Nevertheless, it seems probable that the part played by surprise in the enjoyment of the laughable has been exaggerated. Does the Londoner who laughs again and again at the rough jocosities of the Punch and Judy show, depend on annihilated expectation for his mirth? Dogberry’s love of a mildewy old story is by no means peculiar to him. A really good joke continues to amuse long after the first effect of surprise has worn off. A like conclusion is reached by remembering that even when a definite attitude of expectation for the coming of the ludicrous turn is assumed, laughter’s greeting is none the less hearty. When racy stories are circulating and the lips move in anticipation of some new joke it seems an odd way of describing the effect to say that it is due to a dissipation of expectation. There surely seems to be more of realisation than annihilation here, even though the precise form of the impending attack on our laughter is unknown. In certain cases, moreover, as when we are watching with amusement the actions of one on whom a practical joke is being played—actions which we, being in the secret of the plot, are able to {130} forecast with a considerable degree of precision, the element of surprise dwindles to the vanishing point. The essential condition of our laughter would thus appear to be, not the meeting of the amusing presentation with a state of complete unpreparedness of mind at the moment, but such a degree of contrariety between the presentation and our fixed and irrepressible apperceptive tendencies as will, even in spite of a pre-adjustment, secure something of a mild, momentary shock.[70] A more carefully developed example of the mode of conceiving of the laughable which finds its essence in the annihilation of a rational attitude is supplied by Schopenhauer. According to this writer, the process which determines our laughter is describable as an intellectual effort and its frustration. “In every instance (he tells us) the phenomenon of laughter indicates the sudden perception of an incongruity between a conception (Begriff) and a real object, which is to be understood or ‘thought’ through (_i.e._, by means of) this conception.” The incongruity between the perception and the conception under which the understanding necessarily strives to bring it must be of such a degree that the perception strikingly differs from the conception. The greater and the more unexpected the incongruity, the more violent (heftiger) will be our laughter.