But, farther, this habit of never being in earnest greatly lowers the strength of our feelings even towards the good which we praise and towards the evil which we condemn.  It was an admirable definition of that which excites laughter, that it was that which is out of rule, that which is amiss, that which is unsightly, (these three ideas, and other similar ones, are alike contained in the single Greek word [Greek:  aischron],) provided that it was unaccompanied by pain.  This definition accounts for the otherwise extraordinary fact, that there is something in moral evil which, in some instances, affects the mind ludicrously.  That is to say, if moral evil affects us with no pain; if we see in it nothing, so to speak, but its irregularity, its strange contrast with what is beautiful, its jarring with the harmony of the system around us; then it does acquire that character which is well defined as being ridiculous.  Thus it is notorious that trifling follies, and even gross vices, are often so represented in works of fiction as to be exceedingly ludicrous.  It is enough, as an instance of what I mean, to name the vice of drunkenness.  Get rid for the moment of the notions of vice or sin which, accompany it, and which give moral pain; get rid also of those points in it which awaken physical disgust; retain merely the notion of the incoherent language, and the strange capricious gait of intoxication; and we have then an image merely ridiculous, as much, so as the rambling talk and absurd gestures of the old buffoons.

Here, then, we have the secret of vice becoming laughable; and of things which are really wicked, disgusting, hateful, being expressed by names purely ludicrous.  Where no great physical pain or distress is occasioned by what is evil, our sense of its ludicrousness will be exactly in proportion to the faintness of our sense of moral evil; or, in other words, to our want of being in earnest.  The evil that does not seriously pain or inconvenience man, is very apt to be regarded with feelings approaching to laughter, if we have no sense of pain at the notion of its being an offence against God.

Thus, then, we have seen how, from the want of being in earnest, from the habitual slumber of conscience, or that sovereign part of us which looks upon our whole state with reference to its highest interests, and passes judgment upon all our actions,—­how, from the practical absence of these, we may get to follow evil persons, and be indifferent to the good; to admire qualities which, from usurping the place of better ones, are actually ruinous; and, finally, to regard all common evil not so much with deep abhorrence, as with a disposition to laugh at it.  And thus the practical judgment and influence of the society around us may be fatally evil; while the society all the time shall contain, even in its very perversion, various elements of truth and of good.