CHAPTER XII.

ULTIMATE VALUE AND LIMITATIONS OF LAUGHTER.

Need of bringing in philosophic point of view • 392

Philosophy as completion of individual criticism of life • 398

Room for laughter in philosophic contemplation • 393

Philosophy as belittling our everyday world • 394

Reasons why philosophers are not commonly humorists • 395

Speculative Idealism as robbing our common world of interest • 396

Relation of Optimism and of Pessimism to laughter • 397

Possibilities of laughter in philosophic Scepticism • 399

Conditions of development of philosophic humour • 401

Humour in the final evaluation of life • 402

Service of philosophic humour • 403

Justification of the individual point of view • 405

Legitimacy of an amused contemplation of one’s world • 405

Amused contemplation as favouring the survival of the unfit • 408

The philosopher’s preference for retirement • 408

Point of view of contemplation of things by philosophic humorist • 409

The contemplator as held by his social world • 409

Points of view of humorist, comedian and satirist • 410

Question of total value of laughter • 411

Alleged purifying function of comedy • 411

Corrective function of social laughter to-day • 413

Ridicule as a test of truth • 414

Estimate of helpfulness of private laughter • 415

Place of laughter among human qualities • 416

Relation of laughter to social affections • 417

Restraint of laughter by society • 418

Control of laughter as part of moral self-regulation • 420

Prudential reasons for controlling laughter • 422

The promotion of a love of laughter in others • 423

The claims of the agelast to be let alone • 424

The cultivation of laughter in the young • 426

The status of laughter to-day • 427

Causes of decline of popular mirth • 428

Characteristics of laughter of the hour • 430

Possibility of death of laughter • 431

How its conservation may be effected • 432

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