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As is well known, most books on the subject of laughter are extra ordinarily tedious to read. Mr. Greig's book, on the contrary, is written in a delightful vein which happily hits the mean between heaviness on the one hand and undue frivolity on the other. It can be cordially recommended both on the score of being very readable and because it evinces unusual broadmindedness on the part of a professional psychologist.
Due weight is given in the book to the genetic aspects of the problems and the connexion between first smiles and oral erotism is made clear (p. 50). The author's main thesis about laughter appears to be that it is due to the sudden giving way of a previous obstruction, laughter being one of the ways in which the surplus energy may be used which is no longer required to push against the obstruction. Although he prefers the term 'love instinct', he appears to consider the whole subject of laughter as being essentially dependent on sexual factors. The same is true of tickling which he defines as 'intermittent tactual stimulation of the erotogenetic zone' (p. 53). His analyses of the various situations leading to laughter, comedy, humour and wit are mostly acute and always interesting. In discussing the Punch and Judy show, he accepts the phallic significance of Punch, but gives a very thin explanation of the pleasure at seeing the baby being thrown out of the window, which shows that he has probably not read the contribution Freud made to this theme in connexion with Goethe's childhood.
Early in the section on wit comes the following paragraph which deserves to be quoted as indicating the author's attitude towards psychoanalysis: 'Tendency wit, then, on Freud's view, is either sexual or hostile, either a sexual advance or a more or less vigorous attack. If the word love is substituted for the word sex —for reasons I indicated in the third chapter—I have no comment to make on this, the central thesis of Freud's book, beyond accepting it, and acknowl