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explanation of all forms of the comic; whereas
in the present theory it applies to only one variant of it among many
others. Surprisingly, Bergson failed to see that each of the examples
just mentioned can be convened from a comic into a tragic or purely
intellectual experience, based on the same logical pattern -- i.e. on
the same pair of bisociated matrices -- by a simple change of emotional
climate. The fat man slipping and crashing on the icy pavement will be
either a comic or a tragic figure according to whether the spectator's
attitude is dominated by malice or pity: a callous schoolboy will laugh
at the spectade, a sentimental old lady may be inclined to weep. But
in between these two there is the emotionally balanced attitude of the
physician who happens to pass the scene of the mishap, who may feel both
amusement and compassion, but whose primary concern is to find out the
nature of the injury. Thus the victim of the crash may be seated in any
of the three panels of the triptych. Don Quixote gradually changes from
a comic into a puzzling figure if, instead of relishing his delusions
with arrogant condescension, I become interested in their psychological
causes; and he changes into a tragic figure as detached curiosity turns
into sympathetic identification -- as I recognize in the sad knight my
brother-in-arms in the fight against windmills. The stock characters
in the farce -- the cuckold, the miser, the stutterer, the hunchback,
the foreigner -- appear as comic, intellectually challenging, or tragic
figures according to the different emotional attitudes which they arouse
in spectators of different mental age, culture, or mood.

The 'mechanical encrusted on the living' symbolizes the contrast between
man's spiritual aspirations and his all-too-solid flesh subject to
the laws of physics and chemistry. The practical joker and the clown
specialize in tricks which exploit the mechanical forces of gravity
and inertia to deflate his humanity. But Icarus, too, like the dinner
guest whose chair collapsed, is the victim of a practical joke -- the
gods, instead of breaking the legs of his chair, have melted away his
wings. The second appeals to loftier emotions than the first, but the
logical structure of the two situations and their message is the same:
whatever you fancy yourself to be you are subject to the inverse square
law like any other lump of clay. In one case it is a comic, in the other
a tragic message. The difference is due to the different character of the
emotions involved (malice in the first case, compassionate admiration
in the second); but also to the fact that in the first case the two
frames of reference collide, exploding the tension, while in the second
they remain juxtaposed in a tragic confrontation, and the tension ebbs
away in a slow catharsis. The third alternative is the reconciliation
and synthesis of the two matrices; its effect is neither laughter,
nor tears, but the arousal of curiosity: just how is the mechanical
encrusted on the living? How much acceleration can the organism stand,
and how does zero gravity effect it?

According to Bergson, the main sources of the comic are the mechanical
attributes of inertia, rigidity, and repetitiveness impinging on life;
among his favourite examples are the man-automaton, the puppet on strings,
Jack-in-the-Box, etc. However, if rigidity contrasted with organic
suppleness were laughable in itself, Egyptian statues and Byzantine
mosaics would be the best jokes ever invented. If automatic repetativeness
in human behaviour were a necessary and sufficient condition of the
comic, there would be no more amusing spectacle thau an epileptic fit;
and if we wanted a good laugh we would merely have to feel a person's
pulse or listen to his heart-beat, with its monotonous tick-tack. If
'we laugh each time a person gives us the impression of being a thing'
[8] there would be nothing more funny than a corpse.

In fact, every one of Bergson's examples of the comic can be