play or, if you prefer, in dolce far niente. So, comic
absurdity gives us from the outset the impression of playing with
ideas. Our first impulse is to join in the game. That relieves us from
the strain of thinking. Now, the same might be said of the other forms
of the laughable. Deep-rooted in the comic, there is always a tendency,
we said, to take the line of least resistance, generally that of habit.
The comic character no longer tries to be ceaselessly adapting and
readapting himself to the society of which he is a member. He slackens
in the attention that is due to life. He more or less resembles the
absentminded. Maybe his will is here even more concerned than his
intellect, and there is not so much a want of attention as a lack of
tension; still, in some way or another, he is absent, away from his
work, taking it easy. He abandons social convention, as indeed--in the
case we have just been considering--he abandoned logic. Here, too, our
first impulse is to accept the invitation to take it easy. For a short
time, at all events, we join in the game. And that relieves us from the
strain of living.

But we rest only for a short time. The sympathy that is capable of
entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one. It
also comes from a lapse in attention. Thus, a stern father may at times
forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to
check himself at once in order to correct it.

Laughter is, above all, a corrective. Being intended to humiliate, it
must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is
directed. By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken
with it. It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy
or kindness.

Shall we be told that the motive, at all events; may be a good one,
that we often punish because we love, and that laughter, by checking
the outer manifestations of certain failings, thus causes the person
laughed at to correct these failings and thereby improve himself
inwardly?

Much might be said on this point. As a general rule, and speaking
roughly, laughter doubtless exercises a useful function. Indeed, the
whole of our analysis points to this fact. But it does not therefore
follow that laughter always hits the mark or is invariably inspired by
sentiments of kindness or even of justice.

To be certain of always hitting the mark, it would have to proceed from
an act of reflection. Now, laughter is simply the res