One would conclude from their records that the Jews were people who never laughed except ironically. To be sure, Michal laughed at David’s dancing, and Sara laughed at the idea of having a child, and various people in the New Testament laughed others “to scorn.” But nobody seems to have laughed heartily and innocently. One gets the impression of a race devoid of humor. This is partly because it is not the province of religious writings to record humor; but it is mainly because Jewish thought condemns humor. Wherever humor arises in a Christian civilization--as in the popular Gothic humor--it is a local race-element, an unsubdued bit of something foreign to Judah. Where the Bible triumphs utterly, as in Dante and Calvin, there is no humor. And yet the comic survives in us. It eludes the criticism of Christianity as the sunlight eludes the net. Yes, not only our own laughter survives, but the old classic comedy still seems comic--and more truly comic than the old lyric poetry seems poetic or the drama dramatic. Ancient poesy must always be humored and nursed a little; but when the comic strikes home, it is our own comic; no allowances need be made for it. There is a kind of laughter that makes the whole universe throb. It has in it the immediate flash of the power of God. We can no more understand it than we can understand other religious truth. It reminds us that we are not wholly Jew. There is light in the world that does not come from Israel; nevertheless, that this is a part of the same light that shines through Israel we surely know. I have not tried to analyze laughter; but only to show the mystery that surrounds its origin. Now a certain mystery surrounds all human expression. The profoundest truths can only be expressed through the mystery of paradox--as philosophers, poets, prophets, and moralists have agreed since the dawn of time. This saying sounds hard; but its meaning is easy. The meaning is that Truth can never be exactly stated; every statement is a misfit. But truth can be alluded to. A paradox says frankly, “What I say here is not a statement of the truth, but is a mere allusion to the truth.” The comic vehicle does the same. It pretends only to allude to the truth, and by this method makes a directer appeal to experience than any attempted statement of truth can make. There is, no doubt, some reason at the back of this strange fact, that our most expressive language is a mere series of hints and gestures--that we can only hope, whether by word or chisel, to give, as it were, a side reference to truth. To fathom this reason would be to understand the nature of life and mind.