THEORIES OF THE LUDICROUS.
Our survey of laughable things has led us to recognise certain groups
which appear to induce the laughing mood: each presenting its special
variety of laughable feature. One group may be said, _primâ facie_,
to exhibit mischances, another some form of human defect, another,
again, something of the misfitting or incongruous, and so forth. We may
now advance to the theoretic problem of unifying and explaining these
varieties of the laughable.
Here, for the second time, we must touch on the views propounded by
authorities on the subject under the name of Theories of the Ludicrous.
Happily, it is not necessary to burden the reader with a full account
of these. We shall of course pass by all doctrines deduced from _a
priori_ metaphysical conceptions, and confine ourselves to those which
make a show, at least, of grounding themselves on an analysis of facts.
Of these I shall select two or three typical theories which come to us
with the claims of distinguished authorship. We shall test these by
examining how far they succeed in comprehending the diversity of fact
now before us.
1. The first of these typical theories localises the secret force
of the laughable in something unworthy or degraded in the object.
According to this view, the function of laughter is to accompany and
give voice to what may be called the derogatory impulse in man, his
tendency to look {120} out for and to rejoice over what is mean
and undignified. This may be called the Moral Theory, or Theory of
Degradation.
Aristotle’s brief remarks on comedy in the _Poetics_ may be taken
as illustrative of this way of envisaging the laughable. Comedy, he
tells us, is “an imitation of characters of a lower type—not, however,
in the full sense of the word bad”; and, again, the Ludicrous (τὸ
γελοῖον) is a subdivision of the ugly (τοῦ αἰσχροῦ), and consists in
“some defect or ugliness which is not painful or destructive”.[65] Of
an adequate theory of the subject there is here, of course, hardly
a pretence. It seems strange, indeed, that a great thinker with the
works of his compatriot Aristophanes before him should have placed the
ludicrous wholly in character, altogether overlooking the comic value
of situation. Still, the reference of the laughable to the category of
ugly and disgraceful things—for τὸ αἰσχρὸν on its moral side connotes
the disgraceful (compare the Latin “turpe”)—may be said to imply a germ
of the principle of degradation.
A more careful attempt to construct a theory of the ludicrous by a
reference to something low or degraded in the object is embodied in
the famous doctrine of Thomas Hobbes. According to this writer, “the
passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from
sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the
inferiority of others, or with our own formerly”. In this theory our
laughter is viewed as arising, not immediately from a perception of
something low or undignified, but only mediately from this perception,
through a recognition of our own superiority and an accompanying
emotional movement, namely, an expansion of the “self-feeling,” a
sudden quickening of the sentiment of pride or power. Nevertheless, the
{121} theory may be said to come under the principle of degradation,
in so far as it makes the process of laughter start with a perception
of some point of inferiority, that is to say of a comparative loss of
dignity, in the laughable object.
The main point of this theory, that whenever we enjoy the ludicrous we
are consciously realising our superiority to another, will, I think,
hardly bear examination. That in this enjoyment there may be, and
often is, an element of this agreeable sense of elevation I readily
allow, and I shall try to show presently how it gets there. But it is
altogether inadequate as an exhaustive account of the several varieties
of our laughing satisfaction. Even in the groups of cases to which it
seems to be most plainly applicable, for example, those of mischances
and awkward situations, it is not a sufficient explanation. Is there
any discoverable trace of the uplifting of pride, of the temper of
“Schadenfreude”—the malicious satisfaction of watching from the safe
shore the tossings of mariners in a storm—in the instantaneous response
of our mirth to the spectacle of the skater’s wild movements when for
a moment he loses equilibrium, or of the hat wind-driven far from its
proper seat on the respectable citizen’s head? Is there time here for
mentally bringing in the contrasting idea of our own immunity? Has the
laugh the characteristic taste of the outburst of contempt which is
excited by the consciousness of victory, of taking somebody down?
In dealing with this type of theory, it seems only fair to test it in
the more mature form given it by a recent writer. Prof. Alexander Bain
defines “the occasion of the ludicrous” as “the degradation of some
person or interest possessing dignity in circumstances that excite no
other strong emotion”. The most marked improvements here on Hobbes’
statement are (1) that consciousness of our own superiority {122}
need not come in, since we may laugh sympathetically with another who
scores off his adversary, and so forth; (2) that the object degraded
need not be a person, since human affairs in general, _e.g._, political
institutions, a code of manners, a style of poetic composition, may be
taken down; and (3) that, as in Aristotle’s theory, certain limiting
conditions, namely, absence of counteracting emotions, such as pity
or disgust, are recognised. These extensions on the one hand and
limitations on the other are clearly meant to safeguard the Hobbesian
principle against the attacks to which it so dangerously exposes
itself.[66]
Even in this new and more guarded form, however, the theory will not
bear the strain put upon it. It will account fairly well for some of
the forms of the laughable in our list, such as slight misfortunes or
mischances, defects, moral and intellectual, which do not shock or
otherwise hurt our feelings, also certain forms of make-believe which
are distinctly hypocritical and so capable of being regarded at once
as moral defects, and (being seen through) as discomfitures. It _may_
apply also, as has been hinted above, to the effect of the obscene;
though I, at least, feel that without some forcing the effect cannot be
interpreted in this way. There seems to me to lurk in our laughter here
something of the joy of the child, of the Naturkind, Walt Whitman, at
the sight of what is customarily hidden away.[67]
Leaving this, however, as a more doubtful case, let us turn to
other groups. Is it possible to regard all laughable exhibitions of
incongruities as degradations? Is the {123} charming unsuitability
of the “grown-up’s” coat and hat to the childish form viewed by the
laughing spectator as a degradation when he “lets himself go”? Are we
laughing at the clothes as degraded by being thus transformed, or at
the child’s naïveté as a degradation of human intelligence? I confess
that such a way of interpreting the spectacle strikes me as grotesquely
forced. The look of the whole thing in the complete unfitness of its
parts seems to affect one as a delicious absurdity before the sweet
simplicity below the surface is detected.
Our author does his best to show that mere incongruity, where nothing
is degraded, does not raise the laugh. I readily grant that he has
made out his case, so far as to show that in most of the pungent and
potently moving examples of the incongruous an element of degradation,
of malicious detraction is present. But this is not enough. The
question is whether it is always present, and whether in the cases
where it is present it is the sole excitant of our mirth. I believe
that a finer analysis shows that this is not so. Where, for example, is
“the degraded” in a child’s laughter at the sight of his nursery all
topsy-turvy on a cleaning day? Does he view the nurse as put to shame
by the setting of chairs on tables and so forth, instead of observing
the proper local congruities? or does he think of the room as something
quasi-human which takes on an improper look as he himself does when he
makes himself in a glorious mess? Slight movements of fancy of this
kind may be present: but do they lie at the sources of his laughter and
constitute its main moving force?
As another way of testing the theory, we may glance at those examples
of the odd or out of the way in which we find nothing of deformity, and
do not seem to focus our mental glance on any loss of dignity, but are
content to be {124} amused at the queer spectacle for its own sake.
I have seen a child of three or so go into a long fit of laughter at
the antics of a skittish pair of horses just turned loose on a common.
Did the child see anything of the mean, disgraceful, undignified in
these new and lively movements? Were they not immensely, overpoweringly
funny, just because they were outrageous deviations from the customary
proper behaviour of horses when saddled or harnessed to a carriage?
I feel the impulse to laugh at a “guy” in the street who captures my
roving nonchalant eye long before I reflect on any loss of dignity
which the bizarre costume may signify. In sooth, if, in this first
happy moment, any distinct thought of the personality behind the wild,
startling figure floats up to the surface of consciousness, it is a
friendly one. I am disposed to like and feel grateful to the person
who thus for an instant relieves for me the insufferable dulness of
the spectacle of London citizens all dressed according to one stupid
fashion.
Or let us take another group: the relish for word-play and the lighter
kinds of wit. Here, again, I concede to Bain that the taking down of
something a good peg-interval intensifies our satisfaction: but it
seems impossible to maintain that our mirth depends altogether on the
recognition of this. A good pun, a skilful turning of words so as to
give a new and startlingly disconnected meaning, can hardly be said
to owe its instant capture of our laughing muscles to our perception
of a degradation of language and the habits of serious speech. On the
contrary, I should say that any focussing of thought on this aspect
would considerably weaken and might altogether arrest the laughing
impulse. It is to the serious person who keeps his mouth firmly closed
that this feature of the case addresses itself. Is there not here, even
in the case of mirthful men, some of the delight {125} of the playful
child who amuses himself by turning words and expressions into queer
nonsense just for the fun of the thing?
2. We may now pass to the second of the main types of theory which
have been proposed as explanations of the working of the laughable on
our feeling and the correlated muscular mechanism. Its distinctive
mark is that, instead of setting behind our enjoyment of the ludicrous
an emotion, or a change in our moral attitude, namely, a sense of
our own superiority or of something else’s degradation, it sets a
purely intellectual attitude, a modification of thought-activity. The
laughter, according to this second theory, results from a peculiar
effect on our intellectual mechanism, such as the nullification of
a process of expectation or of an expectant tendency. It is this
perfectly disinterested intellectual process which brings about the
_feeling_ of the ludicrous and its expression in laughter. This
may be called the Intellectual Theory, or Theory of Contrariety or
Incongruity. Since we have already touched on this mode of conceiving
of the effect of the ludicrous in criticising the view of Dr. Lipps, a
brief examination of it may content us here.
It may be noted in passing that this way of dealing with the ludicrous
is characteristically German. The dominant note in the philosophy
of Kant and his successors has been to regard all determinations of
experience as fundamentally a rational process. Just as in the domain
of ethics these thinkers conceive of what British Ethicists have been
wont to call the Moral Sentiment as essentially a process of Reason,
so in that branch of Æsthetics which deals with the Comic we find them
disposed to regard the effect of the ludicrous, less as the excitation
of a concrete and familiar emotion, such as Pride or Power, than as a
special modification of the process of thought. {126}
Kant may be taken as the first great representative of this theory.
According to him, wit—the only variety of the ludicrous which he
touches on—is a kind of play, namely, that of thought. In everything
that is to excite a lively laugh there must be something absurd. It
is “an affection arising from the sudden transformation of a strained
(_gespannte_) expectation into nothing”. The transformation is, of
course, not directly enjoyable to the understanding: it seems to induce
gratification indirectly by means of a furthered _bodily_ process.
This, by the way, is a noteworthy concession by a German thinker to the
claims of the poor body to recognition in these high affairs of the
understanding, a concession which his followers quickly struck out.
He gives as an example of his theory the story of a Hindoo who, when
sitting at an Englishman’s table, and seeing a bottle of beer turned
into froth, expressed astonishment. Being questioned as to the reason,
he remarked: “I am not at all astonished that it should flow out, but I
do wonder how you ever got it in”.
I have enlarged on Kant’s theory mainly because of the authority of the
author. German critics themselves recognise how absurdly inadequate is
the little he says on the subject as an explanation of the effect of
the laughable.[68] A few words will perhaps make this plain.
It is evident that what Kant was thinking of under the head of the
ludicrous was merely those exchanges of witty words and amusing stories
which naturally enough formed a principal pastime of the devoted
Königsberg thinker. Yet, even when considered under this narrow aspect,
his theory shows itself to be palpably insufficient. It is noteworthy
{127} that, in seeking to make it fit the remark of the Hindoo quoted
above, Kant feels himself called upon to contradict the suggestion that
we laugh “because we deem ourselves cleverer than this ignorant man”.
This objection, which could not fail to occur to one who remembers
Hobbes, cannot, however, be summarily dismissed by a bare assurance
such as Kant gives us; and, as a recent writer remarks, “there is good
reason to suppose that we laugh at the ignorance (better, ‘at the
naïveté’) of the man who seeks the difficulty in a wrong place”.[69]
One may go farther and venture the assertion that it is impossible to
explain any laughable incident, story or remark as due _altogether_ to
dissolved expectation or surprise.
In examining the adequacy of Kant’s theory to this purpose, I set out
with the natural presupposition that, when using the word expectation,
he does not mean a definite anticipation of some particular concrete
sequel to what is presented to the mind at the moment. In the
illustration given, he would not have meant that the questioner had
a well-defined expectant idea of another explanation of the Hindoo’s
astonishment. It is only fair to assume that he meant merely what the
word “expect” means when, on meeting a friend in a London street whom
I had supposed to be out of England, I say “I did not expect to see
you”. In other words, “expectation” stands here for a general attitude
of mind, a mode of apperceptive readiness to assimilate any idea of
a certain order, that is to say, standing in a recognisable relation
to what is presented. It is the attitude in which we appreciate the
evolution of a plot in fiction when this appears natural and does not
give a shock to consciousness. {128}
Employing the word in this sense, one may say that, even when we
laugh on receiving the solution to a conundrum which has teased and
baffled us, it is not because of the dissipation of an expectant
attitude. This conclusion is suggested by the familiar fact that,
when at the end of our self-puzzling we are told that there is no
solution, and when consequently we are unmistakably the subjects of
an annulled expectation, we are very likely not to laugh; or, if
we are good-natured enough to do so, it is as a result, not of any
disappointment, but of a discovery that we have been hoaxed. This laugh
at one’s befooled self—which we shall not be disposed to repeat if the
trick is tried a second time—so far from illustrating the principle of
annulled expectation is a particularly clear example of that of lowered
dignity.
The best kind of example of the laughable for Kant’s purpose would
seem to be something odd and fantastic in dress or manners. Here, as I
have allowed, a kind of shock is inflicted on our fixed apperceptive
tendencies. But to speak of a process of dissipated expectation here
seems to be hardly accurate. As I have hinted, the sudden appearance of
the unexpected moves us to laughter primarily as a delightful novelty.
It seems to follow that Kant’s principle of nullified expectation
offers no adequate explanation of those forms of the ludicrous which
are most promising for his purpose. I may add that it fails because it
makes no serious attempt to mark off the domain of the laughable by
certain well-defined characteristics. We have seen that the objects
which excite our laughter are things human, or akin to the human.
The theory of degradation evidently recognises this: by making the
ludicrous consist in a loss of dignity it points at once to the human
sphere. But the theory {129} that the effect of the ludicrous comes
from an annihilation of a strained expectation suggests that it has
nothing specially to do with the spectacle of human life.
As I have not included the capability of dissipating expectation among
the laughable features of objects, I may indicate what I hold to be
the function of surprise in the effect of the ludicrous. Surprise,
the effect of a presentation for which the mind is not perfectly
pre-adjusted at the moment, seems to be a common condition of vivid
and exciting impressions, certainly of those which induce a state of
gladness. Hence we need not wonder that it should be found among the
antecedents of that outburst of gladness which we call laughter.
Nevertheless, it seems probable that the part played by surprise in
the enjoyment of the laughable has been exaggerated. Does the Londoner
who laughs again and again at the rough jocosities of the Punch and
Judy show, depend on annihilated expectation for his mirth? Dogberry’s
love of a mildewy old story is by no means peculiar to him. A really
good joke continues to amuse long after the first effect of surprise
has worn off. A like conclusion is reached by remembering that even
when a definite attitude of expectation for the coming of the ludicrous
turn is assumed, laughter’s greeting is none the less hearty. When
racy stories are circulating and the lips move in anticipation of some
new joke it seems an odd way of describing the effect to say that it
is due to a dissipation of expectation. There surely seems to be more
of realisation than annihilation here, even though the precise form
of the impending attack on our laughter is unknown. In certain cases,
moreover, as when we are watching with amusement the actions of one on
whom a practical joke is being played—actions which we, being in the
secret of the plot, are able to {130} forecast with a considerable
degree of precision, the element of surprise dwindles to the vanishing
point. The essential condition of our laughter would thus appear to be,
not the meeting of the amusing presentation with a state of complete
unpreparedness of mind at the moment, but such a degree of contrariety
between the presentation and our fixed and irrepressible apperceptive
tendencies as will, even in spite of a pre-adjustment, secure something
of a mild, momentary shock.[70]
A more carefully developed example of the mode of conceiving of the
laughable which finds its essence in the annihilation of a rational
attitude is supplied by Schopenhauer. According to this writer,
the process which determines our laughter is describable as an
intellectual effort and its frustration. “In every instance (he tells
us) the phenomenon of laughter indicates the sudden perception of an
incongruity between a conception (Begriff) and a real object, which
is to be understood or ‘thought’ through (_i.e._, by means of) this
conception.” The incongruity between the perception and the conception
under which the understanding necessarily strives to bring it must
be of such a degree that the perception strikingly differs from the
conception. The greater and the more unexpected the incongruity, the
more violent (heftiger) will be our laughter.
The author’s example of the absurdity of the presentation of the
curve and straight line trying to force itself under the incongruent
conception of an angle is intended to illustrate this theory.[71] Here
is another which has a {131} more promising look. A man who has been
arrested by soldiers is allowed to join them in a game of cards. He is
found cheating and is kicked out, his playmates quite forgetting that
he is their prisoner. Here, according to Schopenhauer, we laugh because
the incident, the ejection of a prisoner just arrested, will not fit
into the general rule, “cheats at the card-table should be thrust out”.
This form of the Intellectual theory clearly avoids the objection to
Kant’s version, that we frequently laugh at things when there is no
discoverable trace of a preceding expectation involving something in
the nature of an idea; for we take it as meaning that the conception
arises after, and as a result of, the perception. It is further
indisputable, as Kant has shown us, that in our explicit judgments, as
when we say, “This painting is (or is not) a work of Rubens,” a general
form of representation or something in the nature of a concept may take
part, the percept being (or refusing to be) subsumed under this.
At the same time, as was urged in the first chapter, the distinct
calling up of this general representation is occasional only, and,
therefore, not a pre-requisite of a perception of conformity or
non-conformity to the normal type. When I envisage a person as
correctly or as oddly dressed, I do not in either case need to have a
schematic representation of the proper typical style of dress. The same
holds good of many cases in which a definite rule, say of language or
good manners, is felt to be complied with or to be broken: we do not
need to call up a distinct representation of the rule. At most we can
speak here of a conceptual _tendency_, of an apperceptive acceptance or
rejection of a presentation, certain features of which are specially
attended to as characteristic of the type or general form; or, on the
other hand, as marks of deviation from this. {132}
Even if we adopt this amended form of Schopenhauer’s theory, we find
that it is not sufficient for explaining his examples. Of the funny
tangential angle no more need be said. Nor will his illustration of the
self-befooled warders bear close inspection. To begin with, one may
note a certain arbitrariness in the use of a mode of interpretation
which plainly allows of an alternative. We can say equally well,
either (with Schopenhauer) that the extrusion of a cheat who is also
a prisoner will not fit into the general rule “cheats have to be
ejected,” or that the extrusion of a prisoner who is also a cheat
will not fit into the rule that prisoners have to be confined.[72] It
seems to be more fitting here also to regard the incongruity—so far as
the perception of this is the direct cause of our laughter—as holding
between two aspects of the incident presented. The man is envisaged
at once as a cheat and as a prisoner, and as such comes under two
_régimes_ which directly conflict. The perception of the fun of the
story surely begins with a discernment of this mutual interference of
two systems of rule.
Yet this is certainly not all or the chief part of the perception. The
unstinting laugh comes only when we view the keepers as naïvely “giving
themselves away” to their prisoner by consenting to become playmates,
and so putting themselves under a rule which wholly destroys their
_rôle_ as custodians. Here, too, then, the principle of incongruity
shows itself to be insufficient.
It only remains to add that if Schopenhauer’s theory turns out to be
inadequate even when applied to an example chosen by himself, it is
pretty certain to fail when applied to other groups of instances of
the laughable in our list, in which incongruity does not seem to be a
potent {133} ingredient, if indeed it is present at all. To suggest,
for example, that our laughter at small and harmless vices, such as
Aristotle speaks of, is the outcome of a suddenly conceived incongruity
between a “real object” or presentation and a conception sounds
sufficiently forced. Would the author of the theory have been prepared
to say that in these instances we have present to our mind the concept
of a perfectly virtuous man, and that our laughter comes of our failing
to bring the perception under this conception? Surely the intrusion
of any such exalted “concept” would be fatal to our enjoyment of the
laughable aspect of vice.
Facts, moreover, contradict this view on every hand. It may suffice
to allude to one of the world’s great purveyors of laughter, Sir John
Falstaff. According to this theory, we ought to laugh most at his vices
when he first reveals them, since this is the moment when we should be
most likely to bring to bear on him the “concept” of a proper decent
gentleman. But is it not the fact that we laugh more freely when we
have quite ceased to think of him as a possible embodiment of sobriety
and decency, and when we apperceive his behaviour by help of the
conceptual tendency answering, not to the type of virtuous citizen, but
to the general manner of behaviour or the character of John Falstaff
himself? The same is true in everyday life. We are, I think, most ready
to laugh at a man’s foibles, say, his vanity or his exaggerations of
speech, when we know the man and can say, “Oh, it is only So-and-So!”
Neither the theory of Kant nor of Schopenhauer seems, then, to be
competent to do what it undertakes to do, to explain the various forms
and impressions of the laughable. These two theories, in spite of
their difference, agree in regarding the incongruity which excites
our laughter as lying between what we perceive and what our previous
{134} experience and our pre-existing ideas and apperceptive habits
have prepared us to accept as natural and proper. But our examination
of the instance of the ill-matched hat and head supplied by Dr. Lipps,
as also our fuller discussion of the relation of incongruity in the
preceding chapter, has led us to recognise an amusing contrariety
between different parts of a presentation, of what may be called
_internal_ incongruity in contradistinction to the external dealt with
by Kant and Schopenhauer. Hence we have to inquire how these two modes
of apprehending incongruity are related.
That, _prima facie_, we have to do in this case with a real difference
in the mode of perception, seems indisputable; let the reader compare
the effect of the two spectacles, a man wearing an extravagantly tall
hat, and a small boy wearing a hat of the height of a man’s; or,
again, a tiny man alone, and a short man by the side of a tall woman.
In some instances, indeed, we may see that there is an intrinsic
repugnance between the parts of a presentation, as when two colours
in a woman’s dress violently clash, or when a statement is palpably
self-contradictory. Here there seems to be no reference, however
vague, to previous experience or the customary. At the same time we
may easily see that this field of the internally incongruent is a
very narrow one. Much of what looks like this turns out, on closer
inspection, to be, in part at least, externally determined. This is
true of what we call a bizarre mixture of incongruent elements in
mode of attire or in manners; for it is experience and the habits of
social life which dispose our minds to regard them as foreign one to
the other. Much of our mirthful gratification at exhibitions of the
incongruous arises through a perception of the intrusion of something
foreign into a situation. When, for example, we observe a {135} rather
sprightly gesture in the pulpit, we mentally view this action against
a background which is the situation of the moment. Now this situation
is by no means wholly presented: it is a presentation greatly enlarged
and profoundly modified by the addition of a general significance.
The attitude of the spectator’s mind, face to face with the scene,
is determined by apperceptive tendencies which imply a readiness to
expect _a certain kind_ of behaviour. And this, again, evidently means
that certain directions of imaginative activity, and something in the
nature of a “generic image” and of conceptual thought, are stirring.
This effect of experience and apperceptive habits in modifying our
perceptions is probably illustrated in all our appreciations of the
amusingly incongruous. To revert once more to the spectacle of the
man’s hat on the child’s head, may we not say that in this case, also,
we envisage the hat as an interloper in the situation—the sweet sanctum
of the nursery?
It seems to follow that Kant and Schopenhauer were wise, when dealing
with incongruity, in emphasising the apperceptive factor. Contrariety
to what we are accustomed to is undoubtedly the great determining
element in the ill-assortments of things which provoke our laughter.
Hence, in examining the theories of these two writers, we seem to
have dealt with the intellectual principle in its most comprehensive
and most favourable form. Nor do I see how any transformation of this
principle will make it an adequate theory. The entertaining instances
of mischances and awkward situations, of takings down, of moral and
intellectual failings, these and other varieties of the laughable dealt
with above steadily refuse to yield up their secret at the bidding of
this theory.
Let us now sum up the results of our criticism of the theories. We
seem to have found that, whereas neither of {136} the two chief
types of theory covers the whole field of the laughable, each has its
proper, limited domain. It is certain that in many cases we laugh at
an incident, a situation, an action, where the provocative is best
described as a loss of dignity. It is equally certain that in many
other cases our laughter springs directly out of a perception, more or
less distinct, of incongruity.
That these principles have each a large sway over our laughter has
been sufficiently illustrated in the preceding chapter: also that they
frequently co-operate in one and the same amusing presentation. Hence
we might expect that the advocate of each theory would be able to find
his illustrations, and would sometimes manage to pounce upon one just
after it had been carried off by his rival.[73]
But, it may be urged, even if both principles are shown to be valid
they may be unified. If by this is meant that the incongruous and the
undignified or unworthy, considered as abstract ideas, are identical,
or that logically each involves the other, I am not concerned to
discuss the point. It is enough for our present purpose to urge that
the modes of perception and the shades of feeling involved are clearly
distinguishable.
The same fundamental distinction would nullify the attempt to subsume
one of these principles as a special case under the other. If we set
out with the Intellectual principle, we may, without doubt, succeed
in showing that many, if not all, amusing losses of dignity—such as
a slight disgrace, or a bungling into a “fix”—logically involve a
contrariety between what is presented and the normal custom or rule.
But our question is one not of the logical analysis of meaning but of
the psychological analysis of process, and I can find no evidence in
favour of the theory {137} that when we laugh at these things we have
at the moment any apprehension of such a contrariety.
It is the same if we start with the other or Moral principle.
Incongruities which are lapses from standard ideas may certainly, as
already conceded, be regarded as degradations. And it may be possible
to show that in all cases of incongruity _some_ loss of dignity is
logically implied. Yet even if it be so, the psychological contention
will still stand that in many cases of incongruity, including our old
friend the child in the father’s hat, we have a full sense of relishing
the incongruity and yet none at all of enjoying a degradation. Where
is the degradation in the spectacle of a crow on a sheep’s back which
may flood a child with mirth? In truth, if our theorists had only
condescended to take note of so small a matter as children’s enjoyment
of the world’s fun, the hypothesis of degradation could never have
stood its ground so long.
Yet another way of evading a glaring dualism may suggest itself.
Allowing that the two principles are each valid, we might, at least,
be able to combine them in the form of a single generalisation. This
is what is done by Hazlitt, for example, who, though he finds the
essence of the laughable in the incongruous, defines the ludicrous
as involving disappointment of expectation _by something having
deformity or (something) inconvenient_, that is _what is contrary to
the customary_ and desirable.[74] Herbert Spencer’s expression, a
“descending incongruity,” is clearly a very similar mode of combining
the principles.[75] Lipps’ theory of incongruity, with its distinction
of a little, and a belittling presentation, might also, I think, easily
be made to illustrate another mode of such combination. More recently
Fouillée {138} and others have urged that the one principle in a
manner supplements the other.[76]
It is evident, however, that this apparent mode of escape will not
avail us. The combined theory implies that all cases of the laughable
are at once incongruities and degradations, that is to say, perceived
and felt to be such. In dealing with the principles separately,
however, we have seen that, in the case of each alike, there are
well-recognised examples of the laughable to which it does not apply.
This conclusion manifestly carries with it the proposition that there
are cases to which a combination of the principles does not apply.
A last attempt to escape this theoretic dualism would be to urge that
the two principles rule in distinct realms. In that of the _ludicrous_
proper, it might be urged, we have to do with the intellectual
principle: it is only when the sphere is enlarged to include all
that is laughable, and so the region of the _ridiculous_, that the
principle of lowered dignity comes in.[77] Theorists may insist on such
distinctions, but it seems to me that they cannot be maintained as hard
and fast boundaries. As has been shown above, laughable things do not
all affect us in quite the same way. A spice of malice comes into much
of the laughter that greets the spectacle, say of a bit of successful
trickery; yet this does not make the experience substantially different
from that of enjoying some striking example of incongruity, say a good
Irish “bull”. When the note of derision begins to sound clearly, there
is of course no longer any suggestion of an effect of the laughable
pure and simple.
The attempt to analyse our perceptions of the laughable {139} in the
hope of discovering some single uniting principle has proved to be
abortive. We find in the end that two causes of laughter remain on our
hands.[78]
The most promising way of bringing the several laughable qualities
and aspects of things under one descriptive head would seem to be
to say that they all illustrate a presentation of something in the
nature of a defect, a failure to satisfy some standard-requirement,
as that of law or custom, provided that it is small enough to be
viewed as a harmless plaything. Much, at least, of our laughter at
the odd as opposed to the customary, at the deformed, at failure in
good manners and the other observances of social life, at defects of
intelligence and of character, at fixes and misfortunes—so far as the
situation implies want of foresight—at the lack of a perception of the
fitness of things, and at other laughable features, may undoubtedly be
regarded as directed to something _which fails to comply with a social
requirement_, yet is so trifling that we do not feel called upon to
judge the shortcoming severely.
I am sure that to look at the laughable in this way is an indispensable
step in the construction of a theory of the subject. We must, as
we shall see presently, supplement the common mode of dealing with
laughter as an abstract psychological problem, by bringing into view
its _social_ function. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the
consideration of this function will lead us straightway to a simple
theory of the ludicrous. As hinted in the preceding chapter, we may
easily exaggerate the more serious function of laughter, and this point
will be made clearer in subsequent chapters.
That the effects of the laughable cannot all be brought under the head
of means of social correction or improvement, {140} may, even at this
stage of our inquiry, be seen by considering another point, to which
we will now turn. No analysis of the qualities of things in which the
laughable resides will enable us to account for the mirthful effects
of these, even while we remain within the limits of what is commonly
recognised as the ludicrous. This has been illustrated in the preceding
chapter, and a word or two more may suffice to make it clear.
I have tried to show that some at least of the spectacles that shake
us with laughter do so by satisfying something within us akin to the
child’s delight in the gloriously new and extravagant. This, again,
means that these spectacles make appeal to that primitive form of
laughter, already illustrated, which is called forth by some sudden
increase of joy. Our rejoicing at the sight of the clown’s droll
costume and funny movements has in it something of the laughing joy of
the savage when he is shown some mechanical wonder of Europe, something
of the laughing joy of the infant at the sudden invasion of his nursery
wall by a dancing sunbeam.[79]
A little more reflection on the groups of laughable things will show
that other ingredients of this primitive laughter are present in our
appreciation of the ludicrous. Dr. Bain finds himself compelled to
eke out the deficiencies of the Hobbesian principle by urging that
the spectacle of degradation may move us to laughter, not merely by
exciting the feeling of power or superiority (as Hobbes said), but by
supplying a sudden release from a state of constraint. The abandonment
of the serious attitude in church when some trivial incident occurs is
an instance of a lowering of the dignity of a thing, or an occasion,
which refreshes {141} us with a sense of liberation.[80] This idea
carries us much farther than the author thinks. The joyous deliverance
from pressure and constraint will, I think, be found to reinforce other
mental agencies in many cases of ludicrous presentation in which no
degradation is discoverable. Sometimes the constraint is very severe;
witness the effect when the narrator of a funny story knows how to wind
up the emotion of fear to just the right pitch in order to give us the
delicious run down of the mental works when the funny _dénouement_
bursts upon us. Here our laughter has a large support in the joyous
relief from nervous tension.
In other cases, again, the release comes as an interruption of a solemn
occasion by the intrusion of something disconnected, and, by contrast,
trifling. The tittering in a church at a small _contretemps_ has
been our illustration. There is incongruity here between two orders
of ideas, if you like; or, as I should prefer to put it, between two
levels of interest. For the point is that the interruption must seem
ludicrous by exhibiting clearly a trifling character, by powerfully
suggesting a non-reverent point of view.
As hinted above, these two sources of laughter, a sudden oncoming
of gladness and a relief from restraint, are closely connected. The
unexpected presentation which gladdens us seems commonly to bring
a kind of relief. This is certainly true of all cases in which the
preceding state was one of conscious depression and ennui. The laughter
of the young, in response to our often cumbrous attempts to amuse them,
may be an escape from a certain strain which belongs to a state of
ennui, from the confinement or restraint which the poverty of their
surroundings at the moment imposes on them.[81] {142}
There is another conceivable way of bringing together the effect of
sudden gladness and relief from restraint. It has been urged that all
laughable things affect us by way of a shock of surprise followed by
a sense of relief. Leigh Hunt, for example, thinks that when we laugh
at something we receive a shock of surprise which gives _a check to
the breath_, a check which is in proportion to the vivacity of the
surprise; and that our laughter is a relief from this.[82] This theory
embodies a sound physiological principle, one which we have already
adopted, but it seems to go too far. As I have tried to show, a shock
of surprise, as we ordinarily understand the expression, is not an
invariable antecedent of our response to laughable things. On the other
hand, it may be urged with some reason that even in cases where this
full shock of the unexpected is wanting, there is a moment of strain as
the presentation affronts the custom-trained eye, and that the laughter
is the expression of the condoning of this affront, the acceptance of
it as harmless play.
In order to complete our psychological analysis of the tendencies which
combine in our enjoyment of ludicrous things, we need to glance at
one other variety of primitive laughter, that of contempt. In dealing
with this in Chapter III. we drew the line between it and the true
enjoyment of the laughable as something “objective”. Yet it would be a
profound error not to recognise the fact, that there is a real kinship
between the two. To begin with, the laugh of contempt, say over a
prostrate foe, or over one whom we have succeeded in teasing by playing
off on him some practical joke, readily passes into an enjoyment of
the laughable proper. It is obviously in part a laugh _at_ something.
Not only so, as a _laugh_ it may be presumed to involve a less {143}
serious attitude in the successful spectator than a sneer, say, or
the hurling of opprobrious words. It will naturally direct itself to
something in the undignified _look_ of the discomfited party which
would be likely to be recognised by others also as laughter-moving.
Again, though I hold that Hobbes’ theory, as he himself formulates it,
errs by insisting on the swelling of the spectator’s self-consciousness
into a feeling of superiority or power, it seems to me to be
indisputable that all examples of the laughable which clearly fall into
the category of mild degradations do give us a sense of uplifting,
something akin to Hobbes’ “sudden glory”. As we are reminded by Dr.
Bain, malevolence or malice has its protean disguises, and one of them
is undoubtedly the joy of the laugher. The note of malicious crowing,
of Schadenfreude, may, no doubt, be most distinctly heard in some
of the laughter of satire and of the more brutal sort of joke. Yet
I suspect that a trace of it lurks, like a beaten foe, inexpugnable
though greatly reduced in strength, in a large part of our laughter.
There are one or two facts which seem to me to point to the conclusion
that superiority is implied in, if not tacitly claimed by, the forms
of laughter which have a distinctly personal aim. One of these is the
familiar fact that anything in the shape of a feeling of inferiority
to, or even of respect for, the laughable person inhibits the laughter
of the contemplator. But other facts seem to me to be still more
conclusive. Of these the first is that if a person finds himself
distinctly involved in the disgrace, the absurd situation, or whatever
else provokes laughter, he no longer laughs, or laughs in another key.
I see my estimable fellow-pedestrian lose his hat at a street corner
where the wind lies in ambush: my soul expands exultingly. The moment
after, I, too, may fall a victim to the ambuscade, in {144} which
case I probably stop laughing and become the subject of a different
emotion. Or, if I am “laughing animal” enough to keep up the hilarity,
the laugh will have changed. All the glory, the sense of uplifting,
the exultation will have fled, and the new laugh, which embraces
myself along with another unfortunate, will have in it something of
humiliation, will at most have shrunk into a “chastened joy”.
The second fact is still more decisive. If no superiority is implied
in our common laughter at others, how does it come about that we all
have so very obstinate a dislike to be made its object? The most
amiable of men find it hard enough to rise to the level of a bare
toleration of others’ laughter: the man who can reach the sublime
height of finding a real and considerable gratification in it must be
a hero, or—as some would say—a craven. There are men of a genuine and
most blameless humour who are hardly, if at all, less keenly sensitive
to the attack of another laugher than the most serious of prigs. Is
this understandable unless we suppose that laughter at a person is
instinctively interpreted as an assertion of superiority over him?
It would seem then to be a reasonable view, that if laughter in
ordinary cases involves superiority, and is so regarded by its object,
the enjoyment of it by its subject will be very apt to bring with it
a taste of superiority. This, I conceive, is the element of truth in
Hobbes’ theory.
The foregoing considerations seem to show clearly that the realm of
the ludicrous is not a closed and clearly bounded territory, as the
theorists for the most part assume it to be. Our enjoyment of its
amusing sights connects itself with, and indeed absorbs into itself,
tendencies which we may observe in the laughter of children and
uncivilised adults. And, if so, the fact seems to require us to go back
upon those primitive tendencies in order to see how far the connection
{145} holds, that is to say, how far the effects of the ludicrous can
be regarded as due to the play of those tendencies.
An analysis of the primitive forms of laughter, which precede its
regulation by a reference to ideas, has disclosed the fact that it is
the expression of pleasure, yet not of all pleasure, but only of the
sudden oncoming or increase of pleasure, of what we call gladness. It
has shown us, further, that this joy of laughter is, in many, if not
in all cases, conditioned by a sudden relaxation of mental strain, and
may, indeed, be described by reference to this condition as a sense of
relief from pressure. This was seen to hold good alike in those graver
situations in which nervous laughter is apt to occur, in the lighter
ones, such as the escape of schoolboys from the classroom to the
playground, and in the still lighter ones in which the strain relaxed
is momentary only, of which the laughter induced by tickling is the
best representative.
Now it seems evident that we have in all these experiences something
analogous to play. The natural alliance of laughter with the play-mood
has already been touched on.[83] We may now go a step farther and say
that these spurts of joyous consciousness which, in simple natures
untrammelled by thought of appearances, express themselves in laughter
are of the essence of Play. To be glad with the gaiety of laughter, to
throw off the stiff and wearing attitude of seriousness and to abandon
oneself to mirth and jollity is, in truth, to begin to play.
The deep kinship between laughter and play discloses itself as soon as
we begin carefully to compare them. Let us look at some of their common
characteristics.
Play contrasts with work, not as rest or inactivity contrasts with
it, but as light pleasurable activity contrasts {146} with the
more strenuous and partly disagreeable kind. The same holds good of
laughter. It is light pleasurable activity in contrast to the more
burdensome activity of our serious hours.
Again, play is free activity entered upon for its own sake. That is to
say, it is not directed to any end outside itself, to the satisfaction
of any want, save that of the play-impulse itself; and so it is free
from external restraint, and from the sense of compulsion—of a “must”
at the ear, whether embodied in the voice of a master or in that of a
higher self—which accompanies the attitude of the worker. Similarly,
when we laugh we are released from the strain and pressure of serious
concentration, from the compulsion of the practical and other needs
which keep men, in the main, serious beings.
It follows at once that play is relative to work, that it is enjoyed as
a relief from graver occupations, and cannot be indefinitely prolonged.
And, as has been hinted above, the same holds true of laughter and what
we appropriately describe as playing the fool.
In saying that play is spontaneous activity, freed from the imperious
rule of necessity, I do not mean that it is aimless. The play-impulse
provides its own ends; for, without something to aim at, it could
not become conscious activity in the full sense. Thus in the case of
children, at any rate, and possibly of young animals also, playing at
some form of combat implies, as Prof. Groos urges, a keen striving
for something akin to conquest. In other words, the instinct which
underlies the activity seems to bring with it the setting up of
something like an end. Similarly with respect to those varieties
of children’s play which aim at the realisation of an idea, and so
resemble art. In this case, too, an instinct, namely, imitative
production, prompts to the semblance of a serious conative process, the
striving {147} after an end. The same applies to mirthful activity.
In playing off a joke on another we certainly have a definite aim in
view. In neither case, however, is the end regarded as a serious or
important one. Play ceases to be pure play just as soon as the end, for
example conquest, begins to be regarded as a thing of consequence to
the player; and, in like manner, laughter ceases to be pure mirth just
as soon as the end, say the invention of a witticism, is envisaged as a
solid personal advantage, such as heightened reputation.[84]
A like remark applies to the intrusion of the serious attitude into
play when this takes on an elaborate form requiring some concentration
of attention. This does not destroy the playful character of the
activity so long as the end is not viewed as matter of serious import.
In this respect, too, laughter resembles play, for we may take
considerable pains in shaping our practical joke without ever losing
hold of fun as our end.
This brings us to another point of kinship between play and laughter.
Each, though marked off from the things of the real serious world, has
to do with these in a manner. The play both of animals and of children
is largely pretence, that is to say, the production of a semblance
of an action of serious life, involving some consciousness of its
illusory character. This seems inferrible, in the case of animal play,
_e.g._, the make-believe combats, from the palpable restriction of
the movements within the limits of the harmless.[85] And with regard
to the play of the nursery, it {148} is probable that all through a
play-action there is, in spite of the look of absorbing seriousness, a
dim awareness of the make-believe. It is fairly certain that we have to
do in this case with a double or “divided” consciousness.[86] And, as
has been illustrated above, laughter is wont to hover about the domain
of the serious. In both cases we find the love of pretence playing
pranks with the real world, divesting things of their significance and
value for the serious part of our mind, and transmuting them by fancy
into mere appearances for our amusement.
Another point of similarity may be just alluded to. Recent discussions
on the nature of play have served to bring out its utility or
serviceableness. Not only is the sportive activity of children and
young animals of physiological benefit as wholesome exercise, it is now
seen to be valuable as a preliminary practice of actions which later
on become necessary. Thus in play-combats children and young animals
begin to learn the arts of skilful attack and defence.[87] Much of
this benefit of play-activity is due to the circumstance that it is
a mode of organised co-operation and supplies a kind of training for
the serious social activity of later years. I shall hope to show later
that laughter has a like value, not merely as a source of physiological
benefit to the individual, but as helping us to become fit members of
society. It seems hardly needful to point out that since the fact of
this utility is known neither to the player nor to the laugher, it
does not in the least affect the truth of our contention, that their
activity is not controlled by external ends which have a practical or
other serious value. {149}
Our comparison justifies us in identifying play and mirth, so far as
to say that when we play and when we laugh our mood is substantially
the same. Common language seems to support this view. “Fun,” “frolic,”
“sport,” “pastime,” these and the like may be said to cover at once all
joyous play and all varieties of mirth. We are justified, therefore, in
making the principle of play fundamental in our theory of laughter.[88]
We may now proceed to illustrate rather more fully the presence of
the play-attitude in the higher domain of laughter, the enjoyment of
ludicrous spectacle.
To begin with, much of the laughable illustrated above may be regarded
as an expression in persons or things of the play-mood which seizes the
spectator by way of a sympathetic resonance. Examples have been given
in the laughter excited by the spectacle of aimless actions which have
the look of frolicsomeness. As our name “word-play” clearly suggests,
verbal jokes are recognised as an outcome of the play-mood which throws
off for the nonce the proper serious treatment of language. Again, the
odd when it reaches the height of the extravagant has an unmistakable
look of play-license. Much of the amusing effect of disguise, of
pretence, including certain kinds of “aping,” appears to involve some
recognition of the make-believe aspect of play. The disorderly, even
when it applies to a room, is, to say the least, powerfully suggestive
of the ways of rompish play. Many irregularities of thought and action
readily take on the look of a self-abandonment to play; for example,
irrelevances and confusions of idea, droll, aimless-looking actions,
such as going off the scene and coming back again and again, {150}
senseless repetitions of actions by the same person or by others—a
common entertainment of the circus and the popular play-house. As a
last example, we may instance the effect of the incongruous when it
assumes a trifling aspect on a solemn occasion. This is surely amusing
because it is so like the interruptions of child’s play.
How far can this principle be carried? May not a good deal of
the amusingly incongruous in behaviour and in circumstances, of
intellectual and of moral collapse, when this wears the aspect of
folly, be said to affect us as an expression of the play-mood? And is
not our amusement at the sight of certain mischances which have the
look of a tripping up, an outwitting or befooling, either by others
or by circumstance or “fate,” traceable to a perception of something
indistinguishable from playful teasing?
Yet we must not rely on this expression of the playful too much. There
seem to be many cases of the laughable, for example, amusing vices,
absences of mind, and all irrelevances which bring in the solemn where
it is out of place, where that which is expressed is a mood the very
opposite of the playful. Nor do we need to push this principle to an
extreme. Even if the laughable spectacle does not wear the look of a
play-challenge, it can bring up the playful mood in the spectator in
another way. It may so present its particular feature as to throw us
off our serious balance, and by a sweet compulsion force us to play
with it rather than to consider it seriously. A brief reference to our
store of laughable things may suffice to illustrate this.
To begin with our laughter at novelties, the odd, the extravagant, what
is it but the outcome of a play-impulse, a gay caprice which wills
for the instant not to take objects seriously, but to disregard their
real nature and significance, {151} practical, theoretical, and even
æsthetic, for the joy of making them playthings for the eye? Or, if
the suggestion of a rule, broken by the newcomer into our field of
perception, obtrudes itself, our laughter announces that the infraction
does not matter, that the violation of custom’s good law itself is
passed over and turned into fun by the blithe play-spirit in us.
It is the same with mischances, awkward fixes, and all sorts of moral
and intellectual shortcomings. These things obviously have in them
what should appeal to our seriousness: they come up for judgment as
pitiable, as regrettable, often as distinctly culpable. Yet we laugh
and cast aside our judicial responsibilities just because the mood of
the moment disposes us to be indulgent, and because the attitude we
take up in viewing the offence as a little one instantly brings up
the love of play, the impulse to turn the significant into enjoyable
nonsense.
Once more, in our laughter at artful allusion to the obscene, it is
the same swift transition from the serious attitude to that of play
which seems to be at the bottom of our merriment. Here again it is the
littleness—a quantity, as pointed out, varying considerably with the
quality of the laugher—which disarms the serious attitude and allures
it to play.
In pretences, both hypocrisies and less serious kinds, which raise the
laugh, we note the same swift lapse into the play-attitude. For, in
order to enjoy these vain shows with perfect gaiety, we must be ready
to bring a mental “blind spot” to bear on everything in them which has
serious moral significance. Here, too, we take a leap into the world of
the player, transmuting what has something of seriousness, something
even of offending hurtfulness, into a mere plaything. {152}
The more intellectual varieties of the ludicrous disclose the same
deep-seated characteristic. The incongruous, the absurd, the tricks of
ambiguous speech, these are things which offend us as serious mortals
bent on having consistency of ideas and clearness of utterance in our
social world. They evoke our laughter when they take such a form as to
upset this serious attitude and to win us over to regarding them as
nothing but entertaining show.
In all the more intellectual laughter at things we seem to find the
perfect form of the mind’s play. I say “perfect” because psychologists
as well as others are wont to speak of poetic imagination as playful
activity, though this, as controlled by the ends of art, is seriousness
itself compared with the freer movements of ideas when the sportive
temper takes us.
One other illustration of the _rôle_ of the playful spirit in the
sphere of the laughable must not be overlooked. I have dealt with the
intrusion of the trivial into solemn scenes as an expression of the
child’s playfulness. But, as has been suggested above, it is more than
this. Scenes of great formality, where a degree of severe self-control
is enforced which is trying to mortals of only a limited gravity, are
apt to throw us into a state of highly unstable equilibrium. Hence the
welcome we are disposed to give to anything which touches the playful
susceptibilities in us. Under such circumstances small occurrences,
which at other times would pass wholly unmarked, are grasped at and
become laughable things for us, just because of the great necessity of
man to escape now and again into the freedom of play.
As already implied, this saturation of laughter with the spirit of
playfulness is characteristic only of the gayer kind, that which is
purified from all tinge of seriousness. So far {153} as our jocose
impulses lend themselves to serious purposes, as for example in the
laughter of satire, the playful character tends to become less clearly
recognisable. Not that here, too, we are unable to find a resemblance
between laughter and play; for, as we know, much of what we call play
or sport has its serious interest, and the player, like the laugher,
may easily slip across the line which divides the playful from the
serious attitude. Nevertheless, we shall need to insist on the point
that laughter is a thing of different tones, some more playful than
others, and that its nature and its function can only be clearly
determined by distinguishing these.
The result of our inquiry is that the impressions of the laughable
cannot be reduced to one or two principles. Our laughter at things
is of various tones. It gathers up into itself a number of primitive
tendencies; it represents the products of widely removed stages of
intellectual and moral evolution. This is virtually admitted by all who
recognise the Intellectual and the Moral principle; for our laughter
at seeing dignity unfrocked is presumably of more ancient origin than
the “laughter of the mind,” which discoursers on the ludicrous are
for the most part thinking of. Our argument takes us farther, namely,
to the conclusion that the effect of the laughable, even of what is
given by philosophers as a sample of the ludicrous, is a highly complex
feeling, containing something of the child’s joyous surprise at the new
and unheard of; something too of the child’s gay responsiveness to a
play-challenge; often something also of the glorious sense of expansion
after compression which gives the large mobility to freshly freed limbs
of young animals and children.
A consequence of this recognition of the relation of the laughable to
our laughter as a whole is that we shall need to alter our method of
treating the subject. Our problem {154} naturally transforms itself
into the question: can we trace out the organic differentiation and
integration of the several psychical tendencies which our analysis has
disclosed? In other words, we find that we must resort to the genetic
method, and try to explain the action of the ludicrous upon us in the
modest scientific fashion by retracing the stages of its development.
Such explanation may some day be crowned by a distinctly philosophical
one, if a finer logical analysis succeeds in discovering the essence of
the ludicrous; for the present it seems to be all that is available.
It will at once be evident that a large investigation into the origin
and development of the laughing impulse will take us beyond the limits
of pure psychology. We shall have to consider how the impulse grew
up in the evolution of the race; and this will force us to adopt the
biological point of view, and ask how this special group of movements
came to be selected and fixed among the characters of our species. On
the other hand, laughter is more than a physiological and psychological
phenomenon. As hinted above, it has a social significance, and we shall
find that the higher stages of its evolution can only be adequately
dealt with in their connection with the movement of social progress.
Lastly, it will be by tracing the evolution of laughter in the human
community that we shall best approach the problem of the ideal which
should regulate this somewhat unruly impulse of man. Such a study would
seem to promise us a disclosure of tendencies by which laughter has
been lifted and refined in the past, and by the light of which it may
consciously direct itself in the future.
{155}