Yet another way of evading a glaring dualism may suggest itself. Allowing that the two principles are each valid, we might, at least, be able to combine them in the form of a single generalisation. This is what is done by Hazlitt, for example, who, though he finds the essence of the laughable in the incongruous, defines the ludicrous as involving disappointment of expectation by something having deformity or (something) inconvenient, that is what is contrary to the customary and desirable.[74] Herbert Spencer’s expression, a “descending incongruity,” is clearly a very similar mode of combining the principles.[75] Lipps’ theory of incongruity, with its distinction of a little, and a belittling presentation, might also, I think, easily be made to illustrate another mode of such combination. More recently Fouillée {138} and others have urged that the one principle in a manner supplements the other.[76]
It is evident, however, that this apparent mode of escape will not avail us. The combined theory implies that all cases of the laughable are at once incongruities and degradations, that is to say, perceived and felt to be such. In dealing with the principles separately, however, we have seen that, in the case of each alike, there are well-recognised examples of the laughable to which it does not apply. This conclusion manifestly carries with it the proposition that there are cases to which a combination of the principles does not apply.
A last attempt to escape this theoretic dualism would be to urge that the two principles rule in distinct realms. In that of the ludicrous proper, it might be urged, we have to do with the intellectual principle: it is only when the sphere is enlarged to include all that is laughable, and so the region of the ridiculous, that the principle of lowered dignity comes in.[77] Theorists may insist on such distinctions, but it seems to me that they cannot be maintained as hard and fast boundaries. As has been shown above, laughable things do not all affect us in quite the same way. A spice of malice comes into much of the laughter that greets the spectacle, say of a bit of successful trickery; yet this does not make the experience substantially different from that of enjoying some striking example of incongruity, say a good Irish “bull”. When the note of derision begins to sound clearly, there is of course no longer any suggestion of an effect of the laughable pure and simple.
The attempt to analyse our perceptions of the laughable {139} in the hope of discovering some single uniting principle has proved to be abortive. We find in the end that two causes of laughter remain on our hands.[78]
The most promising way of bringing the several laughable qualities and aspects of things under one descriptive head would seem to be to say that they all illustrate a presentation of something in the nature of a defect, a failure to satisfy some standard-requirement, as that of law or custom, provided that it is small enough to be viewed as a harmless plaything. Much, at least, of our laughter at the odd as opposed to the customary, at the deformed, at failure in good manners and the other observances of social life, at defects of intelligence and of character, at fixes and misfortunes—so far as the situation implies want of foresight—at the lack of a perception of the fitness of things, and at other laughable features, may undoubtedly be regarded as directed to something which fails to comply with a social requirement, yet is so trifling that we do not feel called upon to judge the shortcoming severely.
I am sure that to look at the laughable in this way is an indispensable step in the construction of a theory of the subject. We must, as we shall see presently, supplement the common mode of dealing with laughter as an abstract psychological problem, by bringing into view its social function. Yet this does not necessarily mean that the consideration of this function will lead us straightway to a simple theory of the ludicrous. As hinted in the preceding chapter, we may easily exaggerate the more serious function of laughter, and this point will be made clearer in subsequent chapters.
That the effects of the laughable cannot all be brought under the head of means of social correction or improvement, {140} may, even at this stage of our inquiry, be seen by considering another point, to which we will now turn. No analysis of the qualities of things in which the laughable resides will enable us to account for the mirthful effects of these, even while we remain within the limits of what is commonly recognised as the ludicrous. This has been illustrated in the preceding chapter, and a word or two more may suffice to make it clear.
I have tried to show that some at least of the spectacles that shake us with laughter do so by satisfying something within us akin to the child’s delight in the gloriously new and extravagant. This, again, means that these spectacles make appeal to that primitive form of laughter, already illustrated, which is called forth by some sudden increase of joy. Our rejoicing at the sight of the clown’s droll costume and funny movements has in it something of the laughing joy of the savage when he is shown some mechanical wonder of Europe, something of the laughing joy of the infant at the sudden invasion of his nursery wall by a dancing sunbeam.[79]
A little more reflection on the groups of laughable things will show that other ingredients of this primitive laughter are present in our appreciation of the ludicrous. Dr. Bain finds himself compelled to eke out the deficiencies of the Hobbesian principle by urging that the spectacle of degradation may move us to laughter, not merely by exciting the feeling of power or superiority (as Hobbes said), but by supplying a sudden release from a state of constraint. The abandonment of the serious attitude in church when some trivial incident occurs is an instance of a lowering of the dignity of a thing, or an occasion, which refreshes {141} us with a sense of liberation.[80] This idea carries us much farther than the author thinks. The joyous deliverance from pressure and constraint will, I think, be found to reinforce other mental agencies in many cases of ludicrous presentation in which no degradation is discoverable. Sometimes the constraint is very severe; witness the effect when the narrator of a funny story knows how to wind up the emotion of fear to just the right pitch in order to give us the delicious run down of the mental works when the funny dénouement bursts upon us. Here our laughter has a large support in the joyous relief from nervous tension.
In other cases, again, the release comes as an interruption of a solemn occasion by the intrusion of something disconnected, and, by contrast, trifling. The tittering in a church at a small contretemps has been our illustration. There is incongruity here between two orders of ideas, if you like; or, as I should prefer to put it, between two levels of interest. For the point is that the interruption must seem ludicrous by exhibiting clearly a trifling character, by powerfully suggesting a non-reverent point of view.