If we consider that an angle requires two lines meeting so that if they are produced they will intersect each other; on the other hand, that the tangent of a circle only touches it at one point, but at this point is really parallel to it; and accordingly have present to our minds the abstract conviction of the impossibility of an angle between the circumference of a circle and its tangent; and if now such an angle lies visibly before us upon paper, this will easily excite a smile. The ludicrousness in this case is exceedingly weak; but yet the source of it in the incongruity of what is thought and perceived appears in it with exceptional distinctness. When we discover such an incongruity, the occasion for laughter that thereby arises is, according as we pass from the real, i.e., the perceptible, to the conception, or conversely from the conception to the real, either a witticism or an absurdity, which in a higher degree, and especially in the practical sphere, is folly, as was explained in the text. Now to consider examples of the first case, thus of wit, we shall first of all take the familiar anecdote of the Gascon at whom the king laughed when he saw him in light summer clothing in the depth of winter, and who thereupon said to the king: “If your Majesty had put on what I have, you would find it very warm;” and on being asked what he had put on, replied: “My whole wardrobe!” Under this last conception we have to think both the unlimited wardrobe of a king and the single summer coat of a poor devil, the sight of which upon his freezing body shows its great incongruity with the conception. The audience in a theatre in Paris once called for the “Marseillaise” to be played, and as this was not done, began shrieking and [pg 273] howling, so that at last a commissary of police in uniform came upon the stage and explained that it was not allowed that anything should be given in the theatre except what was in the playbill. Upon this a voice cried: “Et vous, Monsieur, êtes-vous aussi sur l'affiche?”—a hit which was received with universal laughter. For here the subsumption of what is heterogeneous is at once distinct and unforced. The epigramme:
“Bav is the true shepherd of whom the Bible spake:
Though his flock be all asleep, he alone remains awake:”
subsumes, under the conception of a sleeping flock and a waking shepherd, the tedious preacher who still bellows on unheard when he has sent all the people to sleep. Analogous to this is the epitaph on a doctor: “Here lies he like a hero, and those he has slain lie around him;” it subsumes under the conception, honourable to the hero, of “lying surrounded by dead bodies,” the doctor, who is supposed to preserve life. Very commonly the witticism consists in a single expression, through which only the conception is given, under which the case presented can be subsumed, though it is very different from everything else that is thought under it. So is it in “Romeo” when the vivacious Mercutio answers his friends who promise to visit him on the morrow: “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.” Under this conception a dead man is here subsumed; but in English there is also a play upon the words, for “a grave man” means both a serious man and a man of the grave. Of this kind is also the well-known anecdote of the actor Unzelmann. In the Berlin theatre he was strictly forbidden to improvise. Soon afterwards he had to appear on the stage on horseback, and just as he came on the stage the horse dunged, at which the audience began to laugh, but laughed much more when Unzelmann said to the horse: “What are you doing? Don't you know we are forbidden to improvise?” Here the subsumption of the heterogeneous [pg 274] under the more general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly happy, and the ludicrous effect produced by it excessively strong. To this class also belongs the following announcement from Hall in a newspaper of March 1851: “The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were again delivered over to us with obligato accompaniment.” This subsuming of a police escort under a musical term is very happy, though it approaches the mere play upon words. On the other hand, it is exactly a case of the kind we are considering when Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli, describes him as “Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body.” The small statue of the actor was known to the whole town, and thus under the conception “great” unusual smallness was presented to the mind. Also when the same Saphir calls the airs of a new opera “good old friends,” and so brings the quality which is most to be condemned under a conception which is usually employed to commend. Also, if we should say of a lady whose favour could be influenced by presents, that she knew how to combine the utile with the dulci. For here we bring the moral life under the conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an æsthetical reference. Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the “modest abode of quiet joys.” Good society, in order to be thoroughly insipid, has forbidden all decided utterances, and therefore all strong expressions. Therefore it is wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them by expressing them through general conceptions. But in this way it happens that they are more or less incongruously subsumed, and in a corresponding degree the effect of the ludicrous is produced. To this class belongs the use of utile dulci referred to above, and also such expressions as the following: “He had unpleasantness at the ball” when he was thrashed and kicked out; or, “He has done too well” when he is drunk; and also, “The woman has [pg 275] weak moments” if she is unfaithful to her husband, &c. Equivocal sayings also belong to the same class. They are conceptions which in themselves contain nothing improper, but yet the case brought under them leads to an improper idea. They are very common in society. But a perfect example of a full and magnificent equivocation is Shenstone's incomparable epitaph on a justice of the peace, which, in its high-flown lapidary style, seems to speak of noble and sublime things, while under each of their conceptions something quite different is to be subsumed, which only appears in the very last word as the unexpected key to the whole, and the reader discovers with loud laughter that he has only read a very obscene equivocation. In this smooth-combed age it is altogether impossible to quote this here, not to speak of translating it; it will be found in Shenstone's poetical works, under the title “Inscription.” Equivocations sometimes pass over into mere puns, about which all that is necessary has been said in the text.
Further, the ultimate subsumption, ludicrous to all, of what in one respect is heterogeneous, under a conception which in other respects agrees with it, may take place contrary to our intention. For example, one of the free negroes in North America, who take pains to imitate the whites in everything, quite recently placed an epitaph over his dead child which begins, “Lovely, early broken lily.” If, on the contrary, something real and perceptible is, with direct intention, brought under the conception of its opposite, the result is plain, common irony. For example, if when it is raining hard we say, “Nice weather we are having to-day;” or if we say of an ugly bride, “That man has found a charming treasure;” or of a knave, “This honest man,” &c. &c. Only children and quite uneducated people will laugh at such things; for here the incongruity between what is thought and what is perceived is total. Yet just in this direct exaggeration in the production of the ludicrous its fundamental character, [pg 276] incongruity, appears very distinctly. This species of the ludicrous is, on account of its exaggeration and distinct intention, in some respects related to parody. The procedure of the latter consists in this. It substitutes for the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignificant low persons or trifling motives and actions. It thus subsumes the commonplace realities which it sets forth under the lofty conceptions given in the theme, under which in a certain respect they must come, while in other respects they are very incongruous; and thereby the contrast between what is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of familiar examples of this, and therefore I shall only give one, from the “Zobeide” of Carlo Gozzi, act iv., scene 3, where the famous stanza of Ariosto (Orl. Fur., i. 22), “Oh gran bontà de' cavalieri antichi,” &c., is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been thrashing each other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side. This is also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial events, which clearly contains a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which the verse expresses. Thus, for example, when any one has displayed a very characteristic trait, there will rarely be wanting some one to say, “From that I know with whom I have to do.” But it was original and very witty of a man who was in love with a young bride to quote to the newly married couple (I know not how loudly) the concluding words of Schiller's ballad, “The Surety:”
“Let me be, I pray you,
In your bond the third.”
The effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitable, because under the conceptions through which Schiller presents to the mind a moral and noble relation, a forbidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet correctly and without change, thus is thought through it. [pg 277] In all the examples of wit given here we find that under a conception, or in general an abstract thought, a real thing is, directly, or by means of a narrower conception, subsumed, which indeed, strictly speaking, comes under it, and yet is as different as possible from the proper and original intention and tendency of the thought. Accordingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a conception under which it certainly can be thought, though it is very different from all the other objects which come under this conception.
The second species of the ludicrous follows, as we have mentioned, the opposite path from the abstract conception to the real or perceptible things thought through it. But this now brings to light any incongruity with the conception which was overlooked, and hence arises an absurdity, and therefore in the practical sphere a foolish action. Since the play requires action, this species of the ludicrous is essential to comedy. Upon this depends the observation of Voltaire: “J'ai cru remarquer aux spectacles, qu'il ne s'élève presque jamais de ces éclats de rire universels, qu'à l'occasion d'une méprise” (Preface de L'Enfant Prodigue). The following may serve as examples of this species of the ludicrous. When some one had declared that he was fond of walking alone, an Austrian said to him: “You like walking alone; so do I: therefore we can go together.” He starts from the conception, “A pleasure which two love they can enjoy in common,” and subsumes under it the very case which excludes community. Further, the servant who rubbed a worn sealskin in his master's box with Macassar oil, so that it might become covered with hair again; in doing which he started from the conception, “Macassar oil makes hair grow.” The soldiers in the guard-room who allowed a prisoner who was brought in to join in their game of cards, then quarrelled with him for cheating, and turned him out. They let themselves be led by the general conception, “Bad companions [pg 278] are turned out,” and forget that he is also a prisoner, i.e., one whom they ought to hold fast. Two young peasants had loaded their gun with coarse shot, which they wished to extract, in order to substitute fine, without losing the powder. So one of them put the mouth of the barrel in his hat, which he took between his legs, and said to the other: “Now you pull the trigger slowly, slowly, slowly; then the shot will come first.” He starts from the conception, “Prolonging the cause prolongs the effect.” Most of the actions of Don Quixote are also cases in point, for he subsumes the realities he encounters under conceptions drawn from the romances of chivalry, from which they are very different. For example, in order to support the oppressed he frees the galley slaves. Properly all Münchhausenisms are also of this nature, only they are not actions which are performed, but impossibilities, which are passed off upon the hearer as having really happened. In them the fact is always so conceived that when it is thought merely in the abstract, and therefore comparatively a priori, it appears possible and plausible; but afterwards, if we come down to the perception of the particular case, thus a posteriori the impossibility of the thing, indeed the absurdity of the assumption, is brought into prominence, and excites laughter through the evident incongruity of what is perceived and what is thought. For example, when the melodies frozen up in the post-horn are thawed in the warm room—when Münchhausen, sitting upon a tree during a hard frost, draws up his knife which has dropped to the ground by the frozen jet of his own water, &c. Such is also the story of the two lions who broke down the partition between them during the night and devoured each other in their rage, so that in the morning there was nothing to be found but the two tails.
There are also cases of the ludicrous where the conception under which the perceptible facts are brought does not require to be expressed or signified, but comes into [pg 279] consciousness itself through the association of ideas. The laughter into which Garrick burst in the middle of playing tragedy because a butcher in the front of the pit, who had taken off his wig to wipe the sweat from his head, placed the wig for a while upon his large dog, who stood facing the stage with his fore paws resting on the pit railings, was occasioned by the fact that Garrick started from the conception of a spectator, which was added in his own mind. This is the reason why certain animal forms, such as apes, kangaroos, jumping-hares, &c., sometimes appear to us ludicrous because something about them resembling man leads us to subsume them under the conception of the human form, and starting from this we perceive their incongruity with it.