The psychology of laughter

Preface

An inquiry into the main psychological principles that underlie laughter and its various manifestations presents a number of difficulties. There is a wide range of the ludicrous, beginning with the nursery rhymes of Mother Goose, the coarse sallies of the clown, the zany, the cartoonist, the mimic, and the joker, and ending with the classical productions of Aristophanes, Lucian, Juvenal, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Moliere, Voltaire, Gogol, Thackeray and Dickens. The great Russian writer, Gogol, in his famous work "Dead Souls," lays special stress on the fact that a whole abyss separates the productions of elevated laughter from the contortions of the buffoon and the clown. No doubt Gogol is right: there is an abyss between the crude art of the buffoon and the "pearl of creative art" produced by the genius of comedy. Still the abyss can be bridged over. May we not similarly say that a whole abyss separates the crude idols of the stone age from the beautiful statues of a Phidias? The two extremes are, nevertheless, connected by a long series of intermediate steps. The abyss, however, as Gogol points out, is present. The difficulty is to bridge over the extremes and find the fundamental principles that underlie the almost infinite diversity of the manifestations of the ludicrous.

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Another difficulty lies in the fact that very little satisfactory and systematic work has been done in the domain of the psychology of laughter and the ludicrous. Theories have been advanced since the time of Aristotle, but they have been fragmentary and abstract. Extensive and important as the domain of the ludicrous is in the life of mankind, the scientific investigator devotes but little time and space to this side of human activity. This may be partly due to the fact that the comic is regarded as superficial and trivial, or as dealing at best with the commonplace of life, possibly below the dignity of the scientific inquirer. Even a man like Bergson excludes comedy from the high sphere of art. He tells us that the nature of comedy is opposed to tragedy, drama, and other forms of art. According to Bergson, the sole object of true art is the individual; not so comedy, which deals with the general, the typical. Art deals with individual things as they really are ; while comedy, like life, is concerned with general characters, with types. Comedy is prosaic. In other words, comedy does not belong to the sphere of art. In spite of his remarkable acumen, Bergson is entirely wrong in his generalization. Both tragedy and comedy deal with types.

Moreover, according to Bergson, we should have to exclude from the domain of art the comedies of Aristophanes, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Moliere's dramatic works, Shakespeare's comic dramas, the humorous works of Dickens, Thackeray and Gogol. This will not

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do. We must agree with Gogol that the great artist or poet in his creations of laughter and the ludicrous may produce and has produced "pearls of creation," even if such pearls have been cast away on contemporary readers. One cannot help agreeing with the apparently paradoxical statement of Plato in his "Symposium" that tragedy and comedy are intimately related, that the great dramatic poet can wield with equal force the incidents and types of tragedy and comedy. This is well exemplified in the dramatic works of Shakespeare. The extreme and fallacious view held by Bergson well illustrates the confused and chaotic state of the subject of the ludicrous.

Still another difficulty lies in the disorganized and scattered condition of the material referring to laughter and the ludicrous. The material is rich, but this wealth makes the choice all the more difficult. To this should be added the fact that the material is so scattered that the labor of selection and sifting is arduous and appears almost insurmountable. I had to choose my examples of the ludicrous from the literature of various nations and different ages. It was difficult to decide as to the preference given to the selected material. Of course, it is desirable to give illustrations and make the analysis of examples from recent works, as they are more comprehensible to the reader. This was done as much as the scope of the work as well as circumstances permitted.

In selecting my material for analysis from English and American writers I wished to utilize some illustra-

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tions from Bret Harte and Mark Twain. All citations, however, from these two American writers had to be dispensed with, because their publishers' permission could not be obtained.

I trust the reader will form some notion of the difficulties with which I had to contend in this work. At the same time he will be ready to accept my apology for not using quotations from two popular American writers.

Boris Sidis, Sidis Psychotherapeutic Institute, Portsmouth,

New Hampshire.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Laughter i

II. Art, Religion, and Child Games 10

Chapter I Laughter

The cause and nature of laughter have been examined by many thinkers, each one contributing his mite to the analysis of this highly complex phenomenon. What is laughter? What is its source? Whence flow those rich manifestations of wit, the comic, the joke, the jest, irony, sarcasm, that, like ethereal light, keep on playing on the surface of human life? What are the constituents, what is the mechanism of an event, of a phrase, of a comedy, that awaken in us a smile, or make our chest and limbs shake and heave with laughter?

The particular essence which we discover in the funny and in the ridiculous is hard to analyze; it is as elusive as the delicate perfume of the rose and the violet. Many highly intelligent people when they are asked on the spur of the moment what it is specially that they find funny in a joke, in a comedy, or in a particular situation at which they laugh heartily, are unable to tell the special points that awaken in them merriment and laughter. They know it is funny; it is ridiculous. The ridiculous appears to exhale an essence which men directly perceive without being able to analyze the constituents. In fact, there are intellectual people who think that the fun of the joke is gone when touched by the scalpel of analysis. The comic is evidently something living, and, like the living, cannot be dissected without giving rise to symptoms of decay and death. The comic, like the beautiful, is to be enjoyed directly, intuitively, without analysis, without criticism. There is a unity, a living unity, which is directly perceived by the mind and reacted to by the living human organism. The analysis, the dissection of the constituent elements, means the killing, the death of the living unity of the comic.

Still the difficulties may not be insurmountable, after all. We study the human body and its functions by means of anatomical investigations as well as physiological researches. We study the functions of the mind by means of physiological and psychopathological work, both experimental and observational. Why not do the same in the case of laughter? We can obtain the constituents by means of analysis, and their functions by means of psychological and psychopathological study of the facts. In this way we may be able to find some of the important elements that go to make up the nature of the comic.

It may be well to look for the general aspect of what we regard as ridiculous, funny, and amusing. Perhaps the psychological side may be more accessible and help us in the investigation of the subject. In the first place, all the different manifestations of the comic, the witty, and the ridiculous belong psychologically to that particular emotional side of our being which we class under joy. Whatever is joyful awakens in us, if not intense laughter, at least a smile, however flitting. We may observe it in undeveloped characters, or in people who lack self-control. Anything which awakens in them

LAUGHTER

the emotion of joy also arouses in them smiles and laughter; in many the laughter is almost uncontrollable. This is manifested in young people, and especially children.

Play that arouses the emotion of joy gives rise to smiles and laughter. Observe girls and boys, or children when in full active play: you will always find that along with the play there goes the manifestation of laughter. There may not be anything specially funny and comic, and still the laughter is often uncontrollable. Listen to the noisy laughter of schoolboys and schoolgirls at play, especially after they have been released from their lessons at school. The mirth and laughter of an audience at a comic play or in listening to the funny remarks of a favorite orator remind one of the play of unrestrained schoolboys and girls. We may, therefore, lay down the law that all unrestrained spontaneous activities of normal functions give rise to the emotion of joy with its expression of smiles and laughter. If we remember that play is the manifestation of spontaneous, unrestrained activity we can begin to understand the nature of laughter, which is one of the manifestations of the play instinct present, not only in man, but in the whole animal world. We observe this play instinct in puppies, in kittens and, in fact, in all young animals.

If we inspect this play activity more closely, we find that it belongs to the type of artistic activities. The word play is used for dramatic work and for ordinary play activities of animal life. Instrumental music, dancing, singing, dramatic plays, and all forms of aesthetic and artistic activities, as well as games, combats and contests, all belong to the same general root of the play instinct. We may possibly add that even the religious activities of man belong to the same class of human life activities, activities which have their root in the play instinct present alike in the kitten, puppy, squirrel and bird. Among the modern savages, ancient nations, the Greeks, the Israelites, we find alike that all those artistic activities and play are intimately interrelated — the artistic activities having their source in the play instinct. In the Olympic games of the Greeks, the gladiatorial combats of the Romans, the religious psalms and songs of the Hebrews, the dances and poetry of the Australians, the Andamanese, the Bushmen, the Esquimaux, the religious temple performances of the Middle Ages, of the Hindoo dancing girls, the wild ecstatic whirling and dancing of the dervishes, as well as in the singing and praising of the Lord in the modern church services, we can see the connection of art, play, religion, and games.

Football and church hymns are apparently disconnected, and still they are intimately related. They are offshoots of the same parent root, the play instinct. The minister may war on Sunday play and games on holidays, but he must know that the church service, however sacred and solemn, is the outcome of the game impulse and the satisfaction of the play instinct inherent in the animal, child, and adult. The football player, the actor, and the priest are brothers of the same mother — the play impulse ; servitors of the same instinct — the play instinct. Church services, religious ceremonies, theatrical plays, dancing balls, football and baseball games are intimately related; they are so many offshoots of the same parent stem. In all the processes of metamorphosis through which they have passed in the course of ages they still at bottom keep on subserving the same function — the satisfaction of the animal play instinct of man.

LAUGHTER

Laughter, smiling, and grinning are the external manifestations of the play instinct. Laughter may be sublimated into a barely perceptible smile; the smile in its turn may become sublimated into a grin or an expression of satisfaction, or contentment, or the inner emotion of joy which accompanies the activity of the play instinct. Whatever gives us joy makes us laugh, or gives rise to an expression akin to laughter and smiles. A number of objects may give rise to the emotion of joy with its concomitant motor manifestations of smiles and laughter. What is common to all these objects is the fact that they all belong to the class of playthings. This we can easily observe in the case of little children who laugh and jump with joy when they keep on playing with their toys. Adult life is not in any way different : adults laugh and are amused with their toys, but the toys are more disguised and far more complex. We must have our toys and our playthings to amuse us and to make us laugh. The character of the toys, however, changes with the nation, age, and environment. The character of the plaything also changes with the age of the individual. In spite, however, of all the various changes the plaything undergoes, it must still preserve its nature of a plaything. We laugh in play. The play instinct must remain dominant.

A few passages from the great biologist, Darwin, may be to the point :

"J°v> when intense, leads to various purposeless movements — to dancing about, clapping the hands, stamping, etc., and to loud laughter. Laughter seems primarily to be the expression of mere joy or happiness. j . . . A man smiles — and smiling, as we shall see, graduates into laughter — at meeting an old friend in the street, as he does at any trifling pleasure, such as smelling a sweet perfume. Laura Bridgman, from her blindness and deafness, could not have acquired any expression through imitation, yet when a letter from a beloved friend was communicated to her by gesture-language she 'laughed and clapped her hands, and the color mounted to her cheeks/ On other occasions she has been seen to stamp for joy.

"Idiots and imbecile persons likewise afford good evidence that laughter or smiling primarily expresses mere happiness or joy. . . . There is a large class of idiots who are persistently joyous and benign, and who are constantly laughing or smiling. Their countenances often exhibit a stereotyped smile; their joyousness is increased, and they grin, chuckle, or giggle whenever food is placed before them, or when they are caressed, are shown bright colors, or hear music. Some of them laugh more than usual when they walk about or attempt any muscular exertion. The joyousness of most of these idiots cannot possibly be associated, as Dr. Browne remarks, with any distinct ideas : they simply feel pleasure, and express it by laughter or smiles. With imbeciles rather higher in the scale personal vanity seems to be the commonest cause of laughter, and next to this pleasure arising from the approbation of their conduct.

"From the fact that a child can hardly tickle itself, or in a much less degree than when tickled by another person, it seems that the precise point to be touched must not be known; so with the mind, something unexpected — a novel or incongruous idea which breaks through an habitual train of thought — appears to be a strong element in the ludicrous.

"The sound of laughter is produced by a deep in-

LAUGHTER

spiration followed by short, interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially of the diaphragm. . . . From the shaking of the body the head nods to and fro. The lower jaw often quivers up and down, as is likewise the case with some species of baboons when they are much pleased.

"During laughter the mouth is opened more or less widely, with the corners drawn much backward ; and the upper lip is somewhat raised. The drawing back of the corners is best seen in moderate laughter, and especially in a broad smile — the latter epithet showing how the mouth is widened.

"In laughing and broadly smiling the cheeks and upper lip are much raised, the nose appears to be shortened, and the skin on the bridge becomes finely wrinkled in transverse lines, with other oblique longitudinal lines on the sides. The upper front teeth are commonly exposed. A well-marked naso-labial fold is formed, which runs from the wing of each nostril to the corner of the mouth; and this fold is often double in old persons.

"A bright and sparkling eye is characteristic of a pleased or amused state of mind, as is the retraction of the corners of the mouth and upper lip with the wrinkles thus produced. Even the eyes of microcephalous idiots, who are so degraded that they never learn to speak, brighten slightly when they are pleased. . . . According to Dr. Piderit, who has discussed this point more fully than any other writer, the tenseness may be largely attributed to the eyeballs becoming filled with blood and other fluids, from the acceleration of the circulation, consequent on the excitement of pleasure.

"A man in high spirits, though he may not actually smile, commonly exhibits some tendency to the retraction of the corners of his mouth. From the excitement of pleasure the circulation becomes more rapid ; the eyes are bright, and the color of the face rises. The brain, becoming stimulated by the increased flow of blood, reacts on the mental powers ; lively ideas pass still more rapidly through the mind, and the affections are warmed. I heard a child, a little under four years old, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits, answer, 'It is laughing, talking and kissing/

"Savages sometimes express their satisfaction, not only by smiling, but by gestures derived from the pleasure of eating. Thus Mr. Wedgwood quotes Petherick that the negroes on the Upper Nile began a general rubbing of their bellies when he displayed his beads; and Leichhardt says that the Australians smacked and clacked their mouths at the sight of his horses and bullocks, and more especially of his kangaroo dogs. The Greenlanders, 'when they affirm anything with pleasure, suck down air with a certain sound' ; and this may be an imitation of the act of swallowing savory food.

"Laughter is frequently employed in a forced manner to conceal or mask some other state of mind, even anger. We often see persons laughing in order to conceal their shame or shyness. When a person purses up his mouth, as if to prevent the possibility of a smile, though there is nothing to excite one, or nothing to prevent its free indulgence, an affected, solemn, or pedantic expression is given ; but of such hybrid expressions nothing more need here be said. In case of derision a real or pretended smile or laugh is often blended with the expression proper to contempt and this may pass into angry contempt or scorn. In such cases the meaning of the laugh or smile

LAUGHTER

is to show the offending person that he excites only amusement/ '

All these quotations from Darwin's "The Expression of the Emotions" clearly indicate the intimate relation of joy, satisfaction, laughter, and smiles.

Chapter II Art, Religion, And Child Games

What changes does the play element undergo from the toys of the child to the jokes, jests, banter ings, and comedy of the adult? In all of them we observe the artistic activity manifesting itself as free unrestrained energy. This, however, is too general a statement. We must go more into detail and find out what there is in the object of merriment that unloosens the pent-up energies resulting in the psychomotor activities of laughter. The spent energy, as in all artistic activities, should be felt by the person who exercises it as not tending to any useful aim. The energy must be spent for its own sake: for the love of it. The child in playing with its doll, the adult in playing his games, must feel that they are not for a certain purpose; but the purpose, as in all art, must be in the very activity itself. The painter in working on his picture, the sculptor in chiseling his statue, the novelist in working on his book, must feel the same love of the activity itself, irrespective of any ultimate gain. The activity itself must be its own purpose.

Even in the play instinct manifested as religion, the games, the songs, the hymns, the worship, the prayers, must be for some ultimate infinite aim outside the sordid cares of life; they must be for the love of the Infinite, for the love of God. "Love thy God with all thy heart" is the commandment of religion; in the highest form of

ART, RELIGION, AND CHILD GAMES

religious worship it is love irrespective of all earthly gain. This statement appears irreverent, since it puts religion in the same category with plays and games. In the course of our exposition we shall realize the full meaning of this principle of the play instinct underlying man's artistic activity which has its root in the animal play instinct. We shall find that the play instinct is probably the most fundamental instinct of animal life — it gives rise to the highest activities characteristic of human life. The play instinct is one of the broadest, the deepest of human interests that work in man, giving rise to the highest artistic, moral, and intellectual life of which the human mind is capable.

"Out of the mouths of babes we may learn wisdom," as the Bible puts it. Let us return to the little ones and attempt to scrutinize their simple plays and games. We may find in them some of the elements which enter as constituents in the laughter, wit, and the comic of the fully developed adult life. When the little girl plays with her dolls, or the boy plays his games, what we observe most casually is the fact that there is complete lack of consciousness of effort. The play is carried on with ease, with gracefulness. Even if there is any effort present it is only for the observer : the child that carries out the game has no consciousness of effort, there is not the least trace of irksomeness. This lack of consciousness of effort and lack of irksomeness are found in the games of the adult, although such games may to the external observer appear difficult. In this respect even severe games, like football or baseball, may be learned so as to have them executed with no consciousness of intense effort. This also holds true in the highly complex and difficult artistic works, such as music, painting, and

II sculpture. In fact, it may be said that this law holds true in the whole domain of play, with its joy and the consequent inner laughter.

In the work of the mathematician when he solves a difficult problem, in the work of the inventor, in the play of chess, as well as in other games, the more difficulties are overcome, the more the joy elements are present, the more we see bubbles of laughter rising to the surface of mental life. The great poet Sophocles makes Electra say of her mother Clytemnestra that she is "triumphantly laughing at what she has done." Similarly the poet in Job says : "Wilt thou give strength to the horse? Wilt thou clothe his neck with thunder? He will not be dismayed and he will laugh at fear." We may then formulate the following law : // an act is carried out in a playful way, the more difficulties that playful act embodies, the more there is of inner joy; the more interesting and exciting the game, the more intense the psychomotor reactions, the more will the manifestations of merriment and laughter appear. This is the secret of the intense allurement of games which are accompanied with danger.

Nations in which the intellectual and artistic sides are undeveloped look for their enjoyment, merriment, and laughter in gross and dangerous games. Witness the gladiatorial games of the ancient Romans, the bull fights of the Spaniards, and the football of the American populace. The whole fun of the game is danger overcome, made easy and playful.

Many hide this craving for games of danger, this ferocious element, under the guise of training. Such games, it is claimed, train the man. What such games really train is the brutal, animal play instinct. We may

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possibly formulate another related law : The more material civilization becomes developed, and the craving for play grows, the greater is the demand of having the difficult and the impossible enacted with ease. We demand more and more difficult feats of the clown, of the actor, of the prestidigitateur, of the racers, and of the prize fighters. The technique rises with civilization. What a country bumpkin regards with admiration and laughs at with great joy the city man regards with contempt. We demand of the circus man and the animals with which he plays at great danger of life more and more difficult feats executed with greater ease and grace. We may, therefore, finally express the law: The lower the intellectual element in a given civilized community, the more will the dangerous elements predominate in their games.

This may possibly fall under the Weber-Fechner law that while the sensations grow in an arithmetical progression the stimuli grow in a geometrical progression. However, whether the last law be true or not of the whole emotional life, our law remains true ; namely, that enjoyment and its psychomotor manifestation, laughter, grow with the difficulties embodied in the act that gives rise to merriment and laughter. The ease with which the difficult or dangerous feat is carried out arouses joy with its accompanying smiles and laughter.

In his dance, in his jump, in his gambol, it is the ease with which the motions are executed that gives the child such joy, over which he delights in peals of laughter. In his choice of the ball the young child specially delights and laughs over the skips of the light ball that rebounds with ease. The balloon that skips and floats about he greets with merry laughter. The child will not choose anything clumsy, heavy, unwieldy, or irksome to handle : there is no fun in it. He wants the laughter of enjoyment of triumph. This laughter of triumph runs through all the stages of life. When we triumph over some difficulty after a period of long hard work, we laugh. We laugh, when news is brought to us which we hardly believe could have happened. The actor or singer cannot help laughing after a successful play ; the grave professor smiles when he solves his problem ; and the banker, speculator, and financier smile when their plans and schemes have been successfully carried out. The politician, the statesman has his grim smile after a successful campaign, and the general has his grin after a triumphant battle. This is the laughter of triumph.

And Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel in her hand ; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath been thrown into the sea.

We have here the joy, song, and laughter of triumph.

Chapter III The Ludicrous

We may now reverse the process. Suppose the child in playing with the ball sees one who does not know how to catch it; misses it every time; knocks himself against the ball without getting hold of it ; slips, falls down, picks himself up and runs after the ball without being able to catch it. In short, the person is awkward, clumsy, finds difficulties where there are none. Friction appears where there should be smoothness; hardship is manifest where ease and grace are expected. The child laughs the laughter of triumph, not with the person, but at the person; from the height of his supposed efficiency or ideal of efficiency the child laughs the laughter of triumph at the deficiencies of the person — the person is ridiculed. Any supposed deficiency in appearance, in person, or in action is laughed at — is ridiculed. We are now in the domain of the comic. Children in school ridicule any clumsiness, awkwardness, or any personal deficiency; they make merry over the lame, the hunchback, the cross-eyed, the blind. For that matter, we find the same amusements among the uncultivated who make merry over the bodily defects of their neighbors and acquaintances.

Old Homer, when he wishes to ridicule Thersites, presents the ancient demagogue as :

... ill favored beyond all men that came to Ilios. Bandy-legged was he, and lame of one foot, and his shoulders rounded, arched down over his chest; and over them his head was warped, and a scanty stubble sprouted on it.

Victor Hugo, in his "Notre Dame de Paris," represents the crowd bursting into a thunder of applause and shouts of convulsive, derisive laughter at the sight of the ugly, misshapen, one-eyed, bandy-legged, huge-headed, splay-footed, thick-nosed, horseshoe-mouthed, doublehumped, deformed monster hunchback, Quasimodo.

When the great Russian writer, Gogol, wishes to ridicule the type he represents by Sobakevitch he makes the latter look defective, awkward, and clumsy.

Sobakevitch looked like a medium sized bear. To complete this resemblance his coat was the color of a bear's fur ; his sleeves were long ; his trousers were large ; he was flat-footed, walked both awry and askew, and trod constantly upon the feet of other people. His face shone like a bright copper coin.

To present him as still clumsier and more deficient the great writer adds :

There are many faces over whose formation Nature did not pause long in thought, nor employ any delicate instruments, but simply hewed them at full sweep of her arm ; she grasped her axe, a nose appeared ; she grasped it again — the lips appeared; with a big auger she formed the eyes; and without planing it down, she loosed the figure in the world, saying: "Let it have life."

Even refined and cultivated people cannot suppress a smile when they hear one stammer. Thus Shakespeare in his "Merry Wives of Windsor" makes his characters ridiculous by representing Sir Hugh Evans, the parson, as defective in speech, and Sir John Falstaff as defective in bodily appearance. "Very goot," says Evans, "I will make a prief in my notebook." Of Falstaff Mrs. Ford says : "What tempest, I trow, threw this whale, with so many tons of oil in his belly, ashore at Windsor?" As Sir Evans, the parson, is awkward in his speech, so Falstaff, the fat man, is clumsy in his body. Both of them, on account of such clumsiness, are exposed by Shakespeare as objects of ridicule.