Jean Paul proceeds to say that the more
people laugh at our joke, the better we are pleased, and that this does
not seem as though the enjoyment came from a feeling of triumph. But
what is really laughed at is the humour, and not the humorist, and as a
man wishes the beauty of a poem he has written to be generally
acknowledged, so he desires to see the point of his satire appreciated
by as many as possible.
A fruitful source of error in the investigation of humour arises from
the difficulty in determining where it lies--of localizing it, if I may
be allowed the expression. We hear a very amusing observation, and at
once join heartily in the laugh, but cannot say whether we are laughing
at a circumstance or a person, at a representation or a reality.
We come now to the most important authority on this side of the
question. The systems which the German philosophers have propounded are
more serviceable to themselves than edifying to the ordinary reader.
High abstractions afford but a very vague and indefinite idea to the
mind, nor can their application be fully understood but by those who
have ascended the successive stages by which each philosopher has
himself mounted. On the present subject, their opinions seem to have
been influenced by their views on other subjects. As we have already
observed, Kant and several of the leading German idealists are in favour
of considering the ludicrous as a "resolution" or a "deliverance of the
absolute, captive by the finite," an opinion which reminds us of
Hobbes' old theory of "glorying over others.
Pages:
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349