This laughter of pleasure, which cheered the early centuries of the world, now no longer exists except perhaps in childhood.  It belongs to simpler if not happier natures than our own.  If a man were now to say that his friends laughed on hearing of some good fortune having come to him, we should suppose that they disbelieved it, or thought there was something ridiculous in the occurrence.  In these less emotional ages, in which the manifestations of joy and sorrow are more subdued, it is mute, and has subsided into a smile.  It is difficult to say when the change took place, but our finding smiles mentioned in Homer, though not in Scripture, might suggest their Greek origin, if they were at first merely a modification of the early laughter of pleasure, betokening little more than kindly or joyous emotions.  Although not always now genial, the smile continues to be used for the symbol of pleasure, even in reference to inanimate Nature, as where Milton writes “Old Ocean smiled.”  The smile may have preceded laughter, as the bud comes before the blossom, but it may, on the other hand, have been a reduction of something more demonstrative.

We have still a kind of laughter approaching very nearly to that of pleasure, which contains little reflection, but cannot be regarded as simply physical.  This description seems to be that alluded to in the Book of Ecclesiastes, “I said of laughter, it is mad, and of mirth, what good doeth it?” Of the same nature is that to which some excitable and joyous persons are constitutionally inclined.  Their perpetual merriment seems to us childish and silly.  Thus Steele observes to an hilarious friend, “Sir, you never laughed in your life,” and farther on he remarks, “Some men laugh from mere benevolence.”

The pleasure accompanying the perception of the ludicrous has been by some attributed to the exercise of certain muscles in the face, and by others to the acquisition of new ideas.  But we may safely discard both theories, for the former derives the enjoyment from physical instead of mental sources, and the latter gives us credit for too great a delight in knowledge, even were it thus generally obtained.  The enjoyment seems partly to arise from stimulation and activity of mind, excitement being generally agreeable, whereas inaction is monotonous and wearisome.  But it seems also partly to be derived from sources which are, or appear to be, collateral.  Thus, in the early laughter of pleasure, some solid advantage or gratification, present or future, was always in view, and from men being delighted at their own success, which must often have been obtained at the expense of others, it was an easy transition to rejoice at the failure of rivals.  In those primitive times, when people felt themselves insecure, and one tribe was constantly at war with another, there was nothing that gave them so much joy as the misfortunes of their enemies.  They exhibited their exultation by indulging in extravagant transports, in shouting, in singing and dancing, and when there appeared some strangeness or peculiarity, something sudden or unaccountable in such disasters, laughter broke forth of that rude and hostile character which we may occasionally still hear among the uneducated classes.  It accorded with the age in which it prevailed—­a period when men were highly emotional and passionate, while their intellectual powers were feeble and inactive.