act in the most judicious and
beneficial way. Naturalists would be inclined to agree in this, and if
this were the view we adopted, we should not laugh at dogs showing signs
of intelligence; neither should we at their acting irrationally,
because experience teaches us that they are not generally guided by
reflection. But most of us are accustomed to consider reason the
prerogative and peculiarity of man. And if we take the view that the
lower animals have it not, we shall be inclined to smile when any of
them show traces of it--any such exhibition seeming out of place, and
leading us to compare them with men. But when we are accustomed to see a
monkey taking off his hat, or playing a tambourine, or even smoking a
pipe, we by degrees see nothing laughable in the performance.

As our emotions are only excited with reference to human affairs, some
have thought that all laughter must refer to them. Pope says, "Laughter
implies censure, inanimate and irrational beings are not objects of
censure, and may, therefore, be elevated as much as you please, and no
ridicule follows." Addison writes to the same purpose. His words
are:--"I am afraid I shall appear too abstract in my speculations if I
shew that when a man of wit makes us laugh, it is by betraying some
address or infirmity in his own character, or in the representation he
makes of others, and that when we laugh at a brute, or even at an
inanimate thing, it is by some action or incident that bears a remote
analogy to some blunder or absurdity in reasonable creatures." It may
be questioned whether we always go so far as to institute this
comparison. Ludicrous events and circumstances seem often such as the
individuals concerned have no control over whatever, and betray no
infirmity. When we see a failure in a work of art, do we always think of
the artist? A lady told me last autumn that when she was walking in a
country town with her Italian greyhound, which was dressed in a red coat
to protect it from cold, the tradespeople and most others passed it
without notice, or merely with a passing word of commendation; but, on
meeting a country bumpkin, he pointed to it, burst out laughing, and
said, "Look at that daug, why, it's all the world like a littl' oss."
Beattie thinks that the derision is not necessarily aimed at human
beings, and probably it is not directly, but indirectly there seems to
be some reference to man. Leon Dumont tells us that he once laughed on
hearing a