328 MAN AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



When strongly integrated to laughter, the nervous 

 system can perform no other function. 



According to Darwin, the only animals which laugh 

 are men and monkeys. Other animals exhibit play- 

 ful phenomena, and some exhibit certain types of 

 facial expression which are associated with delight. 

 But laughter, in the common sense of the word, is 

 an attribute of the primates only; and even among 

 men, proneness to laughter has a more or less limited 

 distribution. It is more common, for instance, among 

 healthy and happy, well-fed and comfortable individ- 

 uals, than among the diseased, the oppressed and 

 the poorly nourished. Laughter is more common 

 among civilized than among savage races, and among 

 highly intellectual individuals than among the stolid 

 and crude inhabitants of the waste places of the earth. 

 It is more frequent among individuals whose lives 

 lie in the easy ways of luxury and leisure than among 

 those whose waking moments are filled with an abun- 

 dance of muscular activity. The Indian, the Eski- 

 mau, the Hottentot, laughs seldom, according to our 

 standards. The Canadian woodsman, the mountain 

 guide, the lonely cowboy, the range rider of the western 

 plains, the heavy burden bearers of the Orient, the 

 field workers among the poorer peasantry of the Euro- 

 pean countries, the women miners of Belgium, are all 

 less prone to laughter and also to weeping than 

 the excitable mental workers of American cities, or 

 the lazy, well-fed and happy-go-lucky negro plantation 

 'hands.' The energy of the savage and of the "man 

 with the hoe" like that of animals is preempted for a 

 physical contest with nature. In the individual whose 



