NATURE, ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF HUMOR 155 



(learned reactions), composed of what the individual does for himself 

 and what is done for him, and (3) an ill-defined aspect that permeates 

 the other two and in addition occupies a separate existence of its own 

 made up of unmechanized and elementary mental factors. The second 

 aspect will be recognized as intelligence. Professor Boyce 12 calls it 

 " docility." It might be termed mechanized mind in that it represents 

 mind reduced to law and habit. Getting on in the world is dependent 

 to a degree on a certain quantum of mechanized mind. Common 

 speech employs such terms as habit, adjustment, education to designate 

 such an equipment. Several processes are involved in its making, such 

 as imitation, learning by " trial and error," by tradition and by 

 " understanding." Of these ways, those that make the most of 

 voluntary attention are the quickest in results and the most extrav- 

 agant with mental energy; here it is that mental tension reaches its 

 highest pitch. Relief comes in a variety of well-known ways, humor 

 perhaps being the most unique of the lot, from the fact that it accom- 

 plishes its purpose with the least expenditure of mental energy and at 

 a time, too, when the individual can ill afford to make sacrifices in the 

 interest of recreation. Considering then the nature of humor as a 

 mental process, and the nature of its stimulus, together with the con- 

 ditions under which it appears, it seems highly probable that it emerged 

 as a distinctive process from states of inattentive-freedom immediately 

 preceded by states of necessary-attention. 



TV. The Functions of Humor 



The psychical function of humor is to delicately cut the surface 

 tension of consciousness and disarrange its structure to the end that it 

 may begin again from a -new and strengthened base. It permits our 

 mental forces to reform under cover, as it were, while the battle is 

 still on. Then, too, it clarifies the field and reveals the strategic 

 points, or, to change the figure, it pulls off the mask and exposes the 

 real man. In fact, humor is an instrument to aid in the approach to 

 the realities of life- — not metaphysical, but real, realities ! 



The physiological function is common knowledge. Its influence on 

 adipose tissue has passed into a proverb, and Kant cherished the 

 belief that laughter had a beneficent effect upon our entire vegetative 

 life. Hecker advocated that it relieved the angemia of the brain in- 

 duced by the tickle. 



Its biological function in my judgment is far more unique in 

 mental economy than its nature as a process. I have already referred 

 to the unmechanized aspect of mind, a matter more readily believed 

 than easily proved. To adduce adequate evidence of its existence and 

 of the extent of its magnitude and importance over the mechanized and 

 hereditary portions of mind would lead us too far afield. For a better 



12 Royce, Josiah, " Outlines of Psychology," p. 38. 



