complexity, and a large proportion of
emotion, are to a certain extent felt by the lower animals. Dr. Darwin
has observed an approximation to the laughter of pleasure in monkeys,
but he does not connect it with intelligence, and would not, I believe,
claim for them any sense of the ludicrous. I have, however, seen a dog,
on suddenly meeting a friend, not only wag his tail, but curl up the
corners of his lips, and show his teeth, as if delighted and amused. We
may also have observed a very roguish expression sometimes in the face
of a small dog when he is barking at a large one, just as a cat
evidently finds some fun in tormenting and playing with a captured
mouse. I have even heard of a monkey who, for his amusement, put a live
cat into a pot of boiling water on the fire. These animals are those
most nearly allied to man, but the perception of the ludicrous is not
strong enough in them to occasion laughter. The opinion of Vives that
animals do not laugh because the muscles of their countenances do not
allow them, can scarcely be regarded as philosophical. Milton tells us
that,

"Smiles from reason flow, To brutes denied;"

a statement which may be taken as generally correct, although we admit
that there may be some approximation to smiling among the lower animals,
and that it does not always necessarily proceed from reason.

The pleasure found in hostile laughter soon led to practical jokes.
Although now discountenanced, they were anciently very common, and
formed the first link between humour and the ludicrous. They were not
imitative, and did not show any actual power to invent what was
humorous, but a desire to amuse by doing something which might cause
some ludicrous action or scene, just as people unable to speak would
point to things they wish to designate. These early jokes had severer
objects coupled with amusement, and were what we should call no joke at
all. The first character in the records of antiquity that seems to have
had anything quaint or droll about it is that of Samson. Standing out
amid the confusion of legendary times, he gives us good specimens of the
fierce and wild kind of merriment relished in ancient days; and was fond
of making very sanguinary "sport for the Philistines." He was an
exaggeration of a not very uncommon type of man, in which brute strength
is joined to loose morals and whimsical fancy. People were more inclined
to laugh at sufferings formerly, because they were not keenl