This combination in philosophic humour of two opposed tendencies is illustrated in its attitude towards the question of the worth of life. Since a humorist is characterised by a certain depth and range of sympathy, he is not likely to accept the optimist’s easy way of getting rid of the sufferings of humanity. At this point, at least, he will be alive to the obstinate and inexpugnable reality of our concrete experiences. Yet, just because he insists on never losing his hold on his buoyant laughter, he will not sink into the pessimists depths of complaint. He will see that even the large spectacle of human struggle, in which there is much to sadden a compassionate heart, begins to wear the shimmer of a smile as soon as we envisage it as a sort of game played by destiny against our race. Just as a glimpse of the provoking, almost malicious aspects of the circumstances which irritate us in our smaller world may stifle the rising imprecation, by bringing up a smile or even a _sotto voce_ laugh; so, when a philosophic humorist looks out upon the larger human scene, he may find the starting sigh checked by a glance at the playful irony of things. The reflective mind will indeed readily find in the scheme of the world traces of an impish spirit that must have its practical joke, cost what it may. With a fair appearance of wise purpose, the destinies have contrived to combine just the amount of bungling needed to convey an intention of playful though slightly malicious teasing. Thus, in the final evaluation of the world, humour may find its place. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the {403} last word on man and his destiny leaves an opening for the humorous smile. So quaintly do the rational and the irrational elements seem to be interwoven in the structure of our world, that a humorist, for whom, as we have seen, the spectacle must always count as much, might almost construct a new Theodicy and say: “The world is at least the best possible for amusing contemplation”.[330] We have spoken of philosophy as hovering aloof from our common life, and this idea might seem to exclude all possibility of a utility in the exercise of a philosophic humour. Yet even when men philosophise and so appear to erect about them a new cosmos, they remain in their human world and are doing something towards shaping their relations to it; so that, after all, we may not unreasonably look here, too, for some self-corrective function in laughter, some aid rendered by it to that adjustment of the self to its surroundings, which is enforced on us all—the exalted thinker no less, let us say, than his faithful quadruped, whose world his master’s strange habits make sadly complex.