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

' That man has found a charming treasure ; " or of a knave,

1 This honest man," &c. &c. Only children and quite un-

'ducated people will laugh at such things ; for here the ncongruity between what is thought and what is pereived is total. Yet just in this direct exaggeration in be production of the ludicrous its fundamental character,

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incongruity, appears very distinctly. This species of the ludicrous is, on account of its exaggeration and distinct intention, in some respects related to parody. The procedure of the latter consists in this. It substitutes for the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignificant low persons or trifling motives and actions. It thus subsumes the commonplace realities which it sets forth under the lofty conceptions given in the theme, under which in a certain respect they must come, while in other respects they are very incongruous ; and thereby the contrast between what is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of familiar examples of this, and therefore I shall only give one, from the " Zobeide " of Carlo Gozzi, act iv., scene 3, where the famous stanza of Ariosto (Orl. Fur., i. 22), " Oh gran bontade cavalieri antichi," &c, is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been thrashing each other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side. This is also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial events, which clearly contains a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which th< verse expresses. Thus, for example, when any one has displayed a very characteristic trait, there will rarely b wanting some one to say, " From that I know with whon I have to do." But it was original and very witty of t man who was in love with a young bride to quote to tin newly married couple (I know not how loudly) the con eluding words of Schiller's ballad, " The Surety : "

" Let me be, I pray you, In your bond the third."

The effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitahl because under the conceptions through which Schill< presents to the mind a moral and noble relation, a fo bidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet co rectly and without change, thus is thought through

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In all the examples of wit given here we find that under a conception, or in general an abstract thought, a real thing is, directly, or by means of a narrower conception, subsumed, which indeed, strictly speaking, comes under it, and yet is as different as possible from the proper and original intention and tendency of the thought. Accordingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a conception under which it certainly can be thought, though it is very different from all the other objects which come under this conception.