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, ????asse? ?e??es??), “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. 45 The abnormal forms of automatic laughter, including the effects of stimulants, are dealt with by Raulin, op. cit., 2Ème partie, chap. iv., and 3Ème 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, 2Ème 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. 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. 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.) 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. 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. 105 Preyer puts this at the end of the first half-year, which seems to me to be late. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 249 The Golden Ass, Bk. III., ch. 55. 250 Doran, History of Court Fools, pp. 18, 37, 75. 251 Tyrrell, Latin Poetry, p. 43 ff. The scurrility of the early Greek comedy led to its being discountenanced by Pisistratus. As Prof. P. Gardner remarks, “Tyrants have no sense of humour, and dread ridicule” (Greek Antiquities, p. 666). 252 Wright, op. cit., p. 44 ff. 253 Ward, Engl. Dram. Poets, ii., pp. 392–3. 254 Colley Cibber’s satire “Non-Juror” is said to have brought him a pension and the office of Poet Laureate (Wright, op. cit., chap. xxii.). 255 George III. was caricatured again and again by Gillray (Wright, op. cit., chap. xxvii.). 256 This has no doubt arisen in part from the fact that no other single English word expresses directly and clearly the subjective feeling or disposition which lies behind laughter. 257 George Eliot, Essays, pp. 82, 83. 258 The opening scene of Le MÉdecin malgrÉ lui shows that MoliÈre had observed this quaint form of wifely loyalty. 259 Sylvie and Bruno, Part II., p. 132. 260 Hence Addison’s remark (Spectator, No. 35) that humour should always be under the check of reason seems, in what one is tempted to call a characteristic way, to miss the mark. 261 See, for example, HÖffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 294, 295. 262 Quoted by Dugas, op. cit., p. 98. Flaubert here indicates, perhaps, one great limiting condition of the growth of the composite sentiment of humour. 263 Philebus, Jowett’s translation, iv., p. 94 ff. 264 One of the best recent discussions of this subject will be found in the work of A. Lehmann, already referred to; see pp. 247–251 and 259. 267 For the whole passage, written perhaps with an unconscious reminiscence of the Rousseau period, see the Kritik of Judgment, Dr. Bernard’s translation, p. 227. 268 The absence in the East of the comic spirit as expressing itself in the art of comedy, a point noted by Mr. Meredith, is of course not conclusive with respect to the existence of the humorous disposition. 269 M. BÉdier has a delicate characterisation of this French spirit in the Contes; touching on its want of depth and arriÈre-pensÉe, its spice of malice, its joyous good sense, its irony, which though a little coarse is yet precise and just, op. cit., p. 278. 270 This redeeming quality of the Irish bull is indistinctly perceived by the Edgeworths in their essay on the subject, in which they speak of the Irishman’s habit of using figurative and witty language. See The Book of Bulls, by G. R. Neilson (in which the Edgeworths’ essay is included). 271 Quoted by Meredith, op. cit., p. 87. 272 See his son’s Life, chap. vii. (vol. i., p. 167). 273 The question is left an open one by his biographer, J. Fitzmaurice-Kelly. See Life of Cervantes, p. 207. 274 Causeries du Lundi, vol. iii., pp. 3, 4. 275 Logic Deductive and Inductive, by Carveth Read. 276 Bernard’s translation of The Kritik of Judgment, p. 226. 277 Good illustrations will be found in the story of Mr. Bernard Capes, The Lake of Wine, chap. ii. and chap. xxxii. 278 See for one among many instances Travels in West Africa, chap. ix. (“The Rapids of the Ogowe”). 279 The story of Hans von BÜlow’s almost superhuman behaviour under these circumstances is told in the National Observer of 17th Feb., 1894. 280 See, for example, a letter from a titled lady in The Times of the 1st June, 1894, in which this claim of “society” to the services of “the pick of blood and brains” is prettily assumed. 281 On the employment of buffoons and dwarfs in the palace of the Egyptian king see Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 278, 279. On the Greek and Roman jesters (?e??t?p????, ??eta?????, mimi, scurrÆ) see P. Gardner, Greek Antiquities, p. 835; [cf. Doran, Court Fools]. On the mediÆval jester or fool see Wright, op. cit., chap. vii.; Lacroix, Middle Ages, p. 238 ff.; and Jusserand, English Wayfaring Life, p. 187. 282 P. Gardner, Greek Antiquities, p. 666. 283 Bergk, Griech. Literaturgesch., iv., pp. 9, 10. 284 See Wright, op. cit., chaps. xii. and xiv. 285 Essay on Comedy, pp. 24–5 (on MoliÈre’s audience); pp. 8, 47 and following (on the recognition of woman). 286 Examples will be found in Le MÉdecin malgrÉ lui, L’Avare and others. A delightful introduction of the all-round beating of the circus is that of the Professors in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. 287 M. Bergson, who gives a delightful account of these mechanical aids to the effect of comedy, seeks to connect them with his theory that the laughable consists in the substitution of the monotony of the machine for the variety of the organism (op. cit., p. 72 ff.). I suspect, however, that they owe much of the spell they cast over our laughing muscles to suggestions of child’s play. 288 Compare the breezy fun of the scene in Le Tartuffe, where the maid, Dorine, has to tackle in turn each of a pair of lovers urging the same grievances in almost the same words (Act II., Sc. iv.). 289 Moulton, Ancient Class. Drama, p. 344. 290 “In Aristophanes the very few maiden figures that appear are dumb” (Neil, The Knights of Aristophanes, Introduction, p. xiv.). 291 P. Gardner, Greek Antiquities, p. 353. 292 Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. iii., p. 144. 293 Essay, Bk. II., chap. xi. 295 English Comic Writers, Lect. I., “Wit and Humour”. 297 Cf. supra, pp. 112, 113. 299 An elaborate classification of the various kinds of word-play may be found in an article by Dr. Emil KrÄpelin, in Wundt’s Philosoph. Studien, 2er Band, s. 144 ff. 300 Bergk observes that these are at once individuals and types (Griech. literaturgeschichte, Bd. IV., s. 91). 301 Mommsen observes that in Terence we have a more becoming, though not yet moral, conception of feminine nature and of married life (Hist. of Rome, Bk. IV., chap. xiii.). 302 Courthope, Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii., pp. 345 ff., and 356. 303 Eng. Lit., Bk. II., chap. iii. 304 On this mixture of tones see Moulton, Shakespeare as Dramatic Artist, p. 291. 305 Mr. Meredith touches on the way in which MoliÈre developed his characters out of persons known to him (op. cit., p. 53). 306 Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare, p. 416. 307 “Comme un morceau de cire entre mes mains elle est, Et je lui puis donner la forme qui me plaÎt.” 308 M. Henri Bergson (op. cit., chap, iii.) seems to me to push his helpful idea of a mechanical rigidity (raideur) in MoliÈre’s characters a little too far. 309 The play closes with the “aside” of Covielle: “Si l’on en peut voir un plus fou, je l’irai dire À Rome”. 310 Mr. Meredith remarks that it was “here and there Bacchanalian beyond the Aristophanic example” (op. cit., p. 11). 312 Coleridge saw clearly enough how far comedy is from making morality its basis. He remarks that the new comedy of Menander and the whole of modern comedy (Shakespeare excepted) is based on rules of prudence (Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare, Bell’s Edition, 1884, p. 191). 314 Hist. of Eng. Lit., Bk. III., chap. i. Mr. Meredith is nearer the mark when he speaks of the comic poet as being “in the narrow field, or enclosed square of the society he depicts” (op. cit., p. 85). 315 Op. cit., Bd. IV., s. 2. 316 See his “Notice” to Gil Blas, pp. xii, xiii. 317 Hist. of Eng. Lit., vol. iv., p. 173. 319 Quoted by Bacon, Essays, “Apothegms,” 181. 320 This is well illustrated by George Eliot, who observes rightly that wit is allied to ratiocination (Essays, “German Wit,” p. 81). 321 I remember discussing the point with the late Henry Sidgwick—no mean authority—who admitted that several quotations which he had proffered as examples of wit might with equal appropriateness he described as humorous. The germ of the view put forward in the text is contained in some pithy remarks by the late Professor Minto (English Prose Literature, Introduction, p. 23). 322 The reference in the text is to humour and wit, regarded as subjective, as elements in the writer. Considered objectively as an attribute of a character, wit of a kind may become one ingredient in a humorous presentation, as in the homely and rather bornÉ wit of the countryfolk in the novels of George Eliot and Mr. Hardy. 323 See Mr. Traill’s criticism, Sterne, p. 156 ff. 324 Wit and Humour, p. 11. 325 See Canon Ainger’s Introduction to The Essays of Elia, p. 8. 326 English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii., p. 110. 327 See my work on Pessimism, p. 428. 328 See Dugas, op. cit., pp. 109, 110. 329 See, for an excellent example of this retort, Dr. James Ward’s Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. i., Part I. 330 M. Scherer may possibly mean something like this when he speaks of the humorist’s point of view as the justest from which a man’s world can be judged (Essays on English Literature, p. 148). 331 On the moral function of comedy see Bergson, op. cit., pp. 201, 202, and Dugas, op. cit., pp. 149–159. 332 The reference is to an article, “Ridicule and Truth” in the Cornhill Magazine, 1877, pp. 580–95. Lessing’s plea, in his Hamburg. Dramaturgie (StÜcke 28 and 29), on behalf of a corrective virtue in comedy owed something, I suspect, to the reading of Shaftesbury and the other English writers. 334 Sartor Resartus, loc. cit. 335 Letters, vol. ii., p. 302. 336 See what Aristotle says about the witty (e?t??pe???, literally, the easy turning, nimble-minded), Ethics, Bk. iv., 8. 337 Mr. Radford, in an article on Falstaff, in Mr. Birrell’s Obiter dicta (First Series). 338 The Journal of Education, Nov. 1901, p. 687. 339 Traill, loc. cit., p. 147. 340 Mr. Radford, loc. cit.
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