208 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER. 



tolerably obvious answer. The repetition of .1 lesson, or 

 set speech previously thought out, implies the flow of a 

 very moderate amount of nervous excitement through a 

 comparatively narrow channel. The thing to be clone is 

 simply to call up in succession certain previously-arranged 

 ideas a process in which no great amount of mental 

 energy is expended. Hence, when there is a large quantity 

 of emotion, which must be discharged in some direction or 

 other ; and when, as usually happens, the restricted scries 

 of intellectual actions to be gone through, docs not suffice 

 to carry it off: there result discharges along other channels 



&amp;gt; 



besides the one prescribed : there arc aroused various 

 ideas foreign to the train of thought to be pursued ; and 

 these tend to exclude from consciousness those which 

 should occupy it. 



And now observe the meaning of those bodily actions 

 spontaneously set up under these circumstances. The 

 school-boy saying his lesson, commonly has his fingers 

 actively engaged perhaps in twisting about a broken pen, 

 or perhaps squeezing the angle of his jacket ; and if told to 

 keep his hands still, he soon again falls into the same or a 

 similar trick. Many anecdotes are current of public speak 

 ers having incurable automatic actions of this class : barris 

 ters who perpetually wound and unwound pieces of tape ; 

 members of parliament ever putting on and taking off their 

 spectacles. So long as such movements are unconscious, 

 they facilitate the mental actions. At least this seems a 

 fair inference from the fact that confusion frequently re 

 sults from putting a stop to them : witness the case nar 

 rated by Sir Walter Scott of his school-fellow, who became 

 unable to say his lesson after the removal of the waistcoat- 

 button that he habitually fingered while in class. But 

 why do they facilitate the mental actions? Clearly be 

 cause they draw off a portion of the surplus nervous 

 excitement. If, as above explained, the quantity of men- 



