"Ridiculum acri Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res." Ridicule shall frequently prevail, And cut the knot when graver reasons fail. - Francis. Let this apology suffice at present for my choice of a subject. Even this apology might have been spared, for nothing is below the attention of philosophy, which the Author of Nature has been pleased to establish. In tracing out the cause of laughter, I mean rather to illustrate than to censure the opinions of those who have already written on the same subject. The investigation has been several times attempted; nor is the cause altogether unknown. Yet, notwithstanding former discoveries, the following may perhaps be found to contain something new; to throw light on certain points of criticism that have not been much attended to; and even to have some merit (if I execute my purpose) as a familiar example of philosophical induction carried on with a strict regard to fact and without any previous bias in favor of any theory. To provoke laughter is not essential either to wit or to humor. For though that unexpected discovery of resemblance between ideas supposed dissimilar, which is called wit, and that comic exhibition of singular characters, sentiments, and imagery, which is denominated humor, do frequently raise laughter, they do not raise it always. Addison's poem to Sir Godfrey Kneller, in which the British kings are likened to heathen gods, is exquisitely witty, and yet not laughable. Pope's "Essay on Man" abounds in serious wit; and examples of serious humor are not uncommon in Fielding's "History of Parson Adams,” and in Addison's account of Sir Roger de Coverley. Wit, when the subject is grave, and the allusion sublime, raises admiration instead of laughter; and if the comic singularities of a good man appear in circumstances of real distress, the imitation of those singularities, in the epic or dramatic comedy, will form a species of humor, which if it should force a smile, will draw forth a tear at the same time. An inquiry, therefore, into the distinguishing characters of wit and humor has no necessary connection with the present subject. I did, however, once intend to have touched upon them in the conclusion of this discourse, but Doctor Campbell's masterly disquisition concerning that matter, in the first part of his "Philosophy of Rhetoric," makes it improper for me to attempt it. I was favored with a perusal of that work in manuscript, and was agreeably surprised to find my notions, in regard to the cause or object of laughter, so fully warranted by those of my very learned and ingenious friend. And it may not perhaps be improper to inform the public that neither did he know of my having undertaken this argument, nor I of his having discussed that subject, till we came mutually to exchange our papers, for the purpose of knowing one another's sentiments in regard to what we had written. Some authors have treated of ridicule, without marking the distinction between ridiculous and ludicrous ideas. But I presume the natural order of proceeding in this inquiry is to begin with ascertaining the nature of what is purely ludicrous. Things ludicrous and things ridiculous have this in common, that both excite pure laughter; the latter excite laughter mixed with disapprobation or contempt. My design is to analyze and explain that quality in things or ideas which makes them provoke pure laughter and entitles them to the name of ludicrous or laughable. When certain objects, qualities, or ideas, occur to our senses, memory, or imagination, we smile or laugh at them, and expect that other men should do the same. To smile on certain occasions is not less natural than to weep at the sight of distress or cry out when we feel pain. There are different kinds of laughter. As a boy, passing by night through a churchyard, sings or whistles in order to conceal his fear even from himself, so there are men, who, by forcing a smile, endeavor sometimes to hide from others, and from themselves too perhaps, their malevolence or envy. Such laughter is unnatural. The sound of it offends the ear; the features distorted by it seem horrible to the eye. A mixture of hypocrisy, malice, and cruel joy thus displayed on the countenance is one of the most hateful sights in nature, and transforms the "human face divine» into the visage of a fiend. Similar to this is the smile of a wicked person pleasing himself with the hope of accomplishing his evil purposes. Milton gives a striking picture of it in that well-known passage: "He ceased; for both seem'd highly pleased, and Death His famine should be fill'd, and bless'd his maw The pleasing emotion arising from the view of ludicrous ideas. is known to every one by experience, but, being a simple feeling, admits not of definition. It is to be distinguished from the laughter that generally attends it, as sorrow is to be distinguished from tears; for it is often felt in a high degree by those who are remarkable for gravity of countenance. Swift seldom laughed; notwithstanding his uncommon talents in wit and humor, and the extraordinary delight he seems to have had in surveying the ridiculous side of things. Philosophers have differed in their opinions concerning this matter. Aristotle, in the fifth chapter of his "Poetics," observes of comedy, that "it imitates those vices or meannesses only which partake of the ridiculous:- now the ridiculous [says he] conflicts in some fault or turpitude not attended with great pain, and not destructive.” It is clear that Aristotle here means to characterize not laughable qualities in general (as some have thought), but the objects of comic ridicule only; and in this view the definition is just, however it may have been overlooked or despised by comic writers. Crimes and misfortunes are often in modern plays, and were sometimes in the ancient, held up as objects of public merriment; but if poets had that reverence for nature which they ought to have, they would not shock the common sense of mankind by so absurd a representation. I wish our writers of comedy and romance would in this respect imitate the delicacy of their ancestors, the honest and brave savages of old Germany, of whom the historian says: "Nemo vitia ridet; nec corrumpere et corrumpi feculum vocatur." The definition from Aristotle does not, however, suit he general nature of ludicrous. ideas; for men laugh at that in which there is neither fault nor turpitude of any kind. From the "Essays of Laughter and I-27 |