ABSTRACT
T his world is runny, as Heraclitus said, and none of the squarecornered distinctions that words seek to establish in its elusive fluid will hold good everywhere and always. This is true of the distinction between chemical and physical, plant and animal, drunk and sober, poetry and prose. It is more obviously true of the distinction between poetic and practical jokes. There is no understanding humor until you grasp this distinction. And there is no understanding humor until you also perceive that certain unicellular jests elude it, and that the richest witticisms usually combine the mental trick with the ludicrous presentation. We must therefore devote a chapter to taking back what we said in the last ten. Such is life—or such at least the honest part of it.
