Ridicule is not concerned with
mere speculative truth or falsehood. It is not in abstract
propositions or theorems, but in actions and passions, good and evil,
beauty and deformity, that we find materials for it; and all these
terms are relative, implying approbation or blame. To ask them
whether ridicule be a test of truth, is, in other words, to ask
whether that which is ridiculous can be morally true, can be just and
becoming; or whether that which is just and becoming can be
ridiculous?--a question that does not deserve a serious answer. For
it is most evident, that, as in a metaphysical proposition offered
to the understanding for its assent, the faculty of reason examines
the terms of the proposition, and finding one idea, which was
supposed equal to another, to be in fact unequal, of consequence
rejects the proposition as a falsehood; so, in objects offered to
the mind for its esteem or applause, the faculty of ridicule,
finding an incongruity in the claim, urges the mind to reject it
with laughter and contempt. When, therefore, we observe such a claim
obtruded upon mankind, and the inconsistent circumstances carefully
concealed from the eye of the public, it is our business, if the
matter be of importance to society, to drag out those latent
circumstances, and, by setting them in full view, to convince the
world how ridiculous the claim is: and thus a double advantage is
gained; for we both detect the moral falsehood sooner than in the
way of speculative inquiry, and impress the minds of men with a
stronger sense of the vanity and error of its authors.
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