and laughter would seem to support
him. Its social nature is emphasized by Edwin Paxton Hood:

The sources of all laughter and merriment are in the cordial
sympathies of our nature. Laughter is very nearly related
to the highest and most instinctive wisdom; it stands at no
distant remove from Judgment on the one hand, and Imagination
on the other; and it is a proof of a healthy nature, for both
thinking and acting.

C.S. Evans in his article "On Humor in Literature" gives a hint of the
evolutionary process of its mechanism and its higher refinement:

On the lower plane of humor you get a laugh by the most
unimaginative means--merely conceive a recognized humorous
situation, or bring several things together according to a
recipe, and the thing is done. Every practised comedian,
in literature or on the stage, is an adept at it. But the
creation of character, the expression--in terms of the words
and actions of men and women--of that "social gesture" which
is laughter's source, is a much greater thing, for there we
touch the symbolism which is the soul of art.

The Function of Humor

In an article entitled "Why Do We Laugh?" William McDougall discusses
scientifically the value of laughter:

Laughter of man presents a problem with which philosophers
have wrestled in all ages with little success. Man is the only
animal that laughs. And, if laughter may properly be called an
instinctive reaction, the instinct of laughter is the only one
peculiar to the human species....

We are saved from this multitude of small sympathetic pains
and depressions by laughter, which, as we have seen, breaks
up our train of mental activity and prevents our dwelling upon
the distressing situation, and which also provides an antidote
to the depressing influence in the form of physiological
stimulation that raises the blood-pressure and promotes
the circulation of the blood. This, then, is the biological
function of laughter, one of the most delicate and beautiful
of all nature's adjustments. In order that man should reap the
full benefits of life in the social group, it was necessary
that his primitive sympathetic tendencies should be strong and
delicately adjusted. For without this, there could be little
mutual understanding, and only imperfect cooperation and
mutual aid in the more serious difficulti