Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/408

 394 CRITICAL NOTICES I I think, however, there is more in Aristotle's observation than Prof. Sully quite recognises. It seems to me that the "germ of the degradation theory " is rather to be found in Plato (Philebus, 48-oO) than in Aristotle. The latter, as Prof. Butcher points out, 1 had before him Plato's analysis of the emotions excited by comedy, in which the author of the Philebus anticipates at least part of Hobbes's theory the malicious pleasure springing from the sight of the misfortune or abasement of others yet Aristotle deliberately omits this, whilst he inserts the limiting condition that the defect "be not painful or destructive" either to the laugher or the laughed at. 2 The deformity in fact must not be such as to excite pity or any counteracting feeling. If, as Prof. Butcher urges (loc. cit.}, the 'defect' primarily applicable to the physically ugly be extended to include "the disproportionate" in human nature, it may perhaps in connexion with Aristotle's idea of Beauty be inter- preted to cover " the incongruities of life in general ". The author next discusses the " incongruity " or " intellectualist " theory, as Dugas calls it. Dr. Sully describes it as characteristic- ally German. He takes Kant as " the first great representative " (p. 126) of this view and finds the Kantian school generally here, as in Ethics, accentuating the rationalistic quality of the mental process in marked opposition to the emotional or " moral senti- ment " aspect insisted on by British ethical writers. The observa- tion is in the main true, but Beattie and Campbell seem to have escaped Prof. Sully's notice. Both writers, especially the former, expounded the intellectualist theory in a manner very much superior to that of Kant nearly a score of years before the Kritik of Judgment." Kant's own briefly expressed anti-climax view that the feeling of the ludicrous is "an affection arising from the sudden trans- formation of a strained expectation into nothing" Dr. Sully rightly pronounces "absurdly inadequate" (p. 126). Neither the intel- lectualist nor the emotionalist theory gives a complete account of the enjoyment of the laughable. Still, I think, the element of " dis- solved expectation " or " surprise " is a more important factor than the author is inclined to allow (pp. 129-130). The " suddenness " of the consciousness, emphasised in the analyses of Hobbes and Bain as well as by the intellectualist school, seems to me to point to the same fact. I confess, however, that I am less satisfied with his criticism of Schopenhauer. He says: "According to this writer the process 1 Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, pp. 365-367. 2 TO yap yfolov ecrriv dfj.dpTrjfj.d TL KOI oiV^or dvdi>8vvov KOI ov (fiQapriKov, oiov tv6vs TO yeXotoi' TT/JOCT COTTON alcr^pnv TI Kill 8i(TTpap.fj.fvoi' avfv OOVVTJS (Poetics, v., 1). 3 See Beattie's Essays on Laughter, etc., chaps, ii., iii., especially p. 419 ; and G. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, bk. L, chaps, ii., iii. Nay, Hutcheson himself approximates very closely to the intellectualist theory. See Beattie, p. 314.