to various distortions of character and will, we
have followed the line of progress along which the comic becomes more
and more deeply imbedded in the person, yet without ceasing, in its
subtler manifestations, to recall to us some trace of what we noticed
in its grosser forms, an effect of automatism and of inelasticity. Now
we can obtain a first glimpse--a distant one, it is true, and still
hazy and confused--of the laughable side of human nature and of the
ordinary function of laughter.

What life and society require of each of us is a constantly alert
attention that discerns the outlines of the present situation, together
with a certain elasticity of mind and body to enable us to adapt
ourselves in consequence. TENSION and ELASTICITY are two forces,
mutually complementary, which life brings into play. If these two
forces are lacking in the body to any considerable extent, we have
sickness and infirmity and accidents of every kind. If they are lacking
in the mind, we find every degree of mental deficiency, every variety
of insanity. Finally, if they are lacking in the character, we have
cases of the gravest inadaptability to social life, which are the
sources of misery and at times the causes of crime. Once these elements
of inferiority that affect the serious side of existence are
removed--and they tend to eliminate themselves in what has been called
the struggle for life--the person can live, and that in common with
other persons. But society asks for something more; it is not satisfied
with simply living, it insists on living well. What it now has to dread
is that each one of us, content with paying attention to what affects
the essentials of life, will, so far as the rest is concerned, give way
to the easy automatism of acquired habits. Another thing it must fear
is that the members of whom it is made up, instead of aiming after an
increasingly delicate adjustment of wills which will fit more and more
perfectly into one another, will confine themselves to respecting
simply the fundamental conditions of this adjustment: a cut-and-dried
agreement among the persons will not satisfy it, it insists on a
constant striving after reciprocal adaptation. Society will therefore
be suspicious of all INELASTICITY of character, of mind and even of
body, because it is the possible sign of a slumbering activity as well
as of an activity with separatist tendencies, that inclines to swerve
from the common centre round which societ