Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438, by Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438
Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852

Author: Various

Editor: Robert Chambers
William Chambers

Release Date: July 17, 2006 [EBook #18853]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 438. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._

PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHTER.

From the time of King Solomon downwards, laughter has been the subject
of pretty general abuse. Even the laughers themselves sometimes
vituperate the cachinnation they indulge in, and many of them

----'laugh in such a sort,
As if they mocked themselves, and scorned the spirit
That could be moved to laugh at anything.'

The general notion is, that laughter is childish, and unworthy the
gravity of adult life. Grown men, we say, have more to do than to
laugh; and the wiser sort of them leave such an unseemly contortion of
the muscles to babes and blockheads.

We have a suspicion that there is something wrong here--that the world
is mistaken not only in its reasonings, but its facts. To assign
laughter to an early period of life, is to go contrary to observation
and experience. There is not so grave an animal in this world as the
human baby. It will weep, when it has got the length of tears, by the
pailful; it will clench its fists, distort its face into a hideous
expression of anguish, and scream itself into convulsions. It has not
yet come up to a laugh. The little savage must be educated by
circumstances, and tamed by the contact of civilisation, before it
rises to the greater functions of its being. Nay, we have sometimes
received the idea from its choked and tuneless screams, that _they_
were imperfect attempts at laught