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nal beings. Should the blemifh or defed be in any vital attri- 

 bute or quality, either effential to the health and well-bemg of 

 the fubjed, or requifite to the due performance of its duty and 

 fundions for the common good, mirth will not be the confe- 

 quence ; the gay contempt will be checked either by a fenfe of 

 the pain or inconvenience which the defed or blemifh in queftion 

 muft caufe to the fubjed before us, or the alarming confcquences 

 whicli may redound from it to fociety ; and our feelings, inftead 

 of mirth, will be fomething far different ; forrow and pity in the 

 one cafe; terror, difguft, indignation or hatred in the other. 



The foregoing definitions of ri'dicule and the ridiculous 

 take in mental as well as corporeal objeds, and are literally bor- 

 lowed from the great philofophical critic of Greece — " To ya,^ 

 " yiXoiov (fays Arijiotle) i;ui ^Aff,a.ply]f^(x, n kxi (xia-^^ (xmu^wov kdu « 

 " ^^xoIkiov oiov 6u9'i;j to •yiXoiov wpo(rcinrov aKryf^ov ri kxi ot£;pxfjt,i/,Bvov ctveu 

 " 'O^uvii;." And ridicule^ according to him, confifts in the rcpre- 

 fenting (to <pa.vXo]eoov aXX a fj,evjoi y.a)x woccrocv xocxixy) the foibles and 

 lighter vices of the mind, and flight corporeal blcmiflies and 

 defeds. Thefe are what Mr. Hobbes diftinguiflies by the name 

 of infirmities. 



The peculiar emotion excited by ridicule, independent of the 

 pleafure refulting from the truth of the imitation, is called 

 MIRTH; a fenfation which has been improperly confounded with 

 laughter by fome writers who have profeffed to treat this fubjed, 

 particularly by Mr. Hutchefon, the moral philofopher, and a 

 Dr. Campbell, in a book which bears the impofing title of 

 Philofophy of Rhetoric. Laughter is a mere corporeal involuntary 



affedion, 





t 



