University of Virginia Library

LAUGHTER: AN ESSAY ON THE MEANING OF THE COMIC. Henri Bergson. Translated by C. Brereton and F. Rothwell. (Macmillan, London, 1913. Pp. 200).

In this stimulating little book Professor Bergson propounds his theory of the comic, which is shortly to the following effect. Noting first that laughter is purely a human phenomenon, and therefore probably has a social significance, he seeks for this by trying to define what are the essential features of the comical. He reduces the various characteristic features in the main to one, namely, automatism on the part of the comical person or thing. This automatism is of a special kind; especially is it an automatism that is out of place, that occurs at the expense of spontaneity, vitality, and freshness. It may thus be defined as "something mechanical in something living," "a kind of absentmindedness on the part of life." "The comic is that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of human events which through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life." "To imitate anyone is to bring out the element of automatism he has

allowed to creep into his person. And as this is the very essence of the ludicrous, it is no wonder that imitation gives rise to laughter. "This bald statement of Bergson's conclusion is, in the reviewer's opinion, made very convincing by the delicate analysis he proffers of numerous illustrations.

Up to this point Bergson's theory of the comic fairly well coincides with that of Freud. The latter author, it is true, summarises his conclusions in different language. But the meaning is not very different. For him the feeling of comicality is an "economy of ideational expenditure," and it is evoked by the sight of another person who in a given performance displays either a lack of mental activity or an excess of physical, i.e., who is either stupid or clumsy. Compare this formulation with Bergson's. The latter says that the opposite of the comic is gracefulness, rather than beauty. "It partakes rather of the unsprightly than of the unsightly, of rigidness rather than of ugliness." The replacement of mental by physical activity is insisted on in the following passage: "Any incident is comic that calls our attention to the physical in a person, when it is the moral (i. e. mental) that is concerned." Again, he compares a comical person to "a person embarrassed by his body." His automatism is essentially a lack of mental nimbleness, a formal lack of mental elasticity, a defective capacity for rapid adjustment, in short, a mental laziness. And especially is this defect one of consciousness. The failure is on the part of the higher mental activities, which should be the most alert, and what happens is a relapse into unconscious, automatic modes of functioning, a form of absentmindness. "The comic is that element by which the person unwittingly betrays himself—the involuntary gesture or the unconscious remark. Absentmindedness is always comical. Systematic absentmindedness, like that of Don Quixote, is the most comical thing imaginable . . . . . . . No one can be comical unless there be some aspect of his person of which he is unaware, one side of his nature which he overlooks; on that account alone does he make us laugh."

In substantial agreement on this general conclusion as to mental rigidity and bodily clumsiness, the two views diverge from here. According to Bergson, the comic presupposes "something like a momentary anaesthesia of the heart;" "laughter is incompatible with emotion." For Freud this absence of emotion is much more characteristic of humour than of the comic, two matters that

Bergson quite fails to distinguish. Then, whereas Freud explains the subjective side of the comic purely on hedonic principles, Bergson sees in it an important social function. According to him, laughter is one of society's weapons for dealing with tendencies that threaten to diverge from the conventional and accepted norm. It "restrains eccentricity" and "corrects unsociability." "Any individual is comic who automatically goes his own way without troubling himself about getting into touch with the rest of his fellow-beings. It is the part of laughter to reprove his absentmindness and wake him out of his dream . . . . Each member must be ever attentive to his social surroundings; he must model himself on his environment; in short, he must avoid shutting himself up in his own peculiar character as a philosopher in his ivory tower. Therefore society holds suspended over each individual member, if not the threat of correction, at all events the prospect of a snubbing, which, although it is slight, is none the less dreaded. Such must be the function of laughter. . . . It represses separatist tendencies." "Unsociability in the performer and insensibility in the spectator—such, in a word, are the two essential conditions." This interesting theory leaves some questions unanswered. Why, for instance, should onlooking society remain emotionally cold in one case, and merely laugh, and in another case adopt much graver measures? Bergson deals with this point rather imperfectly. It is not the seriousness of the case that decides, for "we now see that the seriousness of the case is of no importance either: whether serious or trifling, it is still capable of making us laugh, provided that care be taken not to arouse our emotions." Nor is it the immoral nature of the deviation from the normal. "The comic character may, strictly speaking, be quite in accord with stern morality. All it has to do is to bring itself into accord with society." "It is the faults of others that make us laugh, provided we add that they make us laugh by reason of their unsociability rather than of their immorality." The most specific criterion seems, in Bergson's opinion, to be that of vanity. "It might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughable is vanity."

We may briefly refer to some other matters dealt with more incidentally; wit, and the relation of the comic to art and to dreams. The discussion of wit is perhaps the weakest part of the book.

No analysis is given of the different forms of wit, and the important subject of what may be called its technique is quite passed by. Wit is identified in a superficial manner with the comic in general, the fundamental differences between the two, which Freud has dealt so exhaustively with, being altogether ignored. Bergson gives a more interesting and profitable study of the relation of the comic to art; especially of the nature of comedy as distinct from other forms of drama. According to him, comedy portrays character types rather than individual persons. He repeatedly insists on this point, adding that "it is the only one of all the arts that aims at the general; so that once this objective has been attributed to it, we have said all that it is and all that the rest cannot be." Further, "comedy lies midway between art and life. It is not disinterested as genuine art is. By organizing laughter, comedy accepts social life as a natural environment, it even obeys an impulse of social life. And in this respect it turns its back upon art, which is a breaking away from society and a return to pure nature. "The discussion of the relation of the comic to dreams is, on the other hand, less satisfying. Comic absurdity is stated to be of the same nature as that of dreams. The main point of resemblance seems to be that in both cases there occurs an absence of social contact. In both there is a mental relaxation from the effort of "seeing nothing but what is existent and thinking nothing but what is consistent." This really applies much more to wit than to the comic itself.

As may be expected, the whole book is written in Professor Bergson's pleasing style, and is full of suggestive hints and fresh points of view. The most significant contribution, one which pervades the book throughout, is the view of laughter as a social censor. Even if this hypothesis is substantiated by detailed investigation, however, it cannot rank as a complete theory of laughter, or of the comic, until it is supplemented by some explanation, not given by the author, of the most striking feature of laughter, its capacity for yielding pleasure.

It only remains to say that the translation is literally excellent.

ERNEST JONES.