Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/353

 give a satisfactory explanation of this if we do not accept Bergson’s view, according to which the comic of imitation is put next to the comic produced by uncovering the psychic automatism. Bergson believes that everything gives a comic impression which manifests itself in the shape of a machine-like inanimate movement in the human being. His law is that “the attitudes, gestures, and movements of the human body are laughable in exact proportion as that body reminds us of a mere machine.” He explains the comic of imitation by connecting it with a problem formulated by Pascal in his Thoughts, why is it that we laugh at the comparison of two faces that are alike although neither of them excites laughter by itself. “The truth is that a really living life should never repeat itself. Wherever there is repetition or complete similarity, we always suspect some mechanism at work behind the living.” Analyze the impression you get from two faces that are too much alike, and you will find that you are thinking of two copies cast in the same mould, or two impressions of the same soul, or two reproductions of the same negative,—in a word, of some manufacturing process or other. This deflection of life towards the mechanical is here the real cause