Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1888-08-03
The Psychology ofgOkipg.
4 ID of IafoEnation Il 81 80 PuBIra

~ O--C -l-A-LL-L p 4EGLAULL6 EELNLL2
that a ScOtchman's skin had to be
trepanned before he could under
stand a joke, is recalled by the essay
OF J. II. Jackson, NJ. D., contributed
to the leading medical authority, the
London Lancet, and transferred to
the pages of the Popular Science
Monthly. The wise and genial doc
tor has, so to speak, applied the
scalpel to the whole subject of Joking,
and laid bare its anatomy. That
some jokes are no laughing matter, %
is what readers Of comic journals
know to their cost; But if we are
to believe Dr.. Jackson, jocosity is a
very serious matter indeed.
We are told in the first place, that
there is a strict analogy between
laughing and looking. Whether it is
for this reason that a person is said
to 'see' or not to ''see'' the point OF
a Witticism the writer fOrbears to
state, but at any rate it is claimed
that ''as there is a visual diplopia so
there is a mental diplOpia, or, as it
is commonly called, double conscious
ness" This is illustrated by refer
ence to the stereOscOpe. AS that Op-
reimbursement requires two pictures
Of one object, so the mind duplicates
each idea. And the sense of humOr
arises from the mutual relations of
two similar images in thought. "Au
thinking is the discovery of rela-
lions" The only difference between
solemn and TOlicsOme thinking, DR..
jackson assures us, is in the nature
OF the relation discovered. A sample
pun is cited. FWhen is a little girl
not a girl?'' Answer: When she is
a little horse (hOarse. }" Here the
last word may be pronounced in such
q manner as to suggest the condition
of the little girl who has a cold, and
also to suggest a well known animal.
The doctor admits that the pun is
very feeble-and here, at last, his
readers will agree with him-but he
thinks the explanation of whatever
mirth is provoked by the pun must
be found in a certain Utilization which
the mind experiences on discovering
that one word can establish a con
nectiOn between two things so incOn-
grUOus,
Having thus shown the psychology
zeal basis of joking, the Lancet writ
er proceeds to indicate a variety of
ways in which the study of this sub
ject may be applied to the solution of
perpleXing enigmas. At first the
reader, especially if he be addicted to
leVity, may receive a start, for our
learned author says that theprOcess
of mentatiOn in the maniac is but
caricature Of stereOscOpic and dip
IOptic mentatiOn in healthy people,
And then follows a scientific demon
stratiOn that the rawlings of the mani
&C and the performances of the pun
ster have the same mechanism. But
the shock is only mOmentaFY. In the
next paragraphitis shown that joking
supplies the key to the problems of
sanity as well as Of insanity. For
instance, the smell of roses recalls to
memory a particular room where a
man had lived when a child. The
reasons that in thereon thus remem-
bered there were a great many roses on
certain occasions, Now "the two
scents linked together held together
CWO dissimilar mental states" That
is, the mental process in this case de-
pended on a relation as slight, incOn-
spicuOus and hitherto unsupported
as the relations whose discovery
causes laughter.
DR.. Jackson finds that q process
takes place in dreaming like that
which takes place injOBing. Perhaps
this is why some people, especially
ba bies, are observed to smile in their
sleep. The writer tells of a physician
who had been reading during the
evening about the troubled condition
of European politics, and at night he
dreamed that on being professionally
consulted by Bismarck, he prescribed
for the continental body polite iodide
of potassium. By the way, exactly
this idea was embodied in one of
Sidney Smiths most famous Whim-
sicalities, wherein he compared the
opponents of the reform bill to sick
man who refused his medicine on Mon
! day, and, by. consequence, on Friday
was compelled to take ga Double dose
/ of Fhubarb and unlimited infusion of
! SIENNA"
That portion of the Lancet essay
which will stir up the greatest inter
! est, however, is it's valiant champion
ship of punning, the form of joking
which receives the writer's principal
attention. ''Punning does not receive
sufficient attention" we are told. 1t
is the basis of all wit and humor.
The second and third are evolved
from the first. No man is fit for scien-
tific research who cannotmakea pun,
or at least ''Who is deficient In the
appreciation Of jocosities in their de
! grees Of evolution" Indeed, so far
/ does this advocate of a despised,
though by no means a discarded,