Again, when we are considering the question of fact, “What do men really laugh at?” it is important to bear in mind that the tendency to laugh may, on the one hand, be reinforced by a favourable psycho-physical condition at the {85} moment, as well as by previously formed tendencies to apperceive things on their laughable side; while, on the other hand, it may be checked and wholly counteracted by unfavourable conditions, such as a sad mood, or an acquired habit of looking at those aspects of things which excite feelings antagonistic to laughter. Owing to the action of these forces, we find, not only that one man may fail to discern the laughable in an object which moves another to a hearty outburst, but that in many cases in which two men join in laughing at something they may not be touched by the same laughable feature or aspect of the presentation. Nothing, indeed, has more of that appearance of caprice which comes from the influence of uncertain subjective factors than the laughter of men, even of those who have a normal sense of the ludicrous. A word more is needed on the language here used. The terms laughable and ludicrous may be employed interchangeably up to a certain point without risk of confusion. At the same time it is well to note that the second is used in a stricter sense than the first. The term ludicrous seems to denote particularly what is not only an universal object of laughter, but an object of that more intellectual kind of laughter which implies a clear perception of relations. In everyday language we should speak of incidents and stories, of which the fun is obvious and broad, as “laughable” rather than as “ludicrous”. Closely connected with this emphasis on an intellectual element in the meaning of the term ludicrous, is its tendency to take on an ideal connotation, to mark off what we deem to be worthy of laughter. Here, as in the case of other objects of an æsthetic sentiment, there is a half-disguised reference to the regulative principles of art. This control by an æsthetic principle or standard is more {86} clearly indicated in the use of “comic,” a word, by the way, which is used more freely in some European languages than in our own. A comic spectacle means, for one who uses language with precision, a presentation which is choice, which comes up to the requirements of art, and would be excellent material for comedy. Our problem may now be defined as an analysis of the objects of our common perception and imagination which ordinary men tend to laugh at and to describe as laughable. This inductive inquiry into facts is, as implied above, a necessary preliminary to a discussion of the nature of the “ludicrous” or “comic” as an ideal or regulative conception.