Category: Humour
A writer who undertakes to discourse on laughter has to encounter more than one variety of irritating objection. He finds to his dismay that a considerable part of his species, which has been flatteringly described as the laughing animal, has never exercised its high and disti...
Our study has taken us through various regions of research. In looking for the germ of laughter we found ourselves in the wide and misty plains of biological speculation. In tra...
23. CHAPTER XI.We have traced the development of laughter in the individual and in the community with as little reference as possible to the influence of Art. It has been assumed that the feel...
22. CHAPTER X.In the preceding chapter we have seen how the advance of civilisation has tended to still the louder choral voice of laughter. Yet man’s best friend is not of the sort to take a...
21. CHAPTER IX.In the two preceding chapters we have followed the earlier stages of the development of laughter in the individual and have glanced at its counterpart in the life of savage comm...
16. CHAPTER IV.In the preceding chapter we have examined those early and elementary forms of laughter which arise from the action of such causes as tickling, the attitude of play, and the sudd...
17. CHAPTER V.Our survey of laughable things has led us to recognise certain groups which appear to induce the laughing mood: each presenting its special variety of laughable feature. One gro...
19. CHAPTER VII.Having examined the earliest and distinctly hereditary germs of the laughing impulse in the child, we may pass to the consideration of its expansion and specialisation during th...
20. CHAPTER VIII.In the last chapter we took a glance at the primitive forms of human laughter as illustrated in children. We may now supplement this by a brief inquiry into the merriment of the...
15. CHAPTER III.It seemed desirable to examine the process of laughter itself before taking up the much-discussed question of its causes. In considering this side of our subject, we shall, as a...
18. CHAPTER VI.To attempt to get back to the beginnings of human laughter may well seem to be too ambitious a proceeding. Beginnings are small things, and may easily escape detection, even whe...
13. CHAPTER I.A writer who undertakes to discourse on laughter has to encounter more than one variety of irritating objection. He finds to his dismay that a considerable part of his species,...
14. CHAPTER II.To treat the facts with proper respect seems to be more than ordinarily incumbent on us in dealing with the nature and the significance of our laughter. This means, as already h...
12. CHAPTER XII.11. CHAPTER XI.9. CHAPTER IX.10. CHAPTER X.8. CHAPTER VIII.7. CHAPTER VII.5. CHAPTER V.6. CHAPTER VI.3. CHAPTER III.4. CHAPTER IV.2. CHAPTER II.1. CHAPTER I.