Bacon considered the ludicrous too intellectual to be called a "passio" or emotion. It has commonly been regarded as almost an intuitive faculty. We speak of "seeing" humour, and of having a "sense" of the ludicrous. We think that we have a sense in other matters, where reflection is not immediately perceptible, as when in music or painting we at once observe that a certain style produces a certain effect, and that a certain means conduces to a certain end. This recognition seems to be made intuitively, and from long habit and constant observation we come to acquire what appears like a sense, by which without going through any reasoning process we give opinions upon works of Art. The judgment acts from habit so imperceptibly that it is altogether overlooked, and we seem almost to have a natural instinct. We are often as unconscious of its exercise as of the changes going on in our bodily constitution. The compositor sets his types without looking at them; the mathematician solves problems "by inspection," and a well-known physiologist told me he had seen a man read a book while he kept three balls in the air. At times we seem to be more correct when acting involuntarily than when from design. We have heard it said that, if you think of the spelling of a word, you will make a mistake in it, and many can form a good judgment on a subject who utterly fail when they begin to specify the grounds on which it is founded. In many such cases we seem almost to acquire a sense, and, perhaps, for a similar reason we speak of a sense of the ludicrous. We are also, perhaps, influenced by a logical error--the ludicrous seems to us a simple feeling, and as every sense is so, we conclude that all simple feelings are senses. The ludicrous is not analogous to our bodily senses, in that it is not affected in so constant and uniform a manner. The sky appears blue to every man, unless he have some visual defect, but an absurd situation is not "taken" by all. In the senses no ratiocination is required, whereas the ludicrous does not come to us directly, but through judgment--a moment, though brief and unnoticed, always elapses in which we grasp the nature of the circumstances before us. If it be asserted that our decision is in this case pronounced automatically, without any exercise of reason, we must still admit that it comes from practice and experience, and not naturally and immediately, like a sense. The arguments taken from profit and expediency, which have led to a belief in moral sense, would, of course, have no weight in the case of the ludicrous. CHAPTER XX. Definition--Difficulties of forming one of Humour.