“Democritus, [was] the fifth-century philosopher and atomist renowned as antiquity’s most inveterate laugher. … In the philosopher’s home city, his compatriots had become concerned at the way he laughed at everything he came across (from funerals to political success) and concluded that he must be mad. So they summoned the most famous doctor in the world [Hippocrates] to cure him. When Hippocrates arrived, however, he soon discovered that Democritus was saner than his fellow citizens. For he alone had recognised the absurdity of human existence, and was therefore entirely justified in laughing at it. …”
p. 61
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