Speaking of the quality in things, which makes them provoke the pleasing emotion or sentiment of which laughter is the external sign, Beattie says: "It is an uncommon mixture of relation and contrariety, exhibited, or supposed to be united, in the same assemblage." And elsewhere he says: "Laughter arises from the view of two or more inconsistent, unsuitable, or incongruous parts or circumstances, considered as united in one complex object or assemblage, or as acquiring a sort of mutual relation from the peculiar manner in which the mind takes notice of them." "The latter may arise from contiguity, from the relation of cause and effect, from unexpected likeness, from dignity and meanness, from absurdity, &c. "Thus, at first view, the dawn of the morning and a boiled lobster seem utterly incongruous, but when a change of color from black to red is suggested, we recognise a likeness, and consequently a relation, or ground of comparison. "And here let it be observed, that the greater the number of incongruities that are blended in the same assemblage, the more ludicrous it will probably be. If, as in the last example, there be an opposition of dignity and meanness, as well as of likeness and dissimilitude, the effect of the contrast will be more powerful, than if only one of these oppositions had appeared in the ludicrous idea." The first part of the subject seems, indeed, so clear as to admit of no objection. Hobbes, viewing more particularly the act of the mind, defines laughter to be a "sudden glory, arising from a sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly." And elsewhere he says: "Men laugh at jests, the wit whereof always consisteth in the elegant discovering and conveying to our minds, some absurdity of another."[18] Dr. Campbell objects that "contempt may be raised in a very high degree, both suddenly and unexpectedly, without producing the least tendency to laugh." But if there exist that incongruity in the same assemblage described as the fundamental cause of this sudden conception of our own superiority, laughter, as Beattie has shown, "will always, or for the most part, excite the risible emotion, unless when the perception of it is attended with some other emotion of greater authority," dependant on custom, politeness, &c. Dr. Campbell also observes, that "laughter may be, and is daily, produced by the perception of incongruous associations, when there is no contempt. "We often smile at a witty performance or passage, such as Butler's allusion to a boiled lobster, in his picture of the morning, when we are so far from conceiving any inferiority or turpitude in the author, that we greatly admire his genius, and wish ourselves possessed of that very turn of fancy which produced the drollery in question. "Many have laughed at the queerness of the comparison in these lines,