ted it out from the
outset of this work, continually drawing attention to the following
point: what is essentially laughable is what is done automatically. In
a vice, even in a virtue, the comic is that element by which the person
unwittingly betrays himself--the involuntary gesture or the unconscious
remark. Absentmindedness is always comical. Indeed, the deeper the
absentmindedness the higher the comedy. Systematic absentmindedness,
like that of Don Quixote, is the most comical thing imaginable: it is
the comic itself, drawn as nearly as possible from its very source.
Take any other comic character: however unconscious he may be of what
he says or does, he cannot 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. [Footnote: When
the humorist laughs at himself, he is really acting a double part; the
self who laughs is indeed conscious, but not the self who is laughed
at.] Profoundly comic sayings are those artless ones in which some vice
reveals itself in all its nakedness: how could it thus expose itself
were it capable of seeing itself as it is? It is not uncommon for a
comic character to condemn in general terms a certain line of conduct
and immediately afterwards afford an example of it himself: for
instance, M. Jourdain's teacher of philosophy flying into a passion
after inveighing against anger; Vadius taking a poem from his pocket
after heaping ridicule on readers of poetry, etc. What is the object of
such contradictions except to help us to put our finger on the
obliviousness of the characters to their own actions? Inattention to
self, and consequently to others, is what we invariably find. And if we
look at the matter closely, we see that inattention is here equivalent
to what we have called unsociability. The chief cause of rigidity is
the neglect to look around--and more especially within oneself: how can
a man fashion his personality after that of another if he does not
first study others as well as himself? Rigidity, automatism,
absent-mindedness and unsociability are all inextricably entwined; and
all serve as ingredients to the making up of the comic in character.

In a word, if we leave on one side, when dealing with human
personality, that portion which interests our sensibility or appeals to
our feeling, all the rest is capable of becoming comic, and the comic
will be proportioned to the r