The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-07-12
PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHING.
Optimism a Supreme Sedative-Day
of Evolution Of Evolution. ~

of Evolution Of Evolution. ~
G.. Stanley Hall in Ainslee's:
again a word about the philosophy
of laughter. When the system is nerved
and is making conscious or unconscious
effort, the nerves that tighten the walls
of the blood vessels are hard at work.
and pressure in the arteries Is great;
but a hearty laugh, as Brucke's in
teresting experiments show, tends to
bring the blood over into the veins
where there is no pressure, relieves the
arteries and brings the exquisite SEN
sations of relaxation Of rest. This is
favored even by the attitude of hearty
laugh to draw in a full breath, throw
back the head, open the mouth and let
the expiration gurgle forth with SON.
orous intermittence,' to quote a phrase
from the Philosophy of Laughter, and
to do it again and again, slowly throws
off the chains of the worlds great
taskmaster and brings us back, back to
the primeval paradise, where there was
nothing but joy, and sin and sorrow
were unknown.
"Once more, optimism is one of the
supreme sedatives. There are men who
worry because the sun will some time
go out and the earth grow dead and
cold like the moon; or the coal meas
sures be exhausted; or the fertile areas
Of the world dry up because of the
denudation of forests, but the philos-
ophy of health Is that the best things
have not happened, that mans history
has only just begun, that, on the whole,
there has been steady progress, that in
virtue, comfort, knowledge, arts, relig-
ion and nearly, if not quite, all the es-
sentials of the further development of
man, faith in human nature and the
conclusion Of every philosophy of dew
elopment and evolution. It is our good
fortune to live in day Of the evolution
Of evolution, and this is giving a new
meaning to the very word progress and
makes us feel that the world is rational
and beneficient to the core, and that
where conscious purpose and effort fail
we sink back into everlasting arms.
This is sanifying point of view auth
orized now by both science and relig-
ion and is good psychic state to sleep
on or in which to enter the great rest
1.-THE idea Of the Kingdom Of God is
not yet realized. It makes the optimistic
assumption that the human race as a
whole Is ascendant, not decadent, and
that society is In the making, not NOR
ibund. Again it is not content with the
less discouraging philosophy of history
that assumes that everything good and
great that can happen or be done in the
world Of man has already occurred, that
Eden has bloomed and faded, and If 1t
come again will only be because history
eternally repeats itself; that history Is
made up Of cycles in the sense of either
Plato or Herder; that periods Of great
reform and advance can never present
anything of Importance that is new, but
only undergo a palingenesis definitely
repeated. Lotze says that we must not
envy our more fortunate descendants
in the future. but only serve them, for
God loves man at all stages alike. Weiss
interprets the Kingdom as meaning a
worthy close Of the historic stadia, per-
haps sub speci- eaeternitatis; that the
personality Of man is Gods greatest
work: that we can stand upon our
shoulders, and that no ultimate good ID
lost for the early workers in the histori,
neld, to which we should subordinate