Here we have the first illustration of a law which will appear with increasing distinctness as we proceed with our task.  When a musician strikes a note on an instrument, other notes start up of themselves, not so loud as the first, yet connected with it by certain definite relations, which coalesce with it and determine its quality.  These are what are called in physics the overtones of the fundamental note.  It would seem that comic fancy, even in its most far-fetched inventions, obeys a similar law.  For instance, consider this comic note:  appearance seeking to triumph over reality.  If our analysis is correct, this note must have as its overtones the body tantalising the mind, the body taking precedence of the mind.  No sooner, then, does the comic poet strike the first note than he will add the second on to it, involuntarily and instinctively.  In other words, he will duplicate what is ridiculous professionally with something that is ridiculous physically.

When Brid’oison the judge comes stammering on to the stage, is he not actually preparing us, by this very stammering, to understand the phenomenon of intellectual ossification we are about to witness?  What bond of secret relationship can there be between the physical defect and the moral infirmity?  It is difficult to say; yet we feel that the relationship is there, though we cannot express it in words.  Perhaps the situation required that this judging machine should also appear before us as a talking machine.  However it may be, no other overtone could more perfectly have completed the fundamental note.

When Moliere introduces to us the two ridiculous doctors, Bahis and Macroton, in L’Amour medecin, he makes one of them speak very slowly, as though scanning his words syllable by syllable, whilst the other stutters.  We find the same contrast between the two lawyers in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac.  In the rhythm of speech is generally to be found the physical peculiarity that is destined to complete the element of professional ridicule.  When the author has failed to suggest a defect of this kind, it is seldom the case that the actor does not instinctively invent one.

Consequently, there is a natural relationship, which we equally naturally recognise, between the two images we have been comparing with each other, the mind crystallising in certain grooves, and the body losing its elasticity through the influence of certain defects.  Whether or not our attention be diverted from the matter to the manner, or from the moral to the physical, in both cases the same sort of impression is conveyed to our imagination; in both, then, the comic is of the same kind.  Here, once more, it has been our aim to follow the natural trend of the movement of the imagination.  This trend or direction, it may be remembered, was the second of those offered to us, starting from a central image.  A third and final path remains unexplored, along which we will now proceed.