The adjective “comic” (Gr. κωμικός), which strictly means that which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the sense of “laughter-provoking”: it is distinguished from “humorous” or “witty” inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic, have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed that the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential, if not the essential, factor: thus Hobbes speaks of laughter as a “sudden glory.” Physiological explanations have been given by Kant, Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, babies being watched from infancy and the date of their first smile being carefully recorded. For an admirable analysis and account of the theories see James Sully, On Laughter (1902), who deals generally with the development of the “play instinct” and its emotional expression.
See [Drama]; also [Humour]; [Caricature]; [Play], &c.
COMENIUS (or Komensky), JOHANN AMOS (1592-1671), a famous writer on education, and the last bishop of the old church of the Moravian and Bohemian Brethren, was born at Comna, or, according to another account, at Niwnitz, in Moravia, of poor parents belonging to the sect of the Moravian Brethren. Having studied at Herborn and Heidelberg, and travelled in Holland and England, he became rector of a school at Prerau, and after that pastor and rector of a school at Fulnek. In 1621 the Spanish invasion and persecution of the Protestants robbed him of all he possessed, and drove him into Poland. Soon after he was made bishop of the church of the Brethren. He supported himself by teaching Latin at Lissa, and it was here that he published his Pansophiae prodromus (1630), a work on education, and his Janua linguarum reserata (1631), the latter of which gained for him a widespread reputation, being produced in twelve European languages, and also in Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He subsequently published several other works of a similar kind, as the Eruditionis scholasticae janua and the Janua linguarum trilinguis. His method of teaching languages, which he seems to have been the first to adopt, consisted in giving, in parallel columns, sentences conveying useful information, in the vernacular and the languages intended to be taught (i.e. in Comenius’s works, Latin and sometimes Greek). In some of his books, as the Orbis sensualium pictus (1658), pictures are added; this work is, indeed, the first children’s picture-book. In 1638 Comenius was requested by the government of Sweden to draw up a scheme for the management of the schools of that country; and a few years after he was invited to join the commission that the English parliament then intended to appoint, in order to reform the system of education. He visited England in 1641, but the disturbed state of politics prevented the appointment of the commission, and Comenius passed over to Sweden in August 1642. The great Swedish minister, Oxenstjerna, obtained for him a pension, and a commission to furnish a plan for regulating the Swedish schools according to his own method. Devoting himself to the elaboration of his scheme, Comenius settled first at Elbing, and then at Lissa; but, at the burning of the latter city by the Poles, he lost nearly all his manuscripts, and he finally removed to Amsterdam, where he died in 1671.
As an educationist, Comenius holds a prominent place in history. He was disgusted at the pedantic teaching of his own day, and he insisted that the teaching of words and things must go together. Languages should be taught, like the mother tongue, by conversation on ordinary topics; pictures, object lessons, should be used; teaching should go hand in hand with a happy life. In his course he included singing, economy, politics, world-history, geography, and the arts and handicrafts. He was one of the first to advocate teaching science in schools.
As a theologian, Comenius was greatly influenced by Boehme. In his Synopsis physicae ad lumen divinum reformatae he gives a physical theory of his own, said to be taken from the book of Genesis. He was also famous for his prophecies and the support he gave to visionaries. In his Lux in tenebris he published the visions of Kotterus, Dabricius and Christina Poniatovia. Attempting to interpret the book of Revelation, he promised the millennium in 1672, and guaranteed miraculous assistance to those who would undertake the destruction of the Pope and the house of Austria, even venturing to prophesy that Cromwell, Gustavus Adolphus, and Rakoczy, prince of Transylvania, would perform the task. He also wrote to Louis XIV., informing him that the empire of the world should be his reward if he would overthrow the enemies of God.
Comenius also wrote against the Socinians, and published three historical works—Ratio disciplinae ordinisque in unitate fratrum Bohemorum, which was republished with remarks by Buddaeus, Historia persecutionum ecclesiae Bohemicae (1648), and Martyrologium Bohemicum. See Raumer’s Geschichte der Pädogogik, and Carpzov’s Religionsuntersuchung der böhmischen und mährischen Brüder.
COMET (Gr. κομήτης, long-haired), in astronomy, one of a class of seemingly nebulous bodies, moving under the influence of the sun’s attraction in very eccentric orbits. A comet is visible only in a small arc of its orbit near perihelion, differing but slightly from the arc of a parabola. An obvious but not sharp classification of comets is into bright comets visible to the naked eye, and telescopic comets which can be seen only with a telescope. The telescopic class is much the more numerous of the two, only from 20 to 30 bright comets usually appearing in any one century, while several telescopic comets, frequently 6 or 8, are generally observed in the course of a year.
A bright comet consists of (1) a star-like nucleus; (2) a nebulous haze, called the coma, surrounding this nucleus, the latter fading into the haze by insensible gradations; (3) a tail or luminous stream flowing from the coma in a direction opposite to that of the sun. The nuclei and comae of different comets exhibit few peculiarities to the unaided vision except in respect to brightness; but the tails of comets differ widely, both in brightness and in extent. They range from a barely visible brush or feather of light to a phenomenon extending over a considerable arc of the heavens, which, comparatively bright near the head of the comet, becomes gradually fainter and more diffuse towards its end, fading out by gradations so insensible that a precise length cannot be assigned to it. When a telescopic comet is first discovered the nucleus is frequently invisible, the object presenting the appearance of a faint nebulous haze, scarcely distinguishable in aspect from a nebula. When the nucleus appears it may at first be only a comparatively faint condensation, and may or may not develop into a point of light as the comet approaches the sun. A tail also is generally not seen at great distances from the sun, but gradually develops as the comet approaches perihelion, to fade away again as the comet recedes from the sun.