Employing the word in this sense, one may say that, even when we laugh on receiving the solution to a conundrum which has teased and baffled us, it is not because of the dissipation of an expectant attitude. This conclusion is suggested by the familiar fact that, when at the end of our self-puzzling we are told that there is no solution, and when consequently we are unmistakably the subjects of an annulled expectation, we are very likely not to laugh; or, if we are good-natured enough to do so, it is as a result, not of any disappointment, but of a discovery that we have been hoaxed. This laugh at one’s befooled self—which we shall not be disposed to repeat if the trick is tried a second time—so far from illustrating the principle of annulled expectation is a particularly clear example of that of lowered dignity. The best kind of example of the laughable for Kant’s purpose would seem to be something odd and fantastic in dress or manners. Here, as I have allowed, a kind of shock is inflicted on our fixed apperceptive tendencies. But to speak of a process of dissipated expectation here seems to be hardly accurate. As I have hinted, the sudden appearance of the unexpected moves us to laughter primarily as a delightful novelty. It seems to follow that Kant’s principle of nullified expectation offers no adequate explanation of those forms of the ludicrous which are most promising for his purpose. I may add that it fails because it makes no serious attempt to mark off the domain of the laughable by certain well-defined characteristics. We have seen that the objects which excite our laughter are things human, or akin to the human. The theory of degradation evidently recognises this: by making the ludicrous consist in a loss of dignity it points at once to the human sphere. But the theory {129} that the effect of the ludicrous comes from an annihilation of a strained expectation suggests that it has nothing specially to do with the spectacle of human life. As I have not included the capability of dissipating expectation among the laughable features of objects, I may indicate what I hold to be the function of surprise in the effect of the ludicrous. Surprise, the effect of a presentation for which the mind is not perfectly pre-adjusted at the moment, seems to be a common condition of vivid and exciting impressions, certainly of those which induce a state of gladness. Hence we need not wonder that it should be found among the antecedents of that outburst of gladness which we call laughter.