It properly means, a real and
essential likeness, and to use it in any other sense, is to employ it
falsely. But our amusement is greatly increased when associations are
violated, and much amusement may by made by showing there is some
considerable likeness between two objects we have been accustomed to
regard as very far apart. The smaller the similarity pointed out the
slighter is the chain which connects the distant objects, and the less
we are inclined to laugh. But the more we draw the objects together, the
greater is the complication and the humour. We are then inclined to
associate the qualities of the one with the other, and a succession of
grotesque images is suggested backwards and forwards, before the
amusement ceases. One principal reason why the mention of a drunken man,
a tailor, or a lover, inclines us to mirth, is that they are associated
in our minds with absurd actions. Laughter is generally greatest when we
are intimately acquainted with the person against whom it is directed.
We have often noticed the absurd effect produced in literature when
words are used which, although suitable to the subject literally, are
remote from it in association. The extreme subtlety of these feelings
render it impossible sometimes to give any explanation of the ideas upon
which a humorous saying is founded, and may be noticed in many words,
the bearings of which we can feel, but not specify.
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