mere automatism. It would fain immobilise the intelligently varied
movements of the body in stupidly contracted grooves, stereotype in
permanent grimaces the fleeting expressions of the face, in short
imprint on the whole person such an attitude as to make it appear
immersed and absorbed in the materiality of some mechanical
occupation instead of ceaselessly renewing its vitality by keeping
in touch with a living ideal. Where matter thus succeeds in dulling
the outward life of the soul, in petrifying its movements and
thwarting its gracefulness, it achieves, at the expense of the body,
an effect that is comic. If, then, at this point we wished to define
the comic by comparing it with its contrary, we should have to
contrast it with gracefulness even more than with beauty. It
partakes rather of the unsprightly than of the unsightly, of
RIGIDNESS rather than of UGLINESS.

IV

We will now pass from the comic element in FORMS to that in GESTURES
and MOVEMENTS. Let us at once state the law which seems to govern
all the phenomena of this kind. It may indeed be deduced without any
difficulty from the considerations stated above. THE ATTITUDES,
GESTURES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE HUMAN BODY ARE LAUGHABLE IN EXACT
PROPORTION AS THAT BODY REMINDS US OF A MERE MACHINE. There is no
need to follow this law through the details of its immediate
applications, which are innumerable. To verify it directly, it would
be sufficient to study closely the work of comic artists,
eliminating entirely the element of caricature, and omitting that
portion of the comic which is not inherent in the drawing itself.
For, obviously, the comic element in a drawing is often a borrowed
one, for which the text supplies all the stock-in-trade. I mean that