One further contribution to the fun of the world made by this hot eagerness to pay homage to rank is perhaps worth a reference. Like the verbal kind, the flattery of imitation is often visibly hollow. When the soul of man or woman is held captive by the necessity of doing what is done by {279} others—especially by others higher up—there is no room for thought of sincerity: whence, among many results, this one, that for him who can be pure spectator responsive to the amusing aspects of things, the spectacle of a great national demonstration of loyalty cannot fail to have its diverting aspect.
No doubt the pushing worshippers of fashion, if they only wait long enough, get their chance of laughing back. As soon as the new thing, so charged with rollicking gaiety at first, settles down to a commonplace habit, there comes the moment for ridiculing the belated imitator. That popular figure on the stage, the “old dowdy,” is commonly represented as ridiculously behind the times in respect of attire. Yet the range of jocosity inspired by respect for mere newness, on the value of which reason has had nothing to say, is evidently limited.
We may now turn to those deeper currents of change which together make up social progress; including all distinct advance from lower to higher forms of intelligence, sentiment and character, as well as from lower to higher types of social life; and, along with these, the growth of institutions in which these changes express themselves.
We may assume that these progressive changes arise, either from the adoption of the products of superior mental capacity appearing in individuals who are members of the community, or from the propagation of ideas, inventions, institutions from one country to another.
To say precisely how the production and circulation of a social improvement takes place is not easy. Men of imaginative minds, with an exceptionally large mechanical, legislative, or other insight, or with a fine feeling for the subtle things of beauty or of the moral order, there must be. Against all attempted innovation, however, whether {280} from within or from without, the attitude of conservatism sets itself as a serious obstacle. Here, too, we seem to perceive the charm and influence of rank. It is only when some recognised authority proclaims the value of the new discovery that the multitude, which was perhaps a moment before doing its best to trample on it, turns deferentially and kneels. The free adoption of it as true or as good commonly follows much later.
A startlingly new idea, whether in science, religion, or the utilities of life, finds in its intrinsic reasonableness no defence against the attacks of malicious mirth. The ordinary mind when it laughs, just as when it is serious, judges things by the standard of what is customary. What violently jars with this is viewed as legitimate game for ridicule. The history of ideas and of the social movements growing out of them is one long illustration of this truth. The idea of a larger freedom and higher functions for women was treated by the theatre of ancient Greece as matter for wild hilarity. The idea came up again and again after this, thanks to the zeal and courage of isolated advocates. But it continued to excite the loud laughter of the crowd. And less than half a century ago, when J. S. Mill advocated the spiritual and legal emancipation of women, the response was at first largely an expression of amusement. Only to-day is a part of the civilised world beginning to recognise the naturalness and fitness of the idea that women should have their share, both in the intellectual gains of the more advanced education, and in the larger work of the world.
We may see by this illustration how mighty a force every new idea of a large revolutionary character has to meet and to overcome. Darwin’s idea of the evolution of man seemed in the sixties to the mass of Englishmen, including a bishop {281} of Oxford and many another high up in the scale of intellectual culture, very much as some of the teachings of our missionaries strike a keen-witted savage. The figure of the monkey, which is, by the way, one of the oldest symbols of caricature, rendered excellent service to those who, naturally enough, greeted the proposed topsy-turvyness of Darwinism with boisterous cachinnations.
It is much the same with the attitude of the crowd towards the first use of practical inventions. Much merriment accompanied the introduction from abroad by the gallants of the Restoration of so simple an innovation as the use of the fork[243]—a fact to be remembered by the English tourist abroad when he is disposed to laugh at the sight of a too lavish use of the knife. In such cases, the first adopters of the novelty are laughed at very much as in the case of a new fashion. The absurdity of the adoption in either case turns on the delightful freshness and the glorious irregularity of the proceeding.
On the other hand, we meet here, too, with a recoil of laughter upon the laugher. Though a respect for the customary prompts us at first to ridicule any sudden and impressive change in ideas or habits of life, yet, when the change is in a fair way of becoming fixed, the same feeling will urge us to make merry over those who show an obstinate prejudice in favour of the old. Laughter finds one of its chief functions in ridiculing worn-out ideas, beliefs that have been proved illusory, and discarded habits of life. Nowhere, perhaps, is the elation of mirth more distinctly audible than in this ridicule by an advancing age of survivals of the discarded ways of its predecessors. Art gives us many examples of this merriment over what is decaying and growing effete. Every age of stir and {282} commotion has probably had its satirical literature, striking with boisterous mirth at the disappearing phantoms. The broad and genial comedy of Aristophanes pushed against the tottering mythology of his time, and the fall evoked a large outflow of mirth. The great work of Cervantes and the satires (pasquins) of the same period poked fun at the sentimental clinging to the decaying order of chivalry and feudalism.[244]
Merry-making over the death of outworn ideas and institutions has frequently been reinforced by the deep and refreshing expiration which accompanies relief from pressure. This elemental form of laughter has entered into all those happy moments of national life when the whole people has become closely united in a joyous self-abandonment. Plautus, the comedian of the people, reflects in his broad merriment the rebound of the spirit after the second Punic War from a long continued state of tension, and the craving of the masses for a more unrestrained enjoyment of the pleasures of life.[245] The popular art of the Middle Ages, in which the demons seem to play the harmless part of the policeman in a modern pantomime, illustrates the rebound from an oppressive superstition. A like relief of tension and outburst of pent-up spirits are recognisable in the literature of the Reformation and of the English Restoration.