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    Analysis ofLaughter. 17

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    No. 127.—I. C

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    Analysis Of Laughter

    unites it with the ludicrous of idea . We have seen , in treating * of surprise , that on the sudden

    interruption of one sensation b y another unusual sensation ( which neither by proper similarity , nor by effect of frequent previous combination , is harmoniously successive ) , a peculiarly lively emotion is developed . The

    contrast gives an excitement , which wifliin certain limits may be highly pleasurable . The sensations which cause laughter are a succession of such contrasts or surprises . The peculiarities of the human nervous

    system , by which the muscular contractions , in the easy spasmodic convulsions , which constitute that phenomenon , ensue , this is not the place to discuss ;—

    it is enough to remark , that the friskings and gambols of the young of all animals are analogous phenomena , —their laughter , as it were , performed by other muscles . —the

    demonstrations of high animal spirits , which , but for the rigidity of their facial muscles , might produce an appropriate expression of countenance . Man is not therefore so strictly alone , as a " laughing animal , " as he has been supposed .

    Laughter is also produced , and the pleasurable excitement of which it is the effect and sign , by the ideas of the sensations which cause it . A child is convulsed with laughter when threatened with tickling , before the quick menacing finger

    Analysis Of Laughter

    touches it ;—it laughs by sympathy ( that is , by association ) when it sees others tickled , though they endure it firmly ; every one has experienced how laughter provokes laughter , and has found himself in the

    somewhat foolish-looking scrape of having to enquire the joke , after being carried away involuntarily by the roar which met it . But there is a vast class of ludicrous circumstances , of

    which the source of power is not so obvious . The principle by which trains of thought , complicated sets of ideas , possess the power of exciting this very peculiar enjoyment , is a matter of far more difficult _analysis .

    The explanation , ordinarily offered and accepted , is , —that " the essence of the ludicrous is incongruity "—or that the ridiculousness of a proposition depends upon the excitement of a

    feeling of incongruity ;—and from the prevalence of this explanation ' ludicrous' and * incongruous' have become almost synonymous terms ; though in truth they are but to a very limited extent convertible .

    There are serious as well as laughable incongruities , incongruities of word and thought , of promise and _performance

    desert and reward , occasion and disposition , " the passion and the power / ' which are surely no examples of the ludicrous . Required—then—the denning characteristic of the ludicrous

    incongruities , or contrasts , by which this class is cut out of the diversified multitude ?

    Analysis Oflaughter. 17

    Analysis ofLaughter . 17

    No. 127.—I. C

    No . 127 . —I . C

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1837, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_01071837/page/15/