We do so with regard to the
so-called works of Nature, and, therefore, we never laugh at a rock or a
tree--no matter how strange its form. But in the general circumstances
brought before us the reign of law is not so clear, especially when they
depend on the actions of men, which we feel able to pronounce judgment
upon, and condemn when opposed to our ideal. In humorous representations
we are actually beholding what is false; in ludicrous we think we are,
though we cannot avoid at times detecting some infirmity in our own
discernment. Thus, in the case of a child's puzzle, a person unable to
solve it sometimes exclaims, "How dull I am! I ought to be able to do
it," and people occasionally find fault with their senses, as we
sometimes see them laughing when dazzled by rapidly revolving colours.
Such instances may suggest to us that the fault we find really
originates in our own obtuseness.
But before proceeding, we must allow that philosophers and literary men
are divided in opinion as to the existence of any feeling of wrong in
the ludicrous. Voltaire, tilting against the windmills which the old
animosity school had set up, observes, "When I was eleven years old, I
read all alone for the first time the 'Amphitryon' of Moliere, and I
laughed until I was on the point of falling down. Was this from
hostility?--one is not hostile when alone!" This will not seem to most
of us more conclusive reasoning than that of his opponents.
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