The “Thing in Itself.”—We used to ask formerly: What is the ridiculous?—as if there were something above and beyond ourselves that possessed the quality of provoking laughter, and we exhausted ourselves in trying to guess what it was (a theologian even held that it might be “the naÏvetÉ of sin”). At the present time we ask: What is laughter? how does it arise? We have considered the point, and finally reached the conclusion that there is nothing which is good, beautiful, sublime, or evil in itself; but rather that there are conditions of soul which lead us to attribute such qualities to things outside ourselves and in us. We have taken back their predicates from things; or we have at all events recollected that we have merely lent the things these predicates. Let us be careful that this insight does not cause us to lose the faculty of lending, and that we do not become at the same time wealthier and more avaricious.