RIDICULE.

I envy Pope the burst of honest triumph that produced these lines!

How long was he lashed, tortured, reviled, calumniated, and misrepresented in character, feeling, religion, person, and in all his ties and all his affections, before the author of Windsor Forest and the Universal Prayer produced his Satires and his Dunciad! Ridicule is an arm furnished by nature to wit, to defend it against the envy, hatred, and malice of vain, pretending, mediocrity; and the severity of its blows, has no doubt mainly contributed to the outcry against its legitimacy in the warfare of opinion. Dulness commenced its denunciation, and self-interest set the seal of reprobation upon it, by rendering it penal.

The validity of the legal objection against ridicule, seems to me wholly untenable; being founded on one of those “subterfuges,” in which Lord Kames tells us, that “lawyers delight.” The assumption that ridicule is no test of truth, has been received without examination, principally on account of its application to the detection of political and religious error. Notwithstanding the universal dislike to be shewn up, no one has dared directly to question the morality of satire as a corrective of manners, or to object to the poet’s magnificent boast of

In criticism also, ridicule is allowed, notwithstanding the supposed proximity of the sublime to the ridiculous. Even the murderous parody of “Oh! Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson, oh!” has escaped the imputation of injustice, and of leading to false conclusions, on the merit of the original. But above all, a great deal of the logic of Euclid consists in the reductio ad absurdum, which differs from the ridiculous, only because there is nothing very humorous in the disparity discoverable in a man’s notions concerning angles and lines.

In strictness of speech, there is no test of truth, save the evidence of the senses; but whatever tends to bring our conceptions in comparison with realities, may be so called; and that ridicule may be so applied to this purpose is indisputable. It is indeed the especial merit of ridicule, that it addresses itself to the senses, or at least to those ideas which are the most closely connected with sensitive impressions. The ridicule of persons is purely demonstrative. It is an enumeration of accidents and qualities, more or less exaggerated for the sake of humorous effect, but, for the rest, substantially true, or believed to be so: otherwise the ridicule fails. To tax a man with absurdities of which he is not guilty, is not ridicule, but calumny. Ridicule of opinions can only consist in such a juxta-position of ideas, as makes their disparity ludicrously self-evident. That which is consistent and true, cannot be ridiculed.

Ridicule derives its efficacy from the responsive sympathies of the audience addressed. The ridicule of unknown persons excites no emotion. The ridicule of a known person, for qualities which he notoriously does not possess, is equally impotent. When Hone represented the British constitution by an inverted pyramid, resting on the crown at its apex, and supported by bayonets, the sensible image of instability he presented, found a prompt reflection in the public mind. He advanced, however, no novel statement. If a conviction had not pre-existed in public opinion of “something rotten in the state of Denmark,” his humour would not have told. Had he supported the tottering edifice with a printing press, instead of a bayonet, the misrepresentation would have been rejected with scorn.

Ridicule stands precisely on the same ground as graver arguments, being either the statement of a fact, or an inference drawn from one; and it is liable to the same abuses, and no more. Nothing is more common than for ridicule to address itself to vulgar prejudices; but what is there singular in this? Aristophanes (it is said) assisted in forwarding the judicial murder of Socrates, by personifying in his drama the false notions which were current in Athens respecting that philosopher. But Melytus and Anitus did precisely the same thing, and were equally successful through the employment of grave discussion; yet no one dreams of proscribing rhetoric and logic, because they were thus employed to make the worse appear the better cause. The common villainy in both cases was the falsehood of the matter objected. Had Socrates really spent his time in the pursuit of childish subtleties, the flea’s leap would have been no more than a fair exaggeration, as illustrative as it was pleasant. Just so, had he really corrupted the youth of the city, the sober, serious invective of his public accusers would have been equitable: the fault, in both instances, was not in the form, but in the fond.

There is, however, this essential difference in favour of ridicule, that the graver lie might be the entire fabrication of the accuser, and yet produce its effect; whereas the efficacy of the satire depends altogether on the pre-existing prejudices of the public, which it only illustrates. Ridicule, it is true, may lead to error, by the misapplication of acknowledged truths; as when trifling absurdities are employed to render virtue contemptible. A bishop’s wig is no ornament to the “human face divine,” but it would be eminently unfair to conjure up the ridiculous image, in mockery of the pious individual who may be compelled to adopt the costume; still more unjust would it be, if an inference were drawn against the religious system which flourishes beneath the shadow of that hairy portent. Such false inductions are not, however, less familiar to the most serious argumentations; and they are then, by so much the more dangerous, as the bad reasoning is less obvious to detection.

The general rejection of ridicule in dispute, rests upon the most flimsy of sophisms—the argument from abuse to use. But there are many persons who direct their objections against it in its application to religious subjects, on account of the weight and dignity of the theme.⁠[10] This is a frank begging of the question. Dugald Stewart, in speaking of the Provincial Letters of Pascal, observes, that there are some truths in which ridicule is more powerful and convincing than reason. “The mischievous absurdities,” he says, “which it was Pascal’s aim to correct, scarcely admitted the gravity of logical discussion, requiring only the extirpation or the prevention of those early prejudices which choke the growth of common sense and conscience.”⁠[11] Having, in his quality of a good protestant, a previous conviction or prejudice that the system of the Jesuits was false, Stewart readily admitted that the use of ridicule against it is fair. He would likewise have allowed, in all probability, a joke against Mahomet’s pigeon, or the miracle of his suspended coffin; but he would not, I suspect, have approved of the ludicrous exaggeration of Voltaire’s drama on David, or have suffered it to pass muster as a proof of the disparity between the facts of that king’s life and his pretensions to the character of the man after God’s own heart. Certain I am, my Lord Chief Justice would not let such a work go unpunished. The ideas illustrated in this sarcastic attack, are of the commonest order of moral conceptions; and Voltaire might have thought himself as much justified as Pascal, in “extirpating a prejudice which scarcely required the gravity of logical discussion,” by a ridiculous travestie: the offence then, if offence there be, lies in the mind of the judge, and in his conviction as to what is, or is not, sacred.

But the law in permitting grave discussion, permits the right of judgment on this presumed sacredness. The accused, therefore, cannot in equity be bound to the judge’s prejudice in the matter. If we are permitted to entertain a doubt of the truth of any proposition, we should in reason be allowed to put forth those arguments which we deem most convincing against it; and if we think a proposition beneath the gravity of logical discussion, there is no reason why we should be forced to confine ourselves to that mode of argument. The judge, however, takes the whole point at issue into his own hands. The ideas to be overturned, he asserts are not early prejudices, not contrary to common sense, and therefore they are too respectable to be confuted in any other way, than in Barbara or in Baralipton. In other words, he declares, that ridicule is a good instrument to extirpate all errors, except those which he cherishes himself; and that it is available against all the world, but the dogmas which are “pack and parcel” of his law, and are incontrovertibly established on its authority.

On this point, the Catholics and Protestants would be much at issue. Many a grave Protestant divine has chuckled over Erasmus’s jest concerning the “real presence” of the horse, he forgot to return to its owner.⁠[12]⁠

To a Catholic, convinced of the truth of the doctrine of transubstantiation, it would appear an indecent levity, and misapplied ridicule: “flat blasphemy.” Why then should this argument be lawful as levelled against transubstantiation, and yet be unfair as applied against the miraculous conception? Simply because he who is the strongest happens to be a Protestant, without being also an Unitarian.

Ridicule is, in reality, a species of argument very peculiarly applicable to test religious dogmas. The propositions which constitute the elements of a religious faith relate to “things not seen.” There are no sensible types with which to compare them; and it is only by comparing the ideas with each other, and detecting their incongruities, that error can be demonstrated. This is the especial province of ridicule. When Alexander set up for a god, the ludicrous decree of the Lacedemonian senate betrayed the absurdity of his pretensions better than the most studied argument. The ridicule of the pagan theology scattered through the works of Lucian is a perpetual demonstration of the incongruity of abstract propositions, by means of sensible images. Yet persecuting, narrow sectarians have not thought it beneath their dignity to claim this writer as a believer, and to use his arguments against their opponents, though they bitterly execrate Swift and Voltaire for treading in his steps.

It is this peculiar efficacy of ridicule, that has made its use so objectionable to partizans and exclusionists. The happiness of its illustration renders truths popular, which would remain the exclusive property of the learned, as long as the error to which they are opposed was involved in the intricacy of an abstract argument. The sensible image is a stepping-stone to the judgment of those, who, unused to dialectics, cannot thread the labyrinth of involuted ideas. Those who are interested in the credit of any particular doctrine are, in general, ready enough to compound for the dissent of the cultivated few: and they can bear with patience an argument, which, being beyond the calibre of the vulgar, is not likely to make many proselytes: but ridicule, being within the scope of all, brings absurdity home to the conviction of the meanest understanding. This is the secret of that hostility which the law manifests in the midst of its seeming candour, against certain attacks on the establishment. They are intelligible to all the world; and it is feared that their influence may be proportionate.

Whatever is incongruous and absurd, cannot emanate from a being pre-eminently wise and good. The internal evidence of such incongruity, is decisive against the pretensions of any religious system, in which it exists. Ridicule, therefore, goes to the fountain head of all false pretensions; and as one religion alone can be a real revelation from Heaven, it follows, that the partisans of all the others, have an immediate interest in putting down the use of a ready instrument for measuring their several errors. What is the sum of their argument? You may put forth cogent and conclusive reason as long as you please; but beware of ridicule; for that proves nothing. This excess of candour and forbearance is not entitled to the slightest credit. It may, perhaps, be objected, that ridiculous no-proofs will pass current with the lower classes for valid argument. To this I reply, first, that the lower classes are not so innocent and helpless: or if they are, let them be better taught: and secondly, that they are much more frequently the dupes of grave and plausible no-proofs, than of humorous misrepresentation; and that the argument, if good for any thing, goes against all discussion whatever.

The defenders of absurdity and error are not always in the same story: for they always cry out against the argument which happens to press them the most closely. The counsel of Geneva censured Rousseau’s gravity in attacking their religious notions; and asserted, in the teeth of the English law-maxim, that, “books, only written to turn into ridicule, are not, by a great deal, so reprehensible, as those which, without stepping on one side, go at once to the attack by dry reasoning.”⁠[13] So much for the honesty of state dogmatists!

In advocating the lawfulness of ridicule, it is not necessary to advocate every instance in which it is employed. It is bad taste and buffoonery to put forward ludicrous ideas, out of season; and it is both bad feeling and bad policy, to insult the believer by a profane jest. A man is not, however, to be committed to Newgate on a point of taste, or treated like a felon for not having read the institutes of Quintilian. Those who would thus proscribe ridicule in their opponents, are by no means slow in using it against them. Not only ridicule, but scurrility and invective, are daily lavished against those who are objects of religious rancour. What was reprehensible in Voltaire becomes laudable in Piron; what was wrong in Swift was right in Rennell. A protestant bishop may crack a joke upon two non-ascendant religions with a single antithesis; but woe betide the man who is facetious upon the thirty-nine articles.

Within this sophism the lawyers have entrenched themselves, upon being driven, by public opinion, from an open and barefaced defence of persecution. By its assistance they are still enabled to fine or imprison, any one who presumes to question the truth of law-established dogma. It has taken some centuries to storm the outwork; how many will it take to capture the citadel!