I have enlarged on Kant’s theory mainly because of the authority of the author. German critics themselves recognise how absurdly inadequate is the little he says on the subject as an explanation of the effect of the laughable.[68] A few words will perhaps make this plain. It is evident that what Kant was thinking of under the head of the ludicrous was merely those exchanges of witty words and amusing stories which naturally enough formed a principal pastime of the devoted Königsberg thinker. Yet, even when considered under this narrow aspect, his theory shows itself to be palpably insufficient. It is noteworthy {127} that, in seeking to make it fit the remark of the Hindoo quoted above, Kant feels himself called upon to contradict the suggestion that we laugh “because we deem ourselves cleverer than this ignorant man”. This objection, which could not fail to occur to one who remembers Hobbes, cannot, however, be summarily dismissed by a bare assurance such as Kant gives us; and, as a recent writer remarks, “there is good reason to suppose that we laugh at the ignorance (better, ‘at the naïveté’) of the man who seeks the difficulty in a wrong place”.[69] One may go farther and venture the assertion that it is impossible to explain any laughable incident, story or remark as due _altogether_ to dissolved expectation or surprise. In examining the adequacy of Kant’s theory to this purpose, I set out with the natural presupposition that, when using the word expectation, he does not mean a definite anticipation of some particular concrete sequel to what is presented to the mind at the moment. In the illustration given, he would not have meant that the questioner had a well-defined expectant idea of another explanation of the Hindoo’s astonishment. It is only fair to assume that he meant merely what the word “expect” means when, on meeting a friend in a London street whom I had supposed to be out of England, I say “I did not expect to see you”. In other words, “expectation” stands here for a general attitude of mind, a mode of apperceptive readiness to assimilate any idea of a certain order, that is to say, standing in a recognisable relation to what is presented. It is the attitude in which we appreciate the evolution of a plot in fiction when this appears natural and does not give a shock to consciousness. {128}