Chapter XII (2)

Of the control of laughter as a part of the self-government of a wise man, little need be said. A keen relish for jokes, especially one’s own, may entangle the feet even of a kind-hearted man in a mesh of cruel consequences. The witty have been found to be trying to their families, so importunate is the appetite of wit in its demand for regularity of meals. There are the duplicities of laughter which may sometimes impose even on one who is in general a kindly laugher, the note of malice stealing in unnoticed. It is only when the lively tendency to mirthful utterance is found in a sympathetic nature, side by side with a cultured susceptibility to the pain of giving pain, that an adequate self-regulation may be counted on. Each of us, perhaps, has known of one man, at least, deserving to be called a laugher in whose mirthful utterances one would look in vain for a trace of malice, and who seemed never to be surprised by the temptation to risk a touch on sore places. I cannot but recall here one already alluded to—one who seemed to embody the ideal of his teacher Aristotle not only as the just man, who of set purpose acts justly, but as the refined and gentlemanly man who regulates his wit, being as it were a law to himself—from behind whose wistful eyes a laugh seemed always ready to break. If one knows of no such kindly laugher, one may study the characteristics of the species in the _Essays of Elia_.

A perfect self-control in the matter of laughter {421} pre-supposes much more than a dread of inflicting pain upon the hearer, whether he be the object of the laughter or ready to identify himself with that object. It calls for a fine sense of the seemly, of what is fair. It is not too much to ask of one whose _rôle_ is the detection of the unseemly in others that he should himself avoid unseemliness. He will do well to remember that nothing is worse than a jibe at the wrong moment:—

Risu inepto res ineptior nulla est.

When serious things are being discussed the attempt to hide poverty of argument under what might flatteringly be called an “argumentum ad risum” is one of the actions which belittle men.

The wariness proper to one who bears so keen-edged a weapon will go farther and prompt him to ask whether the thing which entertains the eye is meet for laughter. For example, our poor language being what it is, the use of a form of words which may be shown by another’s elaborate dissection to hide under its plain meaning a second meaning derogatory to the speaker, does not, perhaps, make the latter quite legitimate quarry for the former’s ridicule. It needs a fine sense of justice to detect the line which divides what is fair from what is unfair in such a case.

A perfectly wise direction of laughter will call for other fine discriminations. A word or action may be quite proper game for laughter when it smacks of conceit, though but for this it should have been passed by. So rampant indeed is conceit among men, so noxious is it, and so low a degree of sensitiveness in the moral integument does it connote, that even the discreet laugher may allow himself unstinted indulgence in view of one of its unmistakable eruptions. On the other hand, a sense of the true values of things will {422} lead the wise to abstain from laughter where some manifestation of the beast in man obtrudes itself and requires a less gentle mode of expulsion.

Nor will a good man’s self-regulation cease when there are no hearers. He will see how the habit of a reckless mirth may have a bad reflex effect on his own nature; how, for example, it may rob him in one moment of the perfection of an old reverence for something beautiful; how, instead of sweetening the fountains of affection, it may introduce a drop of bitterness; how it may smuggle in something of that pride and that contempt which dissociate men.

I have here emphasised the higher moral reasons which will urge the good man to restrain his laughter. One might add certain prudential reasons. If, as has been maintained here, laughter is an escape from the normal, serious attitude which living well imposes on us, its wise cultivation means that we keep it within limits. Only where there is a real earnestness and good feeling at bottom, will our laughter be in the full sense that of the mind and the heart. To laugh in this full way at a collapse of dignity means that we retain a respect for the true dignities. If the laugh grows too frequent and habitual this respect will be undermined, and, as one result of this moral loss, our laughter itself will shrink into something void of meaning and mechanical. The perpetual giggler, to whom nothing is sacred, never knows the flavour of a good laugh.

The impulse to laugh will always take its complexion from the moral nidus in which it germinates; and the good man, tender, and mindful of the dues of reverence, ennobles the mirthful temper. It seems, indeed, in such a moral _milieu_ to become an expression, one of the most beautiful, of goodness. It assures us somehow of the genuineness of virtue, and brings it nearer to us as {423} something human to be loved. Free from all touch of pride and malice, it takes on the look of a child’s joyousness made large and beneficent by expansive sympathies.

It is to be maintained, then, not only that a full rich laughter may thrive in the soil of a good man’s soul, but that this soul will remain incompletely developed without it. This doctrine seems flatly to contradict great authorities, Pascal and the rest. Yet it may be shown that there is really no contradiction here. The laughter which Pascal, Addison, and the others denounce, is not the genial and humorous kind, but the coarse and brutal sorts, and, what is hardly a jot more sufferable, the reckless output of “the vacant mind”.

Laughter, then, may be claimed to be one of the possessions of men to which they should jealously cling. It brings gaiety into what is always tending to grow a dull world, and of which at times the onlooker is disposed to say what Walpole said of the doings of the fashionable æsthetes at Bath, “there never was anything so entertaining or so dull”. It supplies diversion in youth and still more in age, and it may with a few, as it did with Heine and R L. Stevenson, remain a bright comrade on the sick-bed. It is the manna on which good fellowship loves to feed. And, so many-sided is it, it may be recommended as a planer for moral ridges, and it may add the last touch to the character-picture which every man is engaged in painting. It will graciously accompany us when we visit the nursery and try our cumbrous hand at the art of entertaining childhood; and will not forsake us—if we care for its company—when we betake ourselves to the graver occupations.

If this is true it would seem as if, instead of trying to put it down, we should seek to promote the laughing {424} habit in ourselves and in others. Yet here one must be careful. For one thing, the man to whom it counts as a considerable ingredient of happiness can hardly be expected to assist in an effort to render all men of an equal quickness in mirthful response. He knows better than any one else that the spectacle of folly, of make-believe and of self-inflation, on which his laughter is fed, implies a lack of all the finer laughter of the mind in the great majority of his fellows. It would be an act of suicidal madness, then, on his part, to try to transform his social world into a body of laughter-loving men and women. Happily for the “gelast,” such a transformation is beyond the powers of any conceivable society of laughter-promoters. Humorous men must continue with perfect serenity of mind to put up with being a “contemptible minority”.

Not only in the interests of the lover of laughter is it well that he cannot impose his merry habit on all men alike. The wise man will remember that it takes all sorts to make our social world, and that the desirability of the laughing capacity varies greatly with a man’s disposition, habits of mind and circumstances. To those, for example, who are of sensitive feeling and keen perception, especially if called on to lead an oppressively dull life, or, like Goldsmith, to wrestle with circumstance, a broad and quick appreciation of the laughable may be a real need. Some hearts of many chords, resonant to all the notes of life’s music, might break but for the timely comings of the laughter-fay with her transforming wand. On the other hand, many worthy people not only do very well without it, but might be at a disadvantage by possessing the endowment. This seems to be true of many excellent men and women whose {425} special bent is towards a rigorous concentration of thought and moral energy on some mission. Such persons appear ever to dwell in the subduing shadow of their cause; they bear about with them a special kind of self-consciousness, a sense of their indispensableness to the world. Laughter is not for these, we say with half a sigh. Nor can it, one supposes, find the needed air and sunlight in persons who hold imposing rank or office, and have to be daily concerned with maintaining a proper awe in others; or in those who have a deep-placed and imperturbable self-complacency, or those who are solemnly preoccupied with the momentous business of raising their social dignity. Probably nobody, save perhaps a waiter, has to be set more securely above the temptation to laugh than a man qualifying for his first dinner parties.

The case of these hopelessly confirmed “agelasts” is a very strong one. Those of us who prize the free circulation of laughter as that of a sea-air, and are disposed to object to the closeness of mental atmosphere which seems to enfold the devoted, shall do well to remember how much the world owes to a lack of humour in its citizens. If Rousseau had been a great laugher we should certainly never have had his picturesque and instructive attack on civilisation and all that flowed from it. Would Dante and Milton and the other builders of the vast and sombre architecture of verse have achieved their task if the laughing imp had been pulling vigorously at their coat tails? How many of our valuable social institutions would have been built up if the beginners had been keenly alive to the absurd aspects of the bunglings which are wont to characterise first attempts? Let those who laugh, therefore, be ready, not only from an enlightened self-interest, but from a becoming {426} esteem for alien virtues, to allow the “agelasts” their place in the world.

The foregoing considerations suggest that in any effort to promote laughter we should move cautiously. A man may waste much precious time in trying the experiment on a member of his family. A waggish schoolmaster, too—and to the credit of the profession he is to be found—may, if he experiment in this direction, meet with nothing but disappointment. Perhaps some good “tests of humour” would be helpful here; but the daily papers have not yet succeeded in inventing a satisfactory one, and the psychological laboratories have, wisely perhaps, avoided the problem. Moreover, the business of testing would comprise some examination of the quality of the “humour” expressed, lest the pedagogue should be fostering in a boy a kind of growth which he is much better without. Perhaps, indeed, this testing of quality, were it possible, should be undertaken for more serious purposes: since the saying of Goethe, that the directions taken by a person’s laughter are one of the best clues to his character, may be found to apply, differences being allowed for, to the raw stripling. In undertaking any such investigation of youthful mirth, the investigator would need to note the quality of the expressive sounds themselves; for one may suspect that in these days of early sophistication a young laugh, as pure and clear of tone as it is full and unhindered, is a rarity. For a first attempt at gauging a boy’s humour the schoolmaster might, perhaps, do worse than select the following test, suggested by a remark of one of my most learned and most respected friends, that the situation referred to is the one which, in his case, excites the most hearty merriment: “Supposing you made a call, and having placed your hat on a chair inadvertently proceeded to sit on it; how would you feel?” {427}

A more manageable problem for the pedagogue would seem to be to try, now and again, to force back the bolts of discipline and approach the boy with a judicious overture of fun. It is refreshing to find that this has recently been recommended by a highly respectable journal of the profession which writes: “It is no inherent dislike to work or to the teacher, but the absolute necessity of relieving a dull lesson by a bit of fun, that is accountable for many a difficulty in discipline”.[338] Next to this, the aim would be to encourage boys to bear the discipline of others’ laughter, so that they fall not below the moral level of the estimable savage. This part of the schoolmaster’s business is certainly not neglected in our country, and perhaps has even been a little overdone.

* * * * *

The gift of humour will save a man from many follies, among others that of attempting the office of prophet. This has its proper domain, for example in astronomy, though even in certain ambitious departments of physical science it begins to look like presumption. To bring it into the region of human affairs smacks of a juvenile confidence which has not begun to define its logical boundaries. Hence I shall not risk the illustrating of my subject by a forecast of the future of laughter.

It may be enough to say that, at the fraction of a second of the cosmic clock at which we happen to live, certain tendencies are observable which appear to have some bearing on this question. The most cheerful of men would perhaps hardly call the present a mirthful moment. We seem to have travelled during a century or more very far from the serene optimism which dwelt fondly on the perfectibility {428} of mankind. If we grow enthusiastic about man’s future at all, we let our minds run on the perfectibility of his machines. This fact in itself suggests that we are not likely to find an exceptional exuberance of the mirthful spirit. Writers, too, have emphasised the fact that the age, if not dull, is certainly not gay. An essayist, not long taken from us, has written sadly about the decline of the old frank social laughter;[339] and another, writing of Falstaff says that, though by laughter man is distinguished from the beasts, the cares and sorrows of life have all but deprived him “of this distinguishing grace, degrading him to a brutal solemnity”.[340]

That the old merry laughter of the people has lost its full resonance has been remarked above, and it may be possible, while avoiding youthful dogmatism, to conjecture to some extent how this loss has come about.

To begin, it seems fairly certain that the decline of popular mirth is only a part of a larger change, the gradual disappearance of the spirit of play, of a full self-abandonment to the mood of light enjoyment. We may see this not only in the rather forced gaiety supplied by the gorgeous “up-to-date” pantomime and other shows. It is illustrated in the change that has come over our out-of-door sports. Where is the fun, where is the gaiety, in the football and the cricket matches of to-day? Could anything be less like an “amusement” than a match at Lord’s—save when for a moment an Australian team, forgetful of its surroundings, bounds into the field? Even the clapping of hands by the solemn-looking spectators sounds stiff and mechanical.

This reduction of the full stream of choral laughter of a past age to a meagre rillet may readily be supposed to be due altogether to a growing refinement of manners in all {429} classes. Leaders of the “high society” tell us, as we have seen, that loud laughter is prohibited by its code of proprieties. The middle class, in which the imitation of social superiors grows into a solemn _culte_, has naturally adopted this idea from the upper class: and the classes below may be disposed on public occasions to consider Mother Grundy so far as to curb the froward spirit of fun. Still, the decline seems to be much more than any such artificial restraint would account for. The evidence available certainly favours the conclusion that, even when unfettered, the people does not laugh long and loud as it once did.

This is not the place to attempt an explanation of a change which is perhaps too recent to be easily explained. Yet we may hazard the suggestion that it is connected with other recent social tendencies which seem to be still operative. It is probably one phase of a whole alteration of temper in the mass of the people. It looks as if only the more solid material interests now moved the mind, as if sport had to have its substantial bait in the shape of stakes, while comedy must angle for popularity with scenic splendours which are seen to cost money. Other forces lying equally deep may not improbably co-operate. The mirth of Merry England was the outgoing of a people welded in brotherhood. The escape from the priest, and later from his Spanish champion, had begotten a common sense of relief and joyous expansion. No such welding pressure has come in these latter days pushing all ranks into a common service of mirth. The sharp class-antagonisms of the hour, especially that of employer and employed, leave but little hope of the revival of such a choral laughter of a whole people.

This decline of the larger choral laughter, including the reciprocal laughter of social groups, appears to have for one {430} of its consequences a falling off in the part played by mirth as a tempering and conciliatory element in authority. Any gain arising from the introduction of a “humouring spirit” into our government of the young is, one fears, more than neutralised by the loss which ensues from the banishment of the cajoling laugh from the relations of master and workman and mistress and maid. Perhaps, too, in our terribly serious purpose of conferring the blessing of an incorporation into a world-wide empire upon reluctant peoples of all degrees of inferiority, we are losing sight of the conciliatory virtue of that spirit of amicable jocosity, the value of which, as we have seen, was known to some who had to do with savage peoples.

The seriousness of to-day, which looks as if it had come to pay a long visit, may be found to have its roots in the greater pushfulness of men, the fiercer eagerness to move up in the scale of wealth and comfort, together with the temper which this begets, the discontent—

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

which kill the capacity for a whole-hearted abandonment to simple pleasures.

So far as this is the case, what laughter survives may be expected to take on the tone of a forced utterance with something of a sigh of weariness behind it. It is as though men had no time to laugh. Even at a social entertainment you will find men and women who meet your playful challenge only with a niggardly giggle which they instantly suppress: poor distracted souls unable for a moment to free themselves from the chaos of social claims which haunts them.

A yet more sinister characteristic of this later social laughter, reflected more or less clearly even in much of {431} what now passes for comedy, is its cynicism. By this is meant more than the hollowness of the laughter of the world-weary: it implies a readiness to laugh at a new sort of thing, or at least at the old sorts in a new way. Thus, we may hear the unscrupulous member of a profession laughing at some “amusing” bit of conscientiousness in another member. The laughter has its readily distinguishable tones: now the thin wiry note of contempt which issues from the superior person, now the rough brazen sound burred by the bolder lips of the roué. Such laughter is in the case of an individual, of a class and of a nation alike, the revelation of the attitude of a mind which has not yet completed the process of discarding its old obligations.

The tendencies here touched on illustrate how closely the moral forces encompass our laughter, how directly they determine its key and the depth of its sincerity. They suggest, too, how much more the evil inclinations menace the healthy vigour of our mirth than the good, even though these should be cultivated up to the confines of the saintly.

These signs may well make the friend of laughter sad. There is nothing unreasonable in the idea of a death of all the more joyous and refreshing mirth. The utilities—on which, perhaps, I have insisted too much—give us no pledge of a final survival of the merry impulse. However considerable its benefit to a society, we have examples of highly efficient communities which seem to do very well without it. And the like is probably true of individual laughter. A few persons may, as I have suggested, owe to it their persistence on the human scene; yet the evolutional efficacy of this utility is probably very narrowly circumscribed.

In spite of these sinister indications, an eye patient in search may descry others which point to the persistence of a wholesome laughter. Even if comedy and satire seem {432} tired and slumbering, the humorous spirit is awake and productive. We have in the literature of more than one country the promise of a development of new tones of quiet, reflective laughter. The growth of a wider appreciation of other literatures than our own is overcoming the obstacles, already touched on, to an international appreciation of flavours, so far at least as to allow of a _rapprochement_ of the larger-minded members of civilised nations in a reciprocal enjoyment of their humorous writings.

For the rest, we may put our trust in the growing volume of what I have called private laughter. It is not unlikely that in the future, men who think will grow at once more tenacious of their ideals, and more alive to the ludicrous consequences which these introduce. If so, they will become still less like gay-hearted children than they now are, and will have to brighten the chamber of life, as it loses the blithe morn-given light, with the genial glow of humour. They will be able to keep the flame alive with fuel drawn from the storehouse of literature. In this work of conserving human laughter they will do well, while developing the thoughtfulness of the humorist, to keep in touch with the healthiest types of social laughter, the simple mirth of the people preserved in the _contes_ and the rest, and the enduring comedies. If a few men will cultivate their own laughter in this way and do their best to make their private amusement that of an inner circle of friends, we may hope that it will not die—though the death of what we love were less terrible to face than its debasement—but be preserved by a few faithful hands for a happier age. They will have their reward in advance, since pure and honest laughter, like mercy, blesses him that gives, and him that takes.

NOTES

[1] Article on “Humour” in the _Cornhill Magazine_, vol. xxxiii., pp. 318–26.

[2] See B. Bosanquet, _History of Æsthetics_, p. 360, where we are told that serious modern comedy, such as Molière’s _L’Avare_, is, according to Hegel, wanting in this characteristic.

[3] _Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_, Band II., Erstes Buch, Kap. viii.

[4] _Le Rire_, published by Félix Alcan, 1900.

[5] See an article “Pourquoi rit-on?” by Camille Mélinaud, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, 1895 (Tom. 127, p. 612 ff.). The theory of M. Mélinaud seems to resemble closely that of Jean Paul Richter and others, which Lotze criticises, _Geschichte der Æsthetik_, p. 346.

[6] M. Bergson furnishes some striking illustrations of the forcing of a theory on reluctant facts in his treatment of the laughable aspect of the red nose and the black skin, _op. cit._, p. 41 ff.

[7] The references here are to one of a series of articles entitled “Psychologie der Komik” in the _Phil. Monatshefte_, Bd. XXIV. See p. 399 ff. The articles have been elaborated in a volume, _Komik und Humor_. The point here dealt with is touched on in this volume in Kap. iv., s. 558.

[8] The point that when we judge two successive impressions to be different we do not necessarily represent both simultaneously, has been recently emphasised by G. F. Stout and T. Loveday, who quote the views of Wundt and Schumann. See _Mind_, N.S., ix. (1900), pp. 1–7, and p. 386.

[9] Dr. Lipps seems half to perceive this mode of interaction among parts of a complex presentation when he says that the cylinder appears to renounce its dignity (Würde) as man’s head-covering when it stoops to adorn the head of a child (_loc. cit._).

[10] _Geschichte der Æsthetik in Deutschland_, p. 343.

[11] _Versuch einer Theorie des Komischen_ (1817), s. 23.

[12] See Darwin, _Expression of the Emotions_, p. 199.

[13] See among other authorities, Raulin, _Le Rire_, p. 28.

[14] See art. “The Psychology of Tickling, Laughing and the Comic,” by G. Stanley Hall and A. Allin, _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix., p. 1 ff.

[15] _Purgatorio_, Canto xi., lines 82–3; _cf._ Canto i., line 20, where the fair planet (Venus) is said to have made the whole East laugh—a figure copied by Chaucer, _The Knightes Tale_, line 636. Addison touches on this poetical use of “laughter,” _Spectator_, No. 249.

[16] Gratiolet, _De la Physionomie_, p. 116. Benedick instances as interjections of laughing “ha! ha! he”! _Much Ado About Nothing_, IV., i.

[17] See an article on “Organic Processes and Consciousness,” by J. R. Angell and H. B. Thompson, in the _Psychological Review_, vol. vi., p. 55. According to these researches, a hearty laugh, causing sudden and violent changes in the breathing curve, is accompanied by the sharpest and most marked vaso-dilation, as tested by capillary pulse drawing; though in one case the opposite effect of constriction was produced.

[18] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Pt. 2, sec. 2, mem. vi. subsec. 4 (“mirth and merry company”).

[19] Laughter is pronounced a “good exercise” by Dr. Leonard Hill in his useful work, _Manual of Human Physiology_ (1899), p. 236. The physiological benefits are more fully treated of by Dr. Harry Campbell in his publication, _Respiratory Exercises in the Treatment of Disease_ (1898), p. 125.

[20] “_Positions_,” ed. by Quick, pp. 64, 65.

[21] Angell and Thompson in the article quoted above suppose that the whole dilation of the capillaries during laughter is a secondary effect of sudden changes in the breathing. This seems a reasonable conclusion. Yet since, according to these writers, smiling as well as mild laughter causes gentle changes of the same kind, it seems possible that we have here, in a disguised form, the working of the general law stated by these writers: that agreeable experiences are accompanied by dilation of the peripheral blood-vessels.

[22] See _The Expression of the Emotions_, chap, vi., p. 163. It is curious to note that Mulcaster and the recent physiologists referred to above claim a beneficial influence for “a good cry” as well as for laughter. But they do not seem explicitly to put them on the same level as occasional exercises.

[23] Maria’s words in _Twelfth Night_, “If you desire the spleen,” seem to point to some supposed organic disturbance due to immoderate laughter.

[24] _Op. cit._, pp. 207 and 213.

[25] Prof. James seems to admit this in his smaller work, _Psychology_, p. 384.

[26] On the Contagion of Laughter, see Raulin, _Le Rire_, p. 98 ff.

[27] It has been pointed out by an ingenious French writer, L. Dugas—whose work, _Psychologie du rire_, has appeared while my volume is passing through the press—that even a wild, uncontrollable laughter, “le fou rire,” in spite of its elements of suffering, remains to a large extent a pleasurable experience (_see_ pp. 25, 26).

[28] The French language is particularly rich in its vocabulary under this head, including expressions like “rire du bout des dents” and “du bout des lèvres” (_cf._ Homer’s expression, ἐγέλασσεν χείλεσιν), “rire dans sa barbe,” and others like “rire jaune”.

[29] _Sartor Resartus_, Bk. I., chap. iv.

[30] Article on “Ticklishness” in the _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. He adds that ticklishness is not locally coincident with sensitiveness to pain. On the other hand, Dr. Charles Richet remarks that the parts most sensitive to tickling are the parts richest in tactile nerves. Article “Chatouillement,” _Dictionnaire de Physiologie_.

[31] See Wundt, _Physiolog. Psychologie_ (4te Auflage), Bd. i., pp. 434–5. According to this authority the propagation of the stimulation may be either direct from one sensory fibre to another, or indirect, involving muscular contractions and muscular sensations.

[32] See Külpe, _Outlines of Psychology_, p. 148.

[33] See the article on “The Psychology of Tickling, Laughing, and the Comic,” by G. S. Hall and A. Allin, in the _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix., p. 1 ff. These returns do not make it quite clear whether “ticklishness” is taken to mean the non-laughing as well as the laughing varieties.

[34] My references to Dr. Robinson’s views are partly to the article in the _Dictionary_ already quoted, and partly to notes of lectures given before the British Association and the West Kent Medical Society, which he has been so kind as to show me. I have made much use of his interesting and often brilliant suggestions in dealing with the subject of ticklishness.

[35] Both of these are included by Dr. Richet among the most sensitive parts (_loc. cit._).

[36] How far the results are complicated by the action of the muscles which serve to erect the separate hairs on the body, and are said by Lister to contract near a tickled surface, I am not sure.

[37] _E.g._, Külpe, _op. cit._, 147.

[38] _Expression of the Emotions_, p. 201.

[39] In using the expression “ticklish period,” I do not imply that ticklishness necessarily disappears after a certain period of maximal intensity. Like play, it probably persists in a certain number of persons as a susceptibility to which the laws of propriety leave but little scope for exercise.

[40] _Op. cit._, pp. 201, 202. The restriction I have added enables us to include the case of the sole of the foot.

[41] _Loc. cit._ Dr. L. Hill confirms the observation and offers the same explanation.

[42] In this connection an observation sent me by Dr. L. Hill is significant. His little girl first responded with laughter to tickling under the armpits at the same age (two and a half years) as she first showed fear by crying on being put into the arms of a stranger.

[43] G. Heymans, _Zeitschrift für die Psychol. und die Physiol. der Sinne_, Bd. xi., ss. 31 ff.

[44] Heymans, _loc. cit._

[45] The abnormal forms of automatic laughter, including the effects of stimulants, are dealt with by Raulin, _op. cit._, 2^{ème} partie, chap. iv., and 3^{ème} partie.

[46] Given in the returns to Stanley Hall’s inquiries. This explosion of laughter on receiving sad news occurs in cases of cerebral disorder. See Dugas, _op. cit._, p. 16.

[47] Quoted by Dugas, _op. cit._, p. 12.

[48] Shakespeare makes Lady Macbeth perpetrate a pun in a moment of intense excitement when Macbeth’s hesitation goads her into a resolve to carry out the murder herself:—

“I’ll gild the faces of the grooms withal
For it must seem their guilt”.

Did he mean to illustrate by this the way in which emotional strain tends to lapse for a brief moment into laughter?

[49] _Op. cit._, pp. 163, 208.

[50] See _Les Passions de l’áme_, 2^{ème} partie, art. 25.

[51] Co-operative teasing, when it methodically “nags” a boy because he happens, for example, to take the unfashionable side in some political dispute, making his school-life a torment, had—with all deference to apologetic headmasters, be it said—better change its name.

[52] Given by Stanley Hall in the article, “The Psychology of Tickling,” etc., already quoted.

[53] Valuable beginnings may be found here and there; for example, in the entertaining volume of a French comedian, _Le Rire_, par (B. C.) Coquelin, cadet.

[54] _Iliad_, ii., 212 ff.

[55] _Loc. cit._

[56] There is, of course, often a reciprocal effect in these cases, the non-compliant intruder serving to show up the absurd monotony of the row.

[57] See an article, “The Analytical Humorist,” by H. D. Traill, _Fortnightly Review_ (N.S.), vol. lx., p. 141.

[58] Mr. Kipling suggests that the want of a proper nose in a family is regarded as a disgrace among the Hindoos (_Kim_, p. 81).

[59] It may be well to add, by way of caution, that the feeble semblance of laughter which a modern theatre-goer is apt to produce when he sees something _risqué_ is not a simple form of laughter at the indecent. It is the outcome of a highly artificial attitude of mind, in which there is an oscillation of feeling between the readiness of the natural man to indulge and the fear of the civilised man that he may be carried too far.

[60] _Op. cit._, p. 45.

[61] Compare above, pp. 13 ff.

[62] As our mode of classification shows, we may regard these as primarily instances of laughable degradation. Nevertheless, some apprehension of contradiction is clearly involved.

[63] From a speech delivered by Sir John Parnell in the Irish House of Commons, 1795. See W. R. Le Fanu, _Seventy Years of Irish Life_, ch. xvi. (“Irish Bulls”).

[64] See Bergson, _op. cit._, p. 45.

[65] _Poetics_, v. i. (Butcher’s translation).

[66] A further and most important enlargement of Hobbes’ principle is made by Bain when he urges that the spectacle of degradation works upon us, not merely by way of the emotion of power or glory, but by way of the feeling of release from constraint. This point will more conveniently be dealt with later.

[67] Compare above, p. 100.

[68] Kant’s contribution to the theory of the ludicrous is contained in a single “Remark” appended to a discussion of the Fine Arts and Taste. See Dr. Bernard’s translation of his _Kritik of Judgment_, pp. 221–4.

[69] Article “On the Philosophy of Laughing,” by the Editor, _The Monist_, 1898, p. 255.

[70] I find after completing this paragraph that the point dealt with, namely, that surprise, in the sense of the effect of mental unpreparedness, is not an invariable antecedent of our response to the laughable, has been urged by a French writer, M. Courdaveaux. His critic, M. Dugas, does not seem to me to have effectually combated it. (See Dugas, _op. cit._, p. 63 ff.)

[71] See above, p. 6.

[72] Compare what was said above _à propos_ of the child and the hat, p. 14.

[73] _Cf._ above, p. 114; also the article in _The Monist_ already quoted.

[74] _English Comic Writers_, lect. i., “Wit and Humour”.

[75] “The Physiology of Laughter,” _Essays_, i., p. 206.

[76] According to Fouillée, contrast is the formal element, faultiness (“le défaut”), the material. See Dugas, _op. cit._, p. 85 ff.

[77] Hazlitt defines the ridiculous as the highest degree of the laughable, which is “_a proper subject for satire_,” _loc. cit._

[78] Compare Ribot, _La Psychologie des sentiments_, p. 344.

[79] M. Bergson has a glimpse of the co-operation of “child’s fun” in our laughter, _op. cit._, p. 69; but he fails to see the magnitude of this factor.

[80] See _The Emotions and the Will_, “The Emotions,” chap. xiv., §§ 38–40.

[81] _Cf._ Dugas, _op. cit._, p. 128 ff.

[82] _Wit and Humour_, p. 7.

[83] See p. 76, ff.

[84] Prof. Groos does not, I think, bring out clearly enough the distinction here drawn, though he may be said to half-recognise it when he speaks of “joy in conquest” as the end of play combats (_Play of Animals_, pp. 291, 292).

[85] This restriction sometimes takes on a look of a conative process of self-control, _e.g._, when an older cat, not used to play, is importunately challenged by a lively kitten.

[86] On this “divided consciousness” in play see Groos, _Play of Animals_, p. 303 ff.

[87] On the uses of animal play see Groos, _The Play of Man_, Part III., sect. 2, and Lloyd Morgan, _Animal Behaviour_, chap, vi., sect. 2.

[88] Among previous writers on the subject M. Dugas seems to be the one who has had the clearest apprehension of the essentially playful character of laughter (_op. cit._, chap. vi., especially p. 115 _seq._).

[89] Karl Groos connects both the tusslings and the tearings of young animals with the instinct of sex-competition (_Play of Animals_, p. 35 ff.).

[90] _The Psychological Review_, 1899, p. 91.

[91] _Descent of Man_, Part I., chap. iii.

[92] _Animal Life and Intelligence_, p. 407. The author strikes me as almost excessively cautious in accepting these evidences of canine jocosity.

[93] W. Preyer, _Die Seele des Kindes_, p. 197.

[94] Quoted by Lloyd Morgan, _loc. cit._

[95] _Expression of Emotions_, p. 208; _cf._ p. 132 ff.

[96] See Darwin, _The Descent of Man_, Part I., chap. iii.

[97] So in _The Expression of the Emotions_, pp. 211, 212. In the notes contributed to _Mind_, vol. ii. (1877), p. 288, two infants are spoken of, one of which smiled when forty-five, the other when forty-six days old.

[98] The references are to his work, _Die Seele des Kindes_, 4te Auflage.

[99] Champneys and Sigismund are quoted by Preyer. Miss Shinn’s observations are given in her work, _Notes on the Development of a Child_, p. 238. Mrs. Moore’s are to be found in her Essay, _The Mental Development of a Child_, p. 37. Dr. L. Hill writes that he noted the first smile in his boy when he was three weeks old, and in his girl when she was some days older.

[100] See especially what he says about an unusual expression, including “a strongly sparkling eye” which occurred in the eighth week, _op. cit._, p. 194.

[101] I am indebted to Miss Shinn for a sight of her complete original notes; and some of my references are to these.

[102] It is regrettable that Preyer does not describe with some precision the sounds produced by his boy on the twenty-third day.

[103] Miss Shinn insists that the laugh did not develop out of the chuckle, since apparently it appeared, as many articulate sounds appear, with something of a sudden completeness. But this is just what we should expect if the laugh is an inherited movement.

[104] _Op. cit._, p. 197.

[105] Preyer puts this at the end of the first half-year, which seems to me to be late.

[106] _Op. cit._, p. 96.

[107] On the point of the priority of the smile in the process of evolution see Th. Ribot, _La Psychologie des Sentiments_, p. 346.

[108] Darwin, _Expression of the Emotions_, p. 133.

[109] A. Lehmann, in his interesting account of the development of the emotions and their expression in the individual, suggests that the first imperfect smile of the infant, which expresses the pleasure of sweetness, is genetically related to the movements of sucking (_Hauptgesetze des menschl. Gefühlslebens_, ss. 295, 296).

[110] Darwin, _Expression of the Emotions_, pp. 134, 135.

[111] As pointed out above, the French _e_ sound seems to be the common one in children’s laughter. Preyer tells us that the corresponding sound in German (_ä_) occurs in the first infantile babble (_Development of Intellect_, p. 239).

[112] _Expression of the Emotions_, pp. 132–3.

[113] See the article already quoted on “The Psychology of Tickling, Laughing,” etc., p. 33.

[114] See the article already quoted.

[115] Dr. Robinson considers that another agreeable effect of tickling may be an inherited echo of the caresses of man’s progenitors.

[116] Stanley Hall also suggests that the most ticklish parts, which, according to his inquiries, are _the sole of the foot_, the throat, etc., are the “most vulnerable”. But he does not explain what he means by vulnerable here, and certainly does not appear to use the word in the sense given it by Dr. L. Robinson.

[117] Groos deals with the teasing of animals under the head of “Fighting Plays” (_Play of Animals_, p. 136 ff.).

[118] H. M. Stanley, _Psychological Review_, 1899, p. 87.

[119] This idea, that when we laugh at ludicrous things the process is fundamentally analogous to that of being tickled, has been made the basis of a curious and suggestive physiological theory of laughter, developed by a German writer. See Ewald Hecker, _Die Physiologie und Psychologie des Lachens und des Komischen_.

[120] _Loc. cit._, p. 39.

[121] I am indebted for this fact to Dr. L. Hill. I believe a like remark applies to all the laughter of play.

[122] The nature of the process of emotional development is more fully treated, and the relation of its effect to that of the dulling action of repetition is indicated, in my work, _The Human Mind_, vol. ii., p. 75 ff.

[123] Of course, increase of volume might arise through a widening of the sensational factor in the experience, due to the larger diffusion of somatic stimulation, which, as already remarked, is an element in the expansion of laughter.

[124] This expression is commonly used only where an expression is passed on to a palpably dissimilar feeling. But an essentially similar process takes place, according to my view, within the limits of development of what we call the same emotion.

[125] The application of the principle of arrest to the changes in emotional states has been made with great success by Th. Ribot in his volume, _Psychologie des Sentiments_, p. 260 ff.

[126] Miss Shinn’s observations are recorded in Parts III. and IV. of her _Notes_.

[127] For a pretty reminiscent description of a first experience of running and jumping, see Pierre Loti, _Roman d’un Enfant_, ii., p. 4 ff.

[128] The nearest approach I have met with to a suggestion of a wish to inflict pain in this early practical joking is the following: The child M. when two years old stood on her mother’s foot saying, “Oh, my poor toe!” But it seems reasonable to say that in such moments of frolic pain is quite unrepresentable.

[129] _Op. cit._, p. 196. I have heard of it occurring in a girl at the age of three and a half. The point should certainly be determined by more precise observations.

[130] Preyer first observed roguish laughter at the end of the second year (_op. cit._, p. 196). He does not define the expression “schelmisches Lachen”.

[131] Compare above, p. 83.

[132] See Mrs. Hogan’s _Study of a Child_, p. 18.

[133] _Cf._ what was said in chap. v., p. 142, apropos of Leigh Hunt’s theory.

[134] Ruth’s laughter at the mother’s face was certainly very early.

[135] Hogan, _op. cit._, p. 71.

[136] See my _Studies of Childhood_, pp. 274–5.

[137] Most of the observations here quoted, on the laughter of the boy C., have appeared before in a chapter of my volume, _Studies of Childhood_. The reader who is familiar with this chapter will, I feel sure, pardon the repetition.

[138] Rev. Duff Macdonald, _Africana_ (1882), i., pp. 266–7.

[139] It is true that this astounding proposition is answered somewhat ironically by Rev. Dr. Folliott, who says, “Give him modern Athens, the learned friend (Brougham) and the sham intellect Society—they will develop his muscles”. Yet it seems odd that this confident assertor was not taken to task for his amazing ignorance.

[140] The dispute may be followed by the curious by turning up the following: _Indian Antiquary_, vol. viii., p. 316; cf. E. Deschamps, _Pays des Veddas_, pp. 378–9; _The Taprobanian_, vol. i., p. 192 ff. The German visitor, Sarasin, upholds the writer in the latter periodical, and says that the Veddas “lachen gerne,” though some of them are bad tempered, and laugh but little. _Naturforschungen auf Ceylon_, pp. 378 and 540.

[141] Carl von den Steinen, _Unter den Naturvölkern Zentral-Brasiliens_, p. 61.

[142] This applies, of course, to the detection of the whole of the social qualities which make up good-nature. F. Nansen attacks the missionary Egede for his misrepresentation of the Greenlanders in calling them cold-blooded creatures. See _Eskimo Life_, pp. 100, 101.

[143] _Expression of the Emotions_, p. 209.

[144] _Central Australia_ (1833), ii., p. 138.

[145] _Among Cannibals_ (1889), p. 291.

[146] Angas, _Australia and New Zealand_ (1847), ii., p. 11.

[147] Bonwick, _The Daily Life of the Tasmanians_ (1870), p. 174.

[148] Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_ (1832), i., p. 96.

[149] Turnbull, _A Voyage Round the World_ (1813), p. 372.

[150] Erskine, _The Western Pacific_ (1853), p. 159.

[151] _Natives of Sarawak and Brit. N. Borneo_, i., p. 84.

[152] Rev. Jos. Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal_ (1857), p. 232.

[153] Cruickshank, _The Gold Coast of Africa_ (1853), ii., p. 253.

[154] Hind, _Canadian Red River Exploring Expedition_ (1860), ii., p. 135. Other examples of the mirthfulness of savages are given by Herbert Spencer, _Descriptive Sociology_, Div. I., Pt. 2—A.

[155] Cruickshank, _Gold Coast of Africa_, _loc. cit._

[156] Musters, _At Home with the Patagonians_ (1873), p. 167.

[157] _Saugethiere von Paraguay_ (1830), s. 10.

[158] _Aborigines of Tasmania_ (2nd ed.), p. 38.

[159] Johnston, _British Central Africa_ (1897), p. 403.

[160] E. H. Man, “Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,” _Journal of Anthropol. Institute_, vol. xii., p. 88.

[161] See Raulin, _op. cit._, p. 94 ff.

[162] Angas, _loc. cit._

[163] Ling Roth, _Natives of Sarawak_, etc., i., p. 81.

[164] Burton, _Lake Regions of Central Africa_, ii., p. 331.

[165] Waitz, _Naturvölker_, 6ter Theil, s. 102.

[166] Mrs. Edgeworth David, _Funafuti_, p. 230.

[167] Shooter, _The Kafirs of Natal_ (1857), p. 232.

[168] Ling Roth, _Aborigines of Tasmania_ (2nd ed.), p. 29.

[169] Wood, _Natural History of Man_, i., p. 261.

[170] From an article, “West African Women,” contributed to the _Daily Telegraph_.

[171] This is stated by Prof. Bain in his _English Composition and Rhetoric_, p. 237. I have been unable to verify the statement; but Mr. Ling Roth assures me that the statement is probably correct; and says that he remembers having read recently an account of the amusement of Chinese bystanders on such an occasion, one man putting out a boat—merely to save a hat!

[172] Sarasin, _Forschungen auf Ceylon_, s. 537.

[173] Sproat, _Scenes and Studies of Savage Life_ (1868), p. 51.

[174] Wood, _op. cit._, i., p. 261, and Shooter, _op. cit._, p. 233.

[175] Turnbull, _op. cit._, p. 372.

[176] Wright, _History of Caricature and Grotesque_, p. 2.

[177] Cruickshank, _loc. cit._

[178] Ellis, _op. cit._, i., p. 97.

[179] How easily one may overcharge this indictment of coarse immorality is illustrated by what Von den Steinen says of the laughter of the Brazil Indian women when he asked them the names of the several bodily parts. Some would have taken this to be the low joking of brazen-faced women. He distinctly tells us that it was “just simple innocent laughter,” _op. cit._, p. 65.

[180] Ling Roth, _op. cit._, i., p. 72.

[181] Barrow, _Hudson’s Bay_, p. 32.

[182] Lichtenstein, _Travels in Southern Africa_, ii., p. 312.

[183] Compare above, pp. 72, 73.

[184] Ellis, _op. cit._, i., p. 97.

[185] Wood, _op. cit._, ii., p. 522.

[186] Lichtenstein, _op. cit._, ii., p. 308.

[187] Burchell, _Travels in Southern Africa_ (1822), vol. ii., p. 339.

[188] Ling Roth, _op. cit._ (2nd ed.), p. 134.

[189] Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, p. 230.

[190] Ling Roth, _op. cit._ (2nd ed.), p. 36.

[191] Sproat, _Savage Life_, p. 266.

[192] Quoted by Ling Roth, _Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i., p. 93.

[193] Compare above, p. 104.

[194] Hind, _Canadian Red River Expedition_, ii., p. 135.

[195] See Ling Roth, _Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i., p. 75.

[196] Spencer and Gillen, _The Native Tribes of Central Australia_, pp. 136, 137.

[197] Quoted from Gideon Lang by Bonwick, _Daily Life of the Tasmanians,_ p. 174.

[198] Nansen asserts this with respect to the attitude of the Eskimos towards the Danes who settled in Greenland in 1728. See _Eskimo Life_, pp. 106–7.

[199] Brough Smyth, _Aborigines of Victoria_ (1878), ii., p. 278.

[200] Sarasin, _op. cit._, iii., p. 540.

[201] Burton, _Wit and Wisdom of West Africa_, p. 52.

[202] Ling Roth, _Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i., p. 83.

[203] Ling Roth, _op. cit._, i., pp. 83–4.

[204] Sproat, _op. cit._, p. 51.

[205] Quoted by Darwin, _Expression of the Emotions_, p. 209.

[206] Von den Steinen, _op. cit._, p. 71.

[207] Turnbull, _op. cit._, p. 88.

[208] _Op. cit._, p. 372.

[209] Brough Smyth, _op. cit._, i., p. 29.

[210] _North American Ethnology_ (J. W. Powell), vol. iii., p. 410.

[211] _Op. cit._, pp. 239, 291.

[212] Ling Roth, _Tasmania_ (2nd ed.), p. 38.

[213] Marsden, _op. cit._, p. 230.

[214] Quoted by Waitz, _Naturvölker_, 6ter Theil, p. 102.

[215] Ling Roth, _Sarawak and British North Borneo_, i., p. 84.

[216] Hans Egede, _Nat. Hist. of Greenland_, pp. 156–7.

[217] F. Nansen, _Eskimo Life_, p. 187; _cf._ Egede, _loc. cit._

[218] Quoted from Jackson’s Narrative (1840) by Erskine, _Western Pacific_, p. 468.

[219] Bonwick, _op. cit._, p. 29.

[220] Grey, _Two Expeditions in Australia_ (1841), ii., pp. 307–8.

[221] J. Chandler Harris, _Uncle Remus and his Friends_.

[222] R. E. Dennett, _Folklore of the Fjort_, pp. 92–3.

[223] Mr. Ling Roth has pointed out to me that the laughter of the Australian at the absurdity of the idea of a dead man going about without legs, etc., occurs in a race usually placed among the lowest in the scale. Yet this apparent exception does not, I think, affect the validity of the generalisation in the text. The intellect displayed in this ridicule is not of a high order; and, further, we are distinctly told that the scoffer in the case was an “intelligent” native, that is to say, one of more than the average intelligence of his tribe.

[224] Mr. Ling Roth writes me that he agrees with Miss Kingsley as to the difference between the laughter of savages and of children. I should be quite ready to accept this view so far as it concerns the special forms and directions of the mirth. The differences of capacity, experience and habit involved in the difference between the child and adult will, of course, introduce many dissimilarities into their manifestations of the mirthful temper. I hold, however, that as regards the fundamental psychical processes involved, the similarity is real and great.

[225] Macdonald, _op. cit._, i., p. 266.

[226] Burton, _op. cit._, ii., pp. 338–9.

[227] See p. 42.

[228] Wright, _History of Caricature and Grotesque_, p. 181.

[229] M. Jos. Bédier in his interesting study, _L’Esprit des Fabliaux_, though he argues that the fabliaux in general had no social aim (“portée sociale”), has to admit that in the case of the treatment of the priests these “contes à rire en vers” betray a genuine hatred, a hatred which (he adds) runs through other forms of literature of the Middle Ages.

[230] Bédier points out in the work quoted that the writers of the fabliaux, which issue from the burgher class, and are written for this class, take sides with the weak villains rather than with the strong knightly class (see p. 291 ff.). _Cf._, however, Wright, _op. cit._, p. 114.

[231] See Maspero, _Les Contes populaires de l’Égypte_, Introduction (“Conte des deux frères”).

[232] Percy Gardner, _Greek Antiquities_, p. 353.

[233] Tyrrell, _Latin Poetry_, p. 220.

[234] Bédier, _op. cit._, p. 279 ff.

[235] H. Spencer, _Principles of Sociology_, “Ceremonial Institutions,” pp. 205, 206.

[236] Maspero, _Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria_, chap. i.

[237] Wilkinson, _Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians_, iii., pp. 447, 429.

[238] Simcox, _Hist. of Latin Liter._, i., p. 46.

[239] Given in Hazlitt’s _New London Jest Book_, pp. 31, 32.

[240] Wright, _op. cit._, p. 133. A good story of a retaliative practical joke, carried out by a bachelor on a tavern keeper who had spilt some wine on serving him, is given by Bédier, _op. cit._, iii., p. 272 ff.

[241] H. Spencer, _op. cit._, p. 208.

[242] Curtius remarks of the Greek comic poets: “It was primarily against the novel fashion of the day that they aimed their blows” (_Hist. of Greece_, ii., p. 539).

[243] See Ward, _Engl. Dram. Poets_, ii., p. 401.

[244] Wright, _op. cit._, chap. xix.

[245] Sellar, _Roman Poets_, p. 167.

[246] Tyrrell, _op. cit._, p. 52.

[247] Ward, _Engl. Dram. Poets_, ii., pp. 398–9. The Restoration comedy also made fun of the “cit” as the inferior of the West-end gentleman.

[248] Ward, _op. cit._, ii., pp. 399, 400.