A series of wit-like productions for which we have no appropriate name, but which may lay claim to the designation of “witty nonsense,” may be added to the nonsense-jokes. They are very numerous, but I shall cite only two examples: As the fish was served to a guest at the table he put both hands twice into the mayonnaise and then ran them through his hair. Being looked at by his neighbor with astonishment he seemed to have noticed his mistake and excused himself, saying: “Pardon me, I thought it was spinach.” Or: “Life is like a suspension bridge,” said the one. “How is that?” asked the other. “How should I know?” was the answer. These extreme examples produce an effect through the fact that they give rise to the expectation of wit, so that one makes the effort to find the hidden sense behind the nonsense. But none is found, they are really nonsense. Under that deception it was possible for one moment to liberate the pleasure in nonsense. These witticisms are not altogether without tendencies, they furnish the narrator a certain pleasure in that they deceive and annoy the hearer. The latter then calms his anger by resolving that he himself should take the place of the narrator. Footnote 52: H. Spencer, _The Physiology of Laughter_ (first published in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ for March, 1860), Essays, Vol. 11, 1901. Footnote 53: Different points in this declaration would demand an exhaustive inquiry into an investigation of the pleasure of the comic, a thing that other authors have already done, and which, at all events, does not touch our discussion. It seems to me that Spencer was not happy in his explanation of why the discharge happens to find just that path, the excitement of which results in the physical picture of laughter. I should like to add one single contribution to the subject of the physiological explanation of laughter, that is, to the derivation or interpretation of the muscular actions that characterize laughter—a subject that has been often treated before and since Darwin, but which has never been conclusively settled. According to the best of my knowledge the grimaces and contortions of the corners of the mouth that characterize laughter appear first in the satisfied and satiated nursling when he drowsily quits the breasts. There it is a correct motion of expression since it bespeaks the determination to take no more nourishment, an “enough,” so to speak, or rather a “more than enough.” This primal sense of pleasurable satiation may have furnished the smile, which ever remains the basic phenomenon of laughter, the later connection with the pleasurable processes of discharge. Footnote 54: