  - CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.
- Objections to serious study of laughter •1
- Previous treatment of subject by philosophers •4
- Their way of dealing with facts •6
- Examination of an illustration given by Dr. Lipps •9
- Common defects of theories •17
- Difficulties of attempt to treat subject scientifically •19
- Scope of inquiry •20
- CHAPTER II. THE SMILE AND THE LAUGH.
- Need of studying the bodily process in laughter •25
- Characteristics of the movements of the smile •26
- Expressive function of the smile •27
- Continuity of processes of smiling and laughing •27
- Characteristics of the movements of laughter •30
- Concomitant organic changes during laughter •33
- Physiological benefits of laughing •34
- Effects of excessive laughter •37
- The laugh as expression •39
- Relation of expression to feeling in laughter •40
- Interactions of joyous feeling and organic concomitants •44
- Deviations from the normal type of laugh •48
- CHAPTER III. OCCASIONS AND CAUSES OF LAUGHTER.
- 1. Laughter as provoked by sense-stimulus: tickling •50
- Ticklish areas •52
- Characteristics of the sensations of tickling •53
- Motor reactions provoked by tickling •56
- How far attributes of sensation determine laughter of tickling •57
- The mental factor in effect of tickling •59
- Objective conditions of successful tickling •60
- Tickling as appealing to a particular mood •62
- 2. Other quasi-reflex forms of laughter •64
- Varieties of automatic or “nervous” laughter •65
- Common element in these varieties: relief from strain •67
- 3. Varieties of joyous laughter •70
- Prolonged laughing fit •73
- The essential element in joyous laughter •75
- Occasions of joyous laughter •76
- (a) Play •76
- (b) Teasing as provocative situation •77
- (c) Practical joking and laughter •78
- (d) Laughter as an accompaniment of contest •78
- (e) Occasions of unusual solemnity as provoking laughter •79
- Physiological basis of laughing habit •80
- CHAPTER IV. VARIETIES OF THE LAUGHABLE.
- The objective reference in laughter •82
- Universal element in the laughable •83
- Groups of laughable things •87
- (1)
ices •280
- Laughing away effete customs •281
- Influence of mirthful spirit on social changes •283
- Effect of evolution of culture groups •283
- Effect of minuter subdivision of sets •285
- Effect of progress in breaking down group-barriers •286
- Droll aspects of transition of society to a plutocratic form •287
- Refining effect of culture-movement on hilarity •288
- Decline of older voluminous merriment •290
- Conflict between popular mirth and authority •291
- Combination of standards in popular estimate of laughable •293
- Preparation for individual laughter •295
- CHAPTER X. LAUGHTER OF THE INDIVIDUAL: HUMOUR.
- Definition of humour •297
- Characteristics of humour •298
- Intellectual basis of humorous sentiment •300
- Humorous contemplation as binocular •301
- The field of the laughable for the humorist •302
- Modification of the conative attitude in humour •304
- Complexity of humour as feeling •305
- Problem of fusion of dissimilar feelings •307
- Facts explained by our analysis of humour •310
- Variations of humour with race and nationality •311
- Temperament and individuality in humour •313
- Humour as enlarging range of laughing activity •315
- The finer detection of the amusing in character •315
- The appreciation of unfitness of men to circumstances •317
- Character-study as a pastime •318
- Laughter as permeating sphere of serious •319
- Effect of kindliness in extending range of laughter •320
- Scope for amusing form of self-scrutiny •321
- Laughter as mode of self-correction •322
- How humour aids a man in dealing with others •325
- Laughing away the smaller troubles •326
- Service of humour in the greater troubles •328
- Humorous contemplation of social scene •330
- Amusing aspects of the fine world •331
- The journal as medium of amusing self-display •334
- The social spectacle of the past and of the present •337
- Humour in contemplation of social scene in seasons of stress •337
- The manifestations of war-temper as humorous spectacle •338
- CHAPTER XI. THE LAUGHABLE IN ART: COMEDY.
- Source of impulse of comic art •343
- Scope for laughter in art as a whole •345
- Origin of jocose literature •346
- The dawn of comedy •346
- Comic incidents as development of child
|
  |
