On the lower plane of humor you get a laugh by the most unimaginative means—­merely conceive a recognized humorous situation, or bring several things together according to a recipe, and the thing is done.  Every practised comedian, in literature or on the stage, is an adept at it.  But the creation of character, the expression—­in terms of the words and actions of men and women—­of that “social gesture” which is laughter’s source, is a much greater thing, for there we touch the symbolism which is the soul of art.

The Function of Humor

In an article entitled “Why Do We Laugh?” William McDougall discusses scientifically the value of laughter: 

Laughter of man presents a problem with which philosophers have wrestled in all ages with little success.  Man is the only animal that laughs.  And, if laughter may properly be called an instinctive reaction, the instinct of laughter is the only one peculiar to the human species....

We are saved from this multitude of small sympathetic pains and depressions by laughter, which, as we have seen, breaks up our train of mental activity and prevents our dwelling upon the distressing situation, and which also provides an antidote to the depressing influence in the form of physiological stimulation that raises the blood-pressure and promotes the circulation of the blood.  This, then, is the biological function of laughter, one of the most delicate and beautiful of all nature’s adjustments.  In order that man should reap the full benefits of life in the social group, it was necessary that his primitive sympathetic tendencies should be strong and delicately adjusted.  For without this, there could be little mutual understanding, and only imperfect cooperation and mutual aid in the more serious difficulties and embarrassments of life.  But, in endowing man with delicately responsive sympathetic tendencies, nature rendered him liable to suffer a thousand pains and depressions upon a thousand occasions of mishap to his fellows, occasions so trivial as to call for no effort of support or assistance.  Here was a dilemma—­whether to leave man so little sympathetic that he would be incapable of effective social life; or to render him effectively sympathetic and leave him subject to the perpetually renewed pains of sympathy, which, if not counteracted, would seriously depress his vitality and perhaps destroy the species.  Nature, confronted with this problem, solved it by the invention of laughter.  She endowed man with the instinct to laugh on contemplation of these minor mishaps of his fellow men; and so made them occasions of actual benefit to the beholder; all those things which, apart from laughter, would have been mildly displeasing and depressing, became objects and occasions of stimulating beneficial laughter....

For laughter is no exception to the law of primitive sympathy; but rather illustrates