Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. — William Hazlitt, English essayist, 1778-1830

I first stumbled across Hazlitt’s notion by way of Robert A. Heinlein, in “Stranger In a Strange Land,” which I was reading when I should have been reading English essayists. Valentine Michael Smith had asked Jubal Harshaw, “What is ‘Man?'”, and the answer took Jubal a little time to puzzle out.

There was one field in which man was unsurpassed; he showed unlimited ingenuity in devising bigger and more efficient ways to kill off, enslave, harass, and in all ways make an unbearable nuisance of himself to himself. Man was his own grimmest joke on himself. The very bedrock of humor was—

“Man is the animal who laughs,” Jubal answered.

There will be many ponderous pronouncements over the coming days. While we endure them, let’s all remember that Man is the animal who laughs.