Lamb and Macaulay on moral aspect of comedy • 371 Justification of Lamb’s view of Restoration Comedy • 373 The social as distinct from the moral point of view • 373 Slackening of social restraints by comedy • 376 Limitations of field of comic presentation • 377 The comic point of view in fiction • 378 Laughter of mixed tone in literature: satire • 380 Different degrees of seriousness in satire • 381 Method of virulent satire • 382 Wit in satire • 383 Contrast of satirical and humorous literature • 384 The relation of wit to humour • 385 Boundaries of satire and humorous literature • 386 Humour as ingredient of prose fiction • 387 The boundaries of humour of fiction and of philosophy • 390 Humour in other species of literature • 390 CHAPTER XII. ULTIMATE VALUE AND LIMITATIONS OF LAUGHTER. Need of bringing in philosophic point of view • 392 Philosophy as completion of individual criticism of life • 398 Room for laughter in philosophic contemplation • 393 Philosophy as belittling our everyday world • 394 Reasons why philosophers are not commonly humorists • 395 Speculative Idealism as robbing our common world of interest • 396 Relation of Optimism and of Pessimism to laughter • 397 Possibilities of laughter in philosophic Scepticism • 399 Conditions of development of philosophic humour • 401 Humour in the final evaluation of life • 402 Service of philosophic humour • 403 Justification of the individual point of view • 405 Legitimacy of an amused contemplation of one’s world • 405 Amused contemplation as favouring the survival of the unfit • 408 The philosopher’s preference for retirement • 408 Point of view of contemplation of things by philosophic humorist • 409 The contemplator as held by his social world • 409 Points of view of humorist, comedian and satirist • 410 Question of total value of laughter • 411 Alleged purifying function of comedy • 411 Corrective function of social laughter to-day • 413 Ridicule as a test of truth • 414 Estimate of helpfulness of private laughter • 415 Place of laughter among human qualities • 416 Relation of laughter to social affections • 417 Restraint of laughter by society • 418 Control of laughter as part of moral self-regulation • 420 Prudential reasons for controlling laughter • 422 The promotion of a love of laughter in others • 423 The claims of the agelast to be let alone • 424 The cultivation of laughter in the young • 426 The status of laughter to-day • 427 Causes of decline of popular mirth • 428 Characteristics of laughter of the hour • 430 Possibility of death of laughter • 431 How its conservation may be effected • 432 {1} CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.