How far any distinct image of the hat thus mentally transferred to the right wearer enters into the appreciation of this humorous spectacle, it would be hard to say. Different minds may behave differently here. Judging from my own experience I should say that at most only a vague “schematic” outline of the proper arrangement presents itself to the imagination. This seems to me to be what one might naturally expect. Laughter, as I conceive of it, fastens upon something human. It is the living wearer that is emphasised in the comical juxtaposition; we more naturally describe it as the child wearing his father’s hat, than as the father’s hat on the child. And for the comic effect it is sufficient that we recognise the hat to be the father’s. This we can do without mentally picturing the hat as worn by the father. The hat has become a symbol, and means for us the man’s hat and the dignity which belongs to this, though we may have at the time no mental image of it as worn by its rightful possessor. Our examination seems to show that this apparently simple example of the laughable is very inadequately accounted for by supposing a movement of mind from one presentation or idea to another which contravenes and {17} nullifies the first. It may be added that, with respect to what is certainly present to our consciousness, when we look at this bit of child’s play we do not find the relation of part to part to be merely one of contrariety. A curious fact, not as yet fully studied by the psychologist, is what may be called the inter-diffusion of characters between the several parts of a complex presentation. The figure of a finely dressed lady in a gathering of poor people may either throw the shabby look of the latter into greater relief by contrast, or redeem it from its shabbiness by lending it some of its own glory. The latter effect is favoured by a certain contemplative attitude which disposes us to look at the whole as such, and with the least amount of inspection of details and their relations. When we regard the child in the big hat a semblance of the dignity which lies in the meaning of the latter is transferred to the small head; and the mental seizure of this transferred look of dignity by the spectator is essential to a full enjoyment of the show as a bit of make-believe, of innocent hypocrisy. Similarly, if we are disposed to laugh, a little contemptuously, at the man in the child’s hat, it is because the hat throws for half a moment over the heavy and lined face something of the fresh sweet look of infancy.[9]