eye by reason
of her disguise, and the elemental joy which mortals young and old
derive from a good peep behind a mask. As a last example we may take a
porcine obstinacy over against the expression of others’ wishes, the
stupidity against which even “the gods contend in vain,” a variety of
the amusing which seems to tickle our sensibilities by presenting to us
the rigidity of the machine in lieu of the reasonably pliant organism
of the man.
This glance at the amusing side of what we call moral deformities
suggests that when we laugh at these we are by no means always at
the moral point of view, looking at actions and traits of character
as immoral. This is seen, first of all, in the fact that, when we
are laughing at what we view as vice, we do not, as some say, always
recognise its littleness and harmlessness, visiting it, so to speak,
with the merely nominal penalty of a laugh. Lying, or a display of
brutal appetite, may be turned into a subject of mirth when the least
reflection would show that it is decidedly {93} harmful. It is seen,
further, in the fact that the laughable in this case extends far beyond
the limits of what we commonly call vices. The excessive humility
of the friend of our youth, Mr. Toots, is hardly less entertaining
a spectacle than excessive vanity. It seems rather to be want of a
certain completeness and proportion of parts in the moral structure
which amuses here. This is yet more clearly illustrated by the fact
that comedy, as we shall see, holds up to a gentle laughter want
of moderation even in qualities which we admire, such as warmth of
feeling, refinement of sentiment, and conscientiousness itself.
Here again we may note that the “laughable” will be relative to
the special experiences and standards adopted by the particular
society. Contrast, for example, the fund of amusement which lies in
the spectacle of drunkenness for a people addicted to, and therefore
tolerant of, deep drinking, with that available for another people
by whom the vice is shunned and judged severely. It is evident,
indeed, that our readiness to be entertained by the look of excess or
disproportion in a character will vary with the idea of the normal
pattern. The old Greek way of scanning character differed, in certain
respects, from that habitual, say in England to-day.
In the case of what are palpable vices we have as counteractive
tendencies, not merely the finer shrinking from the ugly, but the
recoil of the moral sense in the distressed attitude of reprobation.
Hence it may be said that the immoral trait must not be of such volume
and gravity as to call forth the moral sense within us. Here, too,
differences of temperament and habit, and, one may add, of the mood
in which the presentation finds us, will affect the result. It is
amazing to what an extent even reputable citizens are able to enjoy the
presentment of moral failings, when they give {94} themselves up to
the mood which seems to belong to a seat before the comic stage.
(4) We may pass to a group of laughable presentations in which the
feature specially fixated by the observer’s mental eye is some _breach
of order and rule_. Laughable displays of vice involve this element,
of course, but in the cases now to be considered the violence done to
rule is the more conspicuous feature. On the other hand, laughable
violations of rule are closely related to the oddities dealt with
above. The donkey rolling on his back may be said, for the child’s
intelligence, to break the rule of the donkey’s normal behaviour; yet
here the laughableness seems to spring immediately out of the fresh
stimulating character of the novelty of the spectacle. In order that
an action may impress us as disorderly, we must recognise, vaguely at
least, that some custom or rule is disobeyed. The sight of a donkey
stepping on to the pavement of a street, or quietly browsing in a
garden, would amuse as an exhibition of the disorderly. Perhaps we have
the boundary-line between what is merely odd and what is disorderly
illustrated by the bizarre aspect of a boy in a class who deviates
considerably in height from the approximately uniform height of the
rest of the class. It has been pointed out by Dr. Lipps[55] that
even a house in a row may assume an amusing appearance under like
circumstances. Here the general uniformity, immediately presented to
the eye, seems to supply the spectator with the idea of a rule which
the odd-looking individual is violating.[56] Under the present head we
shall keep to examples of the laughable where the breach of rule is
palpable. {95}
To begin with, disorderliness, the upsetting of the usual orderliness
of life, is a great source of laughter to the young and even to many
adults. All the more extravagant forms of jollity or “high spirits” are
wont to pass into the disorderly. This applies not merely to uproar,
but to such “jocose” proceedings as smashing windows, the enjoyment
of which, as Addison reminds us, is by some laid down as the test of
humour.
This being so, we might expect that the appearance of the disorderly
would wear an amusing aspect for ordinary men. This is certainly what
we find. The crowd loves the spectacle of lawlessness and misrule
in the harlequinade and elsewhere. The laughter-moving force of the
presentment of a man always in a hurry, or continually changing his
purpose, illustrates this effect of the disorderly. The comic value
of the man in a rage depends too in part on this circumstance. All
appearances of disorder where order is counted on, as in dress, are apt
to provoke a smile of amusement. A squad of soldiers marching out of
time, or out of line, is a recognised stimulus to laughter. Even the
sight of a room turned upside down for a cleaning, or of the confusion
of a dinner-table after a meal, takes on something of this amusing
aspect of the disorderly.
The droll aspect of the disorderly becomes specialised in the breach
of commonly-recognised rules of behaviour. The best marked cases are
offences against the code of good manners, and the rules of correct
speech. Rude behaviour and _gaucheries_, solecisms, provincialisms, and
confusions in the use of language, amuse us as breaches of familiar
rule, though they may no doubt entertain us also as manifestations of a
naïve ignorance.
It is hardly needful to point out that men’s judgments of the laughable
element in breach of rule will be relative. {96} The code of manners
will vary with the community and with the particular class, and will
tend to change with time in the case of the same group. One has only
to think of the variations, from period to period, in the fashionable
modes of accost, of pronouncing words, and so on.
The great force which tends to counteract this direction of laughter is
the respect for order and rule, which has been formed slowly and with
much difficulty, at least in the larger part of a community. It follows
that if men who are supporters of rule are to laugh at a violation of
it, the act of lawlessness must not seem of a gravity sufficient to
offend this respect. This condition will be satisfied if it is manifest
that the upsetting of rule, so far as it is intentional, is not serious
but a sort of make-believe; or that it is confined within the limits
of the harmless, as in the case of the angry man vainly threatening
denunciation against all and sundry; or, again, that the failure to
comply with rule is not intentional but due to ignorance.
(5) We may now pass to a group of presentations where the laughable
feature seems to reside in a situation or condition which is distinctly
undesirable. _Small misfortunes_, especially those which involve
something in the nature of a difficulty or “fix,” are for the ordinary
onlooker apt to wear an amusing aspect. The loss of one’s hat, a fall
due to a slip, or a tilting against another pedestrian, are recognised
instances of the amusing in the spectacle of the streets. Such sights
as Ajax slipping in the foot-race and getting his mouth filled with
dirt (_Iliad_, xxiii., 770–85), John Gilpin on his runaway steed, a
party in a boat left stranded on a sand-bank, the down in the circus
vainly trying to stop a runaway horse by clinging to its tail; these
and other illustrations will readily occur to one familiar with the
ways of laughter. The older popular entertainments, such as the {97}
enjoyment of the performance of grinning through the horse-collar at
the country fair, owed something of their value to this delight in
seeing a man in a fix—if only that of being compelled to make a fool of
oneself—especially when it was due to his lack of foresight.[57] A more
refined sense of the laughable seizes on the many “awkward” situations
of social life, say the unconcealable _gêne_ that overtakes a fine lady
when she makes a meritorious but ill-judged attempt to get into touch
with one of the “lower class”.
It is to be noted that many situations involving not only an irritating
amount of inconvenience but real suffering may excite this kind of
laughter in the vulgar. The spectacle of a cripple dragging his body
along has its amusing aspect, not only for jovial mortals but for
superior beings. Homer represents the Olympian gods as dissolved in
laughter at the sight of the lame blacksmith trying to discharge the
dainty office of the cup-bearer Ganymede. We see the same unfeeling
rejoicing at mishap in the laughter of the savage and of the coarser
product of civilisation at certain forms of punishment, particularly
the administration of a good thrashing to a wife, or to some ugly piece
of mischief, as Thersites. Even “polite society” seems to have a relish
for this form of amusement, if we may judge from the entertainment
which the fashionable crowd on one side of the English Channel
appears to find in scanning the gloomy figures and wan faces of the
passengers as they land after a stormy passage. Here, again, the deep
malignity of man peeps out in a rejoicing at the sight of others’ hurt
(Schadenfreude).
Among these mirth-provoking misadventures, situations and incidents
which manifestly involve loss of dignity fill a large space. The
spectacle of a flying hat pursued by its {98} owner owes much of
its “funniness” to the fact that the loss of a symbol of dignity is
involved. Possibly certain bodily deformities, especially a failure of
the nose or of the chin, may derive something of their laughableness
from our perception of the loss of a dignified feature.[58] The
laughter which is wont to greet the sight of a man left with a baby
on his hands illustrates the same effect. The favourite situations in
the lighter popular comedy, as that of the man who is henpecked, and
who is subject to a mother-in-law, amuse so much because of the deep
descent of the “head” of the house which they involve. The stimulating
force of this kind of presentation is the greater where the undignified
situation overtakes one who is holding at the time an exalted position,
as when a preacher in the pulpit is caught stumbling on too homely
an expression, or a judge on the bench giving way to an oppressive
somnolence.
As in the other instances, we have here to note the limitations
introduced by the variable nature and circumstances of the spectator.
Misfortune, the suffering of indignity, clearly appeals to a kind
of feeling quite dissimilar to that of mirth. Where pity is strong
and alert much of the laughter at mischances, at difficulties, and
so forth, is restrained. On the other hand, this pity for men in
misadventure comes of knowledge and of insight; and where experience
and training have not given these, the restraining influence on
laughter will be wanting. Hence the familiar fact that youngsters,
though not less capable of pity than their elders, will laugh at
sights, such as the old lady slipping and falling, which touch the
heart of those who know what they really mean.
(6) We may now touch on a group of laughable objects {99} which has
a close kinship with more than one of the groups already illustrated,
though it stands apart by right of well-marked peculiarities. I
refer to laughter at _the indecent_ or obscene, whether in actual
presentation or in suggestion.
Any serious attempt to illustrate the variety of the sources of men’s
ordinary laughter must, I think, find a place for this group. Among
men, and one may add the gods, the uncovering of that which decency
insists on hiding is a powerful provocative of laughter. In their more
direct and potent workings indecent presentations appeal to the loud
mirthfulness of the coarse mind, to the _gros rire_ of the man tossing
the _gros sel_, as Mr. Meredith has it. They bulk among the jocosities
of savage tribes—or at least many of these—and of the less refined
among civilised societies. Culture is a great restraining influence
here. Yet it would be an error to suppose that educated men who are
also of the laughter-loving are destitute of this sensibility. The
impulse to greet merrily an allusion to the indecent, when it comes
unexpectedly, taking us off our guard, so to speak, and when it is
neither too pronounced nor enlarged upon, is, I believe, universal
among men who laugh.
The laughter at a suggestion of what not only civilised but even
savage society seeks to veil from view would seem to be most naturally
regarded as a case of the improper, or breach of accepted rule. To make
reference to these matters is to break through a well-understood social
convention. This breach, moreover, carries with it a plump descent into
the depths of the undignified; for since society has willed to throw
the veil here any attempt to uplift it implies something shameful. The
disgrace falls on the person who is the subject of the allusion—in
all cases where there is a definable person concerned. In others,
where {100} the allusion is directed to a common “infirmity” of human
nature, the indignity done is, of course, more widespread. Not only so,
we feel on hearing such an allusion that there is a lapse of dignity
all round in speaker and hearers alike. The blush of the refined hearer
attests this feeling of shame.
Yet to describe the effect here as due to breach of rule and lapse of
dignity is certainly not to give a full account of the _modus operandi_
of this variety of the laughable. If to speak of these things is
forbidden and branded as an offence to good taste, on the other hand
that which is alluded to is a real and an inseparable part of our
nature. The enjoyment of these allusions may accordingly be viewed
under another aspect as a rejection of the artificial in favour of
simple unadorned nature. The casting aside for the moment of the decent
veil and the facing of what is customarily hidden away seems, indeed,
to be attended by a distinct feeling of liberation from restraint and
of joyous expansion. Hence, probably, the fact noted by historians
of mediæval manners that the coarseness of the jocosity appeared
to increase with the magnitude of the feast. The mood of exuberant
hilarity favours the slackening of all artificial restrictions. The
same consideration may, perhaps, explain the hold which coarse jokes,
if only they have just the right quantum of salt, maintain on the
humorous palate of the strong and virile among men of intellect.
In this brief account of the mirthful aspect of the indecent I have
confined myself to what discloses itself to consciousness in the
moderate forms of laughter, common among civilised men who practise
a certain self-restraint. Yet we know that the outbursts which are
provoked, in coarser men at least, by the uncovering of sexual matters
have a deeper {101} source in the obscure parts of our animal
organisation. Our sources of knowledge with respect to the condition
of men when they are seized with the sexual orgasm, including the
testimony of mythology, suggest that laughter here assumes the function
of voicing a state of riotous self-glorification of the animal part of
our nature, when fully released for a moment; and, further, that here,
as in some forms of nervous laughter, it has an organic connection with
a condition of emotional paroxysm.
It is hardly necessary to point out that relativity has a large empire
in this branch of the laughable. A man’s idea of what is obscene
will be relative to the standards of his society, which may vary
considerably. The Englishman living abroad is apt to be impressed by
the fact that men and women, otherwise as refined as his own people,
hesitate less to call a spade a spade and to allude in conversation
to subjects which are tabu at home. Similarly, the modern reader of
Shakespeare may be shocked by the freedom of speech of the cultivated
women of another age.
Further, as implied above, the readiness to laugh here will be modified
profoundly by refinement of feeling. If it is true that all men are
capable of enjoying an allusion to the indecent, provided that it is
delicately executed, it is no less true that only coarse-minded men
are able to drink frequently or deeply at this rather muddy spring of
laughter.[59]
(7) Another group of laughable presentations has a certain analogy with
the last. Popular mirth has made a {102} prominent target of men’s
_pretences_. To peep behind the mask and seize the make-believe is a
sure means of providing ourselves with laughter. So large, indeed, is
the part of affectation and disguise in social life, that not only the
ruder popular art, but comedy has made them one chief source of its
entertainment. The flavour of the laughter varies greatly according to
the moral complexion of the pretence. Seeing through the transparent
make-believe of the child sets us laughing in one key; the detection
of the half-unconscious humbug, in another; and that of the artful
impostor, in yet another.
That the appreciation of this embodiment of the laughable is relative,
may not be at once evident. Yet a glance at the numerous little
hypocrisies not only allowed, but even exacted by polite society,
will suffice to show how the standard may vary. The dulling influence
of use is exceptionally apparent here. The shams of life cease to
amuse us—save a very few—when they are numerous and ubiquitous. The
Englishman who laughs at the little pretences of society abroad, may
be quite incapable of discerning the amusing side of quite similar
simulations and dissimulations in the ways of his own society.
Here, too, as in the case of moral blemishes generally, the impulse
will be restrained by the tendency to judge seriously, and by the
higher degrees of moral sensitiveness. Men of easy morals will laugh
cynically, perhaps, at forms of imposture which would shock those of a
finer moral texture.
(8) We may now pass to a species of the laughable which has a more
markedly intellectual character. Among the exhibitions of human quality
none appears to have had its ludicrous mark more widely recognised
than that of _want of knowledge or of skill_. Here, again, our friend,
the clown {103} of the circus, comes to our aid. The spectacle of
his futile attempts to imitate the exploits of the skilled horseman
and other experts stirs the risibility of the multitude to one of its
_fortissimo_ outbursts. Ignorance of locality, especially when it
lands a traveller in a mess, is a common source of merriment to the
rustic onlooker. Children, savages, and all simple folk delight in
such exhibitions of ignorance and incompetence. The more restrained
amusement of “society” at the want of _savoir faire_ in the uninitiated
shows that this enjoyment of the spectacle of ignorance by the
well-informed is widespread. The value of the spectacle is evinced
by the fact that when in argument a man desires to win the laugh of
onlookers to his side, he will do his best to show up a laughable
degree of ignorance in his fellow-disputant. The presence of the expert
in a gathering of bucolics is a situation pregnant with possibilities
of mirthful enjoyment. Let the delightful discussions of Mr. Hardy’s
Wessex folk suffice as illustration.
These amusing uncoverings of ignorance and inability are a spicy
ingredient in the mutual quizzings of men belonging to distinct peoples
or classes, such as the savage and the white man, the sailor and the
landsman. This will be illustrated later on.
In these cases the spectator may not count on the possession by
others of knowledge or skill. The man who laughs has at most a vague
expectation that outsiders should be equal to those of his own set. The
laugh at ignorance and incompetence takes on another and more ironical
ring when knowledge and competence are reasonably to be expected, as
for example when an official shows a striking incompetence for the
duties of his office.
The spectacle of human ignorance grows particularly entertaining when
it has to do with matters supposed to be {104} of common knowledge.
M. Bergson gives us an example in the observation of a disappointed
traveller on hearing that there was an extinct volcano in the
neighbourhood: “They had a volcano and allowed it to go out”.[60] It
is this element of ignorance of what is generally known which, in
part, gives the amusing aspect to many breaches of rule, particularly
those of language. So firm is our assumption that everybody, even the
foreigner, ought to be able to speak our language that we cannot hear
a gross mispronunciation or misapprehension of meaning without feeling
it to be naïve. Shakespeare in the same play makes us laugh at the bad
English of Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh Evans. Of course the fun is greater
if the foreigner stumbles unwittingly into an observation which tells
against himself; as when a German visitor to London, being asked how
his wife was, answered, “She is generally lying, and when she is not
lying she is swindling,” meaning to say “lying down” and “feeling
giddy” (“hat Schwindel”).
The ludicrous side of the paradoxical, of what is violently opposed to
common-sense—a matter to be dealt with more fully presently—illustrates
the effect of intellectual naïveté. All exaggeration in description and
other extravagance of statement are laughed at, in part at least, as
showing ignorance of what is credible. On the other hand, insistence on
the well known and the obvious, especially when it is accompanied by
a laboured argument, amuses us by ignoring the circumstance that the
hearer or reader is already quite familiar with the matter.
A delightful exhibition of the naïve intelligence is given by a
gross misapprehension of what is happening or of what is being said
at the moment. The Londoner may delight his country listener with
his misunderstandings of {105} what to the latter seems perfectly
self-explanatory. The tickling force of such misapprehension is
heightened when it involves an idea which is the very reverse of the
truth. The good story of the Yorkshire juryman who remarked that
“Lawyer Scarlet gets all the easy cases” turns on the delicious
inversion of causal relations. When travelling once in a train I heard
a mother say to her little girl, who had been complaining of the heat,
“The more you think of it the worse it will be”; upon which the child
remarked in a drily humorous tone, “I should say the worse it is the
more I shall think of it”. The mother’s remark had probably seemed an
inversion of the true relation.
Other examples of what we call naïveté come, in part at least,
under this head. The want of tact, the bringing in of that which
has no relevance to the circumstances or the ideas of the moment,
is an excitant of laughter for men of all levels of culture. The
inappropriate ways in which the kindly savage or child tries to
minister to his visitor’s comfort are a pretty example of such
simplicity. Irrelevances in conversation and discussion, such as _mal à
propos_, mistakings of the issue, unfortunate suggestions of reasons,
and the like, are among the recognised tributaries of the river of
laughter. These irrelevances make a large contribution to the lighter
enjoyment of social intercourse. An irrelevance having a peculiarly
broad effect is a response to a question which wholly misses its point,
as when one reads of a man on a descending balloon who asked a yokel,
“Where am I?” and received for answer only the absurdly obvious, “In a
balloon”.
Children’s naïveté—a mine of wealth to the discerning seeker after the
laughable—illustrates this tickling property of a perfect simplicity
of intelligence, and of those {106} irrelevances of behaviour and
of utterance which by their mighty compass seize and occupy for the
instant the field of contemplative vision. One of its most valuable
manifestations is the habit of quietly substituting the child’s point
of view for the adult’s. A large number of the “funny remarks” of
children illustrate this. Here is an example. An improver of occasions
asked a child who had seduced her grandfather into a rather alarming
romp, “Isn’t grandpapa very kind to play with you, dear?” and received
the sharp correction, “I’m playing with _him_”.
A bare reference may be made to other illustrations of the intellectual
simplicity which entertains the mirthful eye. The effect of prejudice
and passion in narrowing the mental outlook and setting up erroneous
views of things is a favourite subject of comic treatment. As we shall
see, the spectacle gains a higher value when the degraded intelligence
approaches that of the disordered, and the amusing person, wholly
preoccupied with his illusions, utters a string of remarks so widely
irrelevant to the actual circumstances of the moment as to upset the
gravity even of a serious spectator.
The limiting influence of relativity in the appreciation of this branch
of the amusing has been pretty plainly illustrated in what has been
said. The lack of skill or of knowledge which excites our merriment
is the lack of that which is a familiar possession of our set, which
accordingly we, at least, tend to look for in others. Hence, the man
of society is amused at your not knowing one kind of thing, say, the
history of the British Peerage, the bucolic at your ignorance of
another, say, the ways of calves, and so forth. The simplicity of a
child’s mind only impresses us in relation to our own grown-up and
complex ways of thinking. Even the absurdities of paradox are relative,
for what we are {107} pleased to regard as the stable, unalterable
body of common-sense is, in reality, subject to change.
(9) We will now touch on a group of facts on which writers on the
ludicrous are accustomed to lay stress. The spectacle of a child
wearing a man’s hat, fully considered above, shows us the laughable
directly and unmistakably as a juxtaposition of two foreign elements,
the semblance of a whole made up of incongruous parts. Here we see
the sense of fun fixing its eye on _relations_. It is recognised by
all that the perception of certain relations, more particularly the
unfitting, the disproportionate, the incongruous and the logically
inconsistent, plays a large part in calling forth the more refined sort
of laughter.
In dealing with this laughable aspect of relations we must draw a
distinction. When a person laughs, say, at the imbecile movements of
a skater as he tries to save himself from a fall, or at an outrageous
costume, or at the fantastic language of some _précieuse_, he may
be aware of half-perceiving a relation; such as want of fitness,
extravagant departure from the normal. He knows, however, that his
mental eye is not focussed for this relation; on the contrary, he feels
as if the presentation in itself, by giving the required jerk to his
apperceptive tendencies, were directly provocative of mirth.
On the other hand, he will, I believe, hold that there are cases where
the enjoyment of the laughable depends on the mental eye directing
itself to a relation. The relation may not be apprehended in a
perfectly precise way; but the point is that it is mentally seized,
if only for the fraction of a second; and, further, that a degree of
definiteness is given to the apprehension of the relation by a glimpse,
at least, of the related terms.
This localising of the laughable in a relation is most {108} evident
in the case of those complex presentations where lack of harmony and
of mutual fitness—what we call incongruity—appear in the several
parts of the whole which are present to the eye, and forces itself
on the attention in a thoroughly aggressive fashion. A country woman
displaying in her dress or in her speech a bizarre mixture of the
peasant and the fine lady, a proposal to climb a mountain in dainty
high-heeled shoes, the couching of a vote of thanks in language far
below or above the needs of the occasion, these pull at the muscles of
laughter because they strike us as a forcing together of things which
hurtle and refuse to consort. The same holds true of cases in which
the incongruity lies between one presentation and another which has
preceded and is still present to the imagination, as in the clown’s
utter failure to reproduce the model action of the expert which he sets
out to equal.
Even in cases where the laughable incongruity holds between things
both of which are not present at the same or nearly the same
moment, a direct glancing at the relation, involving at least a dim
representation of the absent member of the related twain, may be
requisite for a full enjoyment. It is probable, for example, that
Homer’s gods, when they laughed uproariously at the sight of the grimy
and lame Vulcan essaying the part of Ganymede, mentally recalled the
image of the latter and carried out a comparison between the two.
Similarly in many of our nicer judgments of the amusingly excessive in
dress, speech and so forth, we may, as suggested above, envisage the
relation to a standard of measure in this direct way.[61]
It may, no doubt, be a question whether the relation made “focal”
in consciousness in such cases lies between two parts of a complex
presentation, or between the {109} presentation as a whole and a
represented standard arrangement. When, for example, we laugh at the
intrusion of a too lively gesture into the pulpit, do we mentally
fixate the incongruity between the situation and the action, or
mentally go back to the idea of the customary and suitable kind and
amount of gesture, and view the present performance as disagreeing with
these? This point may be reserved for later consideration.
The view that in the cases just illustrated we have to do with another
variety of laughter, that of the mind or intelligence, is confirmed by
the reflection that much of it is excluded from the popular category.
The masses can enjoy a palpable contradiction between profession
and performance—witness the enjoyment afforded to the populace of
the Middle Ages by the spectacle of the moral inconsistencies of
the monks.[62] But when it comes to the appreciation of inherent
inconsistencies within the character, such as want of stability of
purpose, fickleness in the affections and so forth, the need of
a certain acuteness in perceiving relations, and of quickness in
mentally reinstating what is not present, may greatly restrict the
area of the enjoyment. Gross and palpable inconsistencies, such as
those represented in the delightful monologue _L’Indécis_, with which
M. Coquelin (aîné) rejoices us, are accessible to popular laughter,
but most of the self-contradictions with which a Molière, a George
Eliot, or a George Meredith refreshes our spirits are “caviare to the
general”. Much the same is true of the laughter which gladdens the
measuring eye when it lights on the unmeasured, the excessive, the
disproportionate. {110}
One subdivision of this domain of the laughable is the logically
incongruous or _the absurd_. Here, again, we touch on a region into a
large part of which culture must give the key of admission. An example
of such a laughable absurdity is found in that which conflicts with our
deepest and most unalterable convictions. What is logically far-fetched
or paradoxical is a familiar provocative of mirth. Since this case,
like that of laughing at an extravagant costume, does not imply a
direct and clear perception of relation, but only a kind of harmless
shock to our firmly rooted apperceptive tendencies, we may expect to
find illustrations of it low down in the scale of intelligence. As we
shall see later, children will be moved to mirth by the presentation
of an idea that directly conflicts with their crude standards of
the possible; and savages show the same impulse to laugh at what is
manifestly opposed to their fixed traditional standards of truth. So
it is with suggestions and proposals which strike the more mature
intelligence as paradoxical, that is to say, as a kind of assault on
its deeply fixed habits of belief, and what it is pleased to call
its “common-sense”. Ideas which strike it as revolutionary, whether
they appear in the domain of social custom, of political activity,
of morals, or of scientific explanation, are greeted by voluminous
laughter. Darwin’s idea of man’s descent from an ape-like ancestor,
when first introduced, probably excited almost as much hilarity as
indignation.
More restricted is the area for amusement supplied by logical
inconsistencies. The spying out of amusing inconsequences in a man’s
various utterances is the work of an expert. A contradiction must be
very palpable, and the contradictory statements must be very near to
one another in time, in order that food for laughter may reach the
many. The best example of this laughter at contradiction in popular
{111} mirth is, I suppose, the “bull,” where the incompatibility
stares out at you from a single statement, and sets your sides shaking;
as in the argument, attributed to an Irish statesman, that, in the
prosecution of a certain war, “every man ought to be ready to give his
last guinea to protect the remainder”.[63]
One might naturally suppose that in the appreciation of these more
intellectual forms of the laughable there would be no room for the
restraining action of relativity. An incongruous relation would seem
to be one and the same object for all men’s intuitions, and the least
affected by accidents of temperament and external circumstances. Yet
this supposition is not quite correct. Such incongruities as moral and
logical inconsistencies have, it must be remembered, their disagreeable
and even their painful aspect. When discovered in the character or
in the intellect of a person known to be of a high consistency, a
contradiction would naturally offend the admiring spectator. Here, too,
then, we have to add the qualification, “provided that there is nothing
disagreeable and repellant in the manifestation”. Not only so, with
respect to much that is popularly called paradox it is to be remembered
that the standard of truth employed is far from being that of the
eternal verities. As the allusion to the ridicule poured on Darwin’s
theory of natural selection shows, what one generation laughs at as
plainly contradictory to fundamental notions may be quietly recognised
as a familiar truth by its successor.
(10) A group of laughable presentations making large appeal to the
more intellectual kind of laughter meets us in {112} _verbal play and
amusing witticism_. A closer examination of the nature of wit will come
later.
What seems most manifestly characteristic of verbal forms of the
“funny” is the intrusion of the playful impulse. Children’s word-play
shows this clearly enough. New words are for them sounds to be reduced
to familiar ones, and the funnier the results of this reduction the
better are they pleased. This leads by a step to punning, where quite
intelligible words or phrases are purposely altered so as to bring in
a new meaning; or where without any verbal alteration the substitution
of a new meaning for the primary and obvious one effects the required
change. The playful impulse to get as far away as possible from
rule and restriction, to turn things topsy-turvy, to seize on the
extravagant and wildly capricious, is clearly enough recognisable here.
Much of this word-play, too, has a close kinship with make-believe; a
natural and obvious meaning is the pretence in this case, whereas the
reality is the half-hidden meaning introduced by the inventive wag. All
the same it seems to me that this group of laughable objects has its
place close to that of the incongruous and absurd. A pun that claims
any intellectual rank must have a point, a bite, and this would appear
to be most naturally secured by introducing an element of irony and
rendering the primary and obvious meaning of the sentence ludicrously
false. When, for example, a preacher whose ponderous dulness had set
his congregation genteelly scuttling was said to have delivered “a very
_moving_ discourse,” the point of the witty thrust lay in the complete
opposition between the best and the worst result of eloquence brought
together in the two meanings of “moving,” an opposition which gives the
trenchant irony to the description.
In cases, too, where there is no verbal trickery the lighter {113}
kind of wit shows the same tendency to a playful capriciousness
of fancy. It delights in substituting for our ordinary points of
view and standards of reference others which strike the hearer as
amusingly fanciful and extravagant. This is illustrated by much of our
entertaining talk, which is wont to try to escape for a moment from the
leading-strings of sober sense; as when a person _à propos_ of a moon
looking wan and faint some hours after an eclipse observed that she
seemed not yet to have got over the effects of the eclipse.
In this department of contemplative amusement we see once more the
limitations introduced by differences of temperament and mental
attitude, as well as of experience and knowledge. Nowhere, perhaps, is
the habitual inclination of the balance between seriousness and love of
fun in a man more clearly indicated than in his readiness to tolerate
and enjoy word-play and the entertaining side of nonsense generally.
One to whom words and serious points of view are sacred things, will
barely suffer any form of this recreation. On the other hand a ready
appreciation of these pranks of wit means that the listener’s fancy
has the requisite speed of wing. It means, too, commonly, that his
intelligence is in touch with the wit’s standpoint, with his experience
and circle of ideas. Bucolic wit is a sealed book to the superior
gentleman from the town; the merry verbal sports of the judge, the
statesman, the theologian and so forth, reflecting like their dreams
daily types of experience and habits of thought, are apt to fall flat
on the ears of those who are not in touch with these.
The above may, perhaps, serve as a sufficiently full enumeration of
the more prominent of those attributes or aspects of laughable things
which, some in some cases, others in others, make direct appeal to our
mirth. {114}
That each of these may of itself thus start the currents of laughter
will, I believe, be admitted by those who are familiar with the field
of human mirth. There is, I hold, ample evidence to show that what is
embarrassing, what is contrary to rule, what is demeaning, what is
unreal and pretentious, and the rest, do each, under certain limiting
conditions, move men’s laughter.
It is, no doubt, difficult to supply a perfect demonstration of the
fact of the intrinsic laughableness of each of these features. It has
already been pointed out that in many of the most agreeable instances
of the laughable different stimuli combine their forces. This is
so much the case that it is sometimes difficult to decide which of
the co-operating attributes is the most prominent. For example, the
spectacle of the lackey donning the externals of a fine gentleman—a
favourite subject of mirthful treatment by Molière and others—may amuse
us as a transparent pretence, as a fine display of insolent vanity,
or, again, as an amusing caricature of the extravagant absurdities of
fine manners. Extravagance in dress and the like is frequently found in
the company of a deliciously erroneous idea of one’s own importance.
Intellectual naïveté may peep out at us and a moral naïveté look over
its shoulder, as in the remark of a lady whom the astronomer Cassini
had invited to see an eclipse, when she found that she had arrived
too late: “M. de Cassini will be good enough to begin again for my
sake”.[64] As I have remarked, the unfitting is in a large number
of cases an introduction of something unworthy; as when a man at a
dinner-party almost suggests something of an animal violence in his
mode of eating, or an orator resorts to a “wooden” manner of speech
or gesture, or when an unhappy simile hurls {115} the hearer into
the lowest region of the commonplace, a proceeding satirised in the
well-known lines from Butler’s _Hudibras_:—
And like a lobster boil’d, the morn
From black to red began to turn.
As a last example of the many-sidedness of the laughable we may name
affectation, particularly when it takes the form of aping another’s
manners; for this may amuse us as a bit of acting seen through, or
as an incongruous intrusion of a foreign element into the natural
character of the imitator, or, again, as a weakness, a lack of
intellectual or of moral initiative.
Nevertheless, the appearance of cross-division in our scheme is really
no objection to it. By collecting a sufficient number of instances,
and noting how the presentation of a certain feature affects us when
it is plainly the preponderant stimulus, and how it will continue to
affect us in much the same way when its concomitants vary, we may
satisfy ourselves that each of the aspects here named is effective as
a provocative of laughter. It will be for experimental psychology, if
ever its methods are competent to grapple with the subject, to make
this clearer.
There is another objection, which, though related to the last, is to
be carefully distinguished from it. Even in cases where the laughable
feature is clearly localised there may seem something arbitrary in our
mode of describing it. For example, it may be said, why distinguish
the relation of the unfit and kindred relations as a special group,
since in all cases they may be regarded as products and expressions of
a defective intelligence or taste? To raise this difficulty now is,
however, to anticipate our theoretical problem, how far these several
varieties of laughable feature lend themselves to reduction to a {116}
common principle. In naming each of the above groups I have sought to
envisage the laughable aspect as the natural man, innocent of theoretic
aims, would envisage it.
What is important here is to emphasise both the frequent combination of
entertaining features in the objects which excite our laughter, and the
fact that one and the same feature may be envisaged in more than one
way. These two circumstances throw an interesting light on the meaning
of the long discussions and the want of agreement among theorists.
In drawing up this list of the laughable features in things I have said
nothing about the connection between this part of the inquiry and that
which preceded it. Yet the connection has not been wholly hidden. In
the entertaining effect of new things we have found an element of the
laughter which springs from a sudden expansion of joy. In the laughter
excited by the indecent we have noted a trace of the laughter of
“sudden glory” and of what I have called nervous laughter. Lastly, in
dealing with the entertaining quality of the more sportive wit we seem
to have got near the laughter of play.
This connection would appear the more clearly if we were to extend our
list by adding a pair of groups. These are (11) laughable objects which
affect us as expressions of a merry mood; and (12) laughable situations
which involve a relation akin to that of victor and vanquished. A word
or two on each of these must suffice.
(11) There is little doubt that all presentations which are instantly
interpreted as manifestations of a fun-loving disposition tend to
excite merriment. This is true of series of sounds, musical as well as
non-musical, which have in their rapid staccato movement a resemblance
to those of laughter. It holds good also of play-like movements, such
as the {117} freakish gambols of a just loosened pony, or of a circus
clown. The expression of the mirthful temper in things awakens a
sympathetic laughter in the observer. Here, perhaps it would seem to
be more correct to say that we laugh not _at_ or _over_, but, if one
may so say, _to_ the playful freak. Nevertheless, we shall find that
what we recognise as objectively laughable cannot be understood save by
reference to these appearances of playful challenge.
(12) That the sight of a man winning in a struggle or getting the
better of another in some way is fitted to furnish amusement, is
indisputable. This obviously falls in part under the head of laughter
at the spectacle of another’s difficulty or scrape; but it certainly
deserves a separate place in an enumeration of the larger and popularly
distinguished sources of merriment.
There is no need to emphasise the fact that the social spectacle owes
much of its interest to combat, competition, all that is understood
by men’s measuring their powers one against the other. The amusing
side of this interest is found in the gleeful satisfaction which the
impartial spectator derives from each successful stroke, whether on the
one side or on the other. The attraction of all encounters of wit in
the market-place, in the political domain, on the stage and so forth,
illustrates this. Popular literature will show that the plain man has
fed his mirth bounteously from this source.
The situations which minister to this feeling of “sudden glory” in
an onlooker are not confined to those of contest. All displays of a
capacity to get the better of another seem to be entertaining to the
many. Just as the sight of a man chastising his wife is good sport for
the savage onlooker, so the spectacle of taking down, of discomfiture
and humiliation—especially if it involves an element of deception or
{118} befooling, and so takes on the look of outwitting—may yield
excellent fun to the civilised spectator.
A more refined variety of the perception of the laughable occurs when
we look on Nature or fate as discomfiting man, playing tricks on him
or outwitting him. So far as this idea of irony comes into our view of
things, any misfortune, especially if it involves disappointment of
hopes and frustration of efforts, may excite a note of laughter which
has an “over-tone” of triumphant mockery.
The enjoyment of the spectacle of one man triumphing over another or
showing superiority to him will in all cases be limited by conditions
already sufficiently indicated. Since the laughter excited here is,
presumably, in its characteristic ingredient a reflection by way
of sympathetic imagination of the victors sudden glory, it must be
included in the more brutal variety. If a lively sensibility produces
quickly enough a sympathetic apprehension of the feelings of the
vanquished, it will effectually check the impulse to laugh.
Finally, a bare allusion may be made to the way in which the laughter
of relief from emotional or other strain comes into our appreciation of
the laughable in things. The amusing aspect of all lapses from dignity
in religious and other ceremonies cannot, I believe, be understood
merely as an illustration of an inconsequence and irrelevance, but
must be connected with the powerful tendency to throw off a heavy and
depressing mental load by a moment’s mirth. The laughter at what is
lawless, and still more at the indecent and the profane, certainly
derives a part of its gusto from a sense of relief from restraint,
which is a main ingredient in the enjoyment of all license. But the
fuller discussion of the way in which the primal sources of laughter
contribute to the impressions we receive from laughable objects belongs
to another chapter.
{119}