Science: Laughter

Professor Francis Arthur Powell Aveling, Reader in Psychology at the University of London, last week offered corrections to the popular notion about laughter, its causes and significance. "The really happy man," he said, "never laughs—or seldom—though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping, is a relief of mental tension—and the happy are not overstrung.

"It is only the 'superior' or discontented man who really laughs and perhaps that is why laughter, like tears, is ugly—being made up of grimaces and contortions, the mask of a hard...