The World as Will and Idea Volume II Part 9

The exposition given in our third book of the knowledge of the (Platonic) Ideas, as the highest attainable by man, and at the same time entirely _perceptive or intuitive_ knowledge, is a proof that the source of true wisdom does not lie in abstract rational knowledge, but in the clear and profound apprehension of the world in perception. Therefore wise men may live in any age, and those of the past remain wise men for all succeeding generations. Learning, on the contrary, is relative; the learned men of the past are for the most part children as compared with us, and require indulgence.

But to him who studies in order to gain _insight_ books and studies are only steps of the ladder by which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a round of the ladder has raised him a step, he leaves it behind him. The many, on the other hand, who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rounds of the ladder to mount by, but take them off, and load themselves with them to carry them away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain always below, because they bear what ought to have borne them.

Upon the truth set forth here, that the kernel of all knowledge is the _perceptive or intuitive_ apprehension, depends the true and profound remark of Helvetius, that the really characteristic and original views of which a gifted individual is capable, and the working up, development, and manifold application of which is the material of all his works, even if written much later, can arise in him only up to the thirty-fifth or at the latest the fortieth year of his life, and are really the result of combinations he has made in his early youth. For they are not mere connections of abstract conceptions, but his own intuitive comprehension of the objective world and the nature of things. Now, that this intuitive apprehension must have completed its work by the age mentioned above depends partly on the fact that by that time the ectypes of all (Platonic) Ideas must have presented themselves to the man, and therefore cannot appear later with the strength of the first impression; partly on this, that the highest energy of brain activity is demanded for this quintessence of all knowledge, for this proof before the letter of the apprehension, and this highest energy of the brain is dependent on the freshness and flexibility of its fibres and the rapidity with which the arterial blood flows to the brain. But this again is at its strongest only as long as the arterial system has a decided predominance over the venous system, which begins to decline after the thirtieth year, until at last, after the forty-second year, the venous system obtains the upper hand, as Cabanis has admirably and instructively explained. Therefore the years between twenty and thirty and the first few years after thirty are for the intellect what May is for the trees; only then do the blossoms appear of which all the later fruits are the development. The world of perception has made its impression, and thereby laid the foundation of all the subsequent thoughts of the individual. He may by reflection make clearer what he has apprehended; he may yet acquire much knowledge as nourishment for the fruit which has once set; he may extend his views, correct his conceptions and judgments, it may be only through endless combinations that he becomes completely master of the materials he has gained; indeed he will generally produce his best works much later, as the greatest heat begins with the decline of the day, but he can no longer hope for new original knowledge from the one living fountain of perception. It is this that Byron feels when he breaks forth into his wonderfully beautiful lament:

"No more-no more-oh! never more on me The freshness of the heart can fall like dew, Which out of all the lovely things we see Extracts emotions beautiful and new, Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee: Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?

Alas! 'twas not in them, but in thy power To double even the sweetness of a flower."

Through all that I have said hitherto I hope I have placed in a clear light the important truth that since all abstract knowledge springs from knowledge of perception, it obtains its whole value from its relation to the latter, thus from the fact that its conceptions, or the abstractions which they denote, can be realised, _i.e._, proved, through perceptions; and, moreover, that most depends upon the quality of these perceptions.

Conceptions and abstractions which do not ultimately refer to perceptions are like paths in the wood that end without leading out of it. The great value of conceptions lies in the fact that by means of them the original material of knowledge is more easily handled, surveyed, and arranged. But although many kinds of logical and dialectical operations are possible with them, yet no entirely original and new knowledge will result from these; that is to say, no knowledge whose material neither lay already in perception nor was drawn from self-consciousness. This is the true meaning of the doctrine attributed to Aristotle: _Nihil est in intellectu, nisi quod antea fuerit in sensu_. It is also the meaning of the Lockeian philosophy, which made for ever an epoch in philosophy, because it commenced at last the serious discussion of the question as to the origin of our knowledge. It is also princ.i.p.ally what the "Critique of Pure Reason" teaches. It also desires that we should not remain at the _conceptions_, but go back to their _source_, thus to _perception_; only with the true and important addition that what holds good of the perception also extends to its subjective conditions, thus to the forms which lie predisposed in the perceiving and thinking brain as its natural functions; although these at least _virtualiter_ precede the actual sense-perception, _i.e._, are _a priori_, and therefore do not depend upon sense-perception, but it upon them. For these forms themselves have indeed no other end, nor service, than to produce the empirical perception on the nerves of sense being excited, as other forms are determined afterwards to construct thoughts in the abstract from the material of perception. The "Critique of Pure Reason" is therefore related to the Lockeian philosophy as the a.n.a.lysis of the infinite to elementary geometry, but is yet throughout to be regarded as the _continuation of the Lockeian philosophy_. The given material of every philosophy is accordingly nothing else than the _empirical consciousness_, which divides itself into the consciousness of one's own self (self-consciousness) and the consciousness of other things (external perception). For this alone is what is immediately and actually given. Every philosophy which, instead of starting from this, takes for its starting-point arbitrarily chosen abstract conceptions, such as, for example, absolute, absolute substance, G.o.d, infinity, finitude, absolute ident.i.ty, being, essence, &c., &c., moves in the air without support, and can therefore never lead to a real result. Yet in all ages philosophers have attempted it with such materials; and hence even Kant sometimes, according to the common usage, and more from custom than consistency, defines philosophy as a science of mere conceptions. But such a science would really undertake to extract from the partial ideas (for that is what the abstractions are) what is not to be found in the complete ideas (the perceptions), from which the former were drawn by abstraction. The possibility of the syllogism leads to this mistake, because here the combination of the judgments gives a new result, although more apparent than real, for the syllogism only brings out what already lay in the given judgments; for it is true the conclusion cannot contain more than the premisses. Conceptions are certainly the material of philosophy, but only as marble is the material of the sculptor. It is not to work _out of_ them but _in_ them; that is to say, it is to deposit its results in them, but not to start from them as what is given. Whoever wishes to see a glaring example of such a false procedure from mere conceptions may look at the "_Inst.i.tutio Theologica_" of Proclus in order to convince himself of the vanity of that whole method. There abstractions such as "??, p?????, a?a???, pa?a??? ?a? pa?a??e???, a?ta??e?, a?t???, ??e?tt??, ????t??, a????t??, ?????e???" (_unum_, _multa_, _bonum_, _producens et productum_, _sibi sufficiens_, _causa_, _melius_, _mobile_, _immobile_, _motum_), &c., are indiscriminately collected, but the perceptions to which alone they owe their origin and content ignored and contemptuously disregarded. A theology is then constructed from these conceptions, but its goal, the ?e??, is kept concealed; thus the whole procedure is apparently unprejudiced, as if the reader did not know at the first page, just as well as the author, what it is all to end in. I have already quoted a fragment of this above. This production of Proclus is really quite peculiarly adapted to make clear how utterly useless and illusory such combinations of abstract conceptions are, for we can make of them whatever we will, especially if we further take advantage of the ambiguity of many words, such, for example, as ??e?tt??. If such an architect of conceptions were present in person we would only have to ask naively where all the things are of which he has so much to tell us, and whence he knows the laws from which he draws his conclusions concerning them. He would then soon be obliged to turn to empirical perception, in which alone the real world exhibits itself, from which those conceptions are drawn. Then we would only have to ask further why he did not honestly start from the given perception of such a world, so that at every step his a.s.sertions could be proved by it, instead of operating with conceptions, which are yet drawn from perception alone, and therefore can have no further validity than that which it imparts to them. But of course this is just his trick. Through such conceptions, in which, by virtue of abstraction, what is inseparable is thought as separate, and what cannot be united as united, he goes far beyond the perception which was their source, and thus beyond the limits of their applicability, to an entirely different world from that which supplied the material for building, but just on this account to a world of chimeras. I have here referred to Proclus because in him this procedure becomes specially clear through the frank audacity with which he carries it out. But in Plato also we find some examples of this kind, though not so glaring; and in general the philosophical literature of all ages affords a mult.i.tude of instances of the same thing. That of our own time is rich in them. Consider, for example, the writings of the school of Sch.e.l.ling, and observe the constructions that are built up out of abstractions like finite and infinite-being, non-being, other being-activity, hindrance, product-determining, being determined, determinateness-limit, limiting, being limited-unity, plurality, multiplicity-ident.i.ty, diversity, indifference-thinking, being, essence, &c. Not only does all that has been said above hold good of constructions out of such materials, but because an infinite amount can be thought _through_ such wide abstractions, only very little indeed can be thought _in_ them; they are empty husks. But thus the matter of the whole philosophising becomes astonis.h.i.+ngly trifling and paltry, and hence arises that unutterable and excruciating tediousness which is characteristic of all such writings. If indeed I now chose to call to mind the way in which Hegel and his companions have abused such wide and empty abstractions, I should have to fear that both the reader and I myself would be ill; for the most nauseous tediousness hangs over the empty word-juggling of this loathsome philophaster.

That in _practical_ philosophy also no wisdom is brought to light from mere abstract conceptions is the one thing to be learnt from the ethical dissertations of the theologian Schleiermacher, with the delivery of which he has wearied the Berlin Academy for a number of years, and which are shortly to appear in a collected form. In them only abstract conceptions, such as duty, virtue, highest good, moral law, &c., are taken as the starting-point, without further introduction than that they commonly occur in ethical systems, and are now treated as given realities. He then discusses these from all sides with great subtilty, but, on the other hand, never makes for the source of these conceptions, for the thing itself, the actual human life, to which alone they are related, from which they ought to be drawn, and with which morality has, properly speaking, to do. On this account these diatribes are just as unfruitful and useless as they are tedious, which is saying a great deal. At all times we find persons, like this theologian, who is too fond of philosophising, famous while they are alive, afterwards soon forgotten. My advice is rather to read those whose fate has been the opposite of this, for time is short and valuable.

Now although, in accordance with all that has been said, wide, abstract conceptions, which can be realised in no perception, must never be the source of knowledge, the starting-point or the proper material of philosophy, yet sometimes particular results of philosophy are such as can only be thought in the abstract, and cannot be proved by any perception.

Knowledge of this kind will certainly only be half knowledge; it will, as it were, only point out the place where what is to be known lies; but this remains concealed. Therefore we should only be satisfied with such conceptions in the most extreme case, and when we have reached the limit of the knowledge possible to our faculties. An example of this might perhaps be the conception of a being out of time; such as the proposition: the indestructibility of our true being by death is not a continued existence of it. With conceptions of this sort the firm ground which supports our whole knowledge, the perceptible, seems to waver. Therefore philosophy may certainly at times, and in case of necessity, extend to such knowledge, but it must never begin with it.

The working with wide abstractions, which is condemned above, to the entire neglect of the perceptive knowledge from which they are drawn, and which is therefore their permanent and natural controller, was at all times the princ.i.p.al source of the errors of dogmatic philosophy. A science constructed from the mere comparison of conceptions, that is, from general principles, could only be certain if all its principles were synthetical _a priori_, as is the case in mathematics: for only such admit of no exceptions. If, on the other hand, the principles have any empirical content, we must keep this constantly at hand, to control the general principles. For no truths which are in any way drawn from experience are ever unconditionally true. They have therefore only an approximately universal validity; for here there is no rule without an exception. If now I link these principles together by means of the intersection of their concept-spheres, one conception might very easily touch the other precisely where the exception lies. But if this happens even only once in the course of a long train of reasoning, the whole structure is loosed from its foundation and moves in the air. If, for example, I say, "The ruminants have no front incisors," and apply this and what follows from it to the camel, it all becomes false, for it only holds good of horned ruminants. What Kant calls _das Vernunfteln_, mere abstract reasoning, and so often condemns, is just of this sort. For it consists simply in subsuming conceptions under conceptions, without reference to their origin, and without proof of the correctness and exclusiveness of such subsumption-a method whereby we can arrive by longer or shorter circuits at almost any result we choose to set before us as our goal. Hence this mere abstract reasoning differs only in degree from sophistication strictly so called. But sophistication is in the theoretical sphere exactly what chicanery is in the practical. Yet even Plato himself has very frequently permitted such mere abstract reasoning; and Proclus, as we have already mentioned, has, after the manner of all imitators, carried this fault of his model much further. Dionysius the Areopagite, "_De Divinis Nominibus_," is also strongly affected with this. But even in the fragments of the Eleatic Melissus we already find distinct examples of such mere abstract reasoning (especially -- 2-5 in Brandis' _Comment.

Eleat._) His procedure with the conceptions, which never touch the reality from which they have their content, but, moving in the atmosphere of abstract universality, pa.s.s away beyond it, resembles blows which never hit the mark. A good pattern of such mere abstract reasoning is the "_De Diis et Mundo_" of the philosopher Sall.u.s.tius Buchelchen; especially chaps. 7, 12, and 17. But a perfect gem of philosophical mere abstract reasoning pa.s.sing into decided sophistication is the following reasoning of the Platonist, Maximus of Tyre, which I shall quote, as it is short: "Every injustice is the taking away of a good. There is no other good than virtue: but virtue cannot be taken away: thus it is not possible that the virtuous can suffer injustice from the wicked. It now remains either that no injustice can be suffered, or that it is suffered by the wicked from the wicked. But the wicked man possesses no good at all, for only virtue is a good; therefore none can be taken from him. Thus he also can suffer no injustice. Thus injustice is an impossible thing." The original, which is less concise through repet.i.tions, runs thus: "?d???a est? afa??es??

a?a???; t? de a?a??? t? a? e?? a??? ? a?et??-? de a?et? a?afa??et??. ???

ad???seta? t????? ? t?? a?et?? e???, ? ??? est?? ad???a afa??es?? a?a???; ??de? ?a? a?a??? afa??et??, ??d? ?ap???t??, ??d ??et??, ??de ???st??.

??e? ???, ??d? ad??e?ta? ? ???st??, ??d ?p? t?? ???????; a?afa??et?? ?a?.

?e?peta? t????? ? ?de?a ad??e?s?a? ?a?apa?, ? t?? ??????? ?p? t??

?????; a??a t? ?????? ??de??? etest?? a?a???; ? de ad???a ?? a?a???

afa??es??; ? de ? e??? ?, t? afa??es??, ??de e?? ?, t? ad???s??, e?e?"

(_Sermo 2_). I shall add further a modern example of such proofs from abstract conceptions, by means of which an obviously absurd proposition is set up as the truth, and I shall take it from the works of a great man, Giordano Bruno. In his book, "_Del Infinito Universo e Mondi_" (p. 87 of the edition of A. Wagner), he makes an Aristotelian prove (with the a.s.sistance and exaggeration of the pa.s.sage of Aristotle's _De Clo_, i. 5) that there can be _no s.p.a.ce_ beyond the world. The world is enclosed by the eight spheres of Aristotle, and beyond these there can be no s.p.a.ce.

For if beyond these there were still a body, it must either be simple or compound. It is now proved sophistically, from principles which are obviously begged, that no _simple_ body could be there; and therefore, also, no compound body, for it would necessarily be composed of simple ones. Thus in general there can be no body there-but if not, then _no s.p.a.ce_. For s.p.a.ce is defined as "that in which bodies can be;" and it has just been proved that no body can be there. Thus there is also there no s.p.a.ce. This last is the final stroke of this proof from abstract conceptions. It ultimately rests on the fact that the proposition, "Where no s.p.a.ce is, there can be no body" is taken as a universal negative, and therefore converted simply, "Where no body can be there is no s.p.a.ce." But the former proposition, when properly regarded, is a universal affirmative: "Everything that has no s.p.a.ce has no body," thus it must not be converted simply. Yet it is not every proof from abstract conceptions, with a conclusion which clearly contradicts perception (as here the finiteness of s.p.a.ce), that can thus be referred to a logical error. For the sophistry does not always lie in the form, but often in the matter, in the premisses, and in the indefiniteness of the conceptions and their extension. We find numerous examples of this in Spinoza, whose method indeed it is to prove from conceptions. See, for example, the miserable sophisms in his "Ethics," P. iv., prop. 29-31, by means of the ambiguity of the uncertain conceptions _convenire_ and _commune habere_. Yet this does not prevent the neo-Spinozists of our own day from taking all that he has said for gospel. Of these the Hegelians, of whom there are actually still a few, are specially amusing on account of their traditional reverence for his principle, _omnis determinatio est negatio_, at which, according to the charlatan spirit of the school, they put on a face as if it was able to unhinge the world; whereas it is of no use at all, for even the simplest can see for himself that if I limit anything by determinations, I thereby exclude and thus negate what lies beyond these limits.

Thus in all mere reasonings of the above kind it becomes very apparent what errors that algebra with mere conceptions, uncontrolled by perception, is exposed to, and that therefore perception is for our intellect what the firm ground upon which it stands is for our body: if we forsake perception everything is _instabilis tellus, innabilis unda_. The reader will pardon the fulness of these expositions and examples on account of their instructiveness. I have sought by means of them to bring forward and support the difference, indeed the opposition, between perceptive and abstract or reflected knowledge, which has. .h.i.therto been too little regarded, and the establishment of which is a fundamental characteristic of my philosophy. For many phenomena of our mental life are only explicable through this distinction. The connecting link between these two such different kinds of knowledge is the _faculty of judgment_, as I have shown in -- 14 of the first volume. This faculty is certainly also active in the province of mere abstract knowledge, in which it compares conceptions only with conceptions; therefore every judgment, in the logical sense of the word, is certainly a work of the faculty of judgment, for it always consists in the subsumption of a narrower conception under a wider one. Yet this activity of the faculty of judgment, in which it merely compares conceptions with each other, is a simpler and easier task than when it makes the transition from what is quite particular, the perception, to the essentially general, the conception. For by the a.n.a.lysis of conceptions into their essential predicates it must be possible to decide upon purely logical grounds whether they are capable of being united or not, and for this the mere reason which every one possesses is sufficient. The faculty of judgment is therefore only active here in shortening this process, for he who is gifted with it sees at a glance what others only arrive at through a series of reflections. But its activity in the narrower sense really only appears when what is known through perception, thus the real experience, has to be carried over into distinct abstract knowledge, subsumed under accurately corresponding conceptions, and thus translated into reflected rational knowledge. It is therefore this faculty which has to establish the firm _basis_ of all sciences, which always consists of what is known directly and cannot be further denied. Therefore here, in the fundamental judgments, lies the difficulty of the sciences, not in the inferences from these. To infer is easy, to judge is difficult. False inferences are rare, false judgments are always the order of the day. Not less in practical life has the faculty of judgment to give the decision in all fundamental conclusions and important determinations. Its office is in the main like that of the judicial sentence. As the burning-gla.s.s brings to a focus all the sun's rays, so when the understanding works, the intellect has to bring together all the data which it has upon the subject so closely that the understanding comprehends them at a glance, which it now rightly fixes, and then carefully makes the result distinct to itself. Further, the great difficulty of judging in most cases depends upon the fact that we have to proceed from the consequent to the reason, a path which is always uncertain; indeed I have shown that the source of all error lies here. Yet in all the empirical sciences, and also in the affairs of real life, this way is for the most part the only one open to us. The experiment is an attempt to go over it again the other way; therefore it is decisive, and at least brings out error clearly; provided always that it is rightly chosen and honestly carried out; not like Newton's experiments in connection with the theory of colours. But the experiment itself must also again be judged. The complete certainty of the _a priori_ sciences, logic and mathematics, depends princ.i.p.ally upon the fact that in them the path from the reason to the consequent is open to us, and it is always certain. This gives them the character of _purely objective_ sciences, _i.e._, sciences with regard to whose truths all who understand them must judge alike; and this is all the more remarkable as they are the very sciences which rest on the subjective forms of the intellect, while the empirical sciences alone have to do with what is palpably objective.

Wit and ingenuity are also manifestations of the faculty of judgment; in the former its activity is reflective, in the latter subsuming. In most men the faculty of judgment is only nominally present; it is a kind of irony that it is reckoned with the normal faculties of the mind, instead of being only attributed to the _monstris per excessum_. Ordinary men show even in the smallest affairs want of confidence in their own judgment, just because they know from experience that it is of no service. With them prejudice and imitation take its place; and thus they are kept in a state of continual non-age, from which scarcely one in many hundreds is delivered. Certainly this is not avowed, for even to themselves they appear to judge; but all the time they are glancing stealthily at the opinion of others, which is their secret standard. While each one would be ashamed to go about in a borrowed coat, hat, or mantle, they all have nothing but borrowed opinions, which they eagerly collect wherever they can find them, and then strut about giving them out as their own. Others borrow them again from them and do the same thing. This explains the rapid and wide spread of errors, and also the fame of what is bad; for the professional purveyors of opinion, such as journalists and the like, give as a rule only false wares, as those who hire out masquerading dresses give only false jewels.

Chapter VIII.(20) On The Theory Of The Ludicrous.

My theory of the ludicrous also depends upon the opposition explained in the preceding chapters between perceptible and abstract ideas, which I have brought into such marked prominence. Therefore what has still to be said in explanation of this theory finds its proper place here, although according to the order of the text it would have to come later.

The problem of the origin, which is everywhere the same, and hence of the peculiar significance of laughter, was already known to Cicero, but only to be at once dismissed as insoluble (_De Orat._, ii. 58). The oldest attempt known to me at a psychological explanation of laughter is to be found in Hutcheson's "Introduction into Moral Philosophy," Bk. I., ch. i.

-- 14. A somewhat later anonymous work, "_Traite des Causes Physiques et Morals du Rire_," 1768, is not without merit as a ventilation of the subject. Platner, in his "Anthropology," -- 894, has collected the opinions of the philosophers from Hume to Kant who have attempted an explanation of this phenomenon peculiar to human nature. Kant's and Jean Paul's theories of the ludicrous are well known. I regard it as unnecessary to prove their incorrectness, for whoever tries to refer given cases of the ludicrous to them will in the great majority of instances be at once convinced of their insufficiency.

According to my explanation given in the first volume, the source of the ludicrous is always the paradoxical, and therefore unexpected, subsumption of an object under a conception which in other respects is different from it, and accordingly the phenomenon of laughter always signifies the sudden apprehension of an incongruity between such a conception and the real object thought under it, thus between the abstract and the concrete object of perception. The greater and more unexpected, in the apprehension of the laughter, this incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter.

Therefore in everything that excites laughter it must always be possible to show a conception and a particular, that is, a thing or event, which certainly can be subsumed under that conception, and therefore thought through it, yet in another and more predominating aspect does not belong to it at all, but is strikingly different from everything else that is thought through that conception. If, as often occurs, especially in witticisms, instead of such a real object of perception, the conception of a subordinate species is brought under the higher conception of the genus, it will yet excite laughter only through the fact that the imagination realises it, _i.e._, makes a perceptible representative stand for it, and thus the conflict between what is thought and what is perceived takes place. Indeed if we wish to understand this perfectly explicitly, it is possible to trace everything ludicrous to a syllogism in the first figure, with an undisputed _major_ and an unexpected _minor_, which to a certain extent is only sophistically valid, in consequence of which connection the conclusion partakes of the quality of the ludicrous.

In the first volume I regarded it as superfluous to ill.u.s.trate this theory by examples, for every one can do this for himself by a little reflection upon cases of the ludicrous which he remembers. Yet, in order to come to the a.s.sistance of the mental inertness of those readers who prefer always to remain in a pa.s.sive condition, I will accommodate myself to them.

Indeed in this third edition I wish to multiply and acc.u.mulate examples, so that it may be indisputable that here, after so many fruitless earlier attempts, the true theory of the ludicrous is given, and the problem which was proposed and also given up by Cicero is definitely solved.

If we consider that an angle requires two lines meeting so that if they are produced they will intersect each other; on the other hand, that the tangent of a circle only touches it at one point, but at this point is really parallel to it; and accordingly have present to our minds the abstract conviction of the impossibility of an angle between the circ.u.mference of a circle and its tangent; and if now such an angle lies visibly before us upon paper, this will easily excite a smile. The ludicrousness in this case is exceedingly weak; but yet the source of it in the incongruity of what is thought and perceived appears in it with exceptional distinctness. When we discover such an incongruity, the occasion for laughter that thereby arises is, according as we pa.s.s from the real, _i.e._, the perceptible, to the conception, or conversely from the conception to the real, either a witticism or an absurdity, which in a higher degree, and especially in the practical sphere, is folly, as was explained in the text. Now to consider examples of the first case, thus of wit, we shall first of all take the familiar anecdote of the Gascon at whom the king laughed when he saw him in light summer clothing in the depth of winter, and who thereupon said to the king: "If your Majesty had put on what I have, you would find it very warm;" and on being asked what he had put on, replied: "My whole wardrobe!" Under this last conception we have to think both the unlimited wardrobe of a king and the single summer coat of a poor devil, the sight of which upon his freezing body shows its great incongruity with the conception. The audience in a theatre in Paris once called for the "Ma.r.s.eillaise" to be played, and as this was not done, began shrieking and howling, so that at last a commissary of police in uniform came upon the stage and explained that it was not allowed that anything should be given in the theatre except what was in the playbill.

Upon this a voice cried: "_Et vous, Monsieur, etes-vous aussi sur l'affiche?_"-a hit which was received with universal laughter. For here the subsumption of what is heterogeneous is at once distinct and unforced.

The epigramme:

"Bav is the true shepherd of whom the Bible spake: Though his flock be all asleep, he alone remains awake:"

subsumes, under the conception of a sleeping flock and a waking shepherd, the tedious preacher who still bellows on unheard when he has sent all the people to sleep. a.n.a.logous to this is the epitaph on a doctor: "Here lies he like a hero, and those he has slain lie around him;" it subsumes under the conception, honourable to the hero, of "lying surrounded by dead bodies," the doctor, who is supposed to preserve life. Very commonly the witticism consists in a single expression, through which only the conception is given, under which the case presented can be subsumed, though it is very different from everything else that is thought under it.

So is it in "Romeo" when the vivacious Mercutio answers his friends who promise to visit him on the morrow: "Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Under this conception a dead man is here subsumed; but in English there is also a play upon the words, for "a grave man"

means both a serious man and a man of the grave. Of this kind is also the well-known anecdote of the actor Unzelmann. In the Berlin theatre he was strictly forbidden to improvise. Soon afterwards he had to appear on the stage on horseback, and just as he came on the stage the horse dunged, at which the audience began to laugh, but laughed much more when Unzelmann said to the horse: "What are you doing? Don't you know we are forbidden to improvise?" Here the subsumption of the heterogeneous under the more general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly happy, and the ludicrous effect produced by it excessively strong. To this cla.s.s also belongs the following announcement from Hall in a newspaper of March 1851: "The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were again delivered over to us with obligato accompaniment." This subsuming of a police escort under a musical term is very happy, though it approaches the mere play upon words. On the other hand, it is exactly a case of the kind we are considering when Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli, describes him as "Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body." The small statue of the actor was known to the whole town, and thus under the conception "great" unusual smallness was presented to the mind. Also when the same Saphir calls the airs of a new opera "good old friends," and so brings the quality which is most to be condemned under a conception which is usually employed to commend. Also, if we should say of a lady whose favour could be influenced by presents, that she knew how to combine the _utile_ with the _dulci_. For here we bring the moral life under the conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an aesthetical reference. Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the "modest abode of quiet joys." Good society, in order to be thoroughly insipid, has forbidden all decided utterances, and therefore all strong expressions.

Therefore it is wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them by expressing them through general conceptions. But in this way it happens that they are more or less incongruously subsumed, and in a corresponding degree the effect of the ludicrous is produced. To this cla.s.s belongs the use of _utile dulci_ referred to above, and also such expressions as the following: "He had unpleasantness at the ball" when he was thrashed and kicked out; or, "He has done too well" when he is drunk; and also, "The woman has weak moments" if she is unfaithful to her husband, &c. Equivocal sayings also belong to the same cla.s.s. They are conceptions which in themselves contain nothing improper, but yet the case brought under them leads to an improper idea. They are very common in society. But a perfect example of a full and magnificent equivocation is Shenstone's incomparable epitaph on a justice of the peace, which, in its high-flown lapidary style, seems to speak of n.o.ble and sublime things, while under each of their conceptions something quite different is to be subsumed, which only appears in the very last word as the unexpected key to the whole, and the reader discovers with loud laughter that he has only read a very obscene equivocation. In this smooth-combed age it is altogether impossible to quote this here, not to speak of translating it; it will be found in Shenstone's poetical works, under the t.i.tle "Inscription." Equivocations sometimes pa.s.s over into mere puns, about which all that is necessary has been said in the text.

Further, the ultimate subsumption, ludicrous to all, of what in one respect is heterogeneous, under a conception which in other respects agrees with it, may take place contrary to our intention. For example, one of the free negroes in North America, who take pains to imitate the whites in everything, quite recently placed an epitaph over his dead child which begins, "Lovely, early broken lily." If, on the contrary, something real and perceptible is, with direct intention, brought under the conception of its opposite, the result is plain, common irony. For example, if when it is raining hard we say, "Nice weather we are having to-day;" or if we say of an ugly bride, "That man has found a charming treasure;" or of a knave, "This honest man," &c. &c. Only children and quite uneducated people will laugh at such things; for here the incongruity between what is thought and what is perceived is total. Yet just in this direct exaggeration in the production of the ludicrous its fundamental character, incongruity, appears very distinctly. This species of the ludicrous is, on account of its exaggeration and distinct intention, in some respects related to _parody_. The procedure of the latter consists in this. It subst.i.tutes for the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignificant low persons or trifling motives and actions. It thus subsumes the commonplace realities which it sets forth under the lofty conceptions given in the theme, under which in a certain respect they must come, while in other respects they are very incongruous; and thereby the contrast between what is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of familiar examples of this, and therefore I shall only give one, from the "Zobeide" of Carlo Gozzi, act iv., scene 3, where the famous stanza of Ariosto (_Orl. Fur._, i. 22), "_Oh gran bonta de' cavalieri antichi_,"

&c., is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been thras.h.i.+ng each other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side. This is also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial events, which clearly contains a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which the verse expresses. Thus, for example, when any one has displayed a very characteristic trait, there will rarely be wanting some one to say, "From that I know with whom I have to do." But it was original and very witty of a man who was in love with a young bride to quote to the newly married couple (I know not how loudly) the concluding words of Schiller's ballad, "The Surety:"

"Let me be, I pray you, In your bond the third."

The effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitable, because under the conceptions through which Schiller presents to the mind a moral and n.o.ble relation, a forbidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet correctly and without change, thus is thought through it. In all the examples of wit given here we find that under a conception, or in general an abstract thought, a real thing is, directly, or by means of a narrower conception, subsumed, which indeed, strictly speaking, comes under it, and yet is as different as possible from the proper and original intention and tendency of the thought. Accordingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a conception under which it certainly can be thought, though it is very different from all the other objects which come under this conception.

The second species of the ludicrous follows, as we have mentioned, the opposite path from the abstract conception to the real or perceptible things thought through it. But this now brings to light any incongruity with the conception which was overlooked, and hence arises an absurdity, and therefore in the practical sphere a foolish action. Since the play requires action, this species of the ludicrous is essential to comedy.

Upon this depends the observation of Voltaire: "_J'ai cru remarquer aux spectacles, qu'il ne s'eleve presque jamais de ces eclats de rire universels, qu'a l'occasion d'une_ MePRISE" (_Preface de L'Enfant Prodigue_). The following may serve as examples of this species of the ludicrous. When some one had declared that he was fond of walking alone, an Austrian said to him: "You like walking alone; so do I: therefore we can go together." He starts from the conception, "A pleasure which two love they can enjoy in common," and subsumes under it the very case which excludes community. Further, the servant who rubbed a worn sealskin in his master's box with Maca.s.sar oil, so that it might become covered with hair again; in doing which he started from the conception, "Maca.s.sar oil makes hair grow." The soldiers in the guard-room who allowed a prisoner who was brought in to join in their game of cards, then quarrelled with him for cheating, and turned him out. They let themselves be led by the general conception, "Bad companions are turned out," and forget that he is also a prisoner, _i.e._, one whom they ought to hold fast. Two young peasants had loaded their gun with coa.r.s.e shot, which they wished to extract, in order to subst.i.tute fine, without losing the powder. So one of them put the mouth of the barrel in his hat, which he took between his legs, and said to the other: "Now you pull the trigger slowly, slowly, slowly; then the shot will come first." He starts from the conception, "Prolonging the cause prolongs the effect." Most of the actions of Don Quixote are also cases in point, for he subsumes the realities he encounters under conceptions drawn from the romances of chivalry, from which they are very different. For example, in order to support the oppressed he frees the galley slaves. Properly all Munchhausenisms are also of this nature, only they are not actions which are performed, but impossibilities, which are pa.s.sed off upon the hearer as having really happened. In them the fact is always so conceived that when it is thought merely in the abstract, and therefore comparatively _a priori_, it appears possible and plausible; but afterwards, if we come down to the perception of the particular case, thus _a posteriori_ the impossibility of the thing, indeed the absurdity of the a.s.sumption, is brought into prominence, and excites laughter through the evident incongruity of what is perceived and what is thought. For example, when the melodies frozen up in the post-horn are thawed in the warm room-when Munchhausen, sitting upon a tree during a hard frost, draws up his knife which has dropped to the ground by the frozen jet of his own water, &c. Such is also the story of the two lions who broke down the part.i.tion between them during the night and devoured each other in their rage, so that in the morning there was nothing to be found but the two tails.

There are also cases of the ludicrous where the conception under which the perceptible facts are brought does not require to be expressed or signified, but comes into consciousness itself through the a.s.sociation of ideas. The laughter into which Garrick burst in the middle of playing tragedy because a butcher in the front of the pit, who had taken off his wig to wipe the sweat from his head, placed the wig for a while upon his large dog, who stood facing the stage with his fore paws resting on the pit railings, was occasioned by the fact that Garrick started from the conception of a spectator, which was added in his own mind. This is the reason why certain animal forms, such as apes, kangaroos, jumping-hares, &c., sometimes appear to us ludicrous because something about them resembling man leads us to subsume them under the conception of the human form, and starting from this we perceive their incongruity with it.

Now the conceptions whose observed incongruity with the perceptions moves us to laughter are either those of others or our own. In the first case we laugh at others, in the second we feel a surprise, often agreeable, at the least amusing. Therefore children and uneducated people laugh at the most trifling things, even at misfortunes, if they were unexpected, and thus convicted their preconceived conception of error. As a rule laughing is a pleasant condition; accordingly the apprehension of the incongruity between what is thought and what is perceived, that is, the real, gives us pleasure, and we give ourselves up gladly to the spasmodic convulsions which this apprehension excites. The reason of this is as follows. In every suddenly appearing conflict between what is perceived and what is thought, what is perceived is always unquestionably right; for it is not subject to error at all, requires no confirmation from without, but answers for itself. Its conflict with what is thought springs ultimately from the fact that the latter, with its abstract conceptions, cannot get down to the infinite multifariousness and fine shades of difference of the concrete. This victory of knowledge of perception over thought affords us pleasure. For perception is the original kind of knowledge inseparable from animal nature, in which everything that gives direct satisfaction to the will presents itself. It is the medium of the present, of enjoyment and gaiety; moreover it is attended with no exertion. With thinking the opposite is the case; it is the second power of knowledge, the exercise of which always demands some, and often considerable, exertion. Besides, it is the conceptions of thought that often oppose the gratification of our immediate desires, for, as the medium of the past, the future, and of seriousness, they are the vehicle of our fears, our repentance, and all our cares. It must therefore be diverting to us to see this strict, untiring, troublesome governess, the reason, for once convicted of insufficiency. On this account then the mien or appearance of laughter is very closely related to that of joy.

On account of the want of reason, thus of general conceptions, the brute is incapable of laughter, as of speech. This is therefore a prerogative and characteristic mark of man. Yet it may be remarked in pa.s.sing that his one friend the dog has an a.n.a.logous characteristic action peculiar to him alone in distinction from all other brutes, the very expressive, kindly, and thoroughly honest fawning and wagging of its tail. But how favourably does this salutation given him by nature compare with the bows and simpering civilities of men. At least for the present, it is a thousand times more reliable than their a.s.surance of inward friends.h.i.+p and devotion.

The opposite of laughing and joking is _seriousness_. Accordingly it consists in the consciousness of the perfect agreement and congruity of the conception, or thought, with what is perceived, or the reality. The serious man is convinced that he thinks the things as they are, and that they are as he thinks them. This is just why the transition from profound seriousness to laughter is so easy, and can be effected by trifles. For the more perfect that agreement a.s.sumed by seriousness may seem to be, the more easily is it destroyed by the unexpected discovery of even a slight incongruity. Therefore the more a man is capable of entire seriousness, the more heartily can he laugh. Men whose laughter is always affected and forced are intellectually and morally of little worth; and in general the way of laughing, and, on the other hand, the occasions of it, are very characteristic of the person. That the relations of the s.e.xes afford the easiest materials for jokes always ready to hand and within the reach of the weakest wit, as is proved by the abundance of obscene jests, could not be if it were not that the deepest seriousness lies at their foundation.

That the laughter of others at what we do or say seriously offends us so keenly depends on the fact that it a.s.serts that there is a great incongruity between our conceptions and the objective realities. For the same reason, the predicate "ludicrous" or "absurd" is insulting. The laugh of scorn announces with triumph to the baffled adversary how incongruous were the conceptions he cherished with the reality which is now revealing itself to him. Our own bitter laughter at the fearful disclosure of the truth through which our firmly cherished expectations are proved to be delusive is the active expression of the discovery now made of the incongruity between the thoughts which, in our foolish confidence in man or fate, we entertained, and the truth which is now unveiled.

The _intentionally_ ludicrous is the _joke_. It is the effort to bring about a discrepancy between the conceptions of another and the reality by disarranging one of the two; while its opposite, _seriousness_, consists in the exact conformity of the two to each other, which is at least aimed at. But if now the joke is concealed behind seriousness, then we have _irony_. For example, if with apparent seriousness we acquiesce in the opinions of another which are the opposite of our own, and pretend to share them with him, till at last the result perplexes him both as to us and them. This is the att.i.tude of Socrates as opposed to Hippias, Protagoras, Gorgias, and other sophists, and indeed often to his collocutors in general. The converse of irony is accordingly seriousness concealed behind a joke, and this is _humour_. It might be called the double counterpoint of irony. Explanations such as "Humour is the interpenetration of the finite and the infinite" express nothing more than the entire incapacity for thought of those who are satisfied with such empty phrases. Irony is objective, that is, intended for another; but humour is subjective, that is, it primarily exists only for one's own self. Accordingly we find the masterpieces of irony among the ancients, but those of humour among the moderns. For, more closely considered, humour depends upon a subjective, yet serious and sublime mood, which is involuntarily in conflict with a common external world very different from itself, which it cannot escape from and to which it will not give itself up; therefore, as an accommodation, it tries to think its own point of view and that external world through the same conceptions, and thus a double incongruity arises, sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the other, between these concepts and the realities thought through them.

Hence the impression of the intentionally ludicrous, thus of the joke, is produced, behind which, however, the deepest seriousness is concealed and s.h.i.+nes through. Irony begins with a serious air and ends with a smile; with humour the order is reversed. The words of Mercutio quoted above may serve as an example of humour. Also in "Hamlet"-_Polonius_: "My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. _Hamlet_: You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life." Again, before the introduction of the play at court, Hamlet says to Ophelia: "What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. _Ophelia_: Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.

_Hamlet_: So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables."

Again, in Jean Paul's "t.i.tan," when Schoppe, melancholy and now brooding over himself, frequently looking at his hands, says to himself, "There sits a lord in bodily reality, and I in him; but who is such?" Heinrich Heine appears as a true humourist in his "_Romancero_." Behind all his jokes and drollery we discern a profound seriousness, which is ashamed to appear unveiled. Accordingly humour depends upon a special kind of mood or temper (German, _Laune_, probably from _Luna_) through which conception in all its modifications, a decided predominance of the subjective over the objective in the apprehension of the external world, is thought. Moreover, every poetical or artistic presentation of a comical, or indeed even a farcical scene, through which a serious thought yet glimmers as its concealed background, is a production of humour, thus is humorous. Such, for example, is a coloured drawing of Tischbein's, which represents an empty room, lighted only by the blazing fire in the grate. Before the fire stands a man with his coat off, in such a position that his shadow, going out from his feet, stretches across the whole room. Tischbein comments thus on the drawing: "This is a man who has succeeded in nothing in the world, and who has made nothing of it; now he rejoices that he can throw such a large shadow." Now, if I had to express the seriousness that lies concealed behind this jest, I could best do so by means of the following verse taken from the Persian poem of Anwari Soheili:-

"If thou hast lost possession of a world, Be not distressed, for it is nought; Or hast thou gained possession of a world, Be not o'erjoyed, for it is nought.

Our pains, our gains, all pa.s.s away; Get thee beyond the world, for it is nought."

That at the present day the word humorous is generally used in German literature in the sense of comical arises from the miserable desire to give things a more distinguished name than belongs to them, the name of a cla.s.s that stands above them. Thus every inn must be called a hotel, every money-changer a banker, every concert a musical academy, the merchant's counting-house a bureau, the potter an artist in clay, and therefore also every clown a humourist. The word _humour_ is borrowed from the English to denote a quite peculiar species of the ludicrous, which indeed, as was said above, is related to the sublime, and which was first remarked by them. But it is not intended to be used as the t.i.tle for all kinds of jokes and buffoonery, as is now universally the case in Germany, without opposition from men of letters and scholars; for the true conception of that modification, that tendency of the mind, that child of the sublime and the ridiculous, would be too subtle and too high for their public, to please which they take pains to make everything flat and vulgar. Well, "high words and a low meaning" is in general the motto of the n.o.ble present, and accordingly now-a-days he is called a humourist who was formerly, called a buffoon.