not a very comprehensive view, for according to it, if a man were
informed that he had been left a sum of money, he would regard his good
fortune as highly absurd.

Beattie maintains, on the contrary, that the ludicrous is a simple
feeling, and therefore indefinable, a statement in which the premise
seems more correct than the conclusion. The opinion that it is simple
and primary, although not admitting of proof, has some probability in
its favour. It arose from a conviction that we had no means of reaching
it, of taking it to pieces, and was derived from the unsatisfactory
character of such attempts as that of Brown, or from analogy with some
other emotions, or with physical substances whose essence we cannot
ascertain. If we can connect the ludicrous with certain acts of
judgment, we cannot tell how far the emotion is modified by them, and
even if we seem to have detected some elements in it, we were not
conscious of them at the moment of our being amused. If they exist, they
are then undiscernible.

As when we regard a work of art, we are not sensible of pleasure until
all the several elements of beauty are blended together, so if the
ludicrous be a compound, there is some power within us that fuses the
several emotions into one, and evolves out of them a completely new and
distinct feeling. The product has a different nature from its component
parts, just as the union of the blue, yellow and red give the simple
sensation of whiteness. Regard the elements as separate and the feeling
vanishes.

It has probably been owing to reflections of the above kind that some
philosophers have stated that the ludicrous is a simple feeling,
awakened by certain means, and not a compound or acquired feeling formed
of certain elements. But although it is more comfortable to have
questions settled and at rest, it is often safer to leave them open,
especially where we have neither sufficient knowledge nor power of
investigation to bring our inquiries to an issue. It is not, however,
correct to say that because feelings are primary or single they cannot
be defined. As we cannot take them to pieces or analyse them, we are
ignorant with regard to their real nature, and of some we cannot form
any definition whatever, the only account we can give of them being to
enumerate every object in which they appear; but in the case of others,
we are enabled to form a definition by means of attributes observed in
the objects or circumstances which