The origin and nature of the emotions; miscellaneous papers . n are especially prone to laughter,while disease, strong emotions, fatigue, and age diminishlaughter. Women laugh more than do men. The healthy,happy maturing young woman perhaps laughs most, especi-ally when she is slightly embarrassed. What causes laughter? Good news, high spirits, tickling,hearing and seeing others laugh; droll stories; flashes ofwit; passages of humor; averted injury; threatened breachof the conventions; and numerous other causes might beadded. It is obvious that laughter may be produced bj^diverse influences, m
The origin and nature of the emotions; miscellaneous papers . n are especially prone to laughter,while disease, strong emotions, fatigue, and age diminishlaughter. Women laugh more than do men. The healthy,happy maturing young woman perhaps laughs most, especi-ally when she is slightly embarrassed. What causes laughter? Good news, high spirits, tickling,hearing and seeing others laugh; droll stories; flashes ofwit; passages of humor; averted injury; threatened breachof the conventions; and numerous other causes might beadded. It is obvious that laughter may be produced bj^diverse influences, many of which are so unlike each otherthat it would at first sight seem improbable that a singlegeneral principle underlies all. Before presenting a hypoth-esis which harmonizes most of the facts, and which may 92 THE EMOTIONS offer an explanation of the origin and purpose of laughter,let us return for a moment to some previous considerations—that man is essentially a motor being; that all his re-sponses to the physical forces of his environment are motor;. Fi<;. Lid.—LAr(;HiKG Chimpanzee. ilike, the clever cliinipaiizec in the London Zoo, evidently enjoys a joke as well as any one else. (Photo by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.) that thoughts and words even are symbolic of motor acts;that in the emotions of fear, of anger, and of sexual love thewhole body is integrated for acts which are not integrations stimulate the brain-cells, the ductlessglands, and other jiarts, and the energizing secretions, among PAIN, LAUGHTER, AND CRYING . 93 which are epinephrin, thyroid and hypophyseal secretions,are thrown into the blood-stream, while that most availablefuel, glycogen, is also mobilized in the blood. This body-wide preparation for action may be designated kinetic reac-tion. The fact that emotion is more injurious to the bodythan is muscular action is well known, the difference beingprobably caused by the fact that when there is action theabove-mentioned produc
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