204 THE rHYSIOLOGT OF LAUGHTER. 



m the roar which greets this C07itretemps. Inexplicable as 

 is this irresistible burst on the hypothesis of a pleasure in 

 escaping from mental restraint ; or on the hypothesis of a 

 pleasure from relative increase of self-importance, when 

 witnessing the humiliation of others ; it is readily explica- 

 ble if we consider what, in such a case, must become of the 

 feeling that existed at the moment the incongruity arose. 

 A large mass of emotion had been produced ; or, to speafe 

 in physiological language, a large portion of the nervous 

 system was in a state of tension. There was also great 

 expectation with respect to the further evolution of the 

 scene — a quantity of vague, nascent thought and emotion, 

 into which the existing quantity of thought and emotion 

 was about to pass. 



Had there been no interruption, the body of new ideas 

 and feelings next excited, would have sufficed to absorb 

 the whole of the liberated nervous energy. But now, this 

 large amount of nervous energy, instead of being allowed 

 to expend itself in producing an equivalent amount of the 

 new thoughts and emotions which were nascent, is suddenly 

 checked in its flow. The channels along which the dis- 

 charge was about to take place, are closed. The new chan- 

 nel opened — that aiforded by the appearance and proceed- 

 ings of the kid — is a small one ; the ideas and feelings 

 suggested are not numerous and massive enough to carry 

 oflT the nervous energy to be expended. The excess must 

 therefore discharge itself in some other direction ; and 

 in the way already explained, there results an efflux 

 through the motor nerves to various classes of the mus- 

 cles, producing the half-convulsive actions we terra 

 laughter. 



This explanation is in harmony with the fact, that when, 

 among several persons who witness the same ludicrous 

 occurrence, there are some who do not laugh ; it is because 

 there has arisen in them an emotion not participatad in by 



