combines this sense with that in which Renaissance scholars applied it
to the ancient comedies.

The adjective "comic" (Gr. [Greek: komikos]), which strictly means that
which relates to comedy, is in modern usage generally confined to the
sense of "laughter-provoking": it is distinguished from "humorous" or
"witty" inasmuch as it is applied to an incident or remark which
provokes spontaneous laughter without a special mental effort. The
phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it, the comic,
have been carefully investigated by psychologists, in contrast with
other phenomena connected with the emotions. It is very generally agreed
that the predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in
the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject.
It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential,
if not the essential, factor: thus Hobbes speaks of laughter as a
"sudden glory." Physiological explanations have been given by Kant,
Spencer and Darwin. Modern investigators have paid much attention to the
origin both of laughter and of smiling, babies being watched from
infancy and the date of their first smile being carefully recorded. For
an admirable analysis and account of the theories see James Sully, _On
Laughter_ (1902), who deals generally with the development of the "play
instinct" and its emotional expression.

See DRAMA; also HUMOUR; CARICATURE; PLAY, &c.

COMENIUS (or KOMENSKY), JOHANN AMOS (1592-1671), a famous writer on
education, and the last bishop of the old church of the Moravian and
Bohemian Brethren, was born at Comna, or, according to another account,
at Niwnitz, in Moravia, of poor parents belonging to the sect of the
Moravian Brethren. Having studied at Herborn and Heidelberg, and
travelled in Holland and England, he became rector of a school at
Prerau, and after that pastor and rector of a school at Fulnek. In 1621
the Spanish invasion and persecution of the Protestants robbed him of
all he possessed, and drove him into Poland. Soon after he was made
bishop of the church of the Brethren. He supported himself by teaching
Latin at Lissa, and it was here that he published his _Pansophiae
prodromus_ (1630), a work on education, and his _Janua linguarum
reserata_ (1631), the latter of which gained for him a widespread
reputation, being produced in twelve European languages, and also in
Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He subsequently published