328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



only morbid in that slender sense. The word " play " carries us for- 

 ward in a slightly different direction. Jocosities of all degrees of evo- 

 lution — (1) puns, (2) witticisms, and (3) humorous statements — are the 

 " play of mind " ; play in the sense in which the word has been used 

 in the remark that the " sesthetic sentiments originate from the play 

 impulse." A further definition of play as thus used is given in the fol- 

 lowing quotation from Spencer : " The activities we call play are united 

 with jEsthetic activities by the trait that neither subserve, in any direct 

 way, the processes conducive to life." * There would be a great intel- 

 lectual advance — due, I presume, to internal evolution — when man be- 

 gan to value things for their beauty apart from their use, one sign of 

 his having " got above " his mere animal self. For it showed that, 

 over and above mind required for mere animal existence, he had some 

 surplus mind for greater ends of life. So I contend that our race owes 

 some respect to the first punster. For the dawn of a sense of the 

 merely ridiculous, as in punning and the simplest jokes, shows the 

 same thing as the dawn of tcsthetio feeling — surplus mind, something 

 over and above that required for getting food and for mere animal in- 

 dulgence. All the more so if punning be that out of which wit and 

 humor are evolved. It is not a good sign if a man be deficient in hu- 

 mor, unless he have compensation, as Wordsworth had, in a sense of 

 the sublime, or in great artistic feeling, or in metaphysical subtlety. 

 The man who has no sense of humor, who takes things to be literally 

 as distinct as they superficially aj^pear, does not see fundamental simi- 

 larities in the midst of great superficial differences, overlooks the tran- 

 sitions between great contrasts. I do not mean because he has no sense 

 of humor, but because he has not the surplus intellect which sense of 

 humor implies. Humor, being the " play " of mind, is tracing deeji, 

 fanciful resemblances in things known to be very different. This is 

 "playing" at generalization, and is only a caricature of the same kind 

 of process which made Goethe declare that a skull is a modified j^art 

 of a vertebral column. 



Now I am about — not really digressing from Avhat I have just said 

 — to say something which sounds very paradoxical : that persons who 

 are deficient in appreciation of jocosities in their degrees of evolution, 

 are in corresponding degrees deficiently realistic in their scientific con- 

 ceptions. One would infer this a jiHori. Every child knows that a 

 man born blind has no idea of light ; but the educated adult knows, 

 too, that the congenitally blind have no notion of darkness. And I 

 think that observation confirms what a priori seems likely — that par/ 

 jmssu with the evolution of the sentiment of jocosity (playing at un- 

 reality) is the evolution of power of realistic scientific conception — 

 from sense of the merely ridiculous with parallel realistic conception 

 of simple things, up to sense of humor Avith parallel realistic concep- 

 tion of complex things. But we must be on our guard not to take 

 * " Principles of Psychology," vol. ii, p. C27. 



