Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker.  Here it seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the witty (spirituel) and the comic.  A word is said to be comic when it makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves.  But in most cases we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty.  All that we can say is that it is laughable.

Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is meant by esprit.  A witty saying makes us at least smile; consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea.  It is to be feared, however, that this extremely subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light.

Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word wit esprit, the broader one and the more restricted.  In the broader meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a certain dramatic way of thinking.  Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons.  He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain.  A witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre.  In every wit there is something of a poet—­just as in every good reader there is the making of an actor.  This comparison is made purposely, because a proportion might easily be established between the four terms.  In order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor’s art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one’s soul and body.  In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in this respect.  We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he says and does.  He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because he only brings his intelligence into play.  So any poet may reveal himself as a wit when he pleases.  To do this there will be no need for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have to give up something.  He would simply have to let his ideas hold converse with one another “for nothing, for the mere joy of the thing!” [Footnote:  “Pour rien, pour le plaisir” is a quotation from Victor Hugo’s Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and his soul in touch with life.  In short, he would turn into a wit by simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence.

But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things Sub specie THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy.  Here we have a more restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter.  What is here called wit is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes—­dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them.