But a serious inquiry will take us farther than this. While we do well to insist that the lightness and {21} capriciousness of movement, the swift unpredictable coming and going, are of the essence of laughter, it will be one main object of this inquiry to show how our mirthful explosions, our sportive railleries, are attached at their very roots to our serious interests. Laughter, looked at from this point of view, has its significance as a function of the human organism, and as spreading its benefits over all the paths of life. We must probe this value of our laughing moments if we are to treat the subject adequately. In thus proposing to give to laughter a purpose in the scheme of human life, one must face the risk of offending its friends yet more deeply. To these laughter is so precious and sufficing a good in itself, that to propose to connect it with some extrinsic and serious purpose looks like robbing it of its delicious freeness and enslaving it to its traditional foe, excess of seriousness. To these objectors it may suffice to say at the present stage that their apprehension appears to me to be groundless. To laugh away the spare moments will continue to be to the laughter-loving the same delightful pastime even should we succeed in showing that it brings other blessings in its train. On the other hand, to show that it does bring these blessings may turn out to be a handy _argumentum ad hominem_ in meeting the attacks of the laughter-hater. He could not, one supposes, give himself quite so much of the look of flouted virtue if we could convince him that laughter, when perfect freedom is guaranteed it in its own legitimate territory, will unasked, and, indeed, unwittingly, throw refreshing and healing drops on the dry pastures of life. Perhaps some thought of these benefits was present to the Greek philosopher—the very same who was for banishing Homer and other poets from his ideal commonwealth—when he uttered the pretty conceit that {22} the Graces in searching for a temple which would not fall, found the soul of Aristophanes. Our subject is a large one, and we must endeavour to keep all parts of it steadily in view. To begin with, we will try to avoid the error of those who in their subtle disquisitions on the comic idea forgot that laughter is a bodily act, and not fear to allude to such unmetaphysical entities as lung and diaphragm, where they seem to be a central fact in the situation. A careful examination of the very peculiar behaviour of our respiratory and other organs when the feeling of the comic seizes us, seems to belong to a scientific investigation of the subject. Indeed, it appears to me that in trying to get at the meaning of these gentle and enjoyable shakings of the mind, we shall do well to start, so to speak, with the bodily shakings, which are, to say the least, much more accessible to study.