the eye and the ear, and hence is allied to the fancy. It does not
appertain to the reason or the moral sense, and accordingly is alien to
the imagination. I think Aristotle has already excellently defined the
laughable,[Greek (transliterated): tho geloion], as consisting of, or
depending on, what is out of its proper time and place, yet without
danger or pain. Here th'impropriety'--[Greek (transliterated): tho
ahtopon]--is the positive qualification; the 'dangerlessness'--[Greek
(transliterated): tho akindunon]--the negative. Neither the understanding
without an object of the senses, as for example, a mere notional error,
or idiocy;--nor any external object, unless attributed to the
understanding, can produce the poetically laughable. Nay, even in
ridiculous positions of the body laughed at by the vulgar, there is a
subtle personification always going on, which acts on the, perhaps,
unconscious mind of the spectator as a symbol of intellectual character.
And hence arises the imperfect and awkward effect of comic stories of
animals; because although the understanding is satisfied in them, the
senses are not. Hence too, it is, that the true ludicrous is its own
end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is felt as serious,
however comically drest, free and genuine laughter ceases; it becomes
sardonic. This you experience in reading Young, and also not
unfrequently in Butler. The true comic is the blossom of the nettle.

III. When words or images are placed in unusual juxta-position rather
than connection, and are so placed merely because the juxta-position is
unusual--we have the odd or the grotesque; the occasional use of which
in the minor ornaments of architecture, is an interesting problem for a
student in the psychology of the Fine Arts.

IV. In the simply laughable there is a mere disproportion between a
definite act and a definite purpose or end, or a disproportion of the