reference to the general and the universal, by which the finite great is
brought into identity with the little, or the little with the finite
great, so as to make both nothing in comparison with the infinite. The
little is made great, and the great little, in order to destroy both;
because all is equal in contrast with the infinite. "It is not without
reason, brother Toby, that learned men write dialogues on long
noses."[2] I would suggest, therefore, that whenever a finite is
contemplated in reference to the infinite, whether consciously or
unconsciously, humour essentially arises. In the highest humour, at
least, there is always a reference to, and a connection with, some
general power not finite, in the form of some finite ridiculously
disproportionate in our feelings to that of which it is, nevertheless,
the representative, or by which it is to be displayed. Humourous
writers, therefore, as Sterne in particular, delight, after much
preparation, to end in nothing, or in a direct contradiction.

That there is some truth in this definition, or origination of humour,
is evident; for you cannot conceive a humourous man who does not give
some disproportionate generality, or even a universality to his
hobby-horse, as is the case with Mr. Shandy; or at least there is an
absence of any interest but what arises from the humour itself, as in my
Uncle Toby, and it is the idea of the soul, of its undefined capacity
and dignity, that gives the sting to any absorption of it by any one
pursuit, and this not in respect of the humourist as a mere member of
society for a particular, however mistaken, interest, but as a man.

The English humour is the most thoughtful, the Spanish the most
etherial--the most ideal--of modern literature. Amongst the classic
ancients there was little or no humour in the foregoing sense of the
term. Socrates, or Plato under his name, gives some notion of humour in