The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

subsumes, under the conception of a sleeping flock and a waking shepherd, the tedious preacher who still bellows on unheard when he has sent all the people to sleep. Analogous to this is the epitaph on a doctor : " Here lies he like a hero, and those he has slain lie around him ; " it subsumes under the conception, honourable to the hero, of " lying surrounded by dead bodies," the doctor, who is supposed to preserve life. Very commonly the witticism consists in a single expression, through which only the conception is given, under which the case presented can be subsumed, though it is very different from everything else that is thought under it. So is it in " Romeo " when the vivacious Mercutio answers his friends who promise to visit him on the morrow : " Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man." Under this conception a dead man is here subsumed ; but in English there is also a play upon the words, for " a grave man " means both a serious man and a man of the grave. Of this kind is also the well-known anecdote of the actor Unzelmann. In the Berlin theatre he was strictly forbidden to improvise. Soon afterwards he had to appear on the stage on horseback, and just as he came on the stage the horse dunged, at which the audience began to laugh, but laughed much more when Unzelmann said to the horse : " What are you doing ? Don't you know we are forbidden to improvise ? " Here the subsumption of the heterogeneous vol. II, 9

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under the more general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly happy, and the ludicrous effect produced by it excessively strong. To this class also belongs the following announcement from Hall in a newspaper of March 185 1 : " The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were again delivered over to us with obligate accompaniment.

This subsuming of a police escort under a musical term is very happy, though it approaches the mere play upon words. On the other hand, it is exactly a case of the kind we are considering when Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli, describes him as " Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body. The small statue of the actor was known to the whole town, and thus under the conception "great" unusual smallness was presented to the mind.

Also when the same Saphir calls the airs of a new opera " good old friends," and so brings the quality which is most to be condemned under a conception which is usually employed to commend. Also, if we should say of a lady whose favour could be influenced by presents, that she knew how to combine the utile with the dulci. For here we bring the moral life under the conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an sesthetical reference.

Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the " modest abode of quiet joys. Good society, in or. be thoroughly insipid, has forbidden all decided utterances, and therefore all strong expressions. Therefore it is wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them bj expressing them through general conceptions.

But in thi' way it happens that they are more or less incongruously subsumed, and in a corresponding degree the effect 0 the ludicrous is produced. To this class belongs the us of utile dulci referred to above, and also such expression as the following : " He had unpleasantness at the ball when he was thrashed and kicked out ; or, " He has don too well" when he is drunk; and also, "The woman hf

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weak moments " if she is unfaithful to her husband, &c. Equivocal sayings also belong to the same class. They are conceptions which in themselves contain nothing improper, but yet the case brought under them leads to an improper idea. They are very common in society. ' But a perfect example of a full and magnificent equivocation is Shenstone's incomparable epitaph on a justice of the peace, which, in its high-flown lapidary style, seems to speak of noble and sublime things, while under each of their conceptions something quite different is to be subsumed, which only appears in the very last word as the unexpected key to the whole, and the reader discovers with loud laughter that he has only read a very obscene equivocation. In this smooth-combed age it is altogether impossible to quote this here, not to speak of translating it ; it will be found in Shenstone's poetical works, under the title " Inscription." Equivocations sometimes pass over into mere puns, about which all that is necessary has been said in the text.

Further, the ultimate subsumption, ludicrous to all, of what in one respect is heterogeneous, under a conception which in other respects agrees with it, may take place contrary to our intention. For example, one of the free negroes in North America, who take pains to imitate the whites in everything, quite recently placed an epitaph over his dead child which begins, " Lovely, early broken lily." If, on the contrary, something real and perceptible is, with direct intention, brought under the conception

Df its opposite, the result is plain, common irony. For

Bxample, if when it is raining hard we say, " Nice weather

.ve are having to-day;" or if we say of an ugly bride,