[58] Mr. Kipling suggests that the want of a proper nose in a family is regarded as a disgrace among the Hindoos (Kim, p. 81).
[59] It may be well to add, by way of caution, that the feeble semblance of laughter which a modern theatre-goer is apt to produce when he sees something risqué is not a simple form of laughter at the indecent. It is the outcome of a highly artificial attitude of mind, in which there is an oscillation of feeling between the readiness of the natural man to indulge and the fear of the civilised man that he may be carried too far.
[60] Op. cit., p. 45.
[61] Compare above, pp. 13 ff.
[62] As our mode of classification shows, we may regard these as primarily instances of laughable degradation. Nevertheless, some apprehension of contradiction is clearly involved.
[63] From a speech delivered by Sir John Parnell in the Irish House of Commons, 1795. See W. R. Le Fanu, Seventy Years of Irish Life, ch. xvi. (“Irish Bulls”).
[64] See Bergson, op. cit., p. 45.
[65] Poetics, v. i. (Butcher’s translation).
[66] A further and most important enlargement of Hobbes’ principle is made by Bain when he urges that the spectacle of degradation works upon us, not merely by way of the emotion of power or glory, but by way of the feeling of release from constraint. This point will more conveniently be dealt with later.
[67] Compare above, p. 100.