A full development of humour in the philosopher seems to be impossible, save where the amusing aspects of speculative soaring are dimly recognised. This may come through a study of the history of the subject; for it is hard not to smile at the spectacle of a man refurbishing and possibly adding a new handle to one of the “systems” which have had their day (and more, perhaps) and undertaking once more to use it as a deadly weapon against the adversary. A dash of the sceptical spirit, also an ability now and again to see the pretentiousness of it all, would appear to be needful for a large humorous enjoyment. One should have, too, at least a side-glance for the fun of the proceeding when the human pygmy tries the giant’s stride by offering us a definition of the absolute. It would seem, then, as if the philosophic humorist needed to combine two opposed points of view; that of the thinker who criticises actual life in the light of ideas, and that of the practical man who takes his stand on the fact of primal human needs and seeks an interpretation of things which will satisfy these. He should be able to soar with the Platonist to the realm of Ideas, so as to enjoy the droll aspect which men’s behaviour assumes as soon as a glimmer of light is made to fall on it from the Universal Forms; {402} and he should be no less capable of taking up the standpoint of everyday reality and common-sense, so far as to discern the element of a practical irrationality which lurks in any undue insistence on these Ideas.