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

That the laughter of others at what we do or say seriously offends us so keenly depends on the fact that it asserts that there is a great incongruity between our conceptions and the objective realities. For the same reason, the predicate " ludicrous " or " absurd " is insulting. The laugh of scorn announces with triumph to the baffled adversary how incongruous were the conceptions he cherished with the reality which is now revealing itself to him. Our own bitter laughter at the fearful disclosure of the truth through which our firmly cherished expectations are proved to be delusive is the active expression of the discovery now made of the incongruity between the thoughts which, in our foolish confidence in man or fate, we entertained, and the truth which is now unveiled.

The intentionally ludicrous is the joke. It is the effort to bring about a discrepancy between the conceptions of another and the reality by disarranging one of the two; while its opposite, seriousness, consists in the exact conformity of the two to each other, which is at least aimed at. But if now the joke is concealed behind seriousness, then we have irony. For example, if with apparent seriousness we acquiesce in the opinions of another which are the opposite of our own, and pretend to share them with him, till at last the result perplexes him both as to us and them. This is the attitude of Socrates as opposed to Hippias, Protagoras, Gorgias, and other sophists, and

p. 282

indeed often to his collocutors in general. The converse of irony is accordingly seriousness concealed behind a joke, and this is humour. It might be called the double counterpoint of irony. Explanations such as " Humour is the interpenetration of the finite and the infinite " express nothing more than the entire incapacity for thought of those who are satisfied with such empty phrases.

Irony is objective, that is, intended for another ; but humour is subjective, that is, it primarily exists only for one's own self. Accordingly we find the masterpieces of irony among the ancients, but those of humour among the moderns.

For, more closely considered, humour depends upon a subjective, yet serious and sublime mood, which is involuntarily in conflict with a common external world very different from itself, which it cannot escape from and to which it will not give itself up ; therefore, as an accommodation, it tries to think its own point of view and that external world through the same conceptions , and thus a double incongruity arises, sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the other, between these concepts and the realities thought through them.

Hence the impression of the intentionally ludicrous, thus of the joke, is produced, behind which, however, the deepest seriousness is concealed and shines through. Irony begins with a serious air and ends with a smile; with humour the order is reversed. The words of Mercutio quoted above may serve as an example of humour. Also in "Hamlet" — Polonius : " My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Hamlet: You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal, except my life, except my life, except my life. Again, before the introduction of the play at court, Hamlet says to Ophelia : " What should a man do but be merry ? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours. Ophelia: Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. Hamlet : So long ? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sablea"

p. 283

Again, in Jean Paul's " Titan," when Schoppe, melancholy and now brooding over himself, frequently looking at his hands, says to himself, " There sits a lord in bodily reality, and I in him ; but who is such ? " Heinrich Heine appears as a true humourist in his " JRomancero." Behind all his jokes and drollery we discern a profound seriousness, which is ashamed to appear unveiled. Accordingly humour depends upon a special kind of mood or temper (German, Zaune, probably from Luna) through which conception in all its modifications, a decided predominance of the subjective over the objective in the apprehension of the external world, is thought. Moreover, every poetical or artistic presentation of a comical, or indeed even a farcical scene, through which a serious thought yet glimmers as its concealed background, is a production of humour, thus is humorous. Such, for example, is a coloured drawing of Tischbein's, which represents an empty room, lighted only by the blazing fire in the grate. Before the fire stands a man with his coat off, in such a position that his shadow, going out from his feet, stretches across the whole room. Tischbein comments thus on the drawing : " This is a man who has succeeded in nothing in the world, and who has made nothing of it; now he rejoices that he can throw such a large shadow." Now, if I had to express the seriousness that lies concealed behind this jest, I could best do so by means of the following verse taken from the Persian poem of Anwari Soheili : —

" If thou hast lost possession of a world,

Be not distressed, for it is nought ; Or hast thou gained possession of a world,

Be not o'erjoyed, for it is nought. Our pains, our gains, all pass away ;

Get thee beyond the world, for it is nought"