regarded as ludicrous.

Moral and mental defects brought out by physical expressions of attitude, deportment, physiognomy are the factors of the ludicrous in all forms of imitation and mimicry of the comic.

The cartoonist in drawing his cartoons of individuals or situations is bringing to light mental and moral deficiencies which, by a form of suggestion, he exposes to the gaze of the public. By a play of the features of the face, by exaggeration or diminution of organs and traits of character the ludicrous side is exposed to view. The nose may be lengthened, the lips may be made thick or retreating, the teeth be formed like tusks, the ears may be made large, the forehead may be made retreating and possibly horns and hoofs added. All sorts of deformities may be brought into play in order that mental and moral traits may be exposed to ridicule. Sometimes a very slight change in the features of the face or in the figure may do the work, may bring about the ludicrous effect. The cartoon may be regarded as a joke, a jest, a travesty, a farce, or burlesque done in pictures.

We may look at the cartoon as an ideographic joke. Quite often the cartoon is supplemented, as we find in the comic papers, by the ordinary form of joke. The two often interpret and interpenetrate each other. The inscription made on the picture explains its meaning, which is further supplemented and developed by the usual joke. The picture illustrates the verbal joke, and the joke in its abstract and verbal form is strengthened by the cartoon or caricature. Visual and auditory images are blended to intensify the ludicrous side of the object or of the situation. As, for instance, the boy who made a picture of a wagon and under it wrote: "drawn by a horse."

The pictures may be given in a series and may represent a whole dramatic performance of various individuals under different conditions and in various situations, bringing the whole to a climax, all the scenes having a running verbal commentary. We may say, then, that in all forms of comic mimicry, of comic imitation there must be present the strong undercurrent of suggestion of mental inferiority. The very object, the aim of mimicry, of imitation is the revelation of the inferiority of the butt of ridicule. The success of mimicry or of comic imitation consists in the happy selection of traits which are regarded as low, mean, and below the standard of ordinary intelligence and morality, characteristic of the given group, society, or age in which the joke, the cartoon, or caricature is made.

The cartoon does not ridicule physical being, but mind, character, spirit. In all forms of the comic it is not the body, but it is the soul that is the subject of ridicule. It is not the material, the physical side, the mechanical, the automatic functions of the body which are ridiculed, but it is always the virtues of the soul, when falling below the normal accepted standard, that form the everlasting butt of ridicule. The material, the physical is no matter for the joke, for the comic. It is the mental, the spiritual in all its infirmities, shortcomings, and failures that forms the everlasting material of the joke and the comic.

The infirmities of the spirit are as much chastened by laughter as they are purified by pain. It is laughter, ridicule that arouses the spirit out of its torpor, gives the slumbering soul a shock, stings the spirit into action and further development. When man or society falls into mental turpitude it is the whip of ridicule that lashes

it into mental awakening and further work. Aristotle is right-the ridiculous deals with mental turpitude unattended with pain and destruction. Like a flash of lightning on a dark night, so laughter or ridicule illuminates the dark abyss of the human spirit and awakens the soul to the active light of day.

When two people look alike we may smile. We smile because we regard one as an imitation of the other. The situation is ludicrous because we are in a state of perplexity, since we regard each one as an imitation of the other, we do not know which is the original and which is the mimicking imitation. I have, however, inquired of a number of people, and I find that it is not so much the likeness of the individuals that is laughed at as the misunderstanding to which the close resemblance gives rise. Twins are laughed at only when we are apt to confuse them and have misapprehensions of an absurd character which are on that account ludicrous. Shakespeare, in his "Comedy of Errors," represents a couple of twins with complicated absurd situations in which one of the twins is taken for the other, with ludicrous results, because of the confusion and misunderstanding of their actions and misinterpretation of what the twins say and do. After a series of misunderstandings the double set of twins are confronted before Adriana and the duke, who exclaim in amazement:

Adr. I see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.
Duke. One of these men is Genius to the other;

And so of these. Which is the natural man,
And which the spirit? who deciphers them?

In the comedy of "Twelfth Night" Shakespeare resorts to a similar plot in which Sebastian and his sister

Viola are made to look alike. Out of such an ambiguous situation the poet weaves a net of misunderstandings. When the plot comes to a solution and the two are confronted Shakespeare makes the lookers-on exclaim: Duke. One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons, A natural perspective, that is and is not!

Seb. Antonio, O my dear Antonio!

How have the hours rack'd and tortured me,

Since I have lost thee!

Ant. Sebastian are you?

Mark the fact that when the twins are confronted there is no laughter at their close resemblance, but there is present a state of astonishment with nothing of the ludicrous in it. The ludicrous arises out of the ambiguity of situations, out of the play of misapprehensions, false vexations, trivial troubles, various forms of foolings which amuse and delight the audience. We laugh at the way people are, intentionally or unintentionally, misled and fooled by imitations.

Imitation, imitativeness, or mimicry is laughed at because it indicates lack of intelligence, either of the original or of the copy. In imitativeness, in mimicry we laugh at lack of brains. The essence of the ludicrous in mimicry may be summarized by the following fable:

A fox entered the house of an actor and, rummaging through all his properties, came upon a Mask, an admirable imitation of a human head. He placed his paws on it, and said, "What a beautiful head! yet it is of no value, as it entirely wants brains."

The cunning fox and the brainless Mask are well contrasted. The human head, however fair, is made ludicrous through lack of brains.

CHAPTER XXV

LOGIC AND RIDICULE

Many of the jokes and comic phrases we meet are logical in character, and as such may be considered as verbal or material fallacies. Thus the pun, which is commonly regarded as a joke or a witty remark, falls under the class known as fallacy of equivocation. The same word has an homonymous meaning with something which is quite different and contrasting to what the speaker intends to say, the inferior being brought into play under the covered meaning of the superior.

Take, for instance, the example of the theatrical manager who, on being complimented on the excellent voice of his prima donna, replied: "Yes, but she has a long bill." The equivocation turns on the association of contrasting images as a bill of a bird with a bill for money.

"Can she paint?"

"Yes, she uses paint daily."

A linguist was asked how many modern tongues he had mastered.

"All, except that of my wife and of my mother-in-law."

A sailor after having been fished out from the water was asked by a sentimental lady how he felt in the water. "Wet," the sailor replied.