LAUGHTER, as physically defined, is an emotion entirely confined to the human species. It is a peculiar agitation of the body, an organical titillation as it were, which, rising suddenly and irresistibly, affects at once the face and throat, the thorax and the abdomen. Although this physical phenomenon is usually more or less loud, it is sometimes almost imperceptible, and only traceable by a slight muscular motion of the face and mouth. It is usually a pleasant sensation, but occasionally, as in cases of hysteria, it assumes a painfel character, and is no longer under the slightest control of the will. While however the corporeal phenomenon is so simple, the nature of the mental state, and of the object by which it is produced, is more complicated and debateable. On this subject a great variety of opinions has prevailed. Among the ancients there is more of unanimity than among the moderns. According to Aristotle, the ridiculous is some error in truth or propriety, but at the same time neither painful nor pernicious (vb ytip raoiov leTIl icaelfrrngd Ti ?cal alcrxot aruSburov ?cal ob 4earruafv. ' De Poet.; 6, g 1). Nearly coincident with the foregoing is the view of Cicero, who, while he declares that the ridiculous is incapable of any rigorous definition, admits that the chief, if not the sole object of laughter, is that which, without impropriety, marks out and exposes an impropriety (" Iltec enim ridcntur vet sole vel maxims (Lux notant et design:int turpitu dinem quandam non turpiter " De Oratore, 2, 11. 235). Quintilian considers it to bo absolutely indefinable (" Anceps ejus rei ratio est," lib. vi., c. 3). At the same time, by adducing the opinion of Cicero, that the improper and the deformed constitute the province of ridicule, and affirming that ridicule is near allied to contempt (" a derisu non precut abed Hews : " he approximates to the strong opinion of Hobbes among moderns, according to whom, the source of laughter is "a sudden glory arising from conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly " (` Human Nature,' eh. ix., s. 13). With Hobbes's opinion, that of Helvetii's coincides, who makes pride the source of laughter. Beattie and Priestley agree in making the ridiculous to arise out of a misrelation or incongruous union of objects ; while Lord Karnes considers a contrast to bo the essence of the laughable. Tholatter view is adopted
by Mendelsohn and J. Paul Richter. The former (` Dialogue' Klein phil. timid math. Schriften ') makes it to be grounded on a con trast between perfection and imperfection, which however must be unimportant and but slightly interesting to ass, and must amount to no more than an extravagance or inconsistency. The latter (in his ' l'orschule der 2Eralletik; p. 143) makes the ridiculous to bo tho contrary of the sublime, and consequently the infinitely sinalL Closely coincident with this view is that of Campbell (` Philosophy of Rhetoric,' b. i., eh. IL), who observes that " ridicule in futile objects, bath a similar effect to that produced by what is called the vehement in solemn and important matters." Lastly, Kant (' Kritik der Urtheilekraft,' p. 225, 2nd ed.) makes the ridiculous to arise from the sudden conversion into nothing of a long-raised and highly-wrought expectation.
According to Shaftesbnry (` Characteristics," Essay on Wit and II umour ') ridicule is the test of truth, and ho adduces in support of his view the words of Gorgias of beontini," Confute ridicule by serious ness and seriousness by ridicule" He ply 8ta00irpew yiACJTI, Si relaarra Arist.,' Ithet.; lib. 3, eh. xviii.). In order to adjust the sentence to his own view, Shaftesbury adopts the Latin version, "aerie risu, rieum aeriis diseutere ;" it is however clear from the context where the passage is quoted, that °orgies was there recom mending an orator to endeavour to remove the impression which his opponent may have made upon his auditors by employing a directly opposite style of address. But the maxim of Shaftesbury admits only of a negative application, for ridicule, at most, is only fitted to refute error. In truth however it is not properly levelled at the false, but at the absurd in tenets and opinions. The ridiculous is not any fixed and constant property of certain objects, but it is purely relative and dependent upon the subjective states and conditions of individual minds. The simpleton and the boor laugh heartily at what scarcely provokes a smile in the educated man and the sage ; and on the other hand, much will excite a laugh in the latter, which would not move a muscle in the face of the former. Such again is the effect of a gay or a gloomy temperanient, that a Democritus will laugh where a Heraclitus would weep.