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to produce the fenfe of weight, that feeling bordering on pain,- 

 whieh accompanies our enjoyments of a more exquifite degree.- 

 The pleafure attending mirth being, comparatively fpeaking, 

 faint, the relaxation of the nerves muft confequently be incon- 

 fiderable. The due fecretion of the humours is but little inter- 

 rupted ; the accefs of animal fpirits to the breaft is trifling; 

 barely fufficient, not to overwhelm, but flimulate the nerves ; 

 and, by a certain mild irritation, to produce that agreeable con- 

 vulfion called laughter. That irritation is the immediate caufe 

 oi laughter is evident, from involuntary laughter being produced 

 by ticklings which can only operate by irritating the nerves. 

 That the irritation., in the cafe of mirth, proceeds from an extra- 

 ordinary afflux of humours may be inferred from this, that vio-- 

 lent and long continued laughter is always attended by an eva- 

 cuation of humours in the form of tears. That the emotion of 

 the mind, of which laughter is an expreffion, does adually pro- 

 duce fome relaxation of the frame, and that the nerves are indeed 

 irritated, may fairly be colleded from our experience, that invo- 

 luntary laughter is incident to hifterical patients, in whom the, 

 nerves being weak and irritable, an uneven and interrupted 

 fecretion is produced by their weaknefs, and perpetually affails 

 their irritability. That laughter, when expreffive of pleafure, 

 expreffes but 2l pleafure of a faint and fubordinate kindj is mani- 

 feft from its taking place fo early in young children. It is 

 obfervable that infants not many days born laugh; they even 

 laugh in their fleep long before they are fufceptible of mirth or 

 forrow, even before they begin to fhed tears. In that early 

 flage, before the nerves have gained their tone, or the organs 

 learned their ufe ; before the creature pays any attention to exter- 

 nal 



