stopped short on reaching the first horse, and pretended to wipe some dust from its haunches.  In the majority of the spectators, merriment was excited; but in my friend, wound up by the expectation of the coming leap to a state of great nervous tension, the effect of the baulk was to produce indignation.  Experience thus proves what the theory implies:  namely, that the discharge of arrested feelings into the muscular system, takes place only in the absence of other adequate channels—­does not take place if there arise other feelings equal in amount to those arrested.

Evidence still more conclusive is at hand.  If we contrast the incongruities which produce laughter with those which do not, we at once see that in the non-ludicrous ones the unexpected state of feeling aroused, though wholly different in kind, is not less in quantity or intensity.  Among incongruities that may excite anything but a laugh, Mr. Bain instances—­“A decrepit man under a heavy burden, five loaves and two fishes among a multitude, and all unfitness and gross disproportion; an instrument out of tune, a fly in ointment, snow in May, Archimedes studying geometry in a siege, and all discordant things; a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a breach of bargain, and falsehood in general; the multitude taking the law in their own hands, and everything of the nature of disorder; a corpse at a feast, parental cruelty, filial ingratitude, and whatever is unnatural; the entire catalogue of the vanities given by Solomon, are all incongruous, but they cause feelings of pain, anger, sadness, loathing, rather than mirth.”  Now in these cases, where the totally unlike state of consciousness suddenly produced is not inferior in mass to the preceding one, the conditions to laughter are not fulfilled.  As above shown, laughter naturally results only when consciousness is unawares transferred from great things to small—­only when there is what we call a descending incongruity.

And now observe, finally, the fact, alike inferable a priori and illustrated in experience, that an ascending incongruity not only fails to cause laughter, but works on the muscular system an effect of exactly the reverse kind.  When after something very insignificant there arises without anticipation something very great, the emotion we call wonder results; and this emotion is accompanied not by an excitement of the muscles, but by a relaxation of them.  In children and country people, that falling of the jaw which occurs on witnessing something that is imposing and unexpected exemplifies this effect.  Persons who have been wonder-struck at the production of very striking results by a seemingly inadequate cause, are frequently described as unconsciously dropping the things they held in their hands.  Such are just the effects to be anticipated.  After an average state of consciousness, absorbing but a small quantity of nervous energy, is aroused without the slightest notice, a strong emotion of awe, terror, or admiration, joined with the astonishment due to an apparent want of adequate causation.  This new state of consciousness demands far more nervous energy than that which it has suddenly replaced; and this increased absorption of nervous energy in mental changes involves a temporary diminution of the outflow in other directions:  whence the pendent jaw and the relaxing grasp.