1896.] on the Theory of the Ludicrous. 103 



Ludicrous is inseparable from his particular doctrine of perceptible 

 and abstract ideas. And therefore it is not necessary for me, on the 

 present occasion, to enter upon an examination of that doctrine ; of 

 which I am heartily glad, for to do so, even in briefest outline, 

 would take up far more time than is left of my hour. Besides, I 

 hate talking metaphysics after dinner, and I fancy very few people 

 really like hearing metaphysics talked at that period of the day. 

 Again, Schopenhauer certainly uses unguarded and too general 

 language when he tells us that all laughter is occasioned by the 

 paradoxical, and therefore unexpected, subsumption of an object 

 under a conception which in other respects is different from it. The 

 phenomenon of laughter may be due to a variety of causes. It may 

 be due to merely physical causes, as I pointed out just now. It may 

 be due to quite other mental causes than paradoxical and unexpected 

 subsumption. Paradoxical and unexpected subsumption is not the 

 explanation of the heavenly laughter of which Dante speaks in the 

 twenty-seventh canto of the ' Paradise ' — the laughter of Beatrice, " so 

 gladsome that in her countenance God himself appeared to rejoice." 



" Ma ella che vedeva il mio disire 

 Incommincio, ridendo, tanto lieta 

 Che Dio parea nel suo volto gioire." 



It is not the explanation of what is called fiendish laughter, laughter 

 propter malitiam, the outcome of mere malice — the sort of laughter 

 which, by the way, one of his critics has attributed to Schoj^enhauer 

 himself; the laugh of a demon over the fiasco of the universe. It is 

 not the explanation of that ringing laugh of pure human happiness 

 which one sometimes hears from the lips of young girls ; is there any 

 music like it ? They laugh as the birds sing. Nor is the laughter 

 of women at their lovers — a common phenomenon enough — always to 

 be referred to the paradoxical and therefore unexpected subsumption of 

 an object under a conception which in other respects is different from 

 it. It is far oftener the expression of mere triumph. " The out- 

 burst of laughter," Dr. Bain truly tells us in his ' Mental and Moral 

 Science,' " is a frequent accompaniment of the emotion of power," 

 But it is sometimes a manifestation of pain too deep for tears. This 

 is the laughter of which Antigone speaks : 'AXyovaa [xkv Stjt d yeAwr' 

 €v o-oi yeAto — " I laugh in sorrow if I laugh at thee." That laugh of 

 sorrow — so piercing and pathetic ! — who does not know it ? Surely it 

 is the saddest thing in the world. Lastly, not to continue unduly 

 the enumeration, laughter is very often the expression of mere mental 

 vacuity. I remember a gentleman who was fond of relating utterly 

 imbecile stories concerning himself, the invariable ending of them 

 being, " And then I roared." We gave him the name of the Eoarer, 

 and fled at his approach as we would have done from a ramping and 

 roaring lion. But I am quite sure his laughter was not due to the 

 paradoxical, and therefore unexpected, subsumption of an object under 

 a conception which in other respects was difl'ercnt from it. No ; his 



