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The scientific mind is eager to understand intellectually the anatomy and physiology of a universal phenomenon; the artistic mind, brought into contact with it, is restless until it has some sort of an emotional appreciation of it. Hence humor, and its consanguinous ideas, laughter, wit, comedy, and so on, has always intrigued alike philosopher and poet. The sense of humor is by general understanding assumed to be such a meritorious quality that one can more safely accuse his friend of mendacity than lack of humor; and yet babies of a few months undoubtedly show it, and we are driven sometimes to admit its existence in infra-human primates. Contemplating only its bright side, we speak of it in the same breath with happiness and joy and all the kindlier emotions and then by chance we get a glimpse of the reverse, the leaden side, we hear echoes from that most terrible form of humor, sardonic humor:
“Like a man's laughter heard in hell, Deep down, Faustine!”
Then, piqued by the deceptively simple-appearing character of the phenomenon and anxious to explain its protean forms, philosopher and poet begin to fashion theories. These are legion; Mr. Greig's book gives a bibliography of 363 references, and these by no means exhaust the list.
Greig's own theory is, briefly, as follows: Laughter is one of the manifestations of love behavior. Thus, in young children, smiles and laughter are elicited only when there is another person present. One cannot tickle oneself. Laughter may represent an interruption of the love behavior and hence express displeasure. It can only be regarded as contributory when it is deliberately used by the laugher.