. This definition
accounts for the otherwise extraordinary fact, that there is something
in moral evil which, in some instances, affects the mind ludicrously.
That is to say, if moral evil affects us with no pain; if we see in it
nothing, so to speak, but its irregularity, its strange contrast with
what is beautiful, its jarring with the harmony of the system around us;
then it does acquire that character which is well defined as being
ridiculous. Thus it is notorious that trifling follies, and even gross
vices, are often so represented in works of fiction as to be
exceedingly ludicrous. It is enough, as an instance of what I mean, to
name the vice of drunkenness. Get rid for the moment of the notions of
vice or sin which, accompany it, and which give moral pain; get rid also
of those points in it which awaken physical disgust; retain merely the
notion of the incoherent language, and the strange capricious gait of
intoxication; and we have then an image merely ridiculous, as much, so
as the rambling talk and absurd gestures of the old buffoons.

Here, then, we have the secret of vice becoming laughable; and of things
which are really wicked, disgusting, hateful, being expressed by names
purely ludicrous. Where no great physical pain or distress is occasioned
by what is evil, our sense of its ludicrousness will be exactly in
proportion to the faintness of our sense of moral evil; or, in other
words, to our want of being in earnest. The evil that does not seriously
pain or inconvenience man, is very apt to be regarded with feelings
approaching to laughter, if we have no sense of pain at the notion of
its being an offence against God.

Thus, then, we have seen how, from the want of being in earnest, from
the habitual slumber of conscience, or that sovereign part of us which
looks upon our whole state with reference to its highest interests, and
passes judgment upon all our actions,--how, from the practical absence
of these, we may get to follow evil persons, and be indifferent to the
good; to admire qualities which, from usurping the place of better ones,
are actually ruinous; and, finally, to regard all common evil not so
much with deep abhorrence, as with a disposition to laugh at it. And
thus the practical judgment and influence of the society around us may
be fatally evil; while the society all the time shall contain, even in
its very perversion, various elements of truth and of good.

I have kept to general language