the comic, there is always a tendency, we said, to take the line of least resistance, generally that of habit.  The comic character no longer tries to be ceaselessly adapting and readapting himself to the society of which he is a member.  He slackens in the attention that is due to life.  He more or less resembles the absentminded.  Maybe his will is here even more concerned than his intellect, and there is not so much a want of attention as a lack of tension; still, in some way or another, he is absent, away from his work, taking it easy.  He abandons social convention, as indeed—­in the case we have just been considering—­he abandoned logic.  Here, too, our first impulse is to accept the invitation to take it easy.  For a short time, at all events, we join in the game.  And that relieves us from the strain of living.

But we rest only for a short time.  The sympathy that is capable of entering into the impression of the comic is a very fleeting one.  It also comes from a lapse in attention.  Thus, a stern father may at times forget himself and join in some prank his child is playing, only to check himself at once in order to correct it.

Laughter is, above all, a corrective.  Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed.  By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it.  It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness.

Shall we be told that the motive, at all events; may be a good one, that we often punish because we love, and that laughter, by checking the outer manifestations of certain failings, thus causes the person laughed at to correct these failings and thereby improve himself inwardly?

Much might be said on this point.  As a general rule, and speaking roughly, laughter doubtless exercises a useful function.  Indeed, the whole of our analysis points to this fact.  But it does not therefore follow that laughter always hits the mark or is invariably inspired by sentiments of kindness or even of justice.

To be certain of always hitting the mark, it would have to proceed from an act of reflection.  Now, laughter is simply the result of a mechanism set up in us by nature or, what is almost the same thing, by our long acquaintance with social life.  It goes off spontaneously and returns tit for tat.  It has no time to look where it hits.  Laughter punishes certain failing’s somewhat as disease punishes certain forms of excess, striking down some who are innocent and sparing some who are guilty, aiming at a general result and incapable of dealing separately with each individual case.  And so it is with everything that comes to pass by natural means instead of happening by conscious reflection.  An average of justice may show itself in the total result, though the details, taken separately, often point to anything but justice.