The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-07-20
PHILOSOPHY OF LAUGHING.
Optimism a Supreme Sedative-EvoIu-
tiOn of Evolution.
G. Stanley Hall, in Ainslee's Magazine.

G.. Stanley Hall, in Ainslee's Magazine.
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 pres
sure in the arteries is great; but a hearty
laugh, as Brucke's interesting experiments
show, tends to bring the blood over into
the veins where there is no pressure, re-
lieves the arteries and brings the exquisite
sensations of relaxation of rest. This is
favored even by the attitude of a hearty
laugh. To draw in a full breath. throw
back the head, open the mouth and let the
expiration "gurgle forth with sonorous
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 toward the primeval para
disc, where there was nothing but joy,
and sin and sorrow were unknown.
Once more, optimism is one of the SUI
preme seddtiVeS. 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 measures be exhausted: or the
fertile areas of the world dry up because of
the denudatiOn of forests, but the phil
osophy 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, religion and near
~, IL not quite, all the essentials of the
further development of man, faith i'm HUI
man nature and belief in a future better
NAlah AlC D400C4N 10 Int OOllCluSlOu OI every
philosophy of development and evolution. 1t
is our good fortune to live in a 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 beneticent to the core, and that where
conscious purpose and effort fail we sink
back into everlasting arms. This is a sani-
flying point of view authorized now by
both science and religion, and is a good
psychic state to sleep on or in which TO
enter the great rest.
The idea of the kingdom of God is not
yet realized. 1t makes the optimistic as
sumption that the human race as a whole is
ascendant, not decadent, and that society is
in the making, not mOribund. Again il
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 because his
tory eternally repeats itself; that history
is made up of cycles in the sense of either
Plato or Herder; that periods of great re-
form and advance can never present any
Trims of Importance that is new, but only
undergo a p~alingenesis indefinitely 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, perhaps sub specie aeternitatis; that
the. personality of nan is Gods greatest
work; that we should rejoice that others
ers, and that no ultimate good is lost fol-
the early workers in the historic field, tc
which we should subordinate ourselves as
we love to do for our children.