The word `public' must, like all collective words, be used with
caution. When we speak of our hair, we should remember not only that
the hairs on our heads are all numbered, but also that there is a
catalogue raisonne' in which every one of those hairs is shown to be
in some respect unique. Similarly, let us not forget that `public'
denotes a collection not of identical units, but of units separable
and (under close scrutiny) distinguishable one from another. I have
said that not every man has the same sense of humour. I might have
said truly that no two men have the same sense of humour, for that no
two men have the same brain and heart and experience, by which things
the sense of humour is formed and directed. One joke may go round the
world, tickling myriads, but not two persons will be tickled in
precisely the same way, to precisely the same degree. If the
vibrations of inward or outward laughter could be (as some day,
perhaps, they will be) scientifically registered, differences between
them all would be made apparent to us. `Oh,' is your cry, whenever you
hear something that especially amuses you, `I must tell that to'
whomever you credit with a sense of humour most akin to your own. And
the chances are that you will be disappointed by his reception of the
joke.
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