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Title: Wit and its relation to the unconscious

Author: Sigmund Freud

Translator: A. A. Brill

Release date: April 20, 2025 [eBook #75915]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916

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WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE
UNCONSCIOUS

BY

Professor Dr. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D.
Authorized English Edition, with Introduction by
A. A. BRILL, Ph.B., M.D.
Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal Psychology, New York University; former Chief of Clinic
of Psychiatry, Columbia University

NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1916

Copyright, 1916, BY
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
New York

All Rights Reserved

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

In 1908 when it was agreed between Professor Freud and myself that I
should be his translator, it was decided to render into English first the
following five works: Selected Papers on Hysteria and Psychoneuroses,[1]
Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex,[2] The Interpretation of Dreams,[3]
Psychopathology of Everyday Life,[4] and the present volume. These works
were selected because they represent the various stages of development of
Professor Freud’s Psychoanalysis,[5] and also because it was thought that
they contain the material which one must master before one is able to judge
correctly the author’s theories or apply them in practice. This undertaking,
which was fraught with many linguistic and other difficulties, has finally
been accomplished with the edition of the present volume, and it is
therefore with a sense of great satisfaction that the translator’s preface to
this work is written. But although the original task is finished the
translator’s work is only beginning. Psychoanalysis has made enormous
strides. On the foundation laid by Professor Freud there developed a
literature rich in ideas and content which has revolutionized the science of
nervous and mental diseases, and has thrown much light on the subject of
dreams, sex, mythology,[6] the history of civilization and racial psychology,
[7]
philology,[8] æsthetics,[9] child psychology and pedagogics,[10] philology,[11]
and mysticism and occultism. With the Interpretation of Dreams and
Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Professor Freud has definitely bridged
the gulf between normal and abnormal mental states by demonstrating that
dreams and faulty acts like some forms of forgetting, slips of the tongue,
slips of reading, writing, etc., are closely allied to psychopathological states
and represent the prototypes of such abnormal mental conditions as neurotic
symptoms, hallucinations, and deliria. He also shows that all these
productions are senseful and purposive, and that their strange and peculiar
appearance is due to distortions produced by various psychic processes.

These views are confirmed in the present volume, where it is demonstrated
that wit, which belongs to æsthetics, is subject to the same laws, shows the
same mechanism, and serves the same tendencies as the other psychic
productions. With his wonted profundity and ingenuity the author adds the
solution of wit to those of the neuroses, dreams, and psychopathological
acts.
I take great pleasure in tendering my thanks to Mr. Horatio Winslow, who
has read the manuscript and has given me valuable suggestions in the
choice of expressions and in the selection of substitutes for those witticisms
that could not be translated.
A. A. Brill.

May, 1916.

CONTENTS

A. ANALYSIS OF WIT
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Introduction 3
II. The Technique of Wit 15
III. The Tendencies of Wit 127

B. SYNTHESIS OF WIT
IV. The Pleasure Mechanism and the Psychogenesis of Wit 177
V. The Motives of Wit and Wit as a Social Process 214

C. THEORIES OF WIT
VI. The Relation of Wit to Dreams and to the Unconscious 249
VII. Wit and the Various Forms of the Comic 288

A. ANALYSIS

WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE
UNCONSCIOUS

I
INTRODUCTION

Whoever has had occasion to examine that part of the literature of
æsthetics and psychology dealing with the nature and affinities of wit, will,
no doubt, concede that our philosophical inquiries have not awarded to wit
the important rôle that it plays in our mental life. One can recount only a
small number of thinkers who have penetrated at all deeply into the
problems of wit. To be sure, among the authors on wit one finds the
illustrious names of the poet Jean Paul (Fr. Richter), and of the philosophers
Th. Vischer, Kuno Fischer, and Th. Lipps. But even these writers put the
subject of wit in the background while their chief interest centers around the
more comprehensive and more alluring problems of the comic.
In the main this literature gives the impression that it is altogether
impractical to study wit except when treated as a part of the comic.

Presentation of the Subject by Other Authors

According to Th. Lipps (Komik und Humor, 1898[12]) wit is “essentially
the subjective side of the comic; i.e., it is that part of the comic which we
ourselves create, which colors our conduct as such, and to which our
relation is that of Superior Subject, never of Object, certainly not Voluntary

Object” (p. 80). The following comment might also be added:—In general
we designate as wit “every conscious and clever evocation of the comic,
whether the comic element lies in the viewpoint or in the situation itself” (p.
78).
K. Fischer explains the relation between wit and the comic by the aid of
caricature, which, according to his exposition, comes midway between the
two (Über den Witz, 1889). The subject of the comic is the hideous element
in any of its manifestations. “Where it is concealed it must be disclosed in
the light of the comic view; where it is not at all or but slightly noticeable it
must be rendered conspicuous and elucidated in such a manner that it
becomes clear and intelligible. Thus arises caricature” (p. 45). “Our entire
psychic world, the intellectual realm of our thoughts and conceptions, does
not reveal itself to us on superficial consideration. It cannot be visualized
directly either figuratively or intuitively, moreover it contains inhibitions,
weak points, disfigurements, and an abundance of ludicrous and comical
contrasts. In order to bring it out and to make it accessible to æsthetic
examination, a force is necessary which is capable not only of depicting
objects directly, but also of reflecting upon these conceptions and
elucidating them—namely, a force capable of clarifying thought. This force
is nothing but judgment. The judgment which produces the comic contrast
is wit. In caricature wit has played its part unnoticed, but only in judgment
does it attain its own individual form and the free domain of its evolution.”
As can be seen Lipps assigns the determining factor which classifies wit
as part of the comic, to the activity or to the active behavior of the subject,
whereas K. Fischer characterizes wit by its relation to its object, in which
characterization he accentuates the hidden hideous element in the realm of
thought. One cannot put to test the cogency of these definitions of wit; one
can, in fact, hardly understand them unless one studies the text from which
they were taken. One is thus forced to work his way through the author’s
descriptions of the comic in order to learn anything about wit. From other
passages, however, one discovers that the same authors attribute to wit
essential characteristics of general validity in which they disregard its
relation to the comic.
K. Fischer’s characterization of wit which seems to be most satisfactory
to this author runs as follows: “Wit is a playful judgment” (p. 51). For an
elucidation of this expression we are referred to the analogy: “How æsthetic

freedom consists in the playful contemplation of objects” (p. 50). In another
place (p. 20) the æsthetic attitude towards an object is characterized by the
condition that we expect nothing from this object—especially no
gratification of our serious needs—but that we content ourselves with the
pleasure of contemplating the same. In contrast to labor the æsthetic attitude
is playful. “It may be that from æsthetic freedom there also results a kind of
judgment, freed from the conventional restrictions and rule of conduct,
which, in view of its genesis, I will call the playful judgment. This
conception contains the first condition and possibly the entire formula for
the solution of our problem. ‘Freedom begets wit and wit begets freedom,’
says Jean Paul. Wit is nothing but a free play of ideas” (p. 24).
Since time immemorial a favorite definition of wit has been the ability to
discover similarities in dissimilarities, i.e., to find hidden similarities. Jean
Paul has jocosely expressed this idea by saying that “wit is the disguised
priest who unites every couple.” Th. Vischer adds the postscript: “He likes
best to unite those couples whose marriage the relatives refuse to sanction.”
Vischer refutes this, however, by remarking that in some witticisms there is
no question of comparison or the discovery of similarities. Hence with very
little deviation from Jean Paul’s definition he defines wit as the skill to
combine with surprising quickness many ideas, which through inner content
and connections are foreign to one another. K. Fischer then calls attention to
the fact that in a large number of these witty judgments one does not find
similarities, but contrasts; and Lipps further remarks that these definitions
refer to the wit that the humorist possesses and not to the wit that he
produces.
Other viewpoints, in some measure connected with one another, which
have been mentioned in defining and describing wit are: “the contrast of
ideas,” “sense in nonsense,” and “confusion and clearness.”
Definitions like those of Kraepelin lay stress upon the contrast of ideas.
Wit is “the voluntary combination or linking of two ideas which in some
way are contrasted with each other, usually through the medium of speech
association.” For a critic like Lipps it would not be difficult to reveal the
utter inadequacy of this formula, but he himself does not exclude the
element of contrast—he merely assigns it elsewhere. “The contrast remains,
but is not formed in a manner to show the ideas connected with the words,
rather it shows the contrast or contradiction in the meaning and lack of

meaning of the words” (p. 87). Examples show the better understanding of
the latter. “A contrast arises first through the fact that we adjudge a meaning
to its words which after all we cannot ascribe to them.”
In the further development of this last condition the antithesis of “sense
in nonsense” becomes obvious. “What we accept one moment as senseful
we later perceive as perfect nonsense. Thereby arises, in this case, the
operation of the comic element” (p. 85). “A saying appears witty when we
ascribe to it a meaning through psychological necessity and, while so doing,
retract it. It may thus have many meanings. We lend a meaning to an
expression knowing that logically it does not belong to it. We find in it a
truth, however, which later we fail to find because it is foreign to our laws
of experience or usual modes of thinking. We endow it with a logical or
practical inference which transcends its true content, only to contradict this
inference as soon as we finally grasp the nature of the expression itself. The
psychological process evoked in us by the witty expression which gives rise
to the sense of the comic depends in every case on the immediate transition
from the borrowed feeling of truth and conviction to the impression or
consciousness of relative nullity.”
As impressive as this exposition sounds one cannot refrain from
questioning whether the contrast between the senseful and senseless upon
which the comic depends does not also contribute to the definition of wit in
so far as it is distinguished from the comic. Also the factor of “confusion
and clearness” leads one deeply into the problem of the relation of wit to
the comic. Kant, speaking of the comic element in general, states that one
of its remarkable attributes is the fact that it can delude us for a moment
only. Heymans (Zeitschr. f. Psychologie, XI, 1896) explains how the
mechanism of wit is produced through the succession of confusion and
clearness. He illustrates his meaning by an excellent witticism from Heine,
who causes one of his figures, the poor lottery agent, Hirsch-Hyacinth, to
boast that the great Baron Rothschild treated him as an equal or quite
FAMILLIONAIRE. Here the word which acts as the carrier of the witticism
appears in the first place simply as a faulty word-formation, as something
incomprehensible, inconceivable, and enigmatic. It is for these reasons that
it is confusing. The comic element results from the solution of the enigma
and from the understanding of the word. Lipps adds that the first stage of
enlightenment, showing that the confusing word means this or that, is
followed by a second stage in which one perceives that this nonsensical

word has first deluded us and then given us the true meaning. Only this
second enlightenment, the realization that it is all due to a word that is
meaningless in ordinary usage—this reduction to nothingness produces the
comic effect (p. 95).
Whether or not either the one or the other of these two conceptions may
seem more clear we are brought nearer to a definite insight through the
discussion of the processes of confusion and enlightenment. If the comic
effect of Heine’s famillionaire depends upon the solution of the seemingly
senseless word, then the wit would have to be attributed to the formation of
this word and to the character of the word so formed.
In addition to the associations of the viewpoints just discussed there is
another characteristic of wit which is recognized as peculiar to it by all
authors. “Brevity alone is the body and soul of wit,” declares Jean Paul
(Vorschule der Aesthetik, I, 45), and modifies it with a speech of the old
tongue-wagger, Polonius, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2):
“Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.”

Lipps’s description (p. 90) of the brevity of wit is also significant. He
states that wit says what it does say, not always in few, but always in too
few words; that is: “It expresses itself in words that will not stand the test of
strict logic or of the ordinary mode of thought and expression. In fine it can
express itself by leaving the thing unsaid.”
That “wit must unearth something hidden and concealed”—to quote K.
Fischer (p. 51)—we have already been taught from the grouping of wit with
caricature. I re-emphasize this determinant because it also has more to do
with the nature of wit than with its relation to the comic.
I am well aware that the foregoing scanty quotations from the works of
the authors on wit cannot do justice to the excellence of these works. In
view of the difficulties that confront one in reproducing clearly such
complicated and such delicately shaded streams of thought I cannot spare
inquiring minds the trouble of searching for the desired information in the
original sources. However, I do not know whether they will return fully
satisfied. For the criteria and attributes of wit mentioned by these authors,
such as—activity, the relation of the content of wit to our thoughts, the
character of the playful judgment, the union of dissimilarities, contrasting

ideas, “sense in nonsense,” the succession of confusion and clearness, the
sudden emergence of the hidden, and the peculiar brevity of wit, seem to us,
at first glance, so very pertinent and so easily demonstrable by examples
that we cannot succumb to the danger of underestimating the value of such
ideas. But they are only disjointed fragments which we should like to see
welded into an organic whole. In the end they contribute no more to the
knowledge of wit than a number of anecdotes teach us of the true
characteristics of a personality whose biography interests us. We do not at
all understand the connection that is supposed to exist between the
individual conditions; for instance, what the brevity of wit may have to do
with that side of wit exhibited in the playful judgment; besides we do not
know whether wit must satisfy all or only some of these conditions in order
to form real wit; which of them may be replaced and which ones are
indispensable. We should also like a grouping and classification of wit in
respect to its essential attributes. The classification as given by the authors
is based, on the one hand, on the technical means, and on the other hand, on
the utilization of wit in speech (sound-wit, play on words, the wit of
caricature, characterization wit, and witty repartee).
Accordingly we should not find ourselves in a dilemma when it comes to
pointing out goals for a further effort to explain wit. In order to look
forward to success we must either introduce new viewpoints into the work,
or try to penetrate further by concentrating our attention or by broadening
the scope of our interest. We can prescribe for ourselves the task of at least
not permitting any lack along the latter lines. To be sure, it is rather
remarkable how few examples of recognized witticisms suffice the authors
for their investigations and how each one accepts the ones used by his
predecessors. We need not shirk the responsibility of analyzing the same
examples which have already served the classical authors, but we
contemplate new material besides to lay a broader foundation for our
deductions. It is quite natural that we should select such examples of wit as
objects for our investigation as have produced the deepest impression upon
our own lives and which have caused us the greatest amount of laughter.
Some may inquire whether the subject of wit is worthy of such effort. In
my opinion there is no doubt about it, for even if I disregard the personal
motives to be revealed during the development of this theme (the motives
which drove me to gain an insight into the problem of wit), I can refer to the
fact that there is an intimate connection between all psychic occurrences; a

connection which promises to furnish a psychological insight into a sphere
which, although remote, will nevertheless be of considerable value to the
other spheres. One may also be reminded what a peculiar, overwhelmingly
fascinating charm wit offers in our society. A new joke operates almost as
an event of universal interest. It is passed on from one person to another just
like the news of the latest conquest. Even prominent men who consider it
worth while relating how they attained fame, what cities and countries they
have seen, and with what celebrated persons they have consorted, do not
disdain to dwell in their autobiographies upon this and that excellent joke
which they have heard.[13]

II
THE TECHNIQUE OF WIT

We follow the beckoning of chance and take up as our first example of
wit one which has already come to our notice in the previous chapter.
In that part of the Reisebilder entitled “Die Bäder von Lucca,” Heine
introduces the precious character, Hirsch-Hyacinth, the Hamburg lottery
agent and curer of corns, who, boasting to the poet of his relationship with
the rich Baron Rothschild, ends thus: “And as true as I pray that the Lord
may grant me all good things I sat next to Solomon Rothschild, who treated
me just as if I were his equal, quite famillionaire.”
It is by means of this excellent and very funny example that Heymans
and Lipps have illustrated the origin of the comic effect of wit from the
succession of “confusion and clearness.” However, we shall pass over this
question and put to ourselves the following inquiry: What is it that causes
the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth to become witty? It can be only one of two
things; either it is the thought expressed in the sentence which carries in
itself the character of the witticism; or the witticism adheres to the mode of
expression which clothes the thought. On whichever side the nature of the
wit may lie, there we shall follow it farther and endeavor to elucidate it.
In general a thought may be expressed in different forms of speech—that
is, in different words—which may repeat it in its original accuracy. In the
speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth we have before us a definite form of thought
expressed which seems to us especially peculiar and not very readily
comprehensible. Let us attempt to express as exactly as is possible the same
thought in other words. Lipps, indeed, has already done this and has thus, to
some degree, elucidated the meaning of the poet. He says (p. 87), “We
understand that Heine wishes to say that the reception was on a familiar
basis, that is, that it was of the friendly sort.” We change nothing in the
sense when we assume a different interpretation which perhaps fits better
into the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth: “Rothschild treated me quite as his

equal, in a very familiar way; that is, as far as this can be done by a
millionaire.” We would only add, “The condescension of a rich man always
carries something embarrassing for the one experiencing it.”[14]
Whether we shall remain content with this or with another equivalent
formulation of the thought, we can see that the question which we have put
to ourselves is already answered. The character of the wit in this example
does not adhere to the thought. It is a correct and ingenious remark that
Heine puts into the mouth of Hirsch-Hyacinth—a remark of indubitable
bitterness, as is easily understood in the case of the poor man confronted
with so much wealth; but we should not care to call it witty. Now if any one
who cannot forget the poet’s meaning in the interpretation should insist that
the thought in itself is also witty, we can refer him to the definite fact that
the witty character is lost in the interpretation. It is true that Hirsch-
Hyacinth’s speech made us laugh loudly, but though Lipps’s or our own
accurate rendering may please us and cause us to reflect, yet it cannot make
us laugh.
But if the witty character of our example does not belong to the thought,
then it must be sought for in the form of expression in the wording. We
have only to study the peculiarity of this mode of expression to realize what
one may term word- or form-technique. Also we may discover the things
that are intimately related to the very nature of wit, since the character as
well as the effect of wit disappears when one set of expressions is changed
for others. At all events we are in full accord with our authors when we put
so much value upon the verbal form of the wit. Thus K. Fischer (p. 72)
says: “It is, in the first place, the naked form which is responsible for the
perception of wit, and one is reminded of a saying of Jean Paul’s which
affirms and proves this nature of wit in the same expression. ‘Thus the mere
position conquers, be it that of warriors or of sentences.’”

Formation of Mixed Words

Now wherein lies the “technique” of this wit? What has occurred to the
thought, in our own conception, that it became changed into wit and caused
us to laugh heartily? The comparison of our conception with the text of the
poet teaches us that two processes took place. In the first place there
occurred an important abbreviation. In order to express fully the thought

contained in the witticism we had to append to the words “Rothschild
treated me just as an equal, on a familiar basis,” an additional sentence
which in its briefest form reads: i.e., so far as a millionaire can do this. Even
then we feel the necessity of an additional explanatory sentence.[15] The poet
expresses it in terser terms as follows: “Rothschild treated me just like an
equal, quite famillionaire.” The entire restriction, which the second
sentence imposes on the first thus verifying the familiar treatment, has been
lost in the jest. But it has not been so entirely lost as not to leave a substitute
from which it can be reconstructed. A second change has also taken place.
The word “familiar” in the witless expression of the thought has been
transformed into “famillionaire” in the text of the wit, and there is no doubt
that the witty character and ludicrous effect of the joke depends directly
upon this word-formation. The newly formed word is identical in its first
part with the word “familiar” of the first sentence, and its terminal syllables
correspond to the word “millionaire” of the second sentence. In this manner
it puts us in a position to conjecture the second sentence which was omitted
in the text of the wit. It may be described as a composite of two constituents
“familiar” and “millionaire,” and one is tempted to depict its origin from the
two words graphically.
FAMIL I A R
MILLIONAIRE
—————————————
FAMILLIONAIRE

The process, then, which has carried the thought into the witticism can be
represented in the following manner, which, although at first rather
fantastic, nevertheless furnishes exactly the actual existing result:
“Rothschild treated me quite familiarly, i.e., as well as a millionaire can do
that sort of thing.”
Now imagine that a compressing force is acting upon these sentences and
assume that for some reason or other the second sentence is of lesser
resistance. It is accordingly forced toward the vanishing point, but its
important component, the word “millionaire,” which strives against the
compressing power, is pushed, as it were, into the first sentence and
becomes fused with the very similar element, the word “familiar” of this
sentence. It is just this possibility, provided by chance to save the essential
part of the second sentence, which favors the disappearance of the other less

important components. The jest then takes shape in this manner:
“Rothschild treated me in a very
famillionaire way.”
/ (mili) (aire)

Apart from such a compressing force, which is really unknown to us, we
may describe the origin of the wit-formation, that is, the technique of the
wit in this case, as a condensation with substitutive formation. In our
example the substitutive formation consists in the formation of a mixed
word. This fused word “famillionaire,” incomprehensible in itself but
instantly understood in its context and recognized as senseful, is now the
carrier of the mirth-provoking stimulus of the jest, whose mechanism, to be
sure, is in no way clearer to us through the discovery of the technique. To
what extent can a linguistic process of condensation with substitutive
formation produce pleasure through a fused word and force us to laugh? We
make note of the fact that this is a different problem, the treatment of which
we can postpone until we shall find access to it later. For the present we
shall continue to busy ourselves with the technique of wit.
Our expectation that the technique of wit cannot be considered an
indifferent factor in the examination of the nature of wit prompts us to
inquire next whether there are other examples of wit formed like Heine’s
“famillionaire.” Not many of these exist, but enough to constitute a small
group which may be characterized as the blend-word formations or fusions.
Heine himself has produced a second witticism from the word “millionaire”
by copying himself, as it were, when he speaks of a “millionarr” (Ideen,
Chap. XIV). This is a visible condensation of “millionaire” and “narr”
(fool) and, like the first example, expresses a suppressed by-thought. Other
examples of a similar nature are as follows.
During the war between Turkey and the Balkan States, in 1912, Punch
depicted the part played by Rumania by representing the latter as a
highwayman holding up the members of the Balkan alliance. The picture
was entitled: Kleptorumania. Here the word is a fusion of Kleptomania and
Rumania and may be represented as follows:
KLEPTOMANIA
RUMANIA
—————————————

KLEPTORUMANIA
A naughty jest of Europe has rebaptized a former potentate, Leopold, into
Cleopold because of his relation to a lady surnamed Cleo. This is a clear
form of condensation which by the addition of a single letter forever vividly
preserves a scandalous allusion.
In an excellent chapter on this same theme Brill gives the following
example.[16]
“De Quincey once remarked that old persons are apt to fall into
‘anecdotage.’” The word Anecdotage, though in itself incomprehensible,
can be readily analyzed to show its original full sense; and on analysis we
find that it is made up of two words, anecdote and dotage. That is, instead
of saying that old persons are apt to fall into dotage and that old persons are
fond of telling anecdotes, De Quincey fuses the two words into a
neologism, anecdotage, and thus simultaneously expresses both ideas. The
technique, therefore, lies in the fusion of the two words. Such a fusion of
words is called condensation. Condensation is a substitutive formation, i.e.,
instead of anecdote and dotage we have anecdotage.
“In a short story which I have recently read, one of the characters, a
‘sport,’ speaks of the Christmas season as the alcoholidays. By reduction it
can be easily seen that we have here a compound word, a combination of
alcohol and holidays which can be graphically represented as follows:
alcoHOL
HOLidays
————————————
ALCOHOLIDAYS

“Here the condensation expresses the idea that holidays are conducive to
alcoholic indulgence. In other words, we have here a fused word, which,
though strange in appearance, can be easily understood in its proper
context. The witticism may be described as a condensation with
substitution.
“The same mechanism is found in the following: A dramatic critic,
summarizing three paragraphs to the effect that most plays now produced in
New York City are violently emotional and hysterical, remarks: ‘Thespis
has taken up his home in Dramatteawan.’ The last word is a condensation of
drama and Matteawan. The substitution not only expressed the critic’s idea

that most of the plays at present produced in New York are violent,
emotional and hysterical, that is insane, but it also contains a clever allusion
to the nature of the problem presented by most of these plays. Matteawan is
a state hospital for criminal insane. Most of the plays are not only insane,
but also criminal since they treat of murders, divorces, robberies, scandals,
etc.”
When Flaubert published his famous romance Salammbo, which treats of
life in ancient Carthage, it was scoffingly referred to by Sainte-Beuve as
Carthaginoiserie on account of its tedious detailed descriptions.
Carthaginoiserie
chinoiserie

During a conversation with a lady I unintentionally furnished the material
for a jest. I spoke to her about the great merits of an investigator whom I
considered unjustly ignored. She remarked, “But the man really deserves a
monument.” “Perhaps he will get one some day,” I answered, “but at the
moment his success is very limited.” “Monument” and “moment” are
contrasts. The lady then united these contrasts and said: “Well, let us wish
him a monumentary success.”
If at this stage the reader should become displeased with a viewpoint
which threatens to destroy his pleasure in wit without explaining the source
of this pleasure I must beg him to be patient for a while, because we are
now confronted with the technique of wit, the examination of which
promises many revelations if only we enter into it far enough. Besides the
analysis of the examples thus far cited, which show simply a process of
condensation, there are others in which the changed expressions manifest
themselves in other ways.

Condensation with Modification and Substitution

The following witticisms of Mr. N. will serve as illustrations.
“I was driving with him tête-à-bête.” Nothing is simpler than the
reduction of this jest. Evidently it can only mean: I was driving tête-à-tête
with Mr. X. and X. is a stupid ass (beast).

Neither of these two sentences is witty nor is there any wit if one
combines them into this one: “I was out driving tête-à-tête with that stupid
ass (beast).” The wit appears when the words “stupid ass” are omitted and
when, as a substitute for them, the first “t” of the second “tête” is changed
to “b.” This slight modification brings back to expression the suppressed
“bête.” The technique of this group of witticisms may be described as
“condensation with a slight modification.” And it would seem that the more
insignificant the substitutive modification, the better is the wit.
Quite similar, although not without its complications, is the technique of
another form of witticism. During a discussion about a person in whom
there was something to praise and much to criticise, N. remarked: “Yes,
vanity is one of his four heels of Achilles.”[17] This modification consists in
the fact that instead of the one vulnerable heel which was attributed to
Achilles we have here four heels. Four heels means four feet and that
number is only found on animals. The two thoughts condensed in the
witticism are as follows: Except for his vanity he is an admirable fellow;
still I do not care for him, for he is more of an animal than a human being.
[18]

A similar but simpler joke I heard statu nascendi in a family circle. One
of two brothers who were attending college was an excellent scholar while
the other was only an average student. It so happened that the model boy
had a setback in school. The mother discussed this matter and expressed her
fear lest this event be the beginning of a lasting deterioration. The boy who
until then had been overshadowed by his brother willingly grasped this
opportunity to remark: “Yes, Carl is going backward on all-fours.”
Here the modification consists in a small addition as an assurance that in
his judgment his brother is going backward. This modification represents
and takes the place of a passionate plea for his own cause which may be
expressed as follows: After all, you must not think that he is so much
cleverer than I am simply because he has more success in school. He is
really a stupid ass, i.e., much more stupid than I am.
A good illustration of condensation with slight modification is furnished
by a well-known witty jest of Mr. N., who remarked about a character in
public life that he had a “great future behind him.” The butt of this joke was
a young man whose ancestry, rearing, and personal qualities seemed to
destine him for the leadership of a great party and the attainment of political

power at its head. But times changed, the party became politically
incompetent, and it could readily be foreseen that the man who was
predestined to become its leader would come to nothing. The briefest
reduction of the meaning by which one could replace this joke would be:
The man has had a great future before him, but that is now past. Instead of
“has had” and the appended afterthought there is a small change in the main
sentence in which “before” is replaced by its opposite “behind.”[19]
Mr. N. made use of almost the same modification in the case of the
nobleman who was appointed minister of agriculture for no other reason
than that he was interested in agriculture. Public opinion had an opportunity
to find out that he was the most incompetent man who had ever been
intrusted with this office. When, however, he had relinquished his portfolio
and had withdrawn to his agricultural pursuits Mr. N. said of him: “Like
Cincinnatus of Old he has returned to his place in front of the plough.”
That Roman, who was likewise called to his office from his farm,
returned to his place behind the plough. In those days, just as in the present
time, in front of the plough walked—the ox.
We could easily increase these examples by many others, but I am of the
opinion that we are in need of no more cases in order to grasp thoroughly
the character of the technique of this second group—condensation with
modification. If we now compare the second group with the first, the
technique of which consisted in condensation with a mixed word-formation,
we readily see that the differences are not vital and that the lines of
demarcation are indistinct. The mixed word-formation, like the
modification, became subordinated to the idea of substitutive formation,
and if we desire we can also describe the mixed word-formation as a
modification of the parent word through the second elements.
We may make our first pause here and ask ourselves with what known
factor in the literature of wit our first result, either in whole or in part,
coincides. It obviously agrees with the factor of brevity which Jean Paul
calls the soul of wit (supra, p. 11). But brevity alone is not wit or every
laconism would be witty. The brevity of wit must be of a special kind. We
recall that Lipps has attempted to describe more fully the peculiarity of the
brevity of wit (v. s., p. 11). Here our investigation started and demonstrated
that the brevity of wit is often the result of a special process which has left a
second trace—the substitutive formation—in the wording of the wit. By

applying the process of reduction, which aims to cause a retrogression in
the peculiar process of condensation, we find also that wit depends only
upon the verbal expression which was produced by the process of
condensation. Naturally our entire interest now centers upon this peculiar
and hitherto almost neglected mechanism. Furthermore, we cannot yet
comprehend how it can give origin to all that is valuable in wit; namely, the
resultant pleasure.

Condensation in Dreams

Have processes similar to those here described as the technique of wit
already been noted in another sphere of our psychic life? To be sure, in one
apparently remote sphere. In 1900 I published a book which, as indicated
by its title (The Interpretation of Dreams[20]), makes the attempt to explain
the riddle of the dream and to trace the dream to normal psychic operations.
I had occasion to contrast there the manifest and often peculiar dream-
content with the latent but altogether real thoughts of the dream from which
it originated, and I took up the investigation of the processes which make
the dream from the latent dream-thought. I also investigated the
psychological forces which participated in this transposition. The sum of
the transforming processes I designated as the dream-work and, as a part of
this dream-work, I described the process of condensation. This process has
a striking similarity to the technique of wit and, like the latter, it leads to
abbreviations and brings about substitutive formations of like character.
From recollections of his own dreams the reader will be familiar with the
compositions of persons and objects that appear in them; indeed, the dream
makes similar compositions of words which can then be reduced by
analysis (e.g., Autodidasker—Autodidakt and Lasker[21]). On other
occasions and even much more frequently, the condensation work of the
dream produces no compositions, but pictures which closely resemble an
object or person up to a certain addition or variation which comes from
another source, like the modifications in the witticisms of Mr. N. We cannot
doubt that in this case, as in the other, we deal with a similar psychic
process which is recognizable by identical results. Such a far-reaching
analogy between wit-technique and dream-work will surely arouse our
interest in the former and stimulate our expectation of finding some

explanation of wit from a comparison with the dream. We forbear, however,
to enter upon this work by bearing in mind that we have investigated the
technique of wit in only a very small number of witty jests, so that we
cannot be certain that the analogy, the workings of which we wish to
explore, will hold good. Hence we turn away from the comparison with the
dream and again take up the technique of wit, leaving, however, at this
place of our investigation a visible thread, as it were, which later we shall
take up again.

Wit Formed by Word-division

The next point we shall discuss is whether the process of condensation
with substitutive formation is demonstrable in all witticisms so that it may
be designated as a universal character of the technique of wit. I recall a joke
which has clung to my mind through certain peculiar circumstances. One of
the great teachers of my youth, whom we considered unable to appreciate a
joke—he had never told us a single joke of his own—came into the Institute
laughing. With an unwonted readiness he explained the cause of his good
humor. “I have read an excellent joke,” he said. “A young man who claimed
to be a relative of the great J. J. Rousseau, and who bore his name, was
introduced into a Parisian drawing-room. It should be added that he was
decidedly red-headed. He behaved in such an awkward manner that the
hostess ventured this criticism to the gentleman who had introduced him
—‘Vous m’avez fait connaître un jeune homme roux et sot, mais non pas un
Rousseau.’”
At this point our teacher started to laugh again. According to the
nomenclature of our authors this is sound-wit and a poor kind at that, since
it plays with a proper name.
But what is the technique of this wit? It is quite clear that the character
which we had perhaps hoped to demonstrate universally leaves us in the
lurch in the first new example. Here there is no omission and scarcely an
abbreviation. In the witticism the lady expresses almost everything that we
can ascribe to the thoughts. “You have made me look forward to meeting a
relative of J. J. Rousseau. I expected that he was perhaps even mentally
related to him. Imagine my surprise to find this red-haired foolish boy, a
roux et sot.” To be sure, I was able to add and insert something, but this

attempt at reduction does not annul the wit. It remains fixed and attached to
the sound similarity of Rousseau. This proves that condensation with
roux sot
substitution plays no part in the production of this witticism.
With what else do we have to deal? New attempts at reduction taught me
that the joke will persistently continue until the name Rousseau is replaced
by another. If, e.g., I substitute the name Racine for it I find that although
the lady’s criticism is just as feasible as before it immediately loses every
trace of wit. Now I know where I can look for the technique of this joke
although I still hesitate to formulate it. I shall make the following attempt:
The technique of the witticism lies in the fact that one and the same word—
the name—is used in a twofold application, once as a whole and once
divided into its syllables like a charade.
I can mention a few examples of identical technique. A witticism of this
sort was utilized by an Italian lady to avenge a tactless remark made to her
by the first Napoleon. Pointing to her compatriots at a court ball he said:
“Tutti gli Italian danzano si male” (all Italians dance so badly). To which
she quickly replied: “Non tutti, ma buona parte” (Not all, but a great many)
[22]
—Buona parte. Brill reports still another example in which the wit
Buonaparte.
depends on the twofold application of a name: “Hood once remarked that
he had to be a lively Hood for a livelihood.”[23]
At one time when Antigone was produced in Berlin a critic found that the
presentation entirely lacked the character of antiquity. The wits of Berlin
incorporated this criticism in the following manner: “Antique? Oh, nay”
(Th. Vischer and K. Fischer).

Manifold Application of the Same Material

In these examples, which will suffice for this species of wit, the
technique is the same. A name is made use of twice; first, as a whole, and
then divided into its syllables—and in their divided state the syllables yield
a different meaning.[24] The manifold application of the same word, once as
a whole and then as the component syllables into which it divides itself,
was the first case that came to our attention in which technique deviated
from that of condensation. Upon brief reflection, however, we must divine

from the abundance of examples that come to us that the newly discovered
technique can hardly be limited to this single means. Obviously there are
any number of hitherto unobserved possibilities for one to utilize the same
word or the same material of words in manifold application in one sentence.
May not all these possibilities furnish technical means for wit? It would
seem so, judging by the following examples.
“Two witty statesmen, X and Y, met at a dinner. X, acting as toastmaster,
introduced Y as follows: ‘My friend, Y, is a very wonderful man. All you
have to do is to open his mouth, put in a dinner, and a speech appears, etc.’
Responding to the speaker, Y said: ‘My friend, the toastmaster, told you
what a wonderful man I am, that all you have to do is to open my mouth,
put in a dinner, and a speech appears. Now let me tell you what a wonderful
man he is. All you have to do is open anybody’s mouth, put in his speech,
and the dinner appears.’”[25]
In examples of this sort, one can use the same material of words and
simply change slightly their order. The slighter the change, the more one
gets the impression that different sense was expressed with the same words,
the better is the technical means of wit. And how simple are the means of its
production! “Put in a dinner and a speech appears—put in a speech and a
dinner appears.” This is really nothing but an exchange of places of these
two phrases whereby what was said of Y becomes differentiated from what
is said of X. To be sure, this is not the whole technique of the joke.[26]
Great latitude is afforded the technique of wit if one so extends the
“manifold application of the same material” that the word—or the words—
upon which the wit depends may be used first unchanged and then with a
slight modification. An example is another joke of Mr. N. He heard a
gentleman, who himself was born a Jew, utter a malicious statement about
Jewish character. “Mr. Councilor,” said he, “I am familiar with your
antesemitism, but your antisemitism is new to me.”
Here only one single letter is changed, the modification of which could
hardly be noticed in careless pronunciation. This example reminds one of
the other modification jokes of Mr. N., but it differs from them in lacking
the condensation. Everything that was to be said has been told in the joke.
“I know that you yourself were formerly a Jew, therefore I am surprised that
you should rail against the Jew.”

An excellent example of such wit modification is also the familiar
exclamation: “Traduttore—Traditore.”[27]
The similarity between the two words, almost approaching identity,
results in a very impressive representation of the inevitability by which a
translator becomes a transgressor—in the eyes of the author.
The manifoldness of slight modifications possible in these jokes is so
great that none is quite similar to the other. Here is a joke which is supposed
to have arisen at an examination for the degree of law. The candidate was
translating a passage from the Corpus juris, “Labeo ait.” “‘I fall (fail),’ says
he,” volunteered the candidate. “‘You fall (fail),’ says I,” replied the
examiner and the examination ended. Whoever mistakes the name of the
celebrated Jurist for a word to which he attaches a false meaning certainly
deserves nothing better. But the technique of the witticism lies in the fact
that the examiner used almost the same words in punishing the applicant
which the latter used to prove his ignorance. Besides, the joke is an example
of repartee whose technique, as we shall see, is closely allied to the one just
mentioned.
Words are plastic and may be moulded into almost any shape. There are
some words which have lost their true original meaning in certain usages
which they still enjoy in other applications. In one of Lichtenberg’s jokes
just those conditions have been sought for in which the nuances of the
wordings have removed their basic meaning.
“How goes it?” asked the blind of the lame one. “As you see,” replied
the lame one to the blind.
Language is replete with words which taken in one sense are full of
meaning and in another are colorless. There may be two different
derivatives from the same root, one of which may develop into a word with
a full meaning while the other may become a colorless suffix or prefix, and
yet both may have the same sound. The similarity of sound between a word
having full meaning and one whose meaning is colorless may also be
accidental. In both cases the technique of wit can make use of such
relationship of the speech material. The following examples illustrate some
of these points.
“Do you call a man kind who remits nothing to his family while away?”
asked an actor. “Call that kindness?” “Yes, unremitting kindness,” was the
reply of Douglas Jerrold. The wit here depends on the first syllable un of

the word unremitting. Un is usually a prefix denoting “not,” but by adding it
to “remitting” a new relationship is unexpectedly established which changes
the meaning of the context. “An undertaker is one who always carries out
what he undertakes.” The striking character upon which the wit here
depends is the manifold application of the words undertaker and carry out.
Undertaker commonly denotes one who manages funerals. Only when
taken in this sense and using the words carry out literally is the sentence
witty. The wit lies in the manifold application of the same words.

Double Meaning and Play on Words

If we delve more deeply into the variety of “manifold application” of the
same word we suddenly notice that we are confronted with forms of
“double meaning” or “plays on words” which have been known a long time
and which are universally acknowledged as belonging to the technique of
wit. Then why have we bothered our brains about discovering something
new when we could just as well have gleaned it from the most superficial
treatise on wit? We can say in self-defense only that we are presenting
another side of the same phenomena of verbal expressions. What the
authors call the “playful” character of wit we treat from the point of view of
“manifold application.”
Further examples of manifold application which may also be designated
under a new and third group, the class of double meaning, may be divided
into subdivisions. These, to be sure, are not essentially differentiated from
one another any more than the whole third group from the second. In the
first place we have:
(a) Cases of double meaning of a name and its verbal significance: e.g.,
“Discharge thyself of our company, Pistol” (Henry IV, Act II). “For
Suffolk’s duke may he suffocate” (Henry IV, Act I). Heine says, “Here in
Hamburg rules not the rascally Macbeth, but Banko (Banquo).”
In those cases where the unchanged name cannot be used,—one might
say “misused,”—one can get a double meaning by means of familiar slight
modifications: “Why have the French rejected Lohengrin?” was a question
asked some time ago. The answer was, “On Elsa’s (Alsace) account.”

(b) Cases where a double meaning is obtained by using a word which has
both a verbal and metaphoric sense furnish an abundant source for the
technique of wit. A medical colleague, who was well known for his wit,
once said to Arthur Schnitzler, the writer: “I am not at all surprised that you
became a great poet. Your father had already held up the mirror to his
contemporaries.” The mirror used by the father of the writer, the famous Dr.
Schnitzler, was the laryngoscope. According to the well-known quotation
from Hamlet (Act III, Scene 2), the object of the play as well as the writer
who creates it is to “hold, as’t were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue
her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the
time his form and pressure.”
(c) Cases of actual double meaning or play on words—the ideal case, as
it were, of manifold application. Here no violence is done to the word. It is
not torn into syllables. It need not undergo any modifications. It need not
exchange its own particular sphere, say as a proper name, for another.
Thanks to certain circumstances it can express two meanings just as it
stands in the structure of the sentence. Many examples are at our disposal.
One of the first royal acts of the last Napoleon was, as is well known, the
confiscation of the estates belonging to the House of Orleans. “C’est le
premier vol de l’aigle” was an excellent play on words current at that time.
“Vol” means both flight and theft. Louis XV wished to test the wit of one of
his courtiers whose talent in that direction he had heard about. He seized his
first opportunity to command the cavalier to concoct a joke at his (the
king’s) expense. He wanted to be the “subject” of the witticism. The
courtier answered him with the clever bonmot, “Le roi n’est pas sujet.”
“Subject” also means “vassal.” (Taken from K. Fischer.)
A physician, leaving the sick-bed of a wife, whose husband accompanied
him, exclaimed doubtfully: “I do not like her looks.” “I have not liked her
looks for a long time,” was the quick rejoinder of the husband. The
physician, of course, referred to the condition of the wife, but he expressed
his apprehension about the patient in such words as to afford the husband
the means of utilizing them to assert his conjugal aversion. Concerning a
satirical comedy Heine remarked: “This satire would not have been so
biting had the author of it had more to bite.” This jest is a better example of
metaphoric and common double meaning than of real play upon words, but
at present we are not concerned about such strict lines of demarcation.

Charles Matthews, the elder, one of England’s greatest actors, was asked
what he was going to do with his son (the young man was destined for
architecture). “Why,” answered the comedian, “he is going to draw houses
like his father.” Foote once asked a man why he forever sang one tune.
“Because it haunts me,” replied the man. “No wonder,” said Foote, “you
are continually murdering it.” Said the Dyspeptic Philosopher: “One
swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor quench the thirst.”
A gentleman had shown much ingenuity in evading a notorious borrower
whom he had sent away many times with the request to call when he was
“in.” One day, however, the borrower eluded the servant at the door and
cornered his victim.
“Ah,” said the host, seeing there was no way out of it, “at last I am in.”
“No,” returned the borrower in anticipation, “at last I am in and you are
out.”
Heine said in the Harzreise: “I cannot recall at the moment the names of
all the students, and among the professors there are some who have no
name as yet.”
Dr. Johnson said of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was
poor in purse, but prolific in the distribution of its degrees: “Let it persevere
in its present plan and it may become rich by degrees.” Here the wit
depends more on the manifold application than on the play on words.
The keen-witted writer, Horatio Winslow, sums up the only too-familiar
history of some American families as follows:

A Tale of Two American Generations

Gold Mine
Gold Spoon
Gold Cure

The last couplet, gold cure, refers to the familiar cure for alcoholism.
This wit is an excellent example of unification—everything is, as it were, of
gold. The manifold meanings of the adjective which do not very strikingly
contrast with one another make possible this “manifold application.”

Ambiguity

Another play on words will facilitate the transition to a new subdivision
of the technique of double meaning. The witty colleague who was
responsible for the joke mentioned on page 42 is likewise responsible for
this joke, current during the trial of Dreyfus:
“This girl reminds me of Dreyfus. The army does not believe in her
innocence.”
The word innocence, whose double meaning furnishes the basis of the
witticism, has in one connection the customary meaning which is the
opposite of guilt or transgression, while in the other connection it has a
sexual sense, the opposite of which is sexual experience. There are very
many such examples of double meaning and in each one the point of the
joke refers especially to a sexual sense. The group could be designated as
“ambiguous.” A good example to illustrate this is the story told of a wealthy
but elderly gentleman who showed his devotion to a young actress by many
lavish gifts. Being a respectable girl she took the first opportunity to
discourage his attentions by telling him that her heart was already given to
another man. “I never aspired as high as that,” was his polite answer.
If one compares this example of double-meaning-with-ambiguity with
other examples one cannot help noticing a difference which is not
altogether inconsequential to the technique. In the joke about “innocence”
one meaning of the word is just as good for our understanding of it as the
other. One can really not decide whether the sexual or non-sexual
significance of the word is more applicable and more familiar. But it is
different with the other example mentioned. Here the final sense of the
words, “I never aspired as high as that,” is by far more obtrusive and covers
and conceals, as it were, the sexual sense which could easily escape the
unsuspecting person. In sharp contrast to this let us examine another
example of double meaning in which there is no attempt made to veil its
sexual significance—e.g., Heine’s characterization of a complaisant lady:
“She could pass (abschlagen) nothing except her water.” It sounds like an
obscene joke and the wit in it is scarcely noticed.[28] But the peculiarity that
both senses of the double meaning are not equally manifested can occur
also in witticisms without sexual reference providing that one sense is more
common or that it is preferred on account of its connection with the other

parts of the sentence (e.g., c’est le premier vol de l’aigle). All these
examples I propose to call double meaning with allusion.
We have by this time become familiar with such a large number of
different techniques of wit that I am afraid we may lose sight of them. Let
us, therefore, attempt to make a summary.

I. Condensation

(a) with mixed word-formation.
(b) with modification.

II. The Application of the Same Material

(c) The whole and the part.
(d) Change of order.
(e) Slight modification.
(f) The same words used in their full or colorless sense.

III. Double Meaning

(g) Name and verbal significance.
(h) Metaphorical and verbal meaning.
(i) True double meaning (play on words).
(j) Ambiguous meaning.
(k) Double meaning with allusion.
This variety causes confusion. It might vex us because we have devoted
so much time to the consideration of the technical means of wit, and the
stress laid on the forms might possibly arouse our suspicions that we are
overvaluing their importance so far as the knowledge of the nature of wit is
concerned. But this conjecture is met by the one irrefutable fact: namely,
that each time the wit disappears as soon as we remove the effect that was
brought to expression by these techniques. We are thus directed to search
for the unity in this variety. It must be possible to bring all these techniques
under one head. As we have remarked before, it is not difficult to unite the

second and third groups, for the double meaning, the play on words, is
nothing but the ideal case of utilizing the same material. The latter is here
apparently the more comprehensive conception. The examples of dividing,
changing the order of the same material, manifold application with slight
modifications (c, d, e)—all these could, without difficulty, be subordinated
under the conception of double meaning. But what community exists
between the technique of the first group—condensation with substitutive
formation—and the two other groups—manifold application of the same
material?

The Tendency to Economy

It seems to me that this agreement is very simple and clear. The
application of the same material is only a special case of condensation and
the play on words is nothing but a condensation without substitutive
formation. Condensation thus remains as the chief category. A compressing
or—to be more exact—an economic tendency controls all these techniques.
As Prince Hamlet says: “Thrift, Horatio, thrift.” It seems to be all a matter
of economy.
Let us examine this economy in individual cases. “C’est le premier vol de
l’aigle.” That is, the first flight of the eagle. Certainly, but it is a
depredatious flight. Luckily for the gist of this joke “vol” signifies flight as
well as depredation. Has nothing been condensed and economized by this?
Certainly, the entire second thought, and it was dropped without any
substitution. The double sense of the word “vol” makes such substitution
superfluous, or what is just as correct: The word “vol” contains the
substitution for the repressed thought without the necessity of
supplementing or varying the first sentence. Therein consists the benefit of
the double meaning.
Another example: Gold mine,—gold spoon, the enormous economy of
expression the single word “gold” produces. It really tells the history of two
generations in the life of some American families. The father made his
fortune through hard toiling in the gold fields during the early pioneer days.
The son was born with a golden spoon in his mouth; having been brought
up as the son of a wealthy man, he becomes a chronic alcoholic and has to
take the gold cure.

Thus there is no doubt that the condensation in these examples produces
economy and we shall demonstrate that the same is true in all cases. Where
is the economy in such jokes as “Rousseau—roux et sot,” or “Antigone—
antique-oh-nay” in which we first failed to find the prime factors in causing
us to establish the technique of the manifold application of the same
material? In these cases condensation will naturally not cover the ground,
but when we exchange it for the broader conception of “economy” we find
no difficulty. What we save in such examples as those just given is quite
obvious. We save ourselves the trouble of making a criticism, of forming a
judgment. Both are contained in the names. The same is true in the
“livelihood” example and the others thus far analyzed. Where one does not
save much is in the example of “I am in and you are out,” at least the
wording of a new answer is saved. The wording of the address, “I am in,”
serves also for the answer. It is little, but in this little lies the wit. The
manifold application of the same words in addressing and answering surely
comes under the heading of economy. Note how Hamlet sums up the quick
succession of the death of his father and the marriage of his mother:
“the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”

But before we accept the “tendency to economize” as the universal
character of wit and ask whence it originates, what it signifies, and how it
gives origin to the resultant pleasure, we shall concede a doubt which may
justly be considered. It may be true that every technique of wit shows the
tendency to economize in expression, but the relationship is not reversible.
Not every economy in expression or every brevity is witty on that account.
We once raised this question when we still hoped to demonstrate the
condensation process in every witticism and at that we justly objected by
remarking that a laconism is not necessarily wit. Hence it must be a peculiar
form of brevity and economy upon which the character of the wit depends,
and just as long as we are ignorant of this peculiarity the discovery of the
common element in the technique of wit will bring us no nearer a solution.
Besides, we have the courage to acknowledge that the economies caused by
the technique of wit do not impress us as very much. They remind one of
the manner in which many a housewife economizes when she spends time
and money to reach a distant market because the vegetables can there be
had a cent cheaper. What does wit save by means of its technique? Instead

of putting together a few new words, which, for the most part, could have
been accomplished without any effort, it goes to the trouble of searching for
the word which comprises both ideas. Indeed, it must often at first
transform the expression of one of the ideas into an unusual form until it
furnishes an associative connection with the second thought. Would it not
have been simpler, easier, and really more economical to express both
thoughts as they happen to come even if no agreement in expression
results? Is not the economy in verbal expression more than abrogated
through the expenditure of intellectual work? And who economized through
it, whom does it benefit? We can temporarily circumvent these doubts by
leaving them unsolved until later on. Are we really familiar enough with all
the forms of techniques of wit? It will surely be safer to gather new
examples and submit them to analysis.

Puns

Indeed, we have not yet given consideration to one of the largest groups
into which the techniques of wit may be divided. In this we have perhaps
been influenced by the low estimate in which this form of wit is held. It
embraces those jokes which are commonly called “puns.” These are
generally counted as the lowest form of wit, perhaps because they are
“cheapest” and can be formed with the least effort. They really make the
least demands on the technique of expression just as the actual play on
words makes the most. Whereas in the latter both meanings find expression
in the identical word, and hence usually in a word used only once, in the
pun it is enough if two words for both meanings resemble each other
through some slight similarity in structure, in rhythmic consonance, in the
community of several vowels, or in some other similar manner. The
following examples illustrate these points:
“We are now fallen into that critical age wherein censores liberorum are
become censores librorum: Lectores, Lictores.”
Professor Cromwell says that Rome in exchanging her religion changed
Jupiter to Jew Peter.
It is related that some students wishing to play a trick on Agassiz, the
great naturalist, constructed an insect made up of parts taken from different

bugs and sent it to him with the question, “What kind of a bug is this?” His
answer was “Humbug.”
Puns are especially fond of modifying one of the vowels of the word;
e.g., Hevesi (Almanaccando, Reisen in Italien, p. 87) says of an Italian poet
who was hostile to the German emperor, but who was, nevertheless, forced
to sing his praises in his hexameters, “Since he could not exterminate the
Cæsars he at least annihilated the cæsuras.”
From the multitude of puns which are at our disposal it may be of special
interest to us to quote a really poor example for which Heine (Book Le
Grand, Chapter V) is responsible. After parading for a long time before his
lady as an “Indian Prince” the suitor suddenly lays aside his mask and
confesses, “Madam, I have lied to you. I have never been in Calcutta any
more than that Calcutta roast which I relished yesterday for lunch.”
Obviously the fault of this witticism lies in the fact that both words are not
merely similar, but identical. The bird which served as a roast for his lunch
is called so because it comes from, or at least is supposed to come from, the
same city of Calcutta.
K. Fischer has given much attention to this form of wit and insists upon
making a sharp distinction between it and the “play on words” (p. 78). “A
pun,” he says, “is a bad play on words, for it does not play with the word as
a word, but merely as a sound.” The play on words, however, “transfers
itself from the sound of the word into the word itself.” On the other hand,
he also classifies such jokes as “famillionaire, Antigone (Antique-Oh-nay),”
etc., with sound-wit. I see no necessity to follow him in this. In the plays on
words, also, the word serves us only as a sound to which this or that
meaning attaches itself. Here also usage of language makes no distinction,
and when it treats “puns” with disdain but the play on words with a certain
respect it seems that these estimations are determined by others as technical
viewpoints. One should bear in mind the forms of wit which are referred to
as puns. There are persons who have the ability, when they are in a high-
spirited mood, to reply with a pun for a long time to every sentence
addressed to them. Brill[29] relates that at a gathering some one spoke
disparagingly of a certain drama and wound up by saying, “It was so poor
that the first act had to be rewritten.” “And now it is rerotten,” added the
punster of the gathering.

At all events we can already infer from the controversies about the line of
demarcation between puns and play on words that the former cannot aid us
in finding an entirely new technique of wit. Even if no claims are made for
the pun that it utilizes the manifold application of the same material, the
accent, nevertheless, falls upon the rediscovering of the familiar and upon
the agreement between both words forming the pun. Thus the latter is only a
subspecies of the group which reaches its height in the real play on words.

Displacements

There are some witticisms, however, whose techniques baffle almost
every attempt to classify them under any of the groups so far investigated. It
is related that while Heine and the poet Soulié were once chatting together
in a Parisian drawing-room, there entered one of those Parisians whom one
usually compared to Midas, but not alone on account of their money. He
was soon surrounded by a crowd which treated him with the greatest
deference. “Look over there,” said Soulié to Heine, “and see how the
nineteenth century is worshipping the Golden Calf.” Heine cast one glance
upon the object of adoration and replied, as if correcting his friend: “Oh,
he must be older than that” (K. Fischer, p. 82).
Wherein lies the technique of this excellent witticism? According to K.
Fischer it lies in the play on words. Thus, for example, he says, “the words
‘Golden Calf’ may signify Mammon as well as idol-worship,—in the first
case the gold is paramount; in the second case it is the animal picture. It
may likewise serve to designate in a rather uncomplimentary way one who
has very much money and very little brains.” If we apply the test and take
away the expression “Golden Calf” we naturally also abrogate the wit. We
then cause Soulié to say, “Just see how the people are thronging about that
blockhead only because he is rich.” To be sure, this is no longer witty. Nor
would Heine’s answer be possible under these circumstances. But let us
remember that it is not at all a matter of Soulié’s witty comparison, but of
Heine’s retort, which is surely much more witty. We have then no right to
disturb the phrase “the golden calf” which remains as a basis for Heine’s
words and the reduction can only be applied to the latter. If we dilate upon
the words, “Oh, he must be older than that,” we can only proceed as
follows:

“Oh, he is no longer a calf; he is already a full-grown ox.” Heme’s wit is
therefore based on the fact that he no longer took the “golden calf”
metaphorically, but personally by referring it to the moneyed individual
himself. If this double meaning is not already contained in the opinion of
Soulié!
Let us see. We believe that we can state that this reduction has not
altogether destroyed Heine’s joke, but, on the contrary, it has left its
essential element untouched. It reads as if Soulié were now saying, “Just
see how the nineteenth century is worshipping the golden calf,” and as if
Heine were retorting, “Oh, he is no longer a calf. He is already an ox.” And
even in this reduced form it is still a witticism. However, another reduction
of Heine’s words is not possible.
It is a pity that this excellent example contains such complicated
technical conditions. And as it cannot aid us toward enlightenment we shall
leave it to search for another in which we imagine we can perceive a
relationship with the former one.
It is a “bath” joke treating of the dread which some Jews are said to have
for bathing. We demand no patent of nobility for our examples nor do we
make inquiries about their origin. The only qualifications we require are
that they should make us laugh and serve our theoretical interest. It is to be
remarked that both these demands are satisfied best by Jewish jokes.
Two Jews meet near a bathing establishment. “Have you taken a bath?”
asked one. “How is that?” replies the other. “Is one missing?”
When one laughs very heartily about a joke he is not in the best mood to
investigate its technique. It is for this reason that some difficulties are
experienced in delving into their analyses. “That is a comic
misunderstanding” is the thought that comes to us. Yes, but how about the
technique of this joke? Obviously the technique lies in the double meaning
of the word take. In the first case the word is used in a colorless idiomatic
sense, while in the second it is the verb in its full meaning. It is, therefore, a
case where the same word is taken now in the “full” and now in the
“empty” sense (Group II, f). And if we replace the expression “take a bath”
by the simpler equivalent “bathed” the wit disappears. The answer is no
longer fitting. The joke, therefore, lies in the expression “take a bath.”
This is quite correct, yet it seems that in this case, also, the reduction was
applied in the wrong place, for the joke does not lie in the question, but in

the answer, or rather in the counter question: “How is that? Is there one
missing?” Provided the same is not destroyed the answer cannot be robbed
of its wit by any dilation or variation. We also get the impression that in the
answer of the second Jew the overlooking of the bath is more significant
than the misconception of the word “take.” However, here, too, things do
not look quite clear and we will, therefore, look for a third example.
Once more we shall resort to a Jewish joke in which, however, the Jewish
element is incidental only. Its essence is universally human. It is true that
this example, too, contains undesirable complications, but luckily they are
not of the kind so far which have kept us from seeing clearly.
In his distress a needy man borrowed twenty-five dollars from a wealthy
acquaintance. The same day he was discovered by his creditor in a
restaurant eating a dish of salmon with mayonnaise. The creditor
reproached him in these words: “You borrow money from me and then
order salmon with mayonnaise. Is that what you needed the money for?” “I
don’t understand you,” responded the debtor, “when I have no money I
can’t eat salmon with mayonnaise. When I have money I mustn’t eat it. Well
then, when shall I ever eat salmon with mayonnaise?”
Here we no longer discover any double meaning. Even the repetition of
the words “salmon with mayonnaise” cannot contain the technique of the
witticism, as it is not the “manifold application of the same material,” but
an actual, identical repetition required by the context. We may be
temporarily nonplussed in this analysis, and, as a pretext, we may wish to
dispute the character of the wit in the anecdote which causes us to laugh.
What else worthy of notice can be said about the answer of the poor man? It
may be supposed that the striking thing about it is its logical character, but,
as a matter of fact, the answer is illogical. The debtor endeavors to justify
himself for spending the borrowed money on luxuries and asks, with some
semblance of right, when he is to be allowed to eat salmon. But this is not at
all the correct answer. The creditor does not blame him for eating salmon on
the day that he borrowed the money, but reminds him that in his condition
he has no right to think of such luxuries at all. The poor bon vivant
disregards this only possible meaning of the reproach, centers his answer
about another point, and acts as if he did not understand the reproach.
Is it possible that the technique of this joke lies in this deviation of the
answer from the sense of reproach? A similar changing of the viewpoint—

displacement of the psychic accent—may perhaps also be demonstrated in
the two previous examples which we felt were related to this one. This can
be successfully shown and solves the technique of these examples. Soulié
calls Heine’s attention to the fact that society worships the “golden calf” in
the nineteenth century just as the Jewish nation once did in the desert. To
this an answer from Heine like the following would seem fit: “Yes, that is
human nature. Centuries have changed nothing in it;” or he might have
remarked something equally apposite. But Heine deviates in his manner
from the instigated thought. Indeed, he does not answer at all. He makes use
of the double meaning found in the phrase “golden calf” to go off at a
tangent. He seizes upon one of the components of the phrase, namely, “the
calf,” and answers as if Soulié’s speech placed the emphasis on it—“Oh, he
is no longer a calf, etc.”[30]
The deviation is much more evident in the bath joke. This example
requires a graphic representation. The first Jew asks, “Have you taken a
bath?” The emphasis lies upon the bath element. The second answers as if
the query were: “Have you taken a bath?” The displacement would have
been impossible if the question had been: “Have you bathed?” The witless
answer would have been: “Bathed? What do you mean? I don’t know what
that means.” However, the technique of the wit lies in the displacement of
the emphasis from “to bathe” to “to take.”[31]
Let us return to the example “salmon with mayonnaise,” which is the
purest of its kind. What is new in it will direct us into various paths. In the
first place we have to give the mechanism of this newly discovered
technique. I propose to designate it as having displacement for its most
essential element. The deviation of the trend of thought consists in
displacing the psychic accent to another than the original theme. It is then
incumbent upon us to find out the relationship of the technique of
displacement to the expression of the witticism. Our example (salmon with
mayonnaise) shows us that the displacement technique is absolutely
independent of the verbal expression. It does not depend upon words, but
upon the mental trend, and to abrogate it we are not helped by substitution
so long as the sense of the answer is adhered to. The reduction is possible
only when we change the mental trend and permit the gastronomist to
answer directly to the reproach which he eluded in the conception of the
joke. The reduced conception will then be: “What I like I cannot deny
myself, and it is all the same to me where I get the money for it. Here you

have my explanation as to why I happen to be eating salmon with
mayonnaise to-day just after you have loaned me some money.” But that
would not be witticism but a cynicism. It will be instructive to compare this
joke with one which is closely allied to it in meaning.
A man who was addicted to drink supported himself in a small city by
giving lessons. His vice gradually became known and he lost most of his
pupils in consequence. A friend of his took it upon himself to admonish him
to reform. “Look here,” he said, “you could have the best scholars in town
if you would give up drinking. Why not do it?” “What are you talking
about?” was the indignant reply. “I am giving lessons in order to be able to
drink. Shall I give up drinking in order to obtain scholars?”
This joke, too, carries the stamp of logic which we have noted in the case
of “salmon with mayonnaise,” but it is no longer displacement-wit. The
answer is a direct one. The cynicism, which is veiled there, is openly
admitted here, “For me drink is the most important thing.” The technique of
this witticism is really very poor and cannot explain its effect. It lies merely
in the change in order of the same material, or to be more exact, in the
reversal of the means-and-end relationship between drink and giving
lessons or getting scholars. As I gave no greater emphasis in the reduction
to this factor of the expression the witticism is somewhat blurred; it may be
expressed as follows: “What a senseless demand to make. For me, drink is
the most important thing and not the scholars. Giving lessons is only a
means towards more drink.” The wit is really dependent upon the
expression.
In the bath wit, the dependence of the witticism upon the wording “have
you taken a bath” is unmistakable and a change in the wording nullifies the
joke. The technique in this case is quite complicated. It is a combination of
double meaning (sub-group f) and displacement. The wording of the
question admits a double meaning. The joke arises from the fact that the
answer is given not in the sense expected by the questioner, but has a
different subordinate sense. By making the displacement retrogressive we
are accordingly in position to find a reduction which leaves the double
meaning in the expression and still does away with the wit.
“Have you taken a bath?” “Taken what? A bath? What is that?” But that
is no longer a witticism. It is simply either a spiteful or playful
exaggeration.

In Heme’s joke about the “golden calf” the double meaning plays a quite
similar part. It makes it possible for the answer to deviate from the
instigated stream of thought—a thing which happens in the joke about
“salmon and mayonnaise”—without any such dependence upon the
wording. In the reduction Soulié’s speech and Heine’s answer would be as
follows: “It reminds one very much of the worship of the golden calf when
one sees the people throng around that man simply because he is rich.”
Heine’s answer would be: “That he is made so much of on account of his
wealth is not the worst part. You do not emphasize enough the fact that his
ignorance is forgiven on account of his wealth.” Thus, while the double
meaning would be retained the displacement-wit would be eliminated.
Here we may be prepared for the objection which might be raised,
namely, that we are seeking to tear asunder these delicate differentiations
which really belong together. Does not every double meaning furnish
occasion for displacement and for a deviation of the stream of thought from
one sense to another? And shall we agree that a “double meaning” and
“displacement” should be designated as representatives of two entirely
different types of wit? It is true that a relation between double meaning and
displacement actually exists, but it has nothing to do with our differentiation
of the techniques of wit. In cases of double meaning the wit contains
nothing but a word capable of several interpretations which allows the
hearer to find the transition from one thought to another, and which with a
little forcing may be compared to a displacement. In the cases of
displacement-wit, however, the witticism itself contains a stream of thought
in which the displacement is brought about. Here the displacement belongs
to the work which is necessary for its understanding. Should this
differentiation not be clear to us we can make use of the reduction method,
which is an unfailing way for tangible demonstration. We do not deny,
however, that there is something in this objection. It calls our attention to
the fact that we cannot confuse the psychic processes in the formation of
wit (the wit-work) with the psychic processes in the conception of the wit
(the understanding-work). The object of our present investigation will be
confined only to the former.[32]
Are there still other examples of the technique of displacement? They are
not easily found, but the following witticism is a very good specimen. It
also shows a lack of overemphasized logic found in our former examples.

A horse-dealer in recommending a saddle horse to his client said: “If you
mount this horse at four o’clock in the morning you will be in Monticello at
six-thirty in the morning.” “What will I do in Monticello at six-thirty in the
morning?” asked the client.
Here the displacement is very striking. The horse-dealer mentions the
early arrival in the small city only with the obvious intention of proving the
efficiency of the horse. The client disregards the capacity of the animal,
about which he evidently has no more doubts, and takes up only the data of
the example selected for the test. The reduction of this joke is
comparatively simple.
More difficulties are encountered by another example, the technique of
which is very obscure. It can be solved, however, through the application of
double meaning with displacement. The joke relates the subterfuge
employed by a “schadchen” (Jewish marriage broker). It belongs to a class
which will claim more of our attention later.
The “schadchen” had assured the suitor that the father of the girl was no
longer living. After the engagement had been announced the news leaked
out that the father was still living and serving a sentence in prison. The
suitor reproached the agent for deceiving him. “Well,” said the latter,
“what did I tell you? Do you call that living?”
The double meaning lies in the word “living,” and the displacement
consists in the fact that the “schadchen” avoids the common meaning of the
word, which is a contrast to “death,” and uses it in the colloquial sense:
“You don’t call that living.” In doing this he explains his former utterance
as a double meaning, although this manifold application is here quite out of
place. Thus far the technique resembles that of the “golden calf” and the
“bath” jokes. Here, however, another factor comes into consideration which
disturbs the understanding of the technique through its obtrusiveness. One
might say that this joke is a “characterization-wit.” It endeavors to illustrate
by example the marriage agent’s characteristic admixture of mendacious
impudence and repartee. We shall learn that this is only the “show-side” of
the façade of the witticism, that is, its sense. Its object serves a different
purpose. We shall also defer our attempt at reduction.[33]
After these complicated examples, which are not at all easy to analyze, it
will be gratifying to find a perfectly pure and transparent example of
“displacement-wit.” A beggar implored the help of a wealthy baron for a

trip to Ostend, where he asserted the physicians had ordered him to take
sea baths for his health. “Very well, I shall assist you,” said the rich baron,
“but is it absolutely necessary for you to go to Ostend, which is the most
expensive of all watering-places?” “Sir,” was the reproving reply, “nothing
is too expensive for my health.” Certainly that is a proper attitude, but
hardly proper for the supplicant. The answer is given from the viewpoint of
a rich man. The beggar acts as if it were his own money that he was willing
to sacrifice for his health, as if money and health concerned the same
person.

Nonsense as a Technical Means

Let us take up again in this connection the instructive example of
“salmon with mayonnaise.” It also presents to us a side in which we noticed
a striking display of logical work and we have learned from analyzing it
that this logic concealed an error of thought, namely, a displacement of the
stream of thought. Henceforth, even if only by way of contrast association,
we shall be reminded of other jokes which, on the contrary, present clearly
something contradictory, something nonsensical, or foolish. We shall be
curious to discover wherein the technique of the witticism lies. I shall first
present the strongest and at the same time the purest example of the entire
group. Once more it is a Jewish joke.
Ike was serving in the artillery corps. He was seemingly an intelligent
lad, but he was unwieldy and had no interest in the service. One of his
superiors, who was kindly disposed toward him, drew him aside and said to
him: “Ike, you are out of place among us. I would advise you to buy a
cannon and make yourself independent.”
The advice, which makes us laugh heartily, is obvious nonsense. There
are no cannon to be bought and an individual cannot possibly make himself
independent as a fighting force or establish himself, as it were. One cannot
remain one minute in doubt but that this advice is not pure nonsense, but
witty nonsense and an excellent joke. By what means does the nonsense
become a witticism?
We need not meditate very long. From the discussions of the authors in
the Introduction we can guess that sense lurks in such witty nonsense, and
that this sense in nonsense transforms nonsense into wit. In our example the

sense is easily found. The officer who gives the artilleryman, Ike, the
nonsensical advice pretends to be stupid in order to show Ike how stupidly
he is acting. He imitates Ike as if to say, “I will now give you some advice
which is exactly as stupid as you are.” He enters into Ike’s stupidity and
makes him conscious of it by making it the basis of a proposition which
must meet with Ike’s wishes, for if Ike owned a cannon and took up the art
of warfare on his own account, of what advantage would his intelligence
and ambition be to him? How would he take care of the cannon and
acquaint himself with its mechanism in order to meet the competition of
other possessors of cannon?
I am breaking off the analysis of this example to show the same sense in
nonsense in a shorter and simpler, though less glaring case of nonsense-wit.
“Never to be born would be best for mortal man.” “But,” added the sages
of the Fliegende Blätter, “hardly one man in a hundred thousand has this
luck.”
The modern appendix to the ancient philosophical saying is pure
nonsense, and becomes still more stupid through the addition of the
seemingly careful “hardly.” But this appendix in attaching itself to the first
sentence incontestably and correctly limits it. It can thus open our eyes to
the fact that that piece of wisdom so reverently scanned, is neither more nor
less than sheer nonsense. He who is not born of woman is not mortal; for
him there exists no “good” and no “best.” The nonsense of the joke,
therefore, serves here to expose and present another bit of nonsense as in
the case of the artilleryman. Here I can add a third example which, owing to
its context, scarcely deserves a detailed description. It serves, however, to
illustrate the use of nonsense in wit in order to represent another element of
nonsense.
A man about to go upon a journey intrusted his daughter to his friend,
begging him to watch over her chastity during his absence. When he
returned some months later he found that she was pregnant. Naturally he
reproached his friend. The latter alleged that he could not explain this
unfortunate occurrence. “Where has she been sleeping?” the father finally
asked. “In the same room with my son,” replied the friend. “How is it that
you allowed her to sleep in the same room with your son after I had begged
you so earnestly to take good care of her?” remonstrated the father. “Well,”
explained the friend, “there was a screen between them. There was your

daughter’s bed and over there was my son’s bed and between them stood the
screen.” “And suppose he went behind the screen? What then?” asked the
parent. “Well, in that case,” rejoined the friend thoughtfully, “it might be
possible.”
In this joke—aside from the other qualities of this poor witticism—we
can easily get the reduction. Obviously, it would read like this: “You have
no right to reproach me. How could you be so foolish as to leave your
daughter in a house where she must live in the constant companionship of a
young man? As if it were possible for a stranger to be responsible for the
chastity of a maiden under such circumstances!” The seeming stupidity of
the friend here also serves as a reflection of the stupidity of the father. By
means of the reduction we have eliminated the nonsense contained in the
witticism as well as the witticism itself. We have not gotten rid of the
“nonsense” element itself, as it finds another place in the context of the
sentence after it has been reduced to its true meaning.
We can now also attempt the reduction of the joke about the cannon. The
officer might have said: “I know, Ike, that you are an intelligent business
man, but I must tell you that you are very stupid if you do not realize that
one cannot act in the army as one does in business, where each one is out
for himself and competes with the other. Military service demands
subordination and co-operation.”
The technique of the nonsense-witticisms hitherto discussed really
consists in advancing something apparently absurd or nonsensical which,
however, discloses a sense serving to illustrate and represent some other
actual absurdity and nonsense.
Has the employment of contradiction in the technique of wit always this
meaning? Here is another example which answers this affirmatively. On an
occasion when Phocion’s speech was applauded he turned to his friends and
asked: “Did I say something foolish?”
This question seems paradoxical, but we immediately comprehend its
meaning. “What have I said that has pleased this stupid crowd? I ought
really to be ashamed of the applause, for if it appealed to these fools, it
could not have been very clever after all.”
Other examples teach us that absurdity is used very often in the technique
of wit without serving at all the purpose of uncovering another piece of
nonsense.

A well-known university teacher who was wont to spice richly with jokes
his rather dry specialty was once congratulated upon the birth of his
youngest son, who was bestowed upon him at a rather advanced age.
“Yes,” said he to the well-wishers, “it is remarkable what mortal hands can
accomplish.” This reply seems especially meaningless and out of place, for
children are called the blessings of God to distinguish them from creations
of mortal hands. But it soon dawns upon us that this answer has a meaning
and an obscene one at that. The point in question is not that the happy father
wishes to appear stupid in order to make something else or some other
persons appear stupid. The seemingly senseless answer causes us
astonishment. It puzzles us, as the authors would have it. We have seen that
the authors deduce the entire mechanism of such jokes from the change of
the succession of “clearness and confusion.” We shall try to form an opinion
about this later. Here we content ourselves by remarking that the technique
of this witticism consists in advancing such confusing and senseless
elements.
An especially peculiar place among the nonsense-jokes is assumed by
this joke of Lichtenberg.
“He was surprised that the two holes were cut in the pelts of cats just
where their eyes were located.” It is certainly foolish to be surprised about
something that is obvious in itself, something which is really the
explanation of an identity. It reminds one of a seriously intended utterance
of Michelet (The Woman) which, as I remember it, runs as follows: “How
beautifully everything is arranged by nature. As soon as the child comes
into the world it finds a mother who is ready to care for it.” This utterance
of Michelet is really silly, but the one of Lichtenberg is a witticism, which
makes use of the absurdity for some purpose. There is something behind it.
What? At present that is something we cannot discuss.

Sophistic Faulty Thinking

We have learned from two groups of examples that the wit-work makes
use of deviations from normal thought, namely, displacement and absurdity,
as technical means of presenting witty expressions. It is only just to expect
that other faulty thinking may find a similar application. Indeed, a few
examples of this sort can be cited.

A gentleman entered a shop and ordered a fancy cake, which, however,
he soon returned, asking for some liqueur in its stead. He drank the liqueur,
and was about to leave without paying for it. The shopkeeper held him
back. “What do you want of me?” he asked. “Please pay for the liqueur,”
said the shopkeeper. “But I have given you the fancy cake for it.” “Yes, but
you have not paid for that either.” “Well, neither have I eaten it.”
This little story also bears the semblance of logic which we already know
as the suitable façade for faulty thinking. The error, obviously, lies in the
fact that the cunning customer establishes a connection between the return
of the fancy cake and its exchange for the liqueur, a connection which really
does not exist. The state of affairs may be divided into two processes which
as far as the shopkeeper is concerned are independent of each other. He first
took the fancy cake and returned it, so that he owes nothing for it. He then
took the liqueur, for which he owes money. One might say that the customer
uses the relation “for it” in a double sense, or, to speak more correctly, by
means of a double sense he forms a relation which does not hold in reality.
[34]

The opportunity now presents itself for making a not unimportant
confession. We are here busying ourselves with an investigation of
technique of wit by means of examples, and we ought to be sure that the
examples which we have selected are really true witticisms. The facts are,
however, that in a series of cases we fall into doubt as to whether or not the
example in question may be called a joke. We have no criterion at our
disposal before investigation itself furnishes one. Usage of language is
unreliable and is itself in need of examination for its authority. To decide
the question we can rely on nothing else but a certain “feeling,” which we
may interpret by saying that in our judgment the decision follows certain
criteria which are not yet accessible to our knowledge. We shall naturally
not appeal to this “feeling” for substantial proof. In the case of the last-
mentioned example we cannot help doubting whether we may present it as
a witticism, as a sophistical witticism, or merely as a sophism. The fact is
that we do not yet know wherein the character of wit lies.
On the other hand the following example, which evinces, as it were, the
complementary faulty thinking, is a witticism without any doubt. Again it is
a story of a marriage agent. The agent is defending the girl he has proposed
against the attacks of her prospective fiancé. “The mother-in-law does not

suit me,” the latter remarks. “She is a crabbed, foolish person.” “That’s
true,” replies the agent, “but you are not going to marry the mother-in-law,
but the daughter.” “Yes, but she is no longer young, and she is not pretty,
either.” “That’s nothing: if she is not young or pretty you can trust her all
the more.” “But she hasn’t much money.” “Why talk of money? Are you
going to marry money? You want a wife, don’t you?” “But she is a
hunchback.” “Well, what of that? Do you expect her to have no blemishes
at all?”
It is really a question of an ugly girl who is no longer young, who has a
paltry dowry and a repulsive mother, and who is besides equipped with a
pretty bad deformity, relations which are not at all inviting to matrimony.
The marriage agent knows how to present each individual fault in a manner
to cause one to become reconciled to it, and then takes up the unpardonable
hunch back as the one fault which can be excused in any one. Here again
there is the semblance of logic which is characteristic of sophisms, and
which serves to conceal the faulty thinking. It is apparent that the girl
possesses nothing but faults, many of which can be overlooked, but one that
cannot be passed by. The chances for the marriage become very slim. The
agent acts as if he removed each individual fault by his evasions, forgetting
that each leaves behind some depreciation which is added to the next one.
He insists upon dealing with each factor individually, and refuses to
combine them into a sum total.
A similar omission forms the nucleus of another sophism which causes
much laughter, though one can well question its right to be called a joke.
A. had borrowed a copper kettle from B., and upon returning it was sued
by B. because it had a large hole which rendered it unserviceable. His
defense was this: “In the first place I never borrowed any kettle from B.,
secondly the kettle had a hole in it when I received it from B., thirdly the
kettle was in perfect condition when I returned it.” Each separate protest is
good by itself, but taken together they exclude each other. A. treats
individually what must be taken as a whole, just as the marriage agent when
he deals with the imperfections of the bride. One can also say that A. uses
“and” where only an “either—or” is possible.
Another sophism greets us in the following marriage agent story. The
suitor objects because the bride has a short leg and therefore limps. The
agent contradicts him. “You are wrong,” he says. “Suppose you marry a

woman whose legs are sound and straight. What do you gain by it? You are
not sure from day to day that she will not fall down, break a leg, and then be
lame for the rest of her life. Just consider the pain, the excitement, and the
doctor’s bill. But if you marry this one nothing can happen. Here you have a
finished job.”
Here the semblance of logic is very shallow, for no one will by any
means admit that a “finished misfortune” is to be preferred to a mere
possibility of such. The error in the stream of thought will be seen more
easily in a second example.
In the temple of Cracow sat the great Rabbi N. praying with his disciples.
Suddenly he emitted a cry and in response to his troubled disciples said:
“The great Rabbi L. died just now in Lemberg.” The congregation
thereupon went into mourning for the deceased. In the course of the next
day travelers from Lemberg were asked how the rabbi had died, and what
had caused his death. They knew nothing about the event, however, as, they
said, they had left him in the best of health. Finally it was definitely
ascertained that the Rabbi of Lemberg had not died at the hour on which
Rabbi N. had felt his death telepathically, and that he was still living. A
stranger seized the opportunity to banter a pupil of the Cracow rabbi about
the episode. “That was a glorious exhibition that your rabbi made of
himself when he saw the Rabbi of Lemberg die,” he said. “Why, the man is
still living!” “No matter,” replied the pupil. “To look from Cracow to
Lemberg was wonderful anyhow.”
Here the faulty thinking common to both of the last examples is openly
shown. The value of fanciful ideas is unfairly matched against reality;
possibility is made equivalent to actuality. To look from Cracow to
Lemberg despite the miles between would have been an imposing telepathic
feat had it resulted in some truth, but the disciple gives no heed to that. It
might have been possible that the Rabbi of Lemberg had died at the
moment when the Rabbi of Cracow had proclaimed his death, but the pupil
displaces the accent from the condition under which the teacher’s act would
be remarkable to the unconditional admiration of this act. “In magnis rebus
voluisse sat est” is a similar point of view. Just as in this example reality is
sacrificed in favor of possibility, so in the foregoing example the marriage
agent suggests to the suitor that the possibility of the woman’s becoming
lame through an accident is a far more important consideration to be taken

into account; whereas the question as to whether or not she is lame is put
altogether into the background.

Automatic Errors of Thought

Another interesting group attaches itself to this one of sophistical faulty
thinking, a group in which the faulty thinking may be designated as
automatic. It is perhaps only a stroke of fate that all of the examples which I
shall cite for this new group are again stories referring to marriage agents.
The agent brought along an assistant to a conference about a bride. This
assistant was to confirm his assertions. “She is as well made as a pine
tree,” said the agent. “Like a pine tree,” repeated the echo. “She has eyes
which one must appreciate.” “Wonderful eyes,” confirmed the echo. “She
is cultured beyond words. She possesses extraordinary culture.”
“Wonderfully cultured,” repeated the assistant. “However, one thing is
true,” confessed the agent. “She has a slight hunch on her back.” “And
what a hunch!” confirmed the echo.
The other stories are quite analogous to this one, but they are cleverer.
On being introduced to his prospective bride the suitor was rather
unpleasantly surprised, and drawing aside the marriage agent he
reproachfully whispered to him: “Why have you brought me here? She is
ugly and old. She squints, has bad teeth, and bleary eyes.” “You can talk
louder,” interrupted the agent. “She is deaf, too.”
A prospective bridegroom made his first call on his future bride in
company with the agent, and while in the parlor waiting for the appearance
of the family the agent drew the young man’s attention to a glass closet
containing a handsome silver set. “Just look at these things,” he said. “You
can see how wealthy these people are.” “But is it not possible that these
articles were just borrowed for the occasion,” inquired the suspicious
young man, “so as to give the appearance of wealth?” “What an idea,”
answered the agent protestingly. “Who in the world would lend them
anything?”
In all three cases one finds the same thing. A person who reacts several
times in succession in the same manner continues in the same manner on
the next occasion where it becomes unsuited and runs contrary to his

intentions. Falling into the automatism of habit he fails to adapt himself to
the demands of the situation. Thus in the first story the assistant forgot that
he was taken along in order to influence the suitor in favor of the proposed
bride, and as he had thus far accomplished his task by emphasizing through
repetition the excellencies attributed to the lady, he now emphasizes also
her timidly conceded hunch back which he should have belittled.
The marriage agent in the second story is so fascinated by the failings
and infirmities of the bride that he completes the list from his own
knowledge, which it was certainly neither his business nor his intention to
do. Finally in the third story he is so carried away by his zeal to convince
the young man of the family’s wealth that in order to corroborate his proofs
he blurts out something which must upset all his efforts. Everywhere the
automatism triumphs over the appropriate variation of thought and
expression.
That is quite easy to understand, although it must cause confusion when
it is brought to our attention that these three stories could just as well be
termed “comical” as “witty.” Like every act of unmasking and self-betrayal
the discovery of the psychic automatism also belongs to technique of the
comic. We suddenly see ourselves here confronted with the problem of the
relationship of wit to the comic element—a subject which we endeavored to
avoid (see the Introduction). Are these stories only “comical” and not
“witty” also? Does the comic element employ here the same means as does
the wit? And again, of what does the peculiar character of wit consist?
We must adhere to the fact that the technique of the group of witticisms
examined last consists of nothing else but the establishment of “faulty
thinking.” We are forced to admit, however, that so far the investigation has
led us further into darkness than to illumination. Nevertheless we do not
abandon the hope of arriving at a result by means of a more thorough
knowledge of the technique of wit which may become the starting-point for
further insight.

Unification

The next examples of wit with which we wish to continue our
investigation do not give us as much work. Their technique reminds us very
much of what we already know. Here is one of Lichtenberg’s jokes.

“January,” he says, “is the month in which one extends good wishes to his
friends, and the rest are months in which the good wishes are not fulfilled.”
As these witticisms may be called clever rather than strong, we shall
reinforce the impression by examining a few more.
“Human life is divided into two halves; during the first one looks forward
to the second, and during the second one looks backward to the first.”
“Experience consists in experiencing what one does not care to
experience.” (The last two examples were cited by K. Fischer.)
One cannot help being reminded by these examples of a group, treated of
before, which is characterized by the “manifold application of the same
material.” The last example especially will cause us to ask why we have not
inserted it there instead of presenting it here in a new connection.
“Experience” is described through its own terms just as some of the
examples cited above. Neither would I be against this correction. However,
I am of the opinion that the other two cases, which are surely similar in
character, contain a different factor which is more striking and more
important than the manifold application of the same word which shows
nothing here touching upon double meaning. And what is more, I wish to
emphasize that new and unexpected identities are here formed which show
themselves in relations of ideas to one another, in relations of definitions to
each other, or to a common third. I would call this process unification.
Obviously it is analogous to condensation by compression into similar
words. Thus the two halves of human life are described by the inter-
relationship discovered between them: during the first part one longs for the
second, and in the second one longs for the first. To speak more precisely
there were two relationships very similar to each other which were selected
for description. The similarity of the relationship that corresponds to the
similarity of the words which, just for this reason, might recall the manifold
application of the same material— (looks forward)
(looks backward).
In Lichtenberg’s joke, January and the months contrasted with it are
characterized again by a modified relationship to a third factor: these are
good wishes which one receives in the first month, but are not fulfilled
during the other months. The differentiation from the manifold application
of the same material which is really related to double meaning is here quite
clear.

A good example of unification-wit needing no explanation is the
following:
J. B. Rousseau, the French poet, wrote an ode to posterity (à la
postérité). Voltaire, thinking that the poor quality of the poem in no way
justified its reaching posterity, wittily remarked, “This poem will not reach
its destination” (K. Fischer).
The last example may remind us of the fact that it is essentially
unification which forms the basis of the so-called repartee in wit. For ready
repartee consists in using the defense for aggression and in “turning the
tables” or in “paying with the same coin.” That is, the repartee consists in
establishing an unexpected identity between attack and counter-attack.
For example, a baker said to a tavern keeper, one of whose fingers was
festering: “I guess your finger got into your beer.” The tavern keeper
replied: “You are wrong. One of your rolls got under my finger nail”
(Ueberhorst: Das Komische, II, 1900).
While Serenissimus was traveling through his domains he noticed a man
in the crowds who bore a striking resemblance to himself. He beckoned him
to come over and asked: “Was your mother ever employed in my home?”
“No, sire,” replied the man, “but my father was.”
While Duke Karl of Würtemberg was riding horseback he met a dyer
working at his trade. “Can you color my white horse blue?” “Yes, sire,” was
the rejoinder, “if the animal can stand the boiling!”
In this excellent repartee, which answers a foolish question with a
condition that is equally impossible, there occurs another technical factor
which would have been omitted if the dyer’s reply had been: “No, sire, I am
afraid that the horse could not stand being boiled.”
Another peculiarly interesting technical means at the disposal of
unification is the addition of the conjunction “and.” Such correlation
signifies a connection which could not be understood otherwise. When
Heine (Harzreise) says of the city of Göttingen, “In general the inhabitants
of Göttingen are divided into students, professors, Philistines, and cattle,”
we understand this combination exactly in the sense which he furthermore
emphasized by adding: “These four social groups are distinguished little
less than sharply.” Again, when he speaks about the school where he had to
submit “to so much Latin, drubbing, and geography,” he wants to convey
by this combination, which is made very conspicuous by placing the

drubbing between the two studies, that the schoolboy’s conception
unmistakably described by the drubbing should be extended also to Latin
and geography.
In Lipps’s book we find among the examples of “witty enumeration”
(Koordination) the following verse, which stands nearest to Heine’s
“students, professors, Philistines, and cattle.”
“With a fork and with much effort his mother pulled him from a mess.”
“As if effort were an instrument like the fork,” adds Lipps by way of
explanation. But we get the impression that there is nothing witty in this
sentence. To be sure it is very comical, whereas Heine’s co-ordination is
undoubtedly witty. We shall, perhaps, recall these examples later when we
shall no longer be forced to evade the problem of the relationship between
wit and the comic.

Representation Through the Opposite

We have remarked in the example of the Duke and the dyer that it would
still have been a joke by means of unification had the dyer replied, “No, I
fear that the horse could not stand being boiled.” In substituting a “yes” for
the “no” which rightly belonged there, we meet a new technical means of
wit the application of which we shall study in other examples.
This joke, which resembles the one we have just cited from K. Fischer, is
somewhat simpler. “Frederick the Great heard of a Silesian clergyman who
had the reputation of communicating with spirits. He sent for him and
received him with the following question: ‘Can you call up ghosts?’ ‘At
your pleasure, your majesty,’ replied the clergyman, ‘but they won’t come.’”
Here it is perfectly obvious that the wit lies in the substitution of its
opposite for the only possible answer, “No.” To complete this substitution
“but” had to be added to “yes,” so that “yes” plus “but” gives the equivalent
for “no.”
This “representation through the opposite,” as we choose to call it, serves
the mechanism of wit in several ways. In the following cases it appears
almost in its pure form:
“This woman resembles Venus de Milo in many points. Like her she is
extraordinarily old, has no teeth, and has white spots on the yellow surface

of her body” (Heine).
Here ugliness is depicted by making it agree with the most beautiful. Of
course these agreements consist of attributes expressed in double meaning
or of matters of slight importance. The latter applies to the second example.
“The attributes of the greatest men were all united in himself. Like
Alexander his head was tilted to one side: like Cæsar he always had
something in his hair. He could drink coffee like Leibnitz, and once settled
in his armchair he forgot eating and drinking like Newton, and like him had
to be awakened. He wore a wig like Dr. Johnson, and like Cervantes the fly
of his trousers was always open” (Lichtenberg: The Great Mind).
J. V. Falke’s Lebenserinnerungen an eine Reise nach Ireland (page 271)
furnishes an exceptionally good example of “representation through the
opposite” in which the use of words of a double meaning plays absolutely
no part. The scene is laid in a wax figure museum, like Mme. Tussaud’s. A
lecturer discourses on one figure after another to his audience, which is
composed of old and young people. “This is the Duke of Wellington and his
horse,” he says. Whereupon a young girl remarks, “Which is the duke and
which is the horse?” “Just as you like, my pretty child,” is the reply. “You
pay your money and you take your choice.”
The reduction of this Irish joke would be: “It is gross impudence on the
part of the museum’s management to offer such an exhibition to the public.
It is impossible to distinguish between the horse and the rider (playful
exaggeration), and it is for this exhibit that one pays one’s hard-earned
money!” The indignant expression is now dramatized and applied to a
trivial occurrence. In the place of the entire audience there appears one
woman and the riding figure becomes individually determined. It is
necessarily the Duke of Wellington, who is so very popular in Ireland. But
the insolence of the museum proprietor or lecturer who takes money from
the public and offers nothing in return is represented by the opposite,
through a speech, in which he extols himself as a conscientious business
man whose fondest desire is to respect the rights to which the public is
entitled through the admission fee. One then realizes that the technique of
this joke is not very simple. In so far as a way is found to allow the swindler
to assert his scrupulosity it may be said that the joke is a case of
“representation through the opposite.” The fact, however, that he does it on
an occasion where something different is demanded of him, and the fact

that he replies in terms of commercial integrity when he is expected to
discuss the similarity of the figures, shows that it is a case of displacement.
The technique of the joke lies in the combination of both technical means.

Outdoing wit

This example is closely allied to another small group which might be
called “outdoing-wit.” Here “yes,” which would be proper in the reduction,
is replaced by “no,” which, owing to its context, is equivalent to a still
stronger “yes.” The same mechanism holds true when the case is reversed.
The contradiction takes the place of an exaggerated confirmation. An
example of this nature is seen in the following epigram from Lessing.[35]
“The good Galathee! ’Tis said that she dyes her hair black, yet it was
black when she bought it.”
Lichtenberg’s make-believe mocking defense of philosophy is another
example.
“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your
philosophy,” Prince Hamlet had disdainfully declared. Lichtenberg well
knew that this condemnation was by no means severe enough, in that it
does not take into account all that can be said against philosophy. He
therefore added the following: “But there is also much in philosophy which
is found neither in heaven nor on earth.” To be sure, his assertion
supplements what was lacking in Hamlet’s philosophical utterance, but in
doing this he adds another and still greater reproach.
More transparent still, because they show no trace of displacement, are
two Jewish jokes which are, however, of the coarse kind.
Two Jews were conversing about bathing. “I take a bath once a year,”
said one, “whether I need one or not.”
It is clear that this boastful assurance of his cleanliness only betrays his
state of uncleanliness.
A Jew noticed remnants of food on the beard of another. “I can tell you
what you ate yesterday,” he remarked. “Well, let’s hear it,” said another.
“Beans,” said the first one. “You are wrong,” responded the other. “I had
beans the day before yesterday.”

The following example is an excellent “outdoing” witticism which can be
traced easily to representation through the opposite.
The king condescended to pay a visit at a surgical clinic, and found the
professor of surgery engaged in amputating a leg. He watched the various
steps of the operation with interest and expressed his royal approval with
these loud utterances: “Bravo, bravo, Professor.” When the operation was
over the professor approached the king, bowed low, and asked: “Does your
majesty also command the amputation of the other leg?”
Whatever the professor may have thought during this royal applause
surely could not have been expressed unchanged. His real thoughts were:
“Judging by this applause he must be under the impression that I am
amputating the poor devil’s diseased leg by order of and for the pleasure of
the king. To be sure, I have other reasons for performing this operation.”
But instead of expressing these thoughts he goes to the king and says: “I
have no other reasons but your majesty’s order for performing this
operation. The applause you accorded me has inspired me so much that I
am only awaiting your majesty’s command to amputate the other leg also.”
He thus succeeded in making himself understood by expressing the
opposite of what he really thought but had to keep to himself. Such an
expression of the opposite represents an incredible exaggeration or
outdoing.
As we gather from these examples, representation through the opposite is
a means frequently and effectively used in the technique of wit. We need
not overlook, however, something else, namely, that this technique is by no
means confined only to wit. When Marc Antony, after his long speech in the
Forum had changed the mood of the mob listening to Cæsar’s obsequies, at
last repeats the words,

“For Brutus was an honorable man,”

he well knows that the mob will scream the true meaning of his words at
him, namely,
“They are traitors: nice honorable men!”
Or when Simplicissimus transcribes a collection of unheard-of brutalities
and cynicisms as expressions of “people with temperaments,” this, too, is a
representation through the opposite. However, this is no longer designated
as wit, but as “irony.” Indeed, the only technique that is characteristic of
irony is representation through the opposite. Besides, one reads and hears
about “ironical wit.” Hence there is no longer any doubt that technique
alone is not capable of characterizing wit. There must be something else
which we have not yet discovered. On the other hand, however, the fact that
the reduction of the technique destroys the wit still remains uncontradicted.
For the present it may be difficult for us to unite for the explanation of wit
the two strong points which we have already gained.

Indirect Expression

Since representation through the opposite belongs to the technical means
of wit, we may also expect that wit could make use of its reverse, namely,
the representation through the similar and cognate. Indeed, when we
continue our investigation we find that this forms the technique of a new
and especially extensive group of thought-witticisms. We can describe the
peculiarity of this technique much better if instead of representation through
the “cognate” we use the expression representation through “relationships
and associations.” We shall start with the last characteristic and illustrate it
by an example.

Indirect Expression with Allusion

It is an American anecdote and runs as follows. By undertaking a series
of risky schemes, two not very scrupulous business men had succeeded in
amassing an enormous fortune and were now intent on forcing their way

into good society. Among other things they thought it advisable to have
their portraits painted by the most prominent and most expensive painters
in the city, men whose works were considered masterpieces. The costly
pictures were exhibited for the first time at a great evening gathering, and
the hosts themselves led the most prominent connoisseur and art critic to
the wall of the salon on which both portraits were hanging side by side, in
order to elicit from him a favorable criticism. He examined the portraits for
a long time, then shook his head as if he were missing something. At length
he pointed to the bare space between the pictures, and asked, “And where is
the Savior?”
The meaning of this expression is clear. It is again the expression of
something which cannot be represented directly. In what way does this
“indirect expression” come about? By a series of very obvious associations
and conclusions let us work backwards from the verbal setting.
The query, “where is the Savior?” or “where is the picture of the Savior?”
arouses the conjecture that the two pictures have reminded the speaker of a
similar arrangement familiar to him as it is familiar to us. This arrangement,
of which one element is here missing, shows the figure of the Savior
between two other figures. There is only one such case: Christ hanging
between the two thieves. The missing element is emphasized by the
witticism, and the similarity rests in the figures at the right and left of the
Savior, which are not mentioned in the jest. It can only mean that the
pictures hanging in the drawing-room are likewise those of thieves. This is
what the critic wished to, but could not say, “You are a pair of scoundrels,”
or more in detail, “What do I care about your portraits? You are a pair of
scoundrels, that I know.” And by means of a few associations and
conclusive inferences he has said it in a manner which we designate as
“allusion.”
We immediately remember that we have encountered the process of
allusion before. Namely, in double meaning, when one of the two meanings
expressed by the same word stands out very prominently, because being
used much oftener and more commonly, our attention is directed to it first,
whereas the other meaning remains in the background because it is more
remote—such cases we wished to describe as double meaning with allusion.
In an entire series of examples which we have hitherto examined, we have
remarked that their technique is not simple and we realized that the process

of allusion was the factor that complicated it. For example, see the
contradiction-witticism in which the congratulations on the birth of the
youngest child are acknowledged by the remark that it is remarkable what
human hands can accomplish (p. 77).
In the American anecdote we have the process of allusion without the
double meaning, and we find that the character of this process consists in
completing the picture through mental association. It is not difficult to guess
that the utilized association can be of more than one kind. So as not to be
confused by large numbers we shall discuss only the most pronounced
variations, and shall give only a few examples.
The association used in the substitution may be a mere sound, so that this
sub-group may be analogous to word-wit in the pun. However, it is not
similarity in sound of two words, but of whole sentences, characteristic
combinations of words, and similar means.
For example, Lichtenberg coined the saying: “New baths heal well,”
which immediately reminds one of the proverb, “New brooms clean well,”
whose first and last words, as well as whose whole sentence structure, is the
same as in the first saying. It has undoubtedly arisen in the witty thinker’s
mind as an imitation of the familiar proverb. Thus Lichtenberg’s saying is
an allusion to the latter. By means of this allusion something is suggested
that cannot be frankly said, namely, that the efficacy of the baths taken as
cures is due to other things beside the thermal springs whose attributes are
the same everywhere.
The solution of the technique of another one of Lichtenberg’s jokes is
similar: “The girl barely twelve modes old.” That sounds something like the
chronological term “twelve moons” (i.e., months), and may originally have
been a mistake in writing in the permissible poetical expression. But there is
a good deal of sense in designating the age of a feminine creature by the
changing modes instead of by the changing of moons.
The connection of similarity may even consist of a single slight
modification. This technique again runs parallel with a word-technique.
Both kinds of witticisms create almost the identical impression, but they are
more easily distinguishable by the processes of the wit-work.
The following is an example of such a word-witticism or pun. The great
singer, Mary Wilt, who was famous not merely on account of the magnitude
of her voice, suffered the mortification of having a title of a play,

dramatized from the well-known novel of Jules Verne, serve as an allusion
to her corpulency. “The trip around the Wilt (world) in eighty days.”
Or: “Every fathom a queen,” which is a modification of the familiar
Shakespearian quotation, “Every inch a king,” and served as an allusion to a
prominent woman who was unusually big physically. There would really be
no serious objection if one should prefer to classify this witticism as a
substitution for condensation with modification (cf. tête-à-bête, p. 25).
Discussing the hardships of the medical profession, namely, that
physicians are obliged to read and study constantly because remedies and
drugs once considered efficacious are later rejected as useless, and that
despite the physician’s best efforts the patient often refuses to pay for the
treatment, one of the doctors present remarked: “Yes, every drug has its
day,” to which another added, “But not every Doc gets his pay.” These two
witty remarks are both modifications with allusion of the well-known
saying, “Every dog has his day.” But here, too, the technique could be
described as fusion with modification.
If the modification contents itself with a change in letters, allusions
through modifications are barely distinguishable from condensation with
substitutive formation, as shown in this example: “Mellingitis,” the allusion
to the dangerous disease meningitis, refers to the danger which the
conservative members of a provincial borough in England thought
impended if the socialist candidate Mellon were elected.
The negative particles make very good allusions at the cost of very little
changing. Heine referred to Spinoza as:
“My fellow unbeliever Spinoza.”
“We, by the Ungrace of God, Laborers, Bondsmen, Negroes, Serfs,” etc.,
is a manifesto (which Lichtenberg quotes no further) of these unfortunates
who probably have more right to that title than kings and dukes have to the
unmodified one.

Omission

Finally omission, which is comparable to condensation without
substitutive formation, is also a form of allusion. For in every allusion there
is really something omitted, namely, the trend of thought that leads to the

allusion. It is only a question of whether the gap, or the substitute in the
wording of the allusion which partly fills in the gap, is the more obvious
element. Thus we come back through a series of examples from the very
clear cases of omission to those of actual allusion.
Omission without substitution is found in the following example. There
lived in Vienna a clever and bellicose writer whose sharp invectives had
repeatedly brought him bodily assault at the hands of the persons he
assailed. During a conversation about a new misdeed by one of his habitual
opponents, some one said, “When X. hears this he will receive another box
on his ear.” The technique of this wit shows in the first place the confusion
about the apparent contradiction, for it is by no means clear to us why a box
on one’s ear should be the direct result of having heard something. The
contradiction disappears if one fills in the gap by adding to the remark:
“then he will write such a caustic article against that person that, etc.”
Allusions through omission and contradiction are thus the technical means
of this witticism.
Heine remarked about some one: “He praises himself so much that
pastils for fumigation are advancing in price.” This omission can easily be
filled in. What has been omitted is replaced by an inference which then
strikes back as an allusion to the same. For self-praise has always carried an
evil odor with it.
Once more we encounter the two Jews in front of the bathing
establishment. “Another year has passed by already,” says one with a sigh.
These examples leave no doubt that the omission is meant as an allusion.
A still more obvious omission is contained in the next example, which is
really a genuine and correct allusion-witticism. Subsequent to an artists’
banquet in Vienna a joke book was given out in which, among others, the
following most remarkable proverb could be read:
“A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may also take a cab.”
An umbrella does not afford enough protection from rain. The words “at
worst” can mean only: when it is raining hard. A cab is a public
conveyance. As we have to deal here with the figure of comparison, we
shall put off the detailed investigation of this witticism until later on.
Heine’s “Bäder von Lucca” contains a veritable wasps’ nest of stinging
allusions which make the most artistic use of this form of wit as polemics

against the Count of Platen. Long before the reader can suspect their
application, a certain theme, which does not lend itself especially to direct
presentation, is preluded by allusions of the most varied material possible;
e.g., in Hirsch-Hyacinth’s twisting of words: You are too corpulent and I am
too lean; you possess too much conceit and I the more business ability; I am
a practicus and you are a diarrheticus, in fine, “You are altogether my
Antipodex”—“Venus Urinia”—the thick Gudel of Dreckwall in Hamburg,
etc. Then the occurrences of which the poet speaks take a turn in which it
merely seems to show the impolite sportiveness of the poet, but soon it
discloses the symbolic relation to the polemical intention, and in this way it
also reveals itself as allusion. At last the attack against Platen bursts forth,
and now the allusions to the subject of the Count’s love for men seethe and
gush from each one of the sentences which Heine directs against the talent
and the character of his opponent, e.g.:
“Even if the Muses are not well disposed to him, he has at least the
genius of speech in his power, or rather he knows how to violate him; for he
lacks the free love of this genius, besides he must perseveringly run after
this youth, and he knows only how to grasp the outer forms which, in spite
of their beautiful rotundity, never express anything noble.”
“He has the same experience as the ostrich, which considers itself
sufficiently hidden when it sticks its head into the sand so that only its
backside is visible. Our illustrious bird would have done better if he had
stuck his backside into the sand, and had shown us his head.”
Allusion is perhaps the commonest and most easily employed means of
wit, and is at the basis of most of the short-lived witty productions which
we are wont to weave into our conversation. They cannot bear being
separated from their native soil nor can they exist independently. Once
more we are reminded by the process of allusion of that relationship which
has already begun to confuse our estimation of the technique of wit. The
process of allusion is not witty in itself; there are perfectly formed allusions
which have no claims to this character. Only those allusions which show a
“witty” element are witty, hence the characteristics of wit, which we have
followed even into its technique, again escape us.
I have sometimes called allusion “indirect expression,” and now
recognize that the different kinds of allusion with representation through the
opposite, as well as the techniques still to be mentioned, can be united into

a single large group for which “indirect expression” would be the
comprehensive name. Hence, errors of thought—unification—indirect
representation—are those points of view under which we can group the
techniques of thought-wit which became known to us.

Representation Through the Minute or the Minutest Element

On continuing the investigation of our material we think we recognize a
new sub-group of indirect representation which though sharply defined can
be illustrated only by few examples. It is that of representation through a
minute or minutest element; solving the problem by bringing the entire
character to full expression through a minute detail. Correlating this group
with the mechanism of allusion is made possible by looking at the triviality
as connected with the thing to be presented and as a result of it. For
example:
A Jew who was riding in a train had made himself very comfortable; he
had unbuttoned his coat, and had put his feet on the seat, when a
fashionably dressed gentleman came in. The Jew immediately put on his
best behavior and assumed a modest position. The stranger turned over the
pages of a book, did some calculation, and pondered a moment and
suddenly addressed the Jew. “I beg your pardon, how soon will we have
Yom Kippur?” (Day of Atonement). “Oh, oh!” said the Jew, and put his feet
back on the seat before he answered.
It cannot be denied that this representation through something minute is
allied to the tendency of economy which we found to be the final common
element in the investigation of the technique of word-wit.
The following example is much similar.
The doctor who had been summoned to help the baroness in her
confinement declared that the critical moment had not arrived, and
proposed to the baron that they play a game of cards in the adjoining room
in the meantime. After a while the doleful cry of the baroness reached the
ears of the men. “Ah, mon Dieu, que je souffre!” The husband jumped up,
but the physician stopped him saying, “That’s nothing; let us play on.” A
little while later the woman in labor-pains was heard again: “My God, my
God, what pains!” “Don’t you want to go in, Doctor?” asked the baron.

“By no means, it is not yet time,” answered the doctor. At last there rang
from the adjacent room the unmistakable cry, “A-a-a-ai-e-e-e-e-e-e-E-E-
E!” The physician then threw down the cards and said, “Now it’s time.”
How the pain allows the original nature to break through all the strata of
education, and how an important decision is rightly made dependent upon a
seemingly inconsequential utterance—both are shown in this good joke by
the successive changes in the cries of this childbearing lady of quality.

Comparison

Another kind of indirect expression of which wit makes use is
comparison, which we have not discussed so far because an examination of
comparison touches upon new difficulties, or rather it reveals difficulties
which have made their appearance on other occasions. We have already
admitted that in many of the examples examined we could not banish all
doubts as to whether they should really be counted as witty, and have
recognized in this uncertainty a serious shock to the principles of our
investigation. But in no other material do I feel this uncertainty greater and
nowhere does it occur more frequently than in the case of comparison-wit.
The feeling which usually says to me—and I dare say to a great many
others under the same conditions—this is a joke, this may be written down
as witty before even the hidden and essential character of the wit has been
uncovered—this feeling I lack most. If at first I experience no hesitation in
declaring the comparison to be a witticism, then the next instant I seem to
think that the pleasure I thus found was of a different quality than that
which I am accustomed to ascribe to a joke. Also the fact that witty
comparisons but seldom can evoke the explosive variety of laughter by
which a good joke proves itself makes it impossible for me to cast aside the
existing doubts, even when I limit myself to the best and most effective
examples.
It is easy to demonstrate that there are some especially good and effective
examples of comparison which in no way give us the impression of
witticisms. A beautiful example of this kind which I have not yet tired of
admiring, and the impression of which still clings to me, I shall not deny
myself the pleasure of citing. It is a comparison with which Ferd. Lassalle
concluded one of his famous pleas (Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter): “A

man like myself who, as I explained to you, had devoted his whole life to
the motto ‘Die Wissenschaft und die Arbeiter’ (Science and the
Workingman), would receive the same impression from a condemnation
which in the course of events confronts him as would the chemist, absorbed
in his scientific experiments, from the cracking of a retort. With a slight
knitting of his brow at the resistance of the material, he would, as soon as
the disturbance was quieted, calmly continue his labor and investigations.”
One finds a rich assortment of pertinent and witty comparisons in the
writings of Lichtenberg (2 B. of the Göttingen edition, 1853). I shall take
the material for our investigation from that source.
“It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd
without singeing somebody’s beard.” This may seem witty, but on closer
examination one notices that the witty effect does not come from the
comparison itself but from a secondary attribute of the same. For the
expression “the torch of truth” is no new comparison, but one which has
been used for a long time and which has degenerated into a fixed phrase, as
always happens when a comparison has the luck to be absorbed into the
common usage of speech. But whereas we hardly notice the comparison in
the saying, “the torch of truth,” its original full force is restored it by
Lichtenberg, since by building further on the comparison it results in a
deduction. But the taking of blurred expressions in their full sense is already
known to us as a technique of wit; it finds a place with the Manifold
Application of the Same Material (p. 35). It may well be that the witty
impression created by Lichtenberg’s sentence is due only to its relation to
this technique of wit.
The same explanation will undoubtedly hold good for another witty
comparison by the same author.
“The man was not exactly a shining light, but a great candlestick.... He
was a professor of philosophy.”
To call a scholar a shining light, a “lumen mundi,” has long ceased to be
an effective comparison, whether it be originally qualified as a witticism or
not. But here the comparison was freshened up and its full force was
restored to it by deducting a modification from it and in this way setting up
a second and new comparison. The way in which the second comparison
came into existence seems to contain the condition of the witticism and not

the two comparisons themselves. This would then be a case of Identical
Wit-Technique as in the example of the torch.
The following comparison seems witty on other but similarly classifiable
grounds: “I look upon reviews as a kind of children’s disease which more or
less attacks new-born books. There are cases on record where the healthiest
died of it, and the puniest have often lived through it. Many do not get it at
all. Attempts have frequently been made to prevent the disease by means of
amulets of prefaces and dedications, or to color them up by personal
pronunciamentos; but it does not always help.”
The comparison of reviews with children’s diseases is based in the first
place upon their susceptibility to attack shortly after they have seen the light
of the world. Whether this makes it witty I do not trust myself to decide.
But when the comparison is continued, it is found that the later fates of the
new books may be represented within the scope of the same or by means of
similar comparisons. Such a continuation of a comparison is undoubtedly
witty, but we know already to what technique it owes its witty flavor; it is a
case of unification or the establishment of an unexpected association. The
character of the unification, however, is not changed by the fact that it
consists here of a relationship with the first comparison.

Doubt in Witty Comparisons

In a series of other comparisons one is tempted to ascribe an indisputably
existing witty impression to another factor which again in itself has nothing
to do with the nature of the comparison. These are comparisons which are
strikingly grouped, often containing a combination that sounds absurd,
which comes into existence as a result of the comparison. Most of
Lichtenberg’s examples belong to this group.
“It is a pity that one cannot see the learned bowels of the writers, in order
to find out what they have eaten.” “The learned bowels” is a confusing,
really absurd attribute which is made clear only by the comparison. How
would it be if the witty impression of this comparison should be referred
entirely and fully to the confusing character of their composition? This
would correspond to one of the means of wit well known to us, namely,
representation through absurdity.

Lichtenberg has used the same comparison of the imbibing of reading
and educational material with the imbibing of physical nourishment.
“He thought highly of studying in his room and was heartily in favor of
learned stable fodder.”
The same absurd or at least conspicuous attributes, which as we are
beginning to notice are the real carriers of the wit, mark other comparisons
of the same author.
“This is the weatherside of my moral constitution, here I can stand
almost anything.”
“Every person has also his moral backside which he does not show
except under the stress of necessity and which he covers as long as possible
with the pants of good-breeding.”
The “moral backside” is the peculiar attribute which exists as the result
of a comparison. But this is followed by a continuation of the comparison
with a regular play on words (“necessity”) and a second, still more unusual
combination (“the pants of good-breeding”), which is possibly witty in
itself; for the pants become witty, as it were, because they are the pants of
good-breeding. Therefore it may not take us by surprise if we get the
impression of a very witty comparison; we are beginning to notice that we
show a general tendency in our estimation to extend a quality to the whole
thing when it clings only to one part of it. Besides, the “pants of good-
breeding” remind us of a similar confusing verse of Heine.
“Until, at last, the buttons tore from the pants of my patience.”
It is obvious that both of the last comparisons possess a character which
one cannot find in all good, i.e., fitting, comparisons. One might say that
they are in a large manner “debasing,” for they place a thing of high
category, an abstraction (good-breeding, patience), side by side with a thing
of a very concrete nature of a very low kind (pants). Whether this
peculiarity has something to do with wit we shall have to consider in
another connection. Let us attempt to analyze another example in which the
degrading character is exceptionally well defined. In Nestroy’s farce “Einen
Jux will er sich machen,” the clerk, Weinberl, who resolves in his
imagination how he will ponder over his youth when he has some day
become a well-established old merchant, says: “When in the course of
confidential conversation the ice is chopped up before the warehouse of
memory; when the portal of the storehouse of antiquity is unlocked again;

and when the mattings of phantasy are stocked full with wares of yore.”
These are certainly comparisons of abstractions with very common,
concrete things, but the witticism depends—exclusively or only partially—
upon the circumstance that a clerk makes use of these comparisons which
are taken from the sphere of his daily occupation. But to bring the abstract
in relation to the commonplace with which he is otherwise filled is an act of
unification. Let us revert to Lichtenberg’s comparisons.

Peculiar Attributions

“The motives for our actions may be arranged like the thirty-two winds,
and their names may be classified in a similar way, e.g., Bread-bread-glory
or Glory-glory-bread.”
As so often happens in Lichtenberg’s witticisms, in this case, too, the
impression of appropriateness, cleverness, and ingenuity is so marked that
our judgment of the character of the witty element is thereby misled. If
something witty is intermingled in such an utterance with the excellent
sense, we probably are deluded into declaring the whole to be an
exceptional joke. Moreover, I dare say that everything that is really witty
about it results from the strangeness of the peculiar combination bread-
bread-glory. Thus as far as wit is concerned it is representation through
absurdity.
The peculiar combination or absurd attribution can alone be represented
as a product of a comparison.
Lichtenberg says: “A twice-sleepy woman—a once-sleepy church pew.”
Behind each one there is a comparison with a bed; in both cases there is
besides the comparison also the technical factor of allusion. Once it is an
allusion to the soporific effect of sermons, and the second time to the
inexhaustible theme of sex.
Having found hitherto that a comparison as often as it appears witty owes
this impression to its connection with one of the techniques of wit known to
us, there are nevertheless some other examples which seem to point to the
fact that a comparison as such can also be witty.
This is Lichtenberg’s characteristic remark about certain odes. “They are
in poetry what Jacob Böhm’s immortal writings are in prose—they are a

kind of picnic in which the author supplies the words, and the readers the
meaning.”
“When he philosophizes, he generally sheds an agreeable moonlight over
his topics, which is in the main quite pleasant, but which does not show any
one subject clearly.”
Again, Heine’s description: “Her face resembled a kodex palimpsestus,
where under the new block-lettered text of a church father peek forth the
half-obliterated verses of an ancient Hellenic erotic poet.”
Or, the continued comparison of a very degrading tendency, in the “Bäder
von Lucca.”
“The Catholic priest is more like a clerk who is employed in a big
business; the church, the big house at the head of which is the Pope, gives
him a definite salary. He works lazily like one who is not working on his
own account, he has many colleagues, and so easily remains unnoticed in
the big business enterprise. He is concerned only in the credit of the house
and still more in its preservation, since he would be deprived of his means
of sustenance in case it went bankrupt. The Protestant clergyman, on the
other hand, is his own boss, and carries on the religious businesses on his
own account. He has no wholesale trade like his Catholic brother-
tradesman, but deals merely at retail; and since he himself must understand
it, he cannot be lazy. He must praise his articles of faith to the people and
must disparage the articles of his competitors. Like a true small trader he
stands in his retail store, full of envy of the industry of all large houses,
particularly the large house in Rome which has so many thousand
bookkeepers and packers on its payroll, and which owns factories in all four
corners of the world.”
In the face of this, as in many other examples, we can no longer dispute
the fact that a comparison may in itself be witty, and that the witty
impression need not necessarily depend on one of the known techniques of
wit. But we are entirely in the dark as to what determines the witty
character of the comparison, since it certainly does not cling to the
similarity as a form of expression of the thought, or to the operation of the
comparison. We can do nothing but include comparison with the different
forms of “indirect representation” which are at the disposal of the technique
of wit, and the problem, which confronted us more distinctly in the
mechanism of comparison than in the means of wit hitherto treated, must

remain unsolved. There must surely be a special reason why the decision
whether something is a witticism or not presents more difficulties in cases
of comparison than in other forms of expression.
This gap in our understanding, however, offers no ground for complaint
that our first investigation has been unsuccessful. Considering the intimate
connection which we had to be prepared to ascribe to the different types of
wit, it would have been imprudent to expect that we could fully explain this
aspect of the problem before we had cast a glance over the others. We shall
have to take up this problem at another place.
Review of the Techniques of Wit
Are we sure that none of the possible techniques of wit has escaped our
investigation? Not exactly; but by a continued examination of new material,
we can convince ourselves that we have become acquainted with the most
numerous and most important technical means of wit-work—at least with
as much as is necessary for formulating a judgment about the nature of this
psychic process. At present no such judgment exists; on the other hand, we
have come into possession of important indications, from the direction of
which we may expect a further explanation of the problem. The interesting
processes of condensation with substitutive formation, which we have
recognized as the nucleus of the technique of word-wit, directed our
attention to the dream-formation in whose mechanism the identical psychic
processes were discovered. Thither also we are directed by the technique of
the thought-wit, namely displacement, faulty thinking, absurdity, indirect
expression, and representation through the opposite—each and all are also
found in the technique of dreams. The dream is indebted to displacement
for its strange appearance, which hinders us from recognizing in it the
continuation of our waking thoughts; the dream’s use of absurdity and
contradiction has cost it the dignity of a psychic product, and has misled the
authors to assume that the determinants of dream-formation are: collapse of
mental activity, cessation of criticism, morality, and logic. Representation
through the opposite is so common in dreams that even the popular but
entirely misleading books on dream interpretation usually put it to good
account. Indirect expression, the substitution for the dream-thought by an
allusion, by a trifle or by a symbolism analogous to comparison, is just
exactly what distinguishes the manner of expression of the dream from our
waking thoughts.[36] Such a far-reaching agreement as found between the

means of wit-work and those of dream-work can scarcely be accidental. To
show those agreements in detail and to trace their motivations will be one of
our future tasks.

III
[37]
THE TENDENCIES OF WIT

Near the end of the preceding chapter as I was writing down Heine’s
comparison of the Catholic priest to an employee of a large business house,
and the comparison of the Protestant divine to an independent retail dealer, I
felt an inhibition which nearly prevented me from using this comparison. I
said to myself that among my readers probably there would be some who
hold in veneration not only religion, but also its administration and
administrators. These readers might take offense at the comparison and get
so wrought up about it that it would take away all interest in the
investigation as to whether the comparison seemed witty in itself or was
witty only through its garnishings. In other examples, e.g., the one
mentioned above concerning the agreeable moonlight shed by a certain
philosophy, there would be no worry that for some readers it might be a
disturbing influence in our investigation. Even the most religious person
would remain in the right mood to form a judgment about our problem.
It is easy to guess the character of the witticism by the kind of reaction
that wit exerts on the hearer. Sometimes wit is wit for its own sake and
serves no other particular purpose; then again, it places itself at the service
of such a purpose, i.e., it becomes purposive. Only that form of wit which
has such a tendency runs the risk of ruffling people who do not wish to hear
it.
Theo. Vischer called wit without a tendency “abstract” wit, I prefer to
call it “harmless” wit.
As we have already classified wit according to the material touched by its
technique into word- and thought-wit, it is incumbent upon us to investigate
the relation of this classification to the one just put forward. Word- and
thought-wit on the one hand, and abstract- and tendency-wit on the other
hand, bear no relation of dependence to each other; they are two entirely
independent classifications of witty productions. Perhaps some one may

have gotten the impression that harmless witticisms are preponderately
word-witticisms, whereas the complicated techniques of thought-witticisms
are mostly made to serve strong tendencies. There are harmless witticisms
that operate through play on words and sound similarity, and just as
harmless ones which make use of all means of thought-wit. Nor is it less
easy to prove that tendency-wit as far as technique is concerned may be
merely the wit of words. Thus, for example, witticisms that “play” with
proper names often show an insulting and offending tendency, and yet they,
too, belong to word-wit. Again, the most harmless of all jests are word-
witticisms. Examples of this nature are the popular “shake-up” rhymes
(Schüttelreime) in which the technique is represented through the manifold
application of the same material with a very peculiar modification:
“Having been forsaken by Dame Luck, he degenerated into a Lame
Duck.”
Let us hope that no one will deny that the pleasure experienced in this
kind of otherwise unpretentious rhyming is of the same nature as the one by
which we recognize wit.
Good examples of abstract or harmless thought-witticisms abound in
Lichtenberg’s comparisons with which we have already become acquainted.
I add a few more. “They sent a small Octavo to the University of Göttingen;
and received back in body and soul a quarto” (a fourth-form boy).
“In order to erect this budding well, one must lay above all things a good
foundation, and I know of no firmer than by laying immediately over every
pro-layer a contra-layer.”
“One man begets the thought, the second acts as its godfather, the third
begets children by it, the fourth visits it on its death-bed, and the fifth buries
it” (comparison with unification).
“Not only did he disbelieve in ghosts, but he was not ever afraid of
them.” The witticism in this case lies exclusively in the absurd
representation which puts what is usually considered less important in the
comparative and what is considered more important in the positive degree.
If we divest it of its dress it says: it is much easier to use our reason and
make light of the fear of ghosts than to defend ourselves against this fear
when the occasion presents itself. But this rendering is no longer witty; it is
merely a correct and still too little respected psychological fact suggesting
what Lessing expresses in his well-known words:

“Not all are free who mock their chains.”

Harmless and Tendency Wit

I shall take the opportunity presented here of clearing up what may still
lead to a possible misunderstanding. “Harmless” or “abstract” wit should in
no way convey the same meaning as “shallow” or “poor” wit. It is meant
only to designate the opposite of the “tendency” wit to be described later.
As shown in the aforementioned examples, a harmless jest, i.e., a witticism
without a tendency, can also be very rich in content and express something
worth while. The quality of a witticism, however, is independent of the wit
and represents the quality of the thought which is here expressed wittily by
means of a special contrivance. To be sure, just as watch-makers are wont
to enclose very good works in valuable cases, so it may likewise happen
with wit that the best witty activities are used to invest the richest thoughts.
Now, if we pay strict attention to the distinction between thought-content
and the witty wording of thought-wit, we arrive at an insight which may
clear up much uncertainty in our judgment of wit. For it turns out—
astonishing as it may seem—that our enjoyment of a witticism is supplied
by the combined impression of content and wit-activity, and that one of the
factors is likely to deceive us about the extent of the other. It is only the
reduction of the witticism that lays bare to us our mistaken judgment.
The same thing applies to word-wit. When we hear that “experience
consists simply of experiencing what one wishes he had not experienced,”
we are puzzled, and believe that we have learnt a new truth; it takes some
time before we recognize in this disguise the platitude, “adversity is the
school of wisdom” (K. Fischer). The excellent wit-activity which seeks to
define “experience” by the almost exclusive use of the word “experience”
deceives us so completely that we overestimate the content of the sentence.
The same thing happens in many similar cases and also in Lichtenberg’s
unification-witticism about January (p. 89), which expresses nothing but
what we already know, namely, that New Year’s wishes are as seldom
realized as other wishes.
We find the contrary true of other witticisms, in which obviously what is
striking and correct in the thought captivates us, so that we call the saying
an excellent witticism, whereas it is only the thought that is brilliant while

the wit-activity is often weak. It is especially true of Lichtenberg’s wit that
the path of the thought is often of more value than its witty expression,
though we unjustly extend the value of the former to the latter. Thus the
remark about the “torch of truth” (p. 115) is hardly a witty comparison, but
it is so striking that we are inclined to lay stress on the sentence as
exceptionally witty.
Lichtenberg’s witticisms are above all remarkable for their thought-
content and their certainty of hitting the mark. Goethe has rightly remarked
about this author that his witty and jocose thoughts positively conceal
problems. Or perhaps it may be more correct to say that they touch upon the
solutions of problems. When, for example, he presents as a witty thought:
“He always read Agamemnon instead of the German word angenommen,
so thoroughly had he read Homer” (technically this is absurdity plus sound
similarity of words). Thus he discovered nothing less than the secret of
mistakes in reading.[38] The following joke, whose technique (p. 78) seemed
to us quite unsatisfactory, is of a similar nature.
“He was surprised that there were two holes cut in the pelts of cats just
where the eyes were located.” The stupidity here exhibited is only
seemingly so; in reality this ingenuous remark conceals the great problem
of teleology in the structure of animals; it is not at all so self-evident that
the eyelid cleft opens just where the cornea is exposed, until the science of
evolution explains to us this coincidence.
Let us bear in mind that a witty sentence gave us a general impression in
which we were unable to distinguish the amount of thought-content from
the amount of wit-work; perhaps even a more significant parallel to it will
be found later.

Pleasure Results from the Technique

For our theoretical explanation of the nature of wit, harmless wit must be
of greater value to us than tendency-wit and shallow wit more than
profound wit. Harmless and shallow plays on words present to us the
problem of wit in its purest form, because of the good sense therein and
because there is no purposive factor nor underlying philosophy to confuse

the judgment. With such material our understanding can make further
progress.
At the end of a dinner to which I had been invited, a pastry called
Roulard was served; it was a culinary accomplishment which presupposed
a good deal of skill on the part of the cook. “Is it home-made?” asked one
of the guests. “Oh, yes,” replied the host, “it is a Home-Roulard” (Home
Rule).
This time we shall not investigate the technique of this witticism, but
shall center our attention upon another, and that one the most important
factor. As I remember, this improvised joke delighted all the guests and
made us laugh. In this case, as in countless others, the feeling of pleasure of
the hearer cannot have originated from any purposive element nor the
thought-content of the wit; so we are forced to connect the feeling of
pleasure with the technique of wit. The technical means of wit which we
have described, such as condensation, displacement, indirect expression,
etc., have therefore the faculty to produce a feeling of pleasure in the hearer,
although we cannot as yet see how they acquired that faculty. By such easy
stages we get the second axiom for the explanation of wit; the first one (p.
17) states that the character of wit depends upon the mode of expression.
Let us remember also that the second axiom has really taught us nothing
new. It merely isolates a fact that was already contained in a discovery
which we made before. For we recall that whenever it was possible to
reduce the wit by substituting for its verbal expression another set of words,
at the same time carefully retaining the sense, it not only eliminated the
witty character but also the laughableness (Lacheffekt) that constitutes the
pleasure of wit.
At present we cannot go further without first coming to an understanding
with our philosophical authorities.
The philosophers who adjudge wit to be a part of the comic and deal with
the latter itself in the field of æsthetics, characterize the æsthetic
presentation by the following conditions: that we are not thereby interested
in or about the objects, that we do not need these objects to satisfy our great
wants in life, but that we are satisfied with the mere contemplation of the
same, and with the pleasure of the thought itself. “This pleasure, this mode
of conception is purely æsthetical, it depends entirely on itself, its end is
only itself and it fulfills no other end in life” (K. Fischer, p. 68).

We scarcely venture a contradiction to K. Fischer’s words—perhaps we
merely translate his thoughts into our own mode of expression—when we
insist that the witty activity is, after all, not to be designated as aimless or
purposeless, since it has for its aim the evocation of pleasure in the hearer. I
doubt whether we are able to undertake anything which has no object in
view. When we do not use our psychic apparatus for the fulfillment of one
of our indispensable gratifications, we let it work for pleasure, and we seek
to derive pleasure from its own activity. I suspect that this is really the
condition which underlies all æsthetic thinking, but I know too little about
æsthetics to be willing to support this theory. About wit, however, I can
assert, on the strength of the two impressions gained before, that it is an
activity whose purpose is to derive pleasure—be it intellectual or otherwise
—from the psychic processes. To be sure, there are other activities which
accomplish the same thing. They may be differentiated from each by the
sphere of psychic activity from which they wish to derive pleasure, or
perhaps by the methods which they use in accomplishing this. At present we
cannot decide this, but we firmly maintain that at last we have established a
connection between the technique of wit partly controlled by the tendency
to economize (p. 53) and the production of pleasure.
But before we proceed to solve the riddle of how the technical means of
wit-work can produce pleasure in the hearer, we wish to mention that, for
the sake of simplicity and more lucidity, we have altogether put out of the
way all tendency-witticisms. Still we must attempt to explain what the
tendencies of wit are and in what manner wit makes use of these tendencies.

Hostile and Obscene Wit

We are taught above all by an observation not to put aside the tendency-
wit when we are investigating the origin of the pleasure in wit. The
pleasurable effect of harmless wit is usually of a moderate nature; all that it
can be expected to produce in the hearer is a distinct feeling of satisfaction
and a slight ripple of laughter; and as we have shown by fitting examples
(p. 132) at least a part of this effect is due to the thought-content. The
sudden irresistible outburst of laughter evoked by the tendency-wit rarely
follows the wit without a tendency. As the technique may be identical in

both, it is fair to assume that by virtue of its purpose, the tendency-wit has
at its disposal sources of pleasure to which harmless wit has no access.
It is now easy to survey wit-tendencies. Wherever wit is not a means to
its end, i. e., harmless, it puts itself in the service of but two tendencies
which may themselves be united under one viewpoint; it is either hostile wit
serving as an aggression, satire, or defense, or it is obscene wit serving as a
sexual exhibition. Again it is to be observed that the technical form of wit—
be it a word- or thought-witticism—bears no relation to these two
tendencies.
It is a much more complicated matter to show in what way wit serves
these tendencies. In this investigation I wish to present first not the hostile
but the exhibition wit. The latter has indeed very seldom been deemed
worthy of an investigation, as if an aversion had transferred itself here from
the material to the subject; however, we shall not allow ourselves to be
misled thereby, for we shall soon touch upon a detail in wit which promises
to throw light on more than one obscure point.
We all know what is meant by a “smutty” joke. It is the intentional
bringing into prominence of sexual facts or relations through speech.
However, this definition is no sounder than other definitions. A lecture on
the anatomy of the sexual organs or on the physiology of reproduction need
not, in spite of this definition, have anything in common with an obscenity.
It must be added that the smutty joke is directed toward a certain person
who excites one sexually, and who becomes cognizant of the speaker’s
excitement by listening to the smutty joke, and thereby in turn becomes
sexually excited. Instead of becoming sexually excited the listener may
react with shame and embarrassment, which merely signifies a reaction
against the excitement and indirectly an admission of the same. The smutty
joke was originally directed against the woman and is comparable to an
attempt at seduction. If a man tells or listens to obscene jokes in male
society, the original situation, which cannot be realized on account of social
inhibitions, is thereby also represented. Whoever laughs at a smutty joke
does the same as the spectator who laughs at a sexual aggression.
The sexual element which is at the basis of the obscene joke comprises
more than that which is peculiar to both sexes, and goes beyond that which
is common to both sexes, it is connected with all these things that cause
shame, and includes the whole domain of the excrementitious. However,

this was the sexual domain of childhood, where the imagination fancied a
cloaca, so to speak, within which the sexual elements were either badly or
not at all differentiated from the excrementitious.[39] In the whole mental
domain of the psychology of the neuroses, the sexual still includes the
excrementitious, and it is understood in the old, infantile sense.
The smutty joke is like the denudation of a person of the opposite sex
toward whom the joke is directed. Through the utterance of obscene words
the person attacked is forced to picture the parts of the body in question, or
the sexual act, and is shown that the aggressor himself pictures the same
thing. There is no doubt that the original motive of the smutty joke was the
pleasure of seeing the sexual displayed.
It will only help to clarify the subject if here we go back to the
fundamentals. One of the primitive components of our libido is the desire to
see the sexual exposed. Perhaps this itself is a development—a substitution
for the desire to touch which is assumed to be the primary pleasure. As it
often happens, the desire to see has here also replaced the desire to touch.[40]
The libido for looking and touching is found in every person in two forms,
active and passive, or masculine and feminine; and in accordance with the
preponderance of sex characteristics it develops preponderately in one or
the other direction. In young children one can readily observe the desire to
exhibit themselves nude. If the germ of this desire does not experience the
usual fate of being covered up and repressed, it develops into a mania for
exhibitionism, a familiar perversion among grown-up men. In women the
passive desire to exhibit is almost regularly covered by the masked reaction
of sexual modesty; despite this, however, remnants of this desire may
always be seen in women’s dress. I need only mention how flexible and
variable convention and circumstances make that remaining portion of
exhibitionism still allowed to women.

The Transformation of the Obscenity into Obscene Wit

In the case of men a great part of this striving to exhibit remains as a part
of the libido and serves to initiate the sexual act. If this striving asserts itself
on first meeting the woman it must make use of speech for two motives.
First, in order to make itself known to the woman; and secondly, because
the awakening of the imagination through speech puts the woman herself in

a corresponding excitement and awakens in her the desire to passive
exhibitionism. This speech of courtship is not yet smutty, but may pass over
into the same. Wherever the yieldingness of the woman manifests itself
quickly, smutty speech is short-lived, for it gives way to the sexual act. It is
different if the rapid yielding of the woman cannot be counted upon, but
instead there appears the defense reaction. In that case the sexually exciting
speech changes into obscene wit as its own end; as the sexual aggression is
inhibited in its progress towards the act, it lingers at the evocation of the
excitement and derives pleasure from the indications of the same in the
woman. In this process the aggression changes its character in the same way
as any libidinous impulse confronted by a hindrance; it becomes distinctly
hostile and cruel, and utilizes the sadistical components of the sexual
impulse against the hindrance.
Thus the unyieldingness of the woman is therefore the next condition for
the development of smutty wit; to be sure, this resistance must be of the
kind to indicate merely a deferment and make it appear that further efforts
will not be in vain. The ideal case of such resistance on the part of the
woman usually results from the simultaneous presence of another man, a
third person, whose presence almost excludes the immediate yielding of the
woman. This third person soon becomes of the greatest importance for the
development of the smutty wit, but next to him the presence of the woman
must be taken account of. Among rural people or in the ordinary hostelry
one can observe that not till the waitress or the hostess approaches the
guests does the obscene wit come out; in a higher order of society just the
opposite happens, here the presence of a woman puts an end to smutty talk.
The men reserve this kind of conversation, which originally presupposed
the presence of bashful women, until they are alone, “by themselves.” Thus
gradually the spectator, now turned the listener, takes the place of the
woman as the object of the smutty joke, and through such a change the
smutty joke already approaches the character of wit.
Henceforth our attention may be centered upon two factors, first upon the
rôle that the third person—the listener—plays, and secondly, upon the
intrinsic conditions of the smutty joke itself.
Tendency-wit usually requires three persons. Besides the one who makes
the wit there is a second person who is taken as the object of the hostile or
sexual aggression, and a third person in whom the purpose of the wit to

produce pleasure is fulfilled. We shall later on inquire into the deeper
motive of this relationship, for the present we shall adhere to the fact which
states that it is not the maker of the wit who laughs about it and enjoys its
pleasurable effect, but it is the idle listener who does. The same relationship
exists among the three persons connected with the smutty joke. The process
may be described as follows: As soon as the libidinous impulse of the first
person, to satisfy himself through the woman, is blocked, he immediately
develops a hostile attitude towards this second person and takes the
originally intruding third person as his confederate. Through the obscene
speech of the first person the woman is exposed before the third person,
who as a listener is fascinated by the easy gratification of his own libido.
It is curious that common people so thoroughly enjoy such smutty talk,
and that it is a never-lacking activity of cheerful humor. It is also worthy of
notice that in this complicated process which shows so many characteristics
of tendency-wit, no formal demands, such as characterize wit, are made
upon “smutty wit.” The unveiled nudity affords pleasure to the first and
makes the third person laugh.
Not until we come to the refined and cultured does the formal
determination of wit arise. The obscenity becomes witty and is tolerated
only if it is witty. The technical means of which it mostly makes use is
allusion, i.e., substitution through a trifle, something remotely related,
which the listener reconstructs in his imagination as a full-fledged and
direct obscenity. The greater the disproportion between what is directly
offered in the obscenity and what is necessarily aroused by it in the mind of
the listener, the finer is the witticism and the higher it may venture in good
society. Besides the coarse and delicate allusions, the witty obscenity also
utilizes all other means of word- and thought-wit, as can be easily
demonstrated by examples.

The Function of Wit in the Service of the Tendency

It now becomes comprehensible what wit accomplishes through this
service of its tendency. It makes possible the gratification of a craving (lewd
or hostile) despite a hindrance which stands in the way; it eludes the
hindrance and so derives pleasure from a source that has become
inaccessible on account of the hindrance. The hindrance in the way is really

nothing more than the higher degree of culture and education which
correspondingly increases the inability of the woman to tolerate the stark
sex. The woman thought of as present in the final situation is still
considered present, or her influence acts as a deterrent to the men even in
her absence. One often notices how cultured men are influenced by the
company of girls of a lower station in life to change witty obscenities to
broad smut.
The power which renders it difficult or impossible for the woman, and in
a lesser degree for the man, to enjoy unveiled obscenities we call
“repression,” and we recognize in it the same psychic process which keeps
from consciousness in severe nervous attacks whole complexes of emotions
with their resultant affects, and has shown itself to be the principal factor in
the causation of the so-called psychoneuroses. We acknowledge to culture
and higher civilization an important influence in the development of
repressions, and assume that under these conditions there has come about a
change in our psychic organization which may also have been brought
along as an inherited disposition. In consequence of it, what was once
accepted as pleasureful is now counted unacceptable and is rejected by
means of all the psychic forces. Owing to the repression brought about by
civilization many primary pleasures are now disapproved by the censor and
lost. But the human psyche finds renunciation very difficult; hence we
discover that tendency-wit furnishes us with a means to make the
renunciation retrogressive and thus to regain what has been lost. When we
laugh over a delicately obscene witticism, we laugh at the identical thing
which causes laughter in the ill-bred man when he hears a coarse, obscene
joke; in both cases the pleasure comes from the same source. The coarse,
obscene joke, however, could not incite us to laughter, because it would
cause us shame or would seem to us disgusting; we can laugh only when
wit comes to our aid.
What we had presumed in the beginning seems to have been confirmed,
namely, that tendency-wit has access to other sources of pleasure than
harmless wit, in which all the pleasure is somehow dependent upon the
technique. We can also reiterate that owing to our feelings we are in no
position to distinguish in tendency-wit what part of the pleasure originates
from the technique and what part from the tendency. Strictly speaking, we
do not know what we are laughing about. In all obscene jokes we succumb
to striking mistakes of judgment about the “goodness” of the joke as far as

it depends upon formal conditions; the technique of these jokes is often
very poor while their laughing effect is enormous.

Invectives Made Possible Through Wit

We next wish to determine whether the rôle of wit in the service of the
hostile tendency is the same.
Right from the start we meet with similar conditions. Since our
individual childhood and the childhood of human civilization, our hostile
impulses towards our fellow-beings have been subjected to the same
restrictions and the same progressive repressions as our sexual strivings. We
have not yet progressed so far as to love our enemies, or to extend to them
our left cheek after we are smitten on the right. Furthermore, all moral
codes about the subjection of active hatred bear even to-day the clearest
indications that they were originally meant for a small community of
clansmen. As we all may consider ourselves members of some nation, we
permit ourselves for the most part to forget these restrictions in matters
touching a foreign people. But within our own circles we have nevertheless
made progress in the mastery of hostile emotions. Lichtenberg drastically
puts it when he says: “Where nowadays one says, ‘I beg your pardon,’
formerly one had recourse to a cuff on the ear.” Violent hostility, no longer
tolerated by law, has been replaced by verbal invectives, and the better
understanding of the concatenation of human emotions robs us, through its
consequential “Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner,” more and more of
the capacity to become angry at our fellowman who is in our way. Having
been endowed with a strong hostile disposition in our childhood, higher
personal civilization teaches us later that it is undignified to use abusive
language; even where combat is still permitted, the number of things which
may be used as means of combat has been markedly restricted. Society, as
the third and dispassionate party in the combat to whose interest it is to
safeguard personal safety, prevents us from expressing our hostile feelings
in action; and hence, as in sexual aggression, there has developed a new
technique of invectives, the aim of which is to enlist this third person
against our enemy. By belittling and humbling our enemy, by scorning and
ridiculing him, we indirectly obtain the pleasure of his defeat by the
laughter of the third person, the inactive spectator.

We are now prepared for the rôle that wit plays in hostile aggression. Wit
permits us to make our enemy ridiculous through that which we could not
utter loudly or consciously on account of existing hindrances; in other
words, wit affords us the means of surmounting restrictions and of opening
up otherwise inaccessible pleasure-sources. Moreover, the listener will be
induced by the gain in pleasure to take our part, even if he is not altogether
convinced,—just as we on other occasions, when fascinated by harmless
witticism, were wont to overestimate the substance of the sentence wittily
expressed. “To prejudice the laughter in one’s own favor” is a completely
pertinent saying in the German language.
One may recall Mr. N.’s witticism given in the last chapter (p. 28). It is of
an insulting nature, as if the author wished to shout loudly: But the minister
of agriculture is himself an ox! But he, as a man of culture, could not put
his opinion in this form. He therefore appealed to wit which assured his
opinion a reception at the hands of the listeners which, in spite of its amount
of truth, never would have been received if in an unwitty form. Brill cites
an excellent example of a similar kind: Wendell Phillips, according to a
recent biography by Dr. Lorenzo Sears, was on one occasion lecturing in
Ohio, and while on a railroad journey going to keep one of his
appointments met in the car a number of clergymen returning from some
sort of convention. One of the ministers, feeling called upon to approach
Mr. Phillips, asked him, “Are you Mr. Phillips?” “I am, sir.” “Are you
trying to free the niggers?” “Yes, sir; I am an abolitionist.” “Well, why do
you preach your doctrines up here? Why don’t you go over into Kentucky?”
“Excuse me, are you a preacher?” “I am, sir.” “Are you trying to save
souls from hell?” “Yes, sir, that’s my business.” “Well, why don’t you go
there?” The assailant hurried into the smoker amid a roar of unsanctified
laughter. This anecdote nicely illustrates the tendency-wit in the service of
hostile aggression. The minister’s behavior was offensive and irritating, yet
Wendell Phillips as a man of culture could not defend himself in the same
manner as a common, ill-bred person would have done, and as his inner
feelings must have prompted him to do. The only alternative under the
circumstances would have been to take the affront in silence, had not wit
showed him the way, and enabled him by the technical means of unification
to turn the tables on his assailant. He not only belittled him and turned him
into ridicule, but by his clever retort, “Well, why don’t you go there?”
fascinated the other clergymen, and thus brought them to his side.

Although the hindrance to the aggression which the wit helped to elude
was in these cases of an inner nature—the æsthetic resistance against
insulting—it may at other times be of a purely outer nature. So it was in the
case when Serenissimus asked the stranger who had a striking resemblance
to himself: “Was your mother ever in my home?” and he received the ready
reply, “No, but my father was.” The stranger would certainly have felled the
imprudent inquirer who dared to make an ignominious allusion to the
memory of his mother; but this imprudent person was Serenissimus, who
may not be felled and not even insulted unless one wishes to pay for this
revenge with his life. The only thing left was to swallow the insult in
silence; but luckily wit pointed out the way of requiting the insult without
personally imperiling one’s self. It was accomplished simply by treating the
allusion with the technical means of unification and employing it against
the aggressor. The impression of wit is here so thoroughly determined by
the tendency that in view of the witty rejoinder we are inclined to forget that
the aggressor’s inquiry is itself made witty by allusion.

Rebellion Against Authority Through Wit

The prevention of abuse or insulting retorts through outer circumstances
is so often the case that tendency-wit is used with special preference as a
weapon of attack or criticism of superiors who claim to be an authority. Wit
then serves as a resistance against such authority and as an escape from its
pressure. In this factor, too, lies the charm of caricature, at which we laugh
even if it is badly done simply because we consider its resistance to
authority a great merit.
If we keep in mind that tendency-wit is so well adapted as a weapon of
attack upon what is great, dignified, and mighty, that which is shielded by
internal hindrances or external circumstance against direct disparagement,
we are forced to a special conception of certain groups of witticisms which
seem to occupy themselves with inferior and powerless persons. I am
referring to the marriage-agent stories,—with a few of which we have
become familiar in the investigation of the manifold techniques of thought-
wit. In some of these examples, “But she is deaf, too!” and “Who in the
world would ever lend these people anything!” the agent was derided as a
careless and thoughtless person who becomes comical because the truth

escapes his lips automatically, as it were. But does on the one hand what we
have learned about the nature of tendency-wit, and on the other hand the
amount of satisfaction in these stories, harmonize with the misery of the
persons at whom the joke seems to be pointed? Are these worthy opponents
of the wit? Or, is it not more plausible to suppose that the wit puts the agent
in the foreground only in order to strike at something more important; does
it, as the saying goes, strike the saddle pack, when it is meant for the mule?
This conception can really not be rejected.
The above-mentioned interpretation of the marriage-agent stories admits
of a continuation. It is true that I need not enter into them, that I can content
myself with seeing the farcical in these stories, and can dispute their witty
character. However, such subjective determination of wit actually exists. We
have now become cognizant of it and shall later on have to investigate it. It
means that only that is a witticism which I wish to consider as such. What
may be wit to me, may be only an amusing story to another. But if a
witticism admits of doubt, that can be due only to the fact that it is
possessed of a show-side,—in our examples it happens to be a façade of the
comic,—upon which one may be satisfied to bestow a single glance while
another may attempt to peep behind. We also suspect that this façade is
intended to dazzle the prying glance which is to say that such stories have
something to conceal.
At all events, if our marriage-agent stories are witticisms at all, they are
all the better witticisms because, thanks to their façade, they are in a
position to conceal not only what they have to say but also that they have
something—forbidden—to say. But the continuation of the interpretation,
which reveals this hidden part and shows that these stories having a comical
façade are tendency-witticisms, would be as follows: Every one who allows
the truth to escape his lips in an unguarded moment is really pleased to have
rid himself of this thought. This is a correct and far-reaching psychological
insight. Without the inner assent no one would allow himself to be
overpowered by the automatism which here brings the truth to light.[41] The
marriage agent is thus transformed from a ludicrous personage into an
object deserving of pity and sympathy. How blest must be the man, able at
last to unburden himself of the weight of dissimulation, if he immediately
seizes the first opportunity to shout out the last fragment of truth! As soon
as he sees that his case is lost, that the prospective bride does not suit the
young man, he gladly betrays the secret that the girl has still another

blemish which the young man had overlooked, or he makes use of the
chance to present a conclusive argument in detail in order to express his
contempt for the people who employ him: “Who in the world would ever
lend these people anything!” The ludicrousness of the whole thing now
reverts upon the parents,—hardly mentioned in the story,—who consider
such deceptions justified to clutch a man for their daughter; it also reflects
upon the wretched state of the girls who get married through such
contrivances, and upon the want of dignity of the marriage contracted after
such preliminaries. The agent is the right person to express such criticisms,
for he is best acquainted with these abuses; but he may not raise his voice,
because he is a poor man whose livelihood depends altogether on turning
these abuses to his advantage. But the same conflict is found in the national
spirit which has given rise to these and similar stories; for he is aware that
the holiness of wedlock suffers severely by reference to some of the
methods of marriage-making.
We recall also the observation made during the investigation of wit-
technique, namely, that absurdity in wit frequently stands for derision and
criticism in the thought behind the witticism, wherein the wit-work follows
the dream-work. This state of affairs, we find, is here once more confirmed.
That the derision and criticism are not aimed at the agent, who appears in
the former examples only as the whipping boy of the joke, is shown by
another series in which the agent, on the contrary, is pictured as a superior
person whose dialectics are a match for any difficulty. They are stories
whose façades are logical instead of comical—they are sophistic thought-
witticisms. In one of them (p. 83) the agent knows how to circumvent the
limping of the bride by stating that in her case it is at least “a finished job”;
another woman with straight limbs would be in constant danger of falling
and breaking a leg, which would be followed by sickness, pains, and
doctor’s fees—all of which can be avoided by marrying the one already
limping. Again in another example (p. 81) the agent is clever enough to
refute by good arguments each of the whole series of the suitor’s objections
against the bride; only to the last, which cannot be glossed over, he rejoins,
“Do you expect her to have no blemishes at all?” as if the other objections
had not left behind an important remnant. It is not difficult to pick out the
weak points of the arguments in both examples, a thing which we have done
during the investigation of the technique. But now something else interests
us. If the agent’s speech is endowed with such a strong semblance of logic,

which on more careful examination proves to be merely a semblance, then
the truth must be lurking in the fact that the witticism adjudges the agent to
be right. The thought does not dare to admit that he is right in all
seriousness, and replaces it by the semblance which the wit brings forth; but
here, as it often happens, the jest betrays the seriousness of it. We shall not
err if we assume that all stories with logical façades really mean what they
assert even if these assertions are deliberately falsely motivated. Only this
use of sophism for the veiled presentation of the truth endows it with the
character of wit, which is mainly dependent upon tendency. What these two
stories wish to indicate is that the suitor really makes himself ridiculous
when he collects together so sedulously the individual charms of the bride
which are transient after all, and when he forgets at the same time that he
must be prepared to take as his wife a human being with inevitable faults;
whereas, the only virtue which might make tolerable marriage with the
more or less imperfect personality of the woman,—mutual attachment and
willingness for affectionate adaptation,—is not once mentioned in the
whole affair.
Ridicule of the suitor as seen in these examples in which the agent quite
correctly assumes the rôle of superiority, is much more clearly depicted in
other examples. The more pointed the stories, the less wit-technique they
contain; they are, as it were, merely border-line cases of wit with whose
technique they have only the façade-formation in common. However, in
view of the same tendency and the concealment of the same behind the
façade, they obtain the full effect of wit. The poverty of technical means
makes it clear also that many witticisms of that kind cannot dispense with
the comic element of jargon which acts similarly to wit-technique without
great sacrifices.
The following is such a story, which with all the force of tendency-wit
obviates all traces of that technique. The agent asks: “What are you looking
for in your bride?” The reply is: “She must be pretty, she must be rich, and
she must be cultured.” “Very well,” was the agent’s rejoinder. “But what
you want will make three matches.” Here the reproach is no longer
embodied in wit, but is made directly to the man.
In all the preceding examples the veiled aggression was still directed
against persons; in the marriage-agent jokes it is directed against all the
parties involved in the betrothal—the bridegroom, bride, and her parents.

The object of attack by wit may equally well be institutions, persons, in so
far as they may act as agents of these, moral or religious precepts, or even
philosophies of life which enjoy so much respect that they can be
challenged in no other way than under the guise of a witticism, and one that
is veiled by a façade at that. No matter how few the themes upon which
tendency-wit may play, its forms and investments are manifold. I believe
that we shall do well to designate this species of tendency-wit by a special
name. To decide what name will be appropriate is possible only after
analyzing a few examples of this kind.

The Witty Cynicism

I recall the two little stories about the impecunious gourmand who was
caught eating “salmon with mayonnaise,” and about the tippling tutor; these
witty stories, which we have learned to regard as sophistical displacement-
wit, I shall continue to analyze. We have learned since then that when the
semblance of logic is attached to the façade of a story, the actual thought is
as follows: The man is right; but on account of the opposing contradiction, I
did not dare to admit the fact except for one point in which his error is
easily demonstrable. The “point” chosen is the correct compromise between
his right and his wrong; this is really no decision, but bespeaks the conflict
within ourselves. Both stories are simply epicurean. They say, Yes, the man
is right; nothing is greater than pleasure, and it is fairly immaterial in what
manner one procures it. This sounds frightfully immoral, and perhaps it is,
but fundamentally it is nothing more than the “Carpe diem” of the poet who
refers to the uncertainty of life and the bareness of virtuous renunciation. If
we are repelled by the idea that the man in the joke about “salmon with
mayonnaise” is in the right, then it is merely due to the fact that it illustrates
the sound sense of the man in indulging himself—an indulgence which
seems to us wholly unnecessary. In reality each one of us has experienced
hours and times during which he has admitted the justice of this philosophy
of life and has reproached our system of morality for knowing only how to
make claims upon us without reimbursing us. Since we no longer lend
credence to the idea of a hereafter in which all former renunciations are
supposed to be rewarded by gratification—(there are very few pious
persons if one makes renunciation the password of faith)—“Carpe diem”

becomes the first admonition. I am quite ready to postpone the gratification,
but how do I know whether I shall still be alive to-morrow?
“Di doman’ non c’e certezza.”[42]

I am quite willing to give up all the paths to gratification interdicted by
society, but am I sure that society will reward me for this renunciation by
opening for me—even after a certain delay—one of the permitted paths?
One can plainly tell what these witticisms whisper, namely, that the wishes
and desires of man have a right to make themselves perceptible next to our
pretentious and inconsiderate morality. And in our times it has been said in
emphatic and striking terms that this morality is merely the selfish precept
of the few rich and mighty who can gratify their desires at any time without
deferment. As long as the art of healing has not succeeded in safeguarding
our lives, and as long as the social organizations do not do more towards
making conditions more agreeable, just so long cannot the voice within us
which is striving against the demands of morality, be stifled. Every honest
person finally makes this admission—at least to himself. The decision in
this conflict is possible only through the roundabout way of a new
understanding. One must be able to knit one’s life so closely to that of
others, and to form such an intimate identification with others, that the
shortening of one’s own term of life becomes surmountable; one should not
unlawfully fulfill the demands of one’s own needs, but should leave them
unfulfilled, because only the continuance of so many unfulfilled demands
can develop the power to recast the social order. But not all personal needs
allow themselves to be displaced in such a manner and transferred to others,
nor is there a universal and definite solution of the conflict.
We now know how to designate the witticisms just discussed; they are
cynical witticisms, and what they conceal are cynicisms.
Among the institutions which cynical wit is wont to attack there is none
more important and more completely protected by moral precepts, and yet
more inviting of attack, than the institution of marriage. Most of the cynical
jokes are directed against it. For no demand is more personal than that made
upon sexual freedom, and nowhere has civilization attempted to exert a
more stringent suppression than in the realm of sexuality. For our purposes
a single example suffices: the “Entries in the Album of Prince Carnival”
mentioned on page 108.

“A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may always take a cab.”
We have already elucidated the complicated technique of this example; it
is a puzzling and seemingly impossible comparison which however, as we
now see, is not in itself witty; it shows besides an allusion (cab = public
conveyance), and as the strongest technical means it also shows an
omission which serves to make it still more unintelligible. The comparison
may be worked out in the following manner. A man marries in order to
guard himself against the temptations of sensuality, but it then turns out that
after all marriage affords no gratification for one of stronger needs, just as
one takes along an umbrella for protection against rain only to get wet in
spite of it. In both cases one must search for better protection; in one case
one must take a public cab, in the other women procurable for money. Now
the wit has almost entirely been replaced by cynicism. That marriage is not
the organization which can satisfy a man’s sexuality, one does not dare to
say loudly and frankly unless indeed it be one like Christian v. Ehrenfels,[43]
who is forced to it by the love of truth and the zeal of reform. The strength
of this witticism lies in the fact that it has expressed the thought even
though it had to be done through all sorts of roundabout ways.

Cynical Witticisms and Self-criticism

A particularly favorable case for tendency-wit results if the intended
criticism of the inner resistance is directed against one’s own person, or,
more carefully expressed, against a person in whom one takes interest, that
is, a composite personality such as one’s own people. This determination of
self-criticism may make clear why it is that a number of the most excellent
jokes of which we have shown here many specimens should have sprung
into existence from the soil of Jewish national life. They are stories which
were invented by Jews themselves and which are directed against Jewish
peculiarities. The Jewish jokes made up by non-Jews are nearly all brutal
buffooneries in which the wit is spared by the fact that the Jew appears as a
comic figure to a stranger. The Jewish jokes which originate with Jews
admit this, but they know their real shortcomings as well as their merits,
and the interest of the person himself in the thing to be criticised produces
the subjective determination of the wit-work which would otherwise be

difficult to bring about. Incidentally I do not know whether one often finds
a people that makes merry so unreservedly over its own shortcomings.
As an illustration I can point to the story cited on page 112 in which the
Jew in the train immediately abandons all sense of decency of deportment
as soon as he recognizes the new arrival in his coupé as his coreligionist.
We have come to know this joke as an illustration by means of a detail—
representation through a trifle; it is supposed to represent the democratic
mode of thought of the Jew who recognizes no difference between master
and servant, but unfortunately this also disturbs discipline and co-operation.
Another especially interesting series of jokes presents the relationship
between the poor and the rich Jews: their heroes are the “shnorrer,”[44] and
the charitable gentleman or the baron. The shnorrer, who was a regular
Sunday-dinner guest at a certain house, appeared one day accompanied by
a young stranger, who prepared to seat himself at the table. “Who is that?”
demanded the host. “He became my son-in-law last week,” was the reply,
“and I have agreed to supply his board for the first year.” The tendency of
these stories is always the same, and is most distinctly shown in the
following story. The shnorrer supplicates the baron for money to visit the
bathing resort Ostend, as the physician has ordered him to take sea baths
for his ailment. The baron remarks that Ostend is an especially expensive
resort, and that a less fashionable place would do just as well. But the
shnorrer rejects that proposition by saying, “Herr Baron, nothing is too
expensive for my health.” That is an excellent displacement-witticism
which we could have taken as a model of its kind. The baron is evidently
anxious to save his money, but the shnorrer replies as if the baron’s money
were his own, which he may then consider secondary to his health. One is
forced to laugh at the insolence of the demand, but these jokes are
exceptionally unequipped with a façade to becloud the understanding. The
truth is that the shnorrer who mentally treats the rich man’s money as his
own, really possesses almost the right to this mistake, according to the
sacred codes of the Jews. Naturally the resistance which is responsible for
this joke is directed against the law which even the pious find very
oppressing.
Another story relates how on the steps of a rich man’s house a shnorrer
met one of his own kind. The latter counseled him to depart, saying, “Do
not go up to-day, the Baron is out of sorts and refuses to give any one more

than a dollar.” “I will go up anyway,” replied the first. “Why in the world
should I make him, a present of a dollar? Is he making me any presents?”
This witticism makes use of the technique of absurdity by permitting the
shnorrer to declare that the baron gives him nothing at the same moment in
which he is preparing to beg him for the donation. But the absurdity is only
apparent, for it is almost true that the rich man gives him nothing, since he
is obligated by the mandate to give alms, and strictly speaking must be
thankful that the shnorrer gives him an opportunity to be charitable. The
ordinary, bourgeois conception of alms is at cross-purposes with the
religious one; it openly revolts against the religious conception in the story
about the baron who, having been deeply touched by the shnorrer’s tale of
woe, rang for his servants and said: “Throw him out of the house; he is
breaking my heart.” This obvious exposition of the tendency again creates a
case of border-line wit. From the no longer witty complaint: “It is really no
advantage to be a rich man among Jews. The foreign misery does not grant
one the pleasure of one’s own fortune,” these last stories are distinguished
only by the illustration of a single situation.
Other stories as the following, which, technically again presenting
border-lines of wit, have their origin in a deeply pessimistic cynicism. A
patient whose hearing was defective consulted a physician who made the
correct diagnosis, namely, that the patient probably drank too much
whiskey and consequently was becoming deaf. He advised him to desist
from drinking and the patient promised to follow his advice. Some time
thereafter the doctor met him on the street and inquired in a loud voice
about his condition. “Thank you, Doctor,” was the reply, “there is no
necessity for speaking so loudly, I have given up drinking whiskey and
consequently I hear perfectly.” Some time afterwards they met again. The
doctor again inquired into his condition in the usual voice, but noticed that
he did not make himself understood. “It seems to me that you are deaf
again because you have returned to drinking whiskey,” shouted the doctor
in the patient’s ear. “Perhaps you are right,” answered the latter, “I have
taken to drinking again, and I shall tell you why. As long as I did not drink I
could hear, but all that I heard was not as good as the whiskey.”
Technically this joke is nothing more than an illustration. The jargon and
the ability of the raconteur must aid the producing of laughter. But behind it
there lies the sad question, “Is not the man right in his choice?”

It is the manifold hopeless misery of the Jews to which these
pessimistical stories allude, which urged me to add them to tendency-wit.

Critical and Blasphemous Witticisms

Other jokes, cynical in a similar sense, and not only stories about Jews,
attack religious dogmas and the belief in God Himself. The story about the
“telepathic look of the rabbi,” whose technique consisted in the faulty
thinking which made phantasy equal to reality, (the conception of
displacement is also tenable) is such a cynical or critical witticism directed
against miracle-workers and also, surely, against belief in miracles. Heine is
reported to have made a directly blasphemous joke as he lay dying. When
the kindly priest commended him to God’s mercy and inspired him with the
hope that God would forgive him his sins, he replied: “Bien sûr qu’il me
pardonnera; c’est son métier.” That is a derogatory comparison; technically
its value lies only in the allusion, for a métier—business or vocation—is
plied either by a craftsman or a physician, and what is more he has only a
single métier. The strength of the wit, however, lies in its tendency. The
joke is intended to mean nothing else, but: Certainly he will forgive me; that
is what he is here for, and for no other purpose have I engaged him (just as
one retains one’s doctor or one’s lawyer). Thus, the helpless dying man is
still conscious of the fact that he has created God for himself and has
clothed Him with the power in order to make use of Him as occasion arises.
The so-called creature makes itself known as the Creator only a short time
before his extinction.

Skeptical Wit

To the three kinds of tendency-wit discussed so far—exhibitionistic or
obscene wit, aggressive or hostile wit, and cynical wit (critical,
blasphemous)—I desire to add a fourth and the most uncommon of all,
whose character can be elucidated by a good example.
Two Jews met in a train at a Galician railway station. “Where are you
traveling?” asked one. “To Cracow,” was the reply. “Now see here, what a
liar you are!” said the first one, bristling. “When you say that you are

traveling to Cracow, you really wish me to believe that you are traveling to
Lemberg. Well, but I am sure that you are really traveling to Cracow, so
why lie about it?”
This precious story, which creates an impression of exaggerated subtlety,
evidently operates by means of the technique of absurdity. The second Jew
has put himself in the way of being called a liar because he has said that he
is traveling to Cracow, which is his real goal! However, this strong
technical means—absurdity—is paired here with another technique—
representation through the opposite, for, according to the uncontradicted
assertion of the first, the second one is lying when he speaks the truth, and
speaks the truth by means of a lie. However, the more earnest content of
this joke is the question of the conditions of truth; again the joke points to a
problem and makes use of the uncertainty of one of our commonest notions.
Does it constitute truth if one describes things as they are and does not
concern himself with the way the hearers will interpret what one has said?
Or is this merely Jesuitical truth, and does not the real truthfulness consist
much more in having a regard for the hearer and of furnishing him an exact
picture of his own mind? I consider jokes of this type sufficiently different
from the others to assign them a special place. What they attack is not a
person nor an institution, but the certainty of our very knowledge—one of
our speculative gifts. Hence the name “skeptical” witticism will be the most
expressive for them.
In the course of our discussion of the tendencies of wit we have gotten
perhaps many an elucidation and certainly found numerous incentives for
further investigations. But the results of this chapter combine with those of
the preceding chapter to form a difficult problem. If it be true that the
pleasure created by wit is dependent upon the technique on one hand and
upon the tendency on the other hand, under what common point of view can
these two utterly different pleasure-sources of wit he united?

B. SYNTHESIS

IV
THE PLEASURE MECHANISM AND THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF WIT

We can now definitely assert that we know from what sources the
peculiar pleasure arises furnished us by wit. We know that we can be easily
misled to mistake our sense of satisfaction experienced through the thought-
content of the sentence for the actual pleasure derived from the wit, on the
other hand, the latter itself has two intrinsic sources, namely, the wit-
technique and the wit-tendency. What we now desire to ascertain is the
manner in which pleasure originates from these sources and the mechanism
of this resultant pleasure.
It seems to us that the desired explanation can be more easily ascertained
in tendency-wit than in harmless wit. We shall therefore commence with the
former.
The pleasure in tendency-wit results from the fact that a tendency, whose
gratification would otherwise remain unfulfilled, is actually gratified. That
such gratification is a source of pleasure is self-evident without further
discussion. But the manner in which wit brings about gratification is
connected with special conditions from which we may perhaps gain further
information. Here two cases must be differentiated. The simpler case is the
one in which the gratification of the tendency is opposed by an external
hindrance which is eluded by the wit. This process we found, for example,
in the reply which Serenissimus received to his query whether the mother of
the stranger he addressed had ever sojourned in his home, and likewise in
the question of the art critic who asked: “And where is the Savior?” when
the two rich rogues showed him their portraits. In one case the tendency
serves to answer one insult with another; in the other case it offers an
affront instead of the demanded expert opinion; in both cases the tendency
was opposed by purely external factors, namely, the powerful position of
the persons who are the targets of the insult. Nevertheless it may seem
strange to us that these and analogous tendency-witticisms have not the

power to produce a strong laughing effect, no matter how much they may
gratify us.
It is different, however, if no external factors but internal hindrances
stand in the way of the direct realization of the tendency, that is, if an inner
feeling opposes the tendency. This condition, according to our assumption,
was present in the aggressive joke of Mr. N. (p. 28) and in the one of
Wendell Phillips, in whom a strong inclination to use invectives was stifled
by a highly developed æsthetic sense. With the aid of wit the inner
resistances in these special cases were overcome and the inhibition
removed. As in the case of external hindrances, the gratification of the
tendency is made possible, and a suppression with its concomitant “psychic
damming” is thus obviated. So far the mechanism of the development of
pleasure would seem to be identical in both cases.
At this place, however, we are inclined to feel that we should enter more
deeply into the differentiation of the psychological situation between the
cases of external and internal hindrance, as we have a faint notion that the
removal of the inner hindrance might possibly result in a disproportionately
higher contribution to pleasure. But I propose that we rest content here, that
we be satisfied for the present with this one collection of evidence which
adheres to what is essential to us. The only difference between the cases of
outer and inner hindrances consists in the fact that here an already existing
inhibition is removed, while there the formation of a new inhibition is
avoided. We hardly resort to speculation when we assert that a “psychic
expenditure” is required for the formation as well as for the retention of a
psychic inhibition. Now if we find that in both cases the use of the
tendency-wit produces pleasure, then it may be assumed that such resultant
pleasure corresponds to the economy of psychic expenditure.
Thus we are once more confronted with the principle of economy which
we noticed first in the study of the technique of word-wit. But whereas the
economy we believed to have found at first was in the use of few or
possibly the same words, we can here foresee an economy of psychic
expenditure in general in a far more comprehensive sense, and we think it
possible to come nearer to the nature of wit through a better determination
of the as yet very obscure idea of “psychic expenditure.”
A certain amount of haziness which we could not dissipate during the
study of the pleasure mechanism in tendency-wit we accept as a slight

punishment for attempting to elucidate more complicated problem before
the simpler one, or the tendency-wit before the harmless wit. We observe
that “economy in the expenditure of inhibitions or suppressions” seems to
be the secret of the pleasurable effect of tendency-wit, and we now turn to
the mechanism of the pleasure in harmless wit.
While examining appropriate examples of harmless witticisms, in which
we had no fear of false judgment through content or tendency, we were
forced to the conclusion that the techniques of with themselves are
pleasure-sources; now we wish to ascertain whether the pleasure may be
traced to the economy in psychic expenditure. In a group of these witticisms
(plays on words) the technique consisted in directing the psychic focus
upon the sound instead of upon the sense of the word, and in allowing the
(acoustic) word-disguise to take the place of the meaning accorded to it by
its relations to reality. We are really justified in assuming that great relief is
thereby afforded to the psychic work, and that in the serious use of words
we refrain from this convenient procedure only at the expense of a certain
amount of exertion. We can observe that abnormal mental states, in which
the possibility of concentrating psychic expenditure on one place is
probably restricted, actually allow to come to the foreground word-sound
associations of this kind rather than the significance of the words, and that
such patients react in their speech with “outer” instead of “inner”
associations. Also in children who are still accustomed to treat the word as
an object we notice the inclination to look for the same meaning in words of
the same or of similar sounds, which is a source of great amusement to
adults. If we experience in wit an unmistakable pleasure because through
the use of the same or similar words we reach from one set of ideas to a
distant other one, (as in “Home-Roulard” from the kitchen to politics), we
can justly refer this pleasure to the economy of psychic expenditure. The
pleasure of the wit resulting from such a “short-circuit” appears greater the
more remote and foreign the two series of ideas which become related
through the same word are to each other, or the greater the economy in
thought brought about by the technical means of wit. We may add that in
this case wit makes use of a means of connection which is rejected by and
carefully avoided in serious thinking.[45]
A second group of technical means of wit—unification, similar sounding
words, manifold application, modification of familiar idioms, allusions to
quotations—all evince one common character, namely, that one always

discovers something familiar where one expects to find something new
instead. To discover the familiar is pleasurable and it is not difficult to
recognize such pleasure as economy-pleasure and to refer it to the economy
of psychic expenditure.
That the discovery of the familiar—“recognition”—causes pleasure
seems to be universally admitted. Groos says:[46] “Recognition is
everywhere bound up with feelings of pleasure where it has not been made
too mechanical, (as perhaps in dressing...). Even the mere quality of
acquaintanceship is easily accompanied by that gentle delight which Faust
experiences when, after an uncanny experience, he steps into his study.” If
the act of recognition is so pleasureful, we may expect that man merges into
the habit of practicing this activity for its own sake, that is, he experiments
playfully with it. In fact, Aristotle recognized in the joy of rediscovery the
basis of artistic pleasure, and it cannot be denied that this principle must not
be overlooked even if it has not such a far-reaching significance as Aristotle
assumes.
Groos then discusses the games, whose character consists of heightening
the pleasure of rediscovery by putting hindrances in its path, or in other
words by raising a “psychic dam” which is removed by the act of
recognition. However, his attempted explanation leaves the assumption that
recognition as such is pleasurable, in that he attributes the pleasure of
recognition connected with these games to the pleasure in power or to the
surmounting of a difficulty. I consider this latter factor as secondary, and I
find no occasion for abandoning the simpler explanation, that the
recognition per se, i.e., through the alleviation of the psychic expenditure, is
pleasurable, and that the games founded upon this pleasure make use of the
damming-mechanism merely in order to intensify their effect.
We know also that the source of pleasure in rhyme, alliteration, refrain,
and other forms of repetition of similar sounding words in poetry, is due
merely to the discovery of the familiar. A “sense of power” plays no
perceptible rôle in these techniques, which show so marked an agreement
with the “manifold application” in wit.
Considering the close connection between recognition and remembering,
the assumption is no longer daring that there exists also a pleasure in
remembering, i.e., that the act of remembering in itself is accompanied by a
feeling of pleasure of a similar origin. Groos seems to have no objection to

such an assumption, but he again deducts the pleasure of remembering from
the “sense of power” in which he seeks—as I believe unjustly—the
principal basis of pleasure in almost all games.

The Factor of Actuality

The use of another technical expedient of wit, which has not yet been
mentioned, is also dependent upon “the rediscovery of the familiar.” I refer
to the factor of actuality (dealing with actual persons, things, or events),
which in many witticisms provides a prolific source of pleasure and
explains several peculiarities in the life history of wit. There are witticisms
which are entirely free from this condition, and in a treatise on wit it is
incumbent upon us to make use of such examples almost exclusively. But
we must not forget that we laughed perhaps more heartily over such
perennial witticisms than over others; witticisms whose application now
would be difficult, because they would require long commentaries, and
even with that aid the former effect could not be attained. These latter
witticisms contained allusions to persons and occurrences which were
“actual” at the time, which had stimulated general interest and were
endowed with tension. After the cessation of this interest, after the
settlement of these particular affairs, the witticisms lost a part of their
pleasurable effect, and a very considerable. Thus, for example, the joke
which my friendly host made when he called the dish that was being served
a “Home-Roulard,” seems to me by no means as good now as when the
question of Home Rule was a continuous headline in the political columns
of our newspaper. If I now attempt to express my appreciation of this joke
by stating that this one word led us from the idea of the kitchen to the
distant field of politics, and saved us a long mental detour, I should have
been forced at that time to change this description as follows: “That this
word led us from the idea of the kitchen to the very distant field of politics;
but that our lively interest was all the keener because this question was
constantly absorbing us.” The same thing is true of another joke: “This girl
reminds me of Dreyfus; the army does not believe in her innocence,” which
has become blurred in spite of the fact that its technical means has remained
unchanged. The confusion arising from the comparison with, and the double
meaning of, the word “innocence” cannot do away with the fact that the

allusion, which at that time touched upon a matter pregnant with
excitement, now recalls an interest set at rest. The many irresistible jokes
about the present war will sink in our estimation in a very short time.
A great many witticisms in circulation reach a certain age or rather go
through a course composed of a flourishing season and a mature season,
and then sink into complete oblivion. The need that people feel to draw
pleasure from their mental processes continually creates new witticisms
which are supported by current interests of the day. The vitality of actual
witticisms is not their own, it is borrowed by way of allusion from those
other interests, the expiration of which determines the fate of the witticism.
The factor of actuality which may be added as a transitory pleasure-source
of wit, although it is productive in itself, cannot be simply put on the same
basis as the rediscovery of the familiar. It is much more a question of a
special qualification of the familiar which must be aided by the quality of
freshness and recency and which has not been affected by forgetfulness. In
the formation of the dream one also finds that there is a special preference
for what is recent, and one cannot refrain from inferring that the association
with what is recent is rewarded or facilitated by a special pleasure premium.
Unification, which is really nothing more than repetition in the sphere of
mental association instead of in material, has been accorded an especial
recognition as a pleasure-source of wit by G. Th. Fechner.[47] He says: “In
my opinion the principle of uniform connection of the manifold, plays the
most important rôle in the field under discussion; it needs, however, the
support of subsidiary determinations in order to drive across the threshold
the pleasure with its peculiar character which the cases here belonging can
furnish.”[48]
In all of these cases of repetition of the same association or of the same
word-material, of refinding the familiar and recent, we surely cannot be
prevented from referring the pleasure thereby experienced to the economy
in psychic expenditure; providing that this viewpoint proves fertile for the
explanation of single facts as well as for bringing to light new generalities.
We are fully conscious of the fact that we have yet to make clear the
manner in which this economy results and also the meaning of the
expression “psychic expenditure.”
The third group of the technique of wit, mostly thought-wit, which
includes false logic, displacement, absurdity, representation through the

opposite, and other varieties, may seem at first sight to present special
features and to be unrelated to the techniques of the discovery of the
familiar, or the replacing of object-associations by word-associations. But it
will not be difficult to demonstrate that this group, too, shows an economy
or facilitation of psychic expenditure.
It is quite obvious that it is easier and more convenient to turn away from
a definite trend of thought than to stick to it; it is easier to mix up different
things than to distinguish them; and it is particularly easier to travel over
modes of reasoning unsanctioned by logic; finally in connecting words or
thoughts it is especially easy to overlook the fact that such connections
should result in sense. All this is indubitable and this is exactly what is done
by the techniques of the wit in question. It will sound strange, however, to
assert that such processes in the wit-work may produce pleasure, since
outside of wit we can experience only unpleasant feelings of defense
against all these kinds of inferior achievement of our mental activity.

Word-pleasure and Pleasure in Nonsense

The “pleasure in nonsense,” as we may call it for short, is, in the
seriousness of our life, crowded back almost to the vanishing point. To
demonstrate it we must enter into the study of two cases in one of which it
is still visible and in the other becomes visible for the second time. I refer to
the behavior of the learning child and to the behavior of the adult under
unstable toxic influences. When the child learns to control the vocabulary of
its mother tongue it apparently takes great pleasure in “experimenting
playfully” with that material (Groos); it connects words without regard for
their meaning in order to obtain pleasure from the rhyme and rhythm.
Gradually the child is deprived of this pleasure until only the senseful
connection of words is allowed him. But even in later life there is still a
tendency to overstep the acquired restrictions in the use of words, a
tendency which manifests itself in disfiguring the same by definite
appendages, and in changing their forms by means of certain contrivances
(reduplication, trembling speech) or even by developing an individual
language for use in playing,—efforts which reappear also among the insane
of a certain category.

I believe that whatever the motive which actuated the child when it began
such playings, in its further development the child indulges in them fully
conscious that they are nonsensical and derives pleasure from this stimulus
which is interdicted by reason. It now makes use of play in order to
withdraw from the pressure of critical reason. More powerful, however, are
the restrictions which must develop in education along the lines of right
thinking and in the separation of reality from fiction, and it is for this reason
that the resistance against the pressures of thinking and reality is far-
reaching and persistent; even the phenomena of phantasy formation come
under this point of view. The power of reason usually grows so strong
during the later part of childhood and during that period of education which
extends over the age of puberty, that the pleasure in “freed nonsense” rarely
dares manifest itself. One fears to utter nonsense; but it seems to me that the
inclination characteristic of boys to act in a contradictory and inexpedient
manner is a direct outcome of this pleasure in nonsense. In pathological
cases one often sees this tendency so accentuated that it again controls the
speeches and answers of the pupils. In the case of some college students
who merged into neuroses I could convince myself that the unconscious
pleasure derived from the nonsense produced by them is just as much
responsible for their mistakes as their actual ignorance.

Reproduction of Old Liberties

The student does not give up his demonstrations against the pressures of
thinking and reality whose domination becomes unceasingly intolerant and
unrestricted. A good part of the tendency of students to skylarking is
responsible for this reaction. Man is an “untiring pleasure seeker”—I can no
longer recall which author coined this happy expression—and finds it
extremely difficult to renounce pleasure once experienced. With the
hilarious nonsense of “sprees” (Bierschwefel), college cries, and songs, the
student attempts to preserve that pleasure which results from freedom of
thought, a freedom of which he is more and more deprived through
scholastic discipline. Even much later, when as a mature man he meets with
others at scientific congresses and class reunions and feels himself a student
again, he must read at the end of the session the “Kneipzeitung,” or the
comic college paper, which distorts the newly gained knowledge into the

nonsensical and thus compensates him for the newly added mental
inhibitions.
The very terms “Bierschwefel” and “Kneipzeitung” are proof that the
reason which has stifled the pleasure in nonsense has become so powerful
that not even temporarily can it be abandoned without toxic agency. The
change in the state of mind is the most valuable thing that alcohol offers
man, and that is the reason why this “poison” is not equally indispensable
for all people. The hilarious humor, whether due to endogenous origin or
whether produced toxically, weakens the inhibiting forces among which is
reason and thus again makes accessible pleasure-sources which are
burdened by suppression. It is very instructive to see how the demand made
upon wit sinks with the rise in spirits. The latter actually replace wit, just as
wit must make an effort to replace the mental state in which the otherwise
inhibited pleasure possibilities (pleasure in nonsense among the rest) assert
themselves.
“With little wit and much comfort.”
Under the influence of alcohol the adult again becomes a child who
derives pleasure from the free disposal of his mental stream without being
restricted by the pressure of logic.
We hope we have shown that the technique of absurdity in wit
corresponds to a source of pleasure. We need hardly repeat that this pleasure
results from the economy of psychic expenditure or alleviation from the
pressure of reason.
On reviewing again the wit-technique classified under three headings we
notice that the first and last of these groups—the replacement of object-
association by word-association, and the use of absurdity as a restorer of old
liberties and as a relief from the pressure of intellectual upbringing—can be
taken collectively. Psychic relief may in a way be compared to economy,
which constitutes the technique of the second group. Alleviation of the
already existing psychic expenditure, and economy in the yet to be offered
psychic expenditure, are two principles from which all techniques of wit
and with them all pleasure in these techniques can be deduced. The two
forms of the technique and the resultant pleasures correspond more or less
in general to the division of wit into word- and thought-witticisms.

Play and Jest

The preceding discussions have led us unexpectedly to an understanding
of the history of the development of psychogenesis of wit which we shall
now examine still further. We have become acquainted with the successive
steps in wit, the development of which up to tendency-wit will undoubtedly
reveal new relationships between the different characters of wit. Antedating
wit there exists something which we may designate as “play” or “jest.” Play
—we shall retain this name—appears in children while they are learning
how to use words and connect thoughts; this playing is probably the result
of an impulse which urges the child to exercise its capacities (Groos).
During this process it experiences pleasurable effects which originate from
the repetition of similarities, the rediscovery of the familiar, sound-
associations, etc., which may be explained as an unexpected economy of
psychic expenditure. Therefore it surprises no one that these resulting
pleasures urge the child to practice playing and impel it to continue without
regard for the meaning of words or the connections between sentences.
Playing with words and thoughts, motivated by certain pleasures in
economy, would thus be the first step of wit.
This playing is stopped by the growing strength of a factor which may
well be called criticism or reason. The play is then rejected as senseless or
as directly absurd, and by virtue of reason it becomes impossible. Only
accidentally is it now possible to derive pleasure from those sources of
rediscovery of the familiar, etc., which is explained by the fact that the
maturing person has then merged into a playful mood which, as in the case
of merriment in the child, removes inhibitions. In this way only is the old
pleasure-giving playing made possible, but as men do not wish to wait for
these propitious occasions and also hate to forego this pleasure, they seek
means to make themselves independent of these pleasant states. The further
development of wit is directed by these two impulses; the one striving to
elude reason and the other to substitute for the adult an infantile state of
mind.
This gives rise to the second stage of wit, the jest (Scherz). The object of
the jest is to bring about the resultant pleasure of playing and at the same
time appease the protesting reason which strives to suppress the pleasant
feeling. There is but one way to accomplish this. The senseless combination

of words or the absurd linking of thoughts must make sense after all. The
whole process of wit production is therefore directed towards the discovery
of words and thought constellations which fulfill these conditions. The jest
makes use of almost all the technical means of wit, and usage of language
makes no consequential distinction between jest (Scherz) and wit (Witz).
What distinguishes the jest from wit is the fact that the pith of the sentence
withdrawn from criticism does not need to be valuable, new, or even good;
it matters only that it can be expressed, even though what it may say is
obsolete, superfluous, and useless. The most conspicuous factor of the jest
is the gratification it affords by making possible that which reason forbids.
A mere jest is the following of Professor Kästner, who taught physics at
Göttingen in the 16th century, and who was fond of making jokes. Wishing
to enroll a student named Warr in his class, he asked him his age, and upon
receiving the reply that he was thirty years of age he exclaimed: “Aha, so I
have the honor of seeing the thirty years’ War.”[49] When asked what
vocations his sons followed Rokitansky jestingly answered: “Two are
healing and two are howling,” (two physicians and two singers). The reply
was correct and therefore unimpeachable, but it added nothing to what is
contained in the parenthetic expression. There is no doubt that the answer
assumed another form only because of the pleasure which arises from the
unification and assonance of both words.
I believe that we now see our way clear. In estimating the techniques of
wit we were constantly disturbed by the fact that these are not peculiar to
wit alone, and yet the nature of wit seemed to depend upon them, since their
removal by means of reduction nullified the character as well as the
pleasure of wit. Now we become aware that what we have described as
techniques of wit—and which in a certain sense we shall have to continue
to call so—are really the sources from which wit derives pleasure; nor does
it strike us as strange that other processes draw from the same sources with
the same object in view. The technique, however, which is peculiar to and
belongs to wit alone consists in a process of safeguarding the use of this
pleasure-forming means against the protest of reason which would obviate
the pleasure. We can make few generalizations about this process. The wit-
work, as we have already remarked, expresses itself in the selection of such
word-material and such thought-situations as to permit the old play with
words and thoughts to stand the test of reason; but to accomplish this end
the cleverest use must be made of all the peculiarities of the stock of words

and of all constellations of mental combinations. Later on perhaps we shall
be in a position to characterize the wit-work by a definite attribute; for the
present it must remain unexplained how our wit makes its advantageous
selections. The tendency and capacity of wit to guard the pleasure-forming
word and thought combinations against reason, already makes itself visible
as an essential criterion in jests. From the beginning its object is to remove
inner inhibitions and thereby render productive those pleasure-sources
which have become inaccessible, and we shall find that it remains true to
this characteristic throughout the course of its entire development.
We are now in a position to prescribe a correct place for the factor “sense
in nonsense,” (see Introduction, page 8), to which the authors ascribe so
much significance in respect to the recognition of wit and the explanation of
the pleasurable effect. The two firmly established points in the
determination of wit—its tendency to carry through the pleasureful play,
and its effort to guard it against the criticism of reason—make it perfectly
clear why the individual witticism, even though it appear nonsensical from
one point of view, must appear full of meaning or at least acceptable from
another. How it accomplishes this is the business of the wit-work; if it is not
successful it is relegated to the category of “nonsense.” Nor do we find it
necessary to deduce the resultant pleasure of wit from the conflict of
feelings which emerge either directly or by way of “confusion and
clearness,” from the simultaneous sense and nonsense of the wit. There is
just as little necessity for our delving deeper into the question how pleasure
can come from the succession of that part of the wit considered senseless
and from that part recognized as senseful. The psychogenesis of wit has
taught us that the pleasure of wit arises from word-play or from the
liberation of nonsense, and that the sense of wit is meant only to guard this
pleasure against suppression through reason.

Jest and Wit

Thus the problem of the essential character of wit could almost be
explained by means of the jest. We may follow the development of the jest
until it reaches its height in the tendency-wit. The jest gives tendency a
prior position when it is a question of supplying us with pleasure, and it is
content when its utterance does not appear utterly senseless or insipid. But

if this utterance is substantial and valuable the jest changes into wit. A
thought, which would have been worthy of our interest even when
expressed in the most unpretentious form, is now invested in a form which
must in itself excite our sense of satisfaction. Such an association we cannot
help thinking certainly has not come into existence unintentionally; we
must make effort to divine the intention at the bottom of the formation of
wit. An incidental observation, made once before, will put us on the right
track. We have already remarked that a good witticism gives us, so to speak,
a general feeling of satisfaction without our being able to decide offhand
which part of the pleasure comes from the witty form and which part from
the excellent thought contained in the context (p. 131). We are deceiving
ourselves constantly about this division; sometimes we overvalue the
quality of the wit on account of our admiration for the thought contained
therein, and then again we overestimate the value of the thought on account
of the pleasure afforded us by the witty investment. We know not what
gives us pleasure nor at what we are laughing. This uncertainty of our
judgment, assuming it to be a fact, may have given the motive for the
formation of wit in the literal sense. The thought seeks the witty disguise
because it thereby recommends itself to our attention and can thus appear to
us more important and valuable than it really is; but above all because this
disguise fascinates and confuses our reason. We are apt to attribute to the
thought the pleasure derived from the witty form, and we are not inclined to
consider improper what has given us pleasure, and in this way deprive
ourselves of a source of pleasure. For if wit made us laugh it was because it
established in us a mood most unfavorable to reason, which in turn has
forced upon us that state of mind which was once contented with mere
playing and which wit has attempted to replace with all the means at its
command. Although we have already established the fact that such wit is
harmless and does not yet show a tendency, we may not deny that, strictly
speaking, it is the jest alone which shows no tendency; that is, it serves to
produce pleasure only. For wit is really never purposeless even if the
thought contained therein shows no tendency and merely serves a
theoretical, intellectual interest. Wit carries out its purpose in advancing the
thought by magnifying it and by guarding it against reason. Here again it
reveals its original nature in that it sets itself up against an inhibiting and
restrictive power, or against the critical judgment.

The first use of wit, which goes beyond the mere production of pleasure,
points out the road to be followed. Wit is now recognized as a powerful
psychic factor whose weight can decide the issue if it falls into this or that
side of the scale. The great tendencies and impulses of our psychic life
enlist its service for their own purposes. The original purposeless wit, which
began as play, becomes related in a secondary manner to tendencies from
which nothing that is formed in psychic life can escape for any length of
time. We already know what it can achieve in the service of the
exhibitionistic, aggressive, cynical, and sceptical tendencies. In the case of
obscene wit, which originated in the smutty joke, it makes a confederate of
the third person who originally disturbed the sexual situation, by giving him
pleasure through the utterance which causes the woman to be ashamed in
his presence. In the case of the aggressive tendency, wit by the same means
changes the original indifferent hearers into active haters and scorners, and
in this way confronts the enemy with a host of opponents where formerly
there was but one. In the first case it overcomes the inhibitions of shame
and decorum by the pleasure premium which it offers. In the second case it
overthrows the critical judgment which would otherwise have examined the
dispute in question. In the third and fourth cases where wit is in the service
of the cynical and sceptical tendency, it shatters the respect for institutions
and truths in which the hearer had believed, first by strengthening the
argument, and secondly by resorting to a new method of attack. Where the
argument seeks to draw the hearer’s reason to its side, wit strives to push
aside this reason. There is no doubt that wit has chosen the way which is
psychologically more efficacious.

The Development into Tendency-wit

What impressed us in reviewing the achievements of tendency-wit was
the effect it produced on the hearer. It is more important, however, to
understand the effect produced by wit on the psychic life of the person who
makes it, or more precisely expressed, on the psychic life of the person who
conceives it. Once before we have expressed the intention, which we find
occasion to repeat here, that we wish to study the psychic processes of wit
in regard to its apportionment between two persons. We can assume for the
present that the psychic process aroused by wit in the hearer is usually an

imitation of the psychic processes of the wit producer. The outer inhibitions
which are to be overcome in the hearer correspond to the inner inhibitions
of the wit producer. In the latter the expectation of the outer hindrance
exists, at least as an inhibiting idea. The inner hindrance, which is overcome
in tendency-wit, is evident in some single cases; for example, in Mr. N.’s
joke (p. 28) we can assume that it not only enables the hearer to enjoy the
pleasure of the aggression through injuries but it also makes it possible for
him to produce the wit in the first place. Of the different kinds of inner
inhibitions or suppressions one is especially worthy of our interest because
it is the most far-reaching. We designate that form by the term “repression.”
It is characterized by the fact that it excludes from consciousness certain
former emotions and their products. We shall learn that tendency-wit itself
is capable of liberating pleasure from sources that have undergone
repression. If the overcoming of outer hindrances can be referred, in the
manner indicated above, to inner inhibitions and repressions we may say
that tendency-wit proves more clearly than any other developmental stage
of wit that the main character of wit-making is to set free pleasure by
removing inhibitions. It reinforces tendencies to which it gives its services
by bringing them assistance from repressed emotions; or it puts itself at the
disposal of the repressed tendencies directly.
One may readily concede that these are the functions of tendency-wit, but
one must nevertheless admit that we do not understand in what manner
these functions can succeed in accomplishing their end. The power of
tendency-wit consists in the pleasure which it derives from the sources of
word-plays and liberated nonsense, and if one can judge from the
impressions received from purposeless jests, one cannot possibly consider
the amount of the pleasure so great as to believe that it has the power to
annul deep-rooted inhibitions and repressions. As a matter of fact we do not
deal here with a simple propelling power but rather with a more
complicated mechanism. Instead of covering the long circuitous route
through which I arrived at an understanding of this relationship, I shall
endeavor to demonstrate it by a short synthetic route.
G. Th. Fechner has established the principle of æsthetic assistance or
enhancement which he explains in the following words: “From the
unopposed meeting of pleasurable states (Bedingungen) which individually
accomplish little, there results a greater, often much greater resultant
pleasure than is warranted by the sum of the pleasure values of the separate

states, or a greater result than could be accounted for as the sum of the
individual effects; in fact the mere meeting of this kind can result in a
positive pleasure product which overflows the threshold of pleasure when
the factors taken separately are too weak to accomplish this. The only
condition is that in comparison to others they must produce a greater sense
of satisfaction.”[50] I am of the opinion that the theme of wit does not give us
the opportunity to test the correctness of this principle which is
demonstrable in many other artistic fields. But from wit we have learned
something, which at least comes near this principle, namely, that in a co-
operation of many pleasure-producing factors we are in no position to
assign to each one the resultant part which really belongs to it (see p. 131).
But the situation assumed in the principle of assistance can be varied, and
for these new conditions we can formulate the following combination of
questions which are worthy of a reply. What usually happens if in one
constellation there is a meeting of pleasurable and painful conditions? Upon
what depends the result and the previous intimations of the result?
Tendency-wit particularly shows these possibilities. There is one feeling or
impulse which strives to liberate pleasure from a certain source and under
unrestricted conditions certainly would liberate it, but there is another
impulse which works against this development of pleasure, that is, which
inhibits or suppresses it. The suppressing stream, as the result shows, must
be somewhat stronger than the one suppressed, which however is by no
means destroyed.

The Fore-pleasure Principle

But now there appears another impulse which strives to set free pleasure
by this identical process, even though from different sources it thus acts like
the suppressed stream. What can be the result in such a case? An example
can make this clearer than this schematization. There is an impulse to insult
a certain person; but this is so strongly opposed by a feeling of decorum and
æsthetic culture that the impulse to insult must be crushed. If, for example,
by virtue of some changed emotional state the insult should happen to break
through, this insulting tendency would subsequently be painfully perceived.
Therefore the insult is omitted. There is a possibility, however, of making
good wit from the words or thoughts which would have served in the insult;

that is, pleasure can be set free from other sources without being hindered
by the same suppression. But the second development of pleasure would
have to be foregone if the insulting quality of the wit were not allowed to
come out, and as the latter is allowed to come to the surface, it is connected
with the new release of pleasure. Experience with tendency-wit shows that
under such circumstances the suppressed tendency can become so
strengthened by the aid of wit-pleasure as to overcome the otherwise
stronger inhibition. One resorts to insults because wit is thereby made
impossible. But the satisfaction thus obtained is not produced by wit alone;
it is incomparably greater, in fact it is by so much greater than the pleasure
of the wit, that we must assume that the former suppressed tendency has
succeeded in breaking through, perhaps without the need of an outlet.
Under these circumstances tendency-wit causes the most prolific laughter.
Perhaps the investigation of the determinations of laughter will aid us in
forming a clearer picture of the process of the aid of wit against
suppression. But we see even now that the case of tendency-wit is a special
case of the principle of aid. A possibility of the development of pleasure
enters into a situation in which another pleasure possibility is so hindered
that individually it would not result in pleasure. The result is a development
of pleasure which is greater by far than the added possibility. The latter
acted, as it were, as an alluring premium; with the aid of a small sum of
pleasure a very large and almost inaccessible amount is obtained. I have
good grounds for thinking that this principle corresponds to an arrangement
which holds true in many widely separated spheres of the psychic life, and I
consider it appropriate to designate the pleasure serving to liberate the large
sum of pleasure as fore-pleasure and the principle as the principle of fore-
pleasure.

Play-pleasure and Removal-pleasure

The effect of tendency-wit may now be formulated as follows: It enters
the service of tendencies in order to produce new pleasure by removing
suppressions and repressions. This it does, using wit-pleasure as fore-
pleasure. When we now review its development we may say that wit has
remained true to its nature from beginning to end. It begins as play in order
to obtain pleasure from the free use of words and thoughts. As soon as the

growing reason forbids this senseless play with words and thoughts, it turns
to the jest or joke in order to hold to these sources of pleasure and in order
to be able to gain new pleasure from the liberation of the absurd. In the rôle
of harmless wit it assists the thoughts and fortifies them against the
impugnment of the critical judgment, whereby it makes use of the principle
of intermingling the pleasure-sources. Finally, it enters into the great
struggling suppressed tendencies in order to remove inner inhibitions in
accordance with the principle of fore-pleasure. Reason, critical judgment,
and suppression, these are the forces which it combats in turn. It firmly
holds on to the original word-pleasure-sources, and beginning with the
stage of the jest opens for itself new pleasure-sources by removing
inhibition. The pleasure which it produces, be it play-pleasure or removal-
pleasure, can at all times be traced to the economy of psychic expenditure,
in so far as such a conception does not contradict the nature of pleasure, and
proves itself productive also in other fields.[51]

V
THE MOTIVES OF WIT AND WIT AS A SOCIAL PROCESS

It seems superfluous to speak of the motives of wit, since the purpose of
obtaining pleasure must be recognized as a sufficient motive of the wit-
work. But on the one hand it is not impossible that still other motives
participate in the production of wit, and on the other hand, in view of
certain well-known experiences, the theme of the subjective determination
of wit must be discussed.
Two things above all urge us to it. Though wit-making is an excellent
means of obtaining pleasure from the psychic processes, we know that not
all persons are equally able to make use of it. Wit-making is not at the
disposal of all, in general there are but a few persons to whom one can point
and say that they are witty. Here wit seems to be a special ability
somewhere within the region of the old “psychic faculties,” and this shows
itself in its appearance as fairly independent of the other faculties such as
intelligence, phantasy, memory, etc. A special talent or psychic
determination permitting or favoring wit-making must be presupposed in all
wit-makers.
I am afraid that we shall not get very far in the exploration of this theme.
Only now and then do we succeed in proceeding from the understanding of
a single witticism to the knowledge of the subjective determinations in the
mind of the wit-maker. It is quite accidental that the example of wit with
which we began our investigation of the wit-technique permits us also to
gain some insight into the subjective determination of the witticism. I am
referring to Heine’s witticism, to which also Heymans and Lipps have paid
attention.
“I was sitting next to Solomon Rothschild and he treated me just as an
equal, quite famillionaire” (“Bäder von Lucca”).

Subjective Determination of the “Famillionaire” Witticism

Heine put this word in the mouth of a comical person, Hirsch-Hyacinth,
collector, operator and tax appraiser from Hamburg, and valet of the
aristocratic baron, Cristoforo Gumpelino (formerly Gumpel). Evidently the
poet has experienced great pleasure in these productions, for he allows
Hirsch-Hyacinth to talk big and puts in his mouth the most amusing and
most candid utterances; he positively endows him with the practical
wisdom of a Sancho Panza. It is a pity that Heine, as it seems, had no liking
for this dramatic figure and that he drops the delightful character so soon.
From many passages it would seem that the poet himself is speaking behind
the transparent mask of Hirsch-Hyacinth, and we are quite convinced that
this person is nothing but a parody of the poet himself. Hirsch tells of
reasons why he has discarded his former name and now calls himself
Hyacinth. “Besides I have the advantage,” he continues, “of having an H on
my seal already, and therefore I am in no need of having a new letter
engraved.” But Heine himself resorted to this economy when he changed
his surname “Harry” to “Heinrich” at his baptism. Every one acquainted
with the life of the poet will recall that in Hamburg, where one also meets
the personage Hirsch-Hyacinth, Heine had an uncle of the same name, who
played the greatest rôle in Heine’s life as the wealthy member of the family.
The uncle’s name was likewise Solomon, just like the elderly Rothschild
who treated the impecunious Hirsch on such a famillionaire basis. What
seems to be merely a jest in the mouth of Hirsch-Hyacinth soon reveals a
background of earnest bitterness when we attribute it to the nephew Harry-
Heinrich. For he belonged to the family, nay, more, it was his earnest wish
to marry a daughter of this uncle, but she refused him, and his uncle always
treated him on a somewhat famillionaire basis, as a poor relative. His rich
relatives in Hamburg always dealt with him condescendingly. I recall the
story of one of his old aunts by marriage who, when she was still young and
pretty, sat next to some one at a family dinner who seemed to her
unprepossessing and whom the other members of the family treated
shabbily. She did not feel herself called upon to be any more condescending
towards him. Only many years later did she discover that the careless and
neglected cousin was the poet Heinrich Heine. We know from many a
record how keenly Heine suffered from these repulses at the hands of his
wealthy relatives in his youth and during later years. The witticism
“famillionaire” grew out of the soil of such a subjective emotional feeling.

One may suspect similar subjective determinations in many other
witticisms of the great scoffers, but I know of no other example by which
one can show this in such a convincing way. It is therefore hazardous to
venture a more definite opinion about the nature of this personal
determination. Furthermore, one is not inclined in the first place to claim
similar complicated conditions for the origin of each and every witticism.
Neither are the witty productions of other celebrated men better suited to
give us the desired insight into the subjective determination of wit. In fact,
one gets the impression that the subjective determination of wit production
is oftentimes not unrelated to persons suffering from neurotic diseases,
when, for example, one learns that Lichtenberg was a confirmed
hypochondriac burdened with all kinds of eccentricities. The great majority
of witticisms, especially those produced from current happenings, are
anonymous; one might be inquisitive to know what kind of people they are
who originate them. The physician occasionally has an opportunity to make
a study of persons who, if not renowned wits, are recognized in their circle
as witty and as originators of many passable witticisms; he is often
surprised to find such persons showing dissociated personalities and a
predisposition to nervous affections. However, owing to insufficient data,
we certainly cannot maintain that such a psychoneurotic constitution is a
regular or necessary subjective condition for wit-making.
A clearer case is afforded by Jewish witticisms which, as before
mentioned, are made exclusively by Jews themselves, whereas Jewish
stories of different origin rarely rise above the level of the comical strain or
of brutal mockery (p. 166). The determination for the self-participation
here, as in Heine’s joke “famillionaire,” seems to be due to the fact that the
person finds it difficult to express directly his criticism or aggression and is
thus compelled to resort to by-ways.
Other subjective determinations or favorable conditions for wit-making
are less shrouded in darkness. The motive for the production of harmless
wit is usually the ambitious impulse to display one’s spirit or to “show off.”
It is an impulse comparable to the impulse toward sexual exhibition. The
existence of numerous inhibited impulses whose suppression retains some
weakness produces a state favorable for the production of tendency-wit.
Thus certain single components of the sexual constitution may appear as
motives for wit-formation. A whole series of obscene witticisms lead one to
the conclusion that a person who gives origin to such wit conceals a desire

to exhibit. Persons having a powerful sadistical component in their
sexuality, which is more or less inhibited in life, are most successful with
the tendency-wit of aggression.

The Impulse to Impart Wit

The second fact which impels one to examine the subjective
determination of wit is the common experience that nobody is satisfied with
making wit for himself. Wit-making is inseparably connected with the
desire to impart it; in fact this impulse is so strong that it is often realized
after overcoming strong objections. In the comic, too, one experiences
pleasure by imparting it to another person; but this is not imperative; one
can enjoy the comic alone when one happens on it. Wit, on the other hand,
must be imparted. Apparently the process of wit-formation does not end
with the conception of wit. There remains something which strives to
complete the mysterious process of wit-formation by imparting it.
We cannot conjecture, in the first place, what may have motivated the
impulse to impart wit. But in wit we notice another peculiarity which again
distinguishes it from the comic. If I encounter the latter I can laugh heartily
over it alone; I am naturally pleased if by imparting it to some one else I
make him laugh too. In the case of wit, however, which occurs to me or
which I have made, I cannot laugh over it in spite of the unmistakable
feeling of pleasure which I experience in the witticism. It is possible that
my need to impart the witticism to another is in some way connected with
the resultant laughter, which is manifest in the other, but denied to me.
But why do I not laugh over my own joke? And what rôle does the other
person play in it?
Let us consider the last query first. In the comic usually two persons
come into consideration. Besides my own ego there is another person in
whom I find something comic; if objects appear comical to me, it takes
place by means of a sort of personification which is not uncommon in our
notional life. The comic process is satisfied with these two persons, the ego
and the object person; there may also be a third person, but it is not
obligatory. Wit as a play with one’s own words and thoughts at first
dispenses with an object person, but already, upon the first step of the jest, it
demands another person to whom it can impart its result, if it has succeeded

in safeguarding play and nonsense against the remonstrance of reason. The
second person in wit does not, however, correspond to the object person,
but to the third person who is the other person in the comic. It seems that in
the jest the decision as to whether wit has fulfilled its task is transferred to
the other person, as if the ego were not quite certain of its opinion in the
matter. The harmless wit is also in need of the other person’s support in
order to ascertain whether it has accomplished its purpose. If wit enters the
service of sexual or hostile tendencies, it can be described as a psychic
process among three persons, just as in the comic, with the exception that
there the third person plays a different rôle. The psychic process of wit is
consummated here between the first person—the ego, and the third person
—the stranger, and not, as in the comic, between the ego and the object
person.
Also, in the case of the third person of wit, the wit is confronted with
subjective determinations which can make the goal of the pleasure-stimulus
unattainable. As Shakespeare says in Love’s Labor’s Lost (Act V, Scene 2):
“A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.”

He whose thoughts run in sober channels is incompetent to declare
whether or not the jest is a good one. He himself must be in a jovial, or at
least indifferent, state of mind in order to become the third person of the
jest. The same hindrance is present in the case of both harmless and
tendency-wit; but in the latter the antagonism to the tendency which wishes
to serve wit, appears as a new hindrance. The readiness to laugh about an
excellent smutty joke cannot manifest itself if the exposure concerns an
honored kinsman of the third person. In an assemblage of divines and
pastors no one would dare to refer to Heine’s comparison of Catholic and
Protestant priests as retail dealers and employees of a wholesale business.
In the presence of my opponent’s friends the wittiest invectives with which
I might assail him would not be considered witticisms but invectives, and in
the minds of my hearers it would create not pleasure, but indignation. A
certain amount of willingness or a certain indifference, the absence of all
factors which might evoke strong feelings in opposition to the tendency, are
absolute conditions for the participation of the third person in the
completion of the wit-process.

The Third Person of the Witticism

Wherever such hindrances to the operation of wit fail, we see the
phenomenon which we are now investigating, namely, that the pleasure
which the wit has provided manifests itself more clearly in the third person
than in the originator of the wit. We must be satisfied to use the expression
“more clearly” where we should be inclined to ask whether the pleasure of
the hearer is not more intensive than that of the wit producer, because we
are obviously lacking the means of measuring and comparing it. We see,
however, that the hearer shows his pleasure by means of explosive laughter
after the first person, in most cases with a serious expression on his face,
has related the joke. If I repeat a witticism which I have heard, I am forced,
in order not to spoil its effect, to conduct myself during its recital exactly
like him who made it. We may now put the question whether from this
determination of laughter over wit we can draw conclusions concerning the
psychic process of wit-formation.
Now it cannot be our intention to take into consideration everything that
has been asserted and printed about the nature of laughter. We are deterred
from this undertaking by the statement which Dugas, one of Ribot’s pupils,
put at the beginning of his book Psychologie du rire (1902). “Il n’est pas de
fait plus banal et plus étudié que le rire, il n’en est pas qui ait eu le don
d’exciter davantage la curiosité du vulgaire et celle des philosophes, il n’ent
est pas sur lequel on ait recueilli plus d’observations et bâti plus de théories,
et avec cela il n’en est pas qui demeure plus inexpliqué, on serait tenté de
dire avec les sceptiques qu’il faut être content de rire et de ne pas chercher à
savoir pourquoi on rit, d’autant que peut-être le réflexion tue le rire, et qu’il
serait alors contradictoire qu’elle en découvrit les causes” (page 1).
On the other hand, we must make sure to utilize for our purposes a view
of the mechanism of laughter which fits our own realm of thought
excellently. I refer to the attempted explanation of H. Spencer in his essay
entitled Physiology of Laughter.[52]
According to Spencer laughter is a phenomenon of discharge of psychic
irritation, and an evidence of the fact that the psychic utilization of this
irritation has suddenly met with a hindrance. The psychological situation,
which discharges itself in laughter, he describes in the following words:
“Laughter naturally results only when consciousness is unawares

transferred from great things to small—only when there is what we call a
descending incongruity.”[53]
In an almost analogous sense the French authors (Dugas) designate
laughter as a “détente,” a manifestation of release of tension, and A. Bain’s
theory, “Laughter a relief from restraint,” seems to me to approach
Spencer’s conceptions nearer than many authors would have us believe.
However, we experience the desire to modify Spencer’s thought; to give
a more definite meaning to some of the ideas and to change others. We
would say that laughter arises when the sum total of psychic energy,
formerly used for the occupation of certain psychic channels, has become
unutilizable so that it can experience absolute discharge. We know what
criticism such a declaration invites, but for our defense we dare cite a
pertinent quotation from Lipps’s treatise on Komik und Humor, an analysis
which throws light on other problems besides the comic and humor. He
says: “In the end individual psychological problems always lead us fairly
deeply into psychology, so that fundamentally no psychological problem
may be considered by itself” (p. 71). The terms “psychic energy,”
“discharge,” and the treatment of psychic energy as a quantity have become
habitual modes of thinking since I began to explain to myself the fact of
psychopathology philosophically. Being of the same opinion as Lipps I
have essayed to represent in my Interpretation of Dreams the unconscious
psychic processes as real entities, and I have not represented the conscious
contents as the “real psychic activity.”[54] Only when I speak about the
“investing energy (Besetzung) of psychic channels,” do I seem to deviate
from the analogies that Lipps uses. The knowledge that I have gained about
the fact that psychic energy can be displaced from one idea to another along
certain association channels, and about the almost indestructible
conservation of the traces of psychic processes, have actually made it
possible for me to attempt such a representation of the unknown. In order to
obviate the possibility of a misunderstanding I must add that I am making
no attempt to proclaim that cells and fibers, or the neuron system in vogue
nowadays, represent these psychic paths, even if such paths would have to
be represented by the organic elements of the nervous system in a manner
which cannot yet be indicated.

Laughter as a Discharge

Thus, according to our assumption, the conditions for laughter are such
that a sum of psychic energy hitherto employed in the occupation of some
paths may experience free discharge. And since not all laughter, (but surely
the laughter of wit), is a sign of pleasure, we shall be inclined to refer this
pleasure to the release of previously existing static energy
(Besetzungsenergie). When we see that the hearer of the witticism laughs,
while the creator of the same cannot, then that must indicate that in the
hearer a sum of damming energy has been released and discharged, whereas
during the wit-formation, either in the release or in the discharge,
inhibitions resulted. One can characterize the psychic process in the hearer,
in the third person of the witticism, hardly more pointedly than by asserting
that he has bought the pleasure of the witticism with very little expenditure
on his part. One might say that it is presented to him. The words of the
witticism which he hears necessarily produce in him that idea or thought-
connection whose formation in him was also resisted by great inner
hindrances. He would have had to make an effort of his own in order to
bring it about spontaneously like the first person, or he would have had to
put forth at least as much psychic expenditure as to equalize the force of the
suppression or repression of the inhibition. This psychic expenditure he has
saved himself; according to our former discussion (p. 80) we should say
that his pleasure corresponds to this economy. Following our understanding
of the mechanism of laughter we should be more likely to say that the static
energy utilized in the inhibition has now suddenly become superfluous and
neutralized because a forbidden idea came into existence on the way to
auditory perception and is therefore ready to be discharged through
laughter. Essentially both statements amount to the same thing, for the
economized expenditure corresponds exactly to the now superfluous
inhibition. The latter statement is more obvious, for it permits us to say that
the hearer of the witticism laughs with the amount of psychic energy which
was liberated by the suspension of inhibition energy; that is, he laughs
away, as it were, this amount of psychic energy.

Why the First Person Does Not Laugh

If the person in whom the witticism is formed cannot laugh, then it
indicates, as we have just remarked, that there is a deviation from the

process in the case of the third person which concerns either the suspension
of the inhibition energy or the discharge possibility of the same. But the
first of the two cases is inconclusive, as we must presently see. The
inhibition energy of the first person must have been dissipated, for
otherwise there would have been no witticism, the formation of which had
to overcome just such a resistance. Otherwise, too, it would have been
impossible for the first person to experience the wit-pleasure which the
removal of the inhibition forced us to deduce. But there remains a second
possibility, namely, that even though he experienced pleasure the first
person cannot laugh, because the possibility of discharge has been
disturbed. In the production of laughter such discharge is essential; an
interruption in the possibility of discharge might result from the attachment
of the freed occupation energy to some immediate endopsychic possibility.
It is well that we have become cognizant of this possibility; we shall soon
pay more attention to it. But with the wit-maker still another condition
leading to the same result is possible. Perhaps, after all, no appreciable
amount of energy has been liberated, in spite of the successful release of
occupation energy. In the first person of the witticism wit-work actually
takes place which must correspond to a certain amount of fresh psychic
expenditure. Thus the first person contributes the power which removes the
inhibitions and which surely results in a gain of pleasure for himself; in the
case of tendency-wit it is indeed a very big gain, since the fore-pleasure
gained from the wit-work takes upon itself the further removal of
inhibitions. But the expenditure of the wit-work is, in every case, derived
from the gain which is the result of the removal of inhibitions; it is the same
expenditure which escapes from the hearer of the witticism. To confirm
what was said above it may be added that the witticism loses its laughter
effect in the third person as soon as an expenditure of mental work is
exacted of him. The allusions of the witticism must be striking, and the
omissions easily supplemented; with the awakening of conscious interest in
thinking, the effect of the witticism is regularly made impossible. Here lies
the real distinction between the witticism and the riddle. It may be that the
psychic constellations during wit-work are not at all favorable to the free
discharge of the energy gained. We are not here in a position to gain a
deeper understanding; our inquiry as to why the third person laughs we
have been able to clear up better than the question why the first person does
not laugh.

At any rate, if we have well in mind these views about the conditions of
laughter and about the psychic process in the third person, we have arrived
at a place where we can satisfactorily elucidate an entire series of
peculiarities which are familiar in wit, but which have not been understood.
Before an amount of interlocked energy, capable of discharge, is to be
liberated in the third person, there are several conditions which must be
fulfilled or which at least are desirable. 1. It must be definitely established
that the third person really produces this expenditure of energy. 2. Care
must be taken that when the latter becomes freed that it should find another
psychic use instead of offering itself to the motor discharge. 3. It can be of
advantage only if the energy to be liberated in the third person is first
strengthened and heightened. Certain processes of wit-work which we can
gather together under the caption of secondary or auxiliary techniques serve
all these purposes.
The first of these conditions determines one of the qualifications of the
third person as hearer of the witticism. He must throughout be so
completely in psychic harmony with the first person that he makes use of
the same inner inhibitions which the wit-work has overcome in the first
person. Whoever is focused on smutty jokes will not be able to derive
pleasure from clever exhibitionistic wit. Mr. N.’s aggressions will not be
understood by uncultured people who are wont to give free rein to their
pleasure gained by insulting others. Every witticism thus demands its own
public, and to laugh over the same witticisms is a proof of absolute psychic
agreement. We have indeed arrived at a point where we are at liberty to
examine even more thoroughly the process in the third person’s mind. The
latter must be able habitually to produce the same inhibition which the joke
has surmounted in the first person, so that, as soon as he hears the joke,
there awakens within him compulsively and automatically a readiness for
this inhibition. This readiness for the inhibition, which I must conceive as a
true expenditure analogous to the mobilization of an army, is
simultaneously recognized as superfluous or as belated, and is thus
immediately discharged in its nascent state through the channel of laughter.
[55]

The second condition for the production of the free discharge, a cutting
off of any other outlets for the liberated energy, seems to me of far greater
importance. It furnishes the theoretical explanation for the uncertainty of
the effect of wit; if the thoughts expressed in the witticism evoke very

exciting ideas in the hearer, (depending on the agreement or antagonism
between the wit’s tendencies and the train of thought dominating the
hearer), the witty process either receives or is refused attention. Of still
greater theoretical interest, however, are a series of auxiliary wit-techniques
which obviously serve the purpose of diverting the attention of the listeners
from the wit-process so as to allow the latter to proceed automatically. I
advisedly use the term “automatically” rather than “unconsciously” because
the latter designation might prove misleading. It is only a question of
keeping the psychic process from getting more than its share of attention
during the recital of the witticism, and the usefulness of these auxiliary
techniques permits us to assume rightfully that it is just the occupation of
attention which has a large share in the control and in the fresh utilization of
the freed energy of occupation.

The Automatism of the Wit-process

It seems to be by no means easy to avoid the endopsychic utilization of
energy that has become superfluous, for in our mental processes we are
constantly in the habit of transferring such emotional outputs from one path
to another without losing any of their energy through discharge. Wit
prevents this in the following way. In the first place it strives for the shortest
possible expression in order to expose less points of attack to the attention.
Secondly, it strictly adheres to the condition that it be easily understood (v.
s.), for as soon as it has recourse to mental effort or demands a choice
between different mental paths, it imperils the effect not only through the
unavoidable mental expenditure, but also through the awakening of
attention. Besides this, wit also makes use of the artifice of diverting the
attention by offering to it something in the expression of the witticism
which fascinates it so that meanwhile the liberation of inhibition energy and
its discharge can take place undisturbed. The omissions in the wording of
wit already carry out this intention. They impel us to fill in the gaps and in
this way they keep the wit-process free from attention. The technique of the
riddle, as it were, which attracts attention is here pressed into the service of
the wit-work. The façade formations, which we have already discovered in
many groups of tendency-wit, are still more effective (see p. 155). The
syllogistical façades excellently fulfill the purpose of riveting the attention

by an allotted task. While we begin to ponder wherein the given answer was
lacking already we are laughing; our attention has been surprised, and the
discharge of the liberated emotional inhibition has been effected. The same
is true of witticisms possessing a comic façade in which the comic serves to
assist the wit-technique. A comic façade promotes the effect of wit in more
than one way; it makes possible not only the automatism of the wit-process
by riveting the attention, but also it facilitates the discharge of wit by
sending ahead a discharge from the comic. Here the effect of the comic
resembles that of a fascinating fore-pleasure, and we can thus understand
that many witticisms are able to dispense entirely the fore-pleasures
produced by other means of wit, and make use of only the comic as a fore-
pleasure. Among the true techniques of wit it is especially displacement and
representation through absurdity which, besides other properties, also
develop the deviation of attention so desirable for the automatic discharge
of the wit-process.[56]
We already surmise, and later will be able to see more clearly, that in this
condition of deviation of attention we have disclosed no unessential
characteristic of the psychic process in the hearer of wit. In conjunction
with this, we can understand something more. First, how it happens that we
rarely ever know in a joke why we are laughing, although by analytical
investigation we can determine the cause. This laughing is the result of an
automatic process which was first made possible by keeping our conscious
attention at a distance. Secondly, we arrive at an understanding of that
characteristic of wit as a result of which wit can exert its full effect on the
hearer only when it is new and when it comes to him as a surprise. This
property of wit, which causes wit to be short-lived and forever urges the
production of new wit, is evidently due to the fact that it is inherent in the
surprising or the unexpected to succeed but once. When we repeat wit the
awakened memory leads the attention to the first hearing. This also explains
the desire to impart wit to others who have not heard it before, for the
impression made by wit on the new hearer replenishes that part of the
pleasure which has been lost by the lack of novelty. And an analogous
motive probably urges the wit producer to impart his wit to others.

Elements Favoring the Wit-process

As elements favoring the wit-process, even if we can no longer consider
them essentials, I present in the third place three technical aids to wit-work
which are destined to increase the sums of energy to be discharged and thus
enhance the effect of the wit. These technical aids also very often
accentuate the attention directed to the wit, but they neutralize its influence
by simultaneously fascinating it and impeding its movements. Everything
that provokes interest and confusion exerts its influence in these two
directions. This is especially true of the nonsense and contrast elements, and
above all the “contrast of ideas,” which some authors consider the essential
character of wit, but in which I see only a means to reinforce the effect of
wit. All that is confusing evokes in the hearer that condition of distribution
of energy which Lipps has designated as “psychic damming”; and,
doubtless, he has a right to assume that the force of the “discharge” varies
with the success of the damming process which precedes it. Lipps’s
exposition does not explicitly refer to wit, but to the comic in general, yet it
seems quite probable that the discharge in wit, releasing a gush of inhibition
energy, is brought to its height in a similar manner by means of the
damming.
At length we are aware that the technique of wit is really determined by
two kinds of tendencies, those which make possible the formation of wit in
the first person, and those guaranteeing that the witticism produces in the
third person as much pleasurable effect as possible. The Janus-like double-
facedness of wit, which safeguards its original resultant pleasure against the
impugnment of critical reason, belongs to the first tendency together with
the mechanism of fore-pleasure; the other complications of technique
produced by the conditions discussed in this chapter concern the third
person of the witticism. Thus wit in itself is a double-tongued villain which
serves two masters at the same time. Everything that aims toward gaining
pleasure is calculated by the witticism to arouse the third person, as if inner,
unsurmountable inhibitions in the first person were in the way of the same.
Thus one gets the full impression of the absolute necessity of this third
person for the completion of the wit-process. But while we have succeeded
in obtaining a good insight concerning the nature of this process in the third
person, we feel that the corresponding process in the first person is still
shrouded in darkness. So far we have not succeeded in answering the first
of our two questions: Why can we not laugh over wit made by ourselves?
and: Why are we urged to impart our own witticisms to others? We can only

suspect that there is an intimate connection between the two facts yet to be
explained, and that we must impart our witticisms to others for the reason
that we ourselves are unable to laugh over them. From our examinations of
the conditions in the third person for pleasure gaining and pleasure
discharging we can draw the conclusion that in the first person the
conditions for discharge are lacking and that those for gaining pleasure are
only incompletely fulfilled. Thus it is not to be disputed that we enhance
our pleasure in that we attain the—to us impossible—laughter in this
roundabout way from the impression of the person who was stimulated to
laughter. Thus we laugh, so to speak, par ricochet, as Dugas expresses it.
Laughter belongs to those manifestations of psychic states which are highly
infectious; if I make some one else laugh by imparting my wit to him, I am
really using him as a tool in order to arouse my own laughter. One can
really notice that the person who at first recites the witticism with a serious
mien later joins the hearer with a moderate amount of laughter. Imparting
my witticisms to others may thus serve several purposes. First, it serves to
give me the objective certainty of the success of the wit-work; secondly, it
serves to enhance my own pleasure through the reaction of the hearer upon
myself; thirdly, in the case of repeating a not original joke, it serves to
remedy the loss of pleasure due to the lack of novelty.

Economy and Full Expenditure

At the end of these discussions about the psychic processes of wit, in so
far as they are enacted between two persons, we can glance back to the
factor of economy which impressed us as an important item in the
psychological conception of wit since we offered the first explanation of
wit-technique. Long ago we dismissed the nearest but also the simplest
conception of this economy, where it was a matter of avoiding psychic
expenditure in general by a maximum restriction in the use of words and by
the production of associations of ideas. We had then already asserted that
brevity and laconisms are not witty in themselves. The brevity of wit is a
peculiar one; it has to be a “witty” brevity. The original pleasure gain
produced by playing with words and thoughts resulted, to be sure, from
simple economy in expenditure, but with the development of play into wit
the tendency to economize also had to shift its goals, for whatever might be

saved by the use of the same words or by avoiding new thought connections
would surely be of no account when compared to the colossal expenditure
of our mental activity. We may be permitted to make a comparison between
the psychic economy and a business enterprise. So long as the latter’s
transactions are very small, good policy demands that expenses be kept low
and that the costs of operation be minimized as much as possible. The
economy still follows the absolute height of the expenditure. Later on when
the volume of business has increased, the importance of the business
expenses dwindles; increases in the expenditure totals matter little so long
as the transactions and returns can be sufficiently increased. Keeping down
running expenses would be parsimonious; in fact, it would mean a direct
loss. Nevertheless it would be equally false to assume that with a very great
expenditure there would be no more room for saving. The manager inclined
to economize would now make an effort to save on particular things and
would feel satisfied if the same establishment, with its costly upkeep, could
reduce its expenses at all, no matter how small the saving would seem in
comparison to the entire expenditure. In quite an analogous manner the
detailed economy in our complicated psychic affairs remains a source of
pleasure, as may be shown by everyday occurrences. Whoever used to have
a gas lamp in his room, but now uses electric light, will experience for a
long time a definite feeling of pleasure when he presses the electric light
button; this pleasure continues as long as at that moment he remembers the
complicated arrangements necessary to light the gas lamp. Similarly the
economy of expenditure in psychic inhibition brought about by wit—small
though it may be in comparison to the sum total of psychic expenditure—
will remain a source of pleasure for us, because we thereby save a particular
expenditure which we were wont to make and which as before we were
ready to make. That the expenditure is expected and prepared for is a factor
which stands unmistakably in the foreground.
A localized economy, as the one just considered, will not fail to give us
momentary pleasure, but it will not bring about a lasting alleviation so long
as what has been saved here can be utilized in another place. Only when
this disposal into a different path can be avoided, will the special economy
be transformed into a general alleviation of the psychic expenditures. Thus,
with clearer insight into the psychic processes of wit, we see that the factor
of alleviation takes the place of economy. Obviously the former gives us the
greater feeling of pleasure. The process in the first person of the witticism

produces pleasure by removing inhibitions and by diminishing local
expenditure; it does not, however, seem to come to rest until it succeeds
through the intervention of the third person in attaining general relief
through discharge.

C. THEORETICAL PART

VI.
THE RELATION OF WIT TO DREAMS AND TO THE UNCONSCIOUS

At the end of the chapter which dealt with the elucidation of the
technique of wit (p. 125) we asserted that the processes of condensation
with and without substitutive formation, displacement, representation
through absurdity, representation through the opposite, indirect
representation, etc., all of which we found participated in the formation of
wit, evinced a far-reaching agreement with the processes of “dream-work.”
We promised, at that time, first to examine more carefully these similarities,
and secondly, so far as such indications point to search for what is common
to both wit and dreams. The discussion of this comparison would be much
easier for us if we could assume that one of the subjects to be compared—
the “dream-work”—were well known. But we shall probably do better not
to take this assumption for granted. I received the impression that my book
The Interpretation of Dreams created more “confusion” than
“enlightenment” among my colleagues, and I know that the wider reading
circles have contented themselves to reduce the contents of the book to a
catchword, “Wish fulfillment”—a term easily remembered and easily
abused.
However, in my continued occupation with the problems considered
therein, for the study of which my practice as a psychotherapeutist affords
me much opportunity, I found nothing that would impel me to change or
improve on my ideas; I can therefore peacefully wait until the reader’s
comprehension has risen to my level, or until an intelligent critic has
pointed out to me the basic faults in my conception. For the purposes of
comparison with wit, I shall briefly review the most important features of
dreams and dream-work.
We know dreams by the recollection which usually seems fragmentary
and which occurs upon awakening. It is then a structure made up mostly of
visual or other sensory impressions, which represents to us a deceptive
picture of an experience, and may be mingled with mental processes (the

“knowledge” in the dream) and emotional manifestations. What we thus
remember as a dream I call “the manifest dream-content.” The latter is often
altogether absurd and confused, at other times it is merely one part or
another that is so affected. But even if it be entirely coherent, as in the case
of some anxiety dreams, it stands out in our psychic life as something
strange, for the origin of which one cannot account. Until recently the
explanation for these peculiarities of the dream has been sought in the
dream itself in that it was considered roughly speaking an indication of a
muddled, dissociated, and “sleepy” activity of the nervous elements.
As opposed to this view I have shown that the excessively peculiar
“manifest” dream-content can regularly be made comprehensible, and that
it is a disfigured and changed transcription of certain correct psychic
formations which deserve the name of “latent dream-thoughts.” One gains
an understanding of the latter by resolving the manifest dream-content into
its component parts without regard for its apparent meaning, and then by
following up the threads of associations which emanate from each one of
the now isolated elements. These become interwoven and in the end lead to
a structure of thoughts, which is not only entirely accurate, but also fits
easily into the familiar associations of our psychic processes. During this
“analysis” the dream-content loses all of the peculiarities so strange to us;
but if the analysis is to be successful, we must firmly cast aside the critical
objections which incessantly arise against the reproduction of the individual
associations.

The Dream-work

From the comparison of the remembered manifest dream-content with
the latent dream-thoughts thus discovered there arises the conception of
“dream-work.” The entire sum of the transforming processes which have
changed the latent dream-thought into the manifest dream is called the
dream-work. The astonishment which formerly the dream evoked in us is
now perceived to be due to the dream-work.
The function of the dream-work may be described in the following
manner. A structure of thoughts, mostly very complicated, which has been
built up during the day and not brought to settlement—a day remnant—
clings firmly even during night to the energy which it had assumed—the

underlying center of interest—and thus threatens to disturb sleep. This day
remnant is transformed into a dream by the dream-work and in this way
rendered harmless to sleep. But in order to make possible its employment
by the dream-work, this day remnant must be capable of being cast into the
form of a wish, a condition that is not difficult to fulfill. The wish
emanating from the dream-thoughts forms the first step and later on the
nucleus of the dream. Experience gained from analyses—not the theory of
the dream—teaches us that with children a fond wish left from the waking
state suffices to evoke a dream, which is coherent and senseful, but almost
always short, and easily recognizable as a “wish fulfillment.” In the case of
adults the universally valid condition for the dream-creating wish seems to
be that the latter should appear foreign to conscious thinking, that is, it
should be a repressed wish, or that it should supply consciousness with
reinforcement from unknown sources. Without the assumption of the
unconscious activity in the sense used above, I should be at a loss to
develop further the theory of dreams and to explain the material gleaned
from experience in dream-analyses. The action of this unconscious wish
upon the logical conscious material of dream-thoughts now results in the
dream. The latter is thereby drawn down into the unconscious, as it were, or
to speak more precisely, it is exposed to a treatment which usually takes
place at the level of unconscious mental activity, and which is characteristic
of this mental level. Only from the results of the “dream-work” have we
thus far learned to know the qualities of this unconscious mental activity
and its differentiation from the “foreconscious” which is capable of
consciousness.

The Unconscious

A novel and difficult theory that runs counter to our habitual modes of
thinking can hardly gain in lucidity by a condensed exposition. I can
therefore accomplish little more in this discussion than refer the reader to
the detailed treatment of the unconscious in my Interpretation of Dreams,
and also to Lipps’s work, which I consider most important. I am aware that
he who is under the spell of a good old philosophical training, or stands
aloof from a so-called philosophical system, will oppose the assumption of
the “unconscious psychic processes” in Lipps’s sense and in mine and will

desire to prove the impossibility of it preferably by means of definitions of
the term psychic. But definitions are conventional and changeable. I have
often found that persons who dispute the unconscious on the grounds of its
absurdity or impossibility have not received their impressions from those
sources from which I, at least, have found it necessary to draw, in order to
become aware of its existence. These opponents had never witnessed the
effect of a posthypnotic suggestion, and they were immensely surprised at
the evidence I imparted to them gleaned from my analysis of unhypnotized
neurotics. They had never gained the conception of the unconscious as
something which one does not really know, while cogent proofs force one
to supplement this idea by saying that one understands by the unconscious
something capable of consciousness, something concerning which one has
not thought and which is not in the field of vision of consciousness. Nor had
they attempted to convince themselves of the existence of such unconscious
thoughts in their own psychic life by means of an analysis of one of their
own dreams, and when I attempted this with them, they could perceive their
own mental occurrences only with astonishment and confusion. I have also
gotten the impression that these are essentially affective resistances which
stand in the way of the acceptation of the “unconscious,” and that they are
based on the fact that no one is desirous of becoming acquainted with his
unconscious, and it is most convenient to deny altogether its possibility.

Condensation and Displacement in the Dream-work

The dream-work, to which I return after this digression, subjects the
thought material uttered in the optative mood to a very peculiar elaboration.
First of all it proceeds from the optative to the indicative mood; it
substitutes “it is” for “would it were!” This “it is” is destined to become part
of an hallucinatory representation which I have called the “regression” of
the dream-work. This regression represents the path from the mental images
to the sensory perceptions of the same, or if one chooses to speak with
reference to the still unfamiliar—not to be understood anatomically—topic
of the psychic apparatus, it is the region of the thought-formation to the
region of the sensory perception. Along this road which runs in an opposite
direction to the course of development of psychic complications the dream-
thoughts gain in clearness; a plastic situation finally results as a nucleus of

the manifest “dream picture.” In order to arrive at such a sensory
representation the dream-thoughts have had to experience tangible changes
in their expression. But while the thoughts are changed back into mental
images they are subjected to still greater changes, some of which are easily
conceivable as necessary, while others are surprising. As a necessary
secondary result of the regression one understands that nearly all
relationships within the thoughts which have organized the same are lost to
the manifest dream. The dream-work takes over, as it were, only the raw
material of the ideas for representation, and not the thought-relations which
held each other in check; or at least it reserves the freedom of leaving the
latter out of the question. On the other hand, there is a certain part of the
dream-work which cannot be traced to the regression or to the recasting into
mental images; it is just that part which is significant to us for the analogy
to wit-formation. The material of the dream-thoughts experiences an
extraordinary compression or condensation during the dream-work. The
starting-points of this condensation are those points which are common to
two or more dream-thoughts because they naturally pertain to both or
because they are inevitable consequences of the contents of two or more
dream-thoughts, and since these points do not regularly suffice for a prolific
condensation new artificial and fleeting common points come into
existence, and for this purpose preferably words are used which combine
different meanings in their sounds. The newly framed common points of
condensation enter as representatives of the dream-thoughts into the
manifest dream-content, so that an element of the dream corresponds to a
point of junction or intersection of the dream-thoughts, and with regard to
the latter it must in general be called “overdetermined.” The process of
condensation is that part of the dream-work which is most easily
recognizable; it suffices to compare the recorded wording of a dream with
the written dream-thoughts gained by means of analysis, in order to get a
good impression of the productiveness of dream condensation.
It is not easy to convince one’s self of the second great change that takes
place in the dream-thoughts through the agency of the dream-work. I refer
to that process which I have called the dream displacement. It manifests
itself by the fact that what occupies the center of the manifest dream and is
endowed with vivid sensory intensity has occupied a peripheral and
secondary position in the dream-thoughts, and vice versa. This process
causes the dream to appear out of proportion when compared with the

dream-thoughts, and it is because of this displacement that it seems strange
and incomprehensible to the waking state. In order that such a displacement
should occur it must be possible for the occupation energy to pass
uninhibited from important to insignificant ideas,—a process which in
normal conscious thinking can only give the impression of “faulty
thinking.”
Transformation into expressive activity, condensation, and displacement
are the three great functions which we can ascribe to the dream-work. A
fourth, to which too little attention was given in The Interpretation of
Dreams, does not come into consideration here for our purpose. In a
consistent elucidation of the ideas dealing with the “topic of the psychic
apparatus” and “regression,” which alone can lend value to these working
hypotheses, an effort would have to be made to determine at what stages of
regression the various transformations of the dream-thoughts occur. As yet
no serious effort has been made in this direction, but at least we can speak
definitely about displacement when we say that it must arise in the thought
material while the latter is in the level of the unconscious processes. One
will probably have to think of condensation as a process that extends over
the entire course up to the outposts of the perceptive region; but in general
it suffices to assume that there is a simultaneous activity of all the forces
which participate in the formation of dreams. In view of the reserve which
one must naturally exercise in the treatment of such problems, and in
consideration of the inability to discuss here the main objections to these
problems, I should like to trust somewhat to the assertion that the process of
the dream-work which prepares the dream is situated in the region of the
unconscious. Roughly speaking, one can distinguish three general stages in
the formation of the dream; first, the transference of the conscious day
remnants into the unconscious, a transference in which the conditions of the
sleeping state must co-operate; secondly, the actual dream-work in the
unconscious; and thirdly, the regression of the elaborated dream material to
the region of perception, whereby the dream becomes conscious.
The forces participating in the dream-formation may be recognized as the
following: the wish to sleep; the sum of occupation energy which still clings
to the day remnants after the depression brought about by the state of sleep;
the psychic energy of the unconscious wish forming the dream; and the
opposing force of the “censor,” which exercises its authority in our waking
state, and is not entirely abolished during sleep. The task of dream-

formation is, above all, to overcome the inhibition of the censor, and it is
just this task that is fulfilled by the displacement of the psychic energy
within the material of the dream-thoughts.

The Formula for Wit-work

Now we recall what caused us to think of the dream while investigating
wit. We found that the character and activity of wit were bound up in certain
forms of expression and technical means, among which the various forms
of condensation, displacement, and indirect representation were the most
conspicuous. But the processes which led to the same results—
condensation, displacement, and indirect expression—we learned to know
as peculiarities of dream-work. Does not this analogy almost force us to the
conclusion that wit-work and dream-work must be identical at least in one
essential point? I believe that the dream-work lies revealed before us in its
most important characters, but in wit we find obscured just that portion of
the psychic processes which we may compare with the dream-work,
namely, the process of wit-formation in the first person. Shall we not yield
to the temptation to construct this process according to the analogy of
dream-formation? Some of the characteristics of dreams are so foreign to
wit that that part of the dream-work corresponding to them cannot be
carried over to the wit-formation. The regression of the stream of thought to
perception certainly falls away as far as wit is concerned. However, the
other two stages of dream-formation, the sinking of a foreconscious[57]
thought into the unconscious, and the unconscious elaboration, would give
us exactly the result which we might observe in wit if we assumed this
process in wit-formation. Let us decide to assume that this is the proceeding
of wit-formation in the case of the first person. A foreconscious thought is
left for a moment to unconscious elaboration and the results are forthwith
grasped by the conscious perception.
Before, however, we attempt to prove the details of this assertion we
wish to consider an objection which may jeopardize our assumption. We
start with the fact that the techniques of wit point to the same processes
which become known to us as peculiarities of dream-work. Now it is an
easy matter to say in opposition that we would not have described the
techniques of wit as condensation, displacement, etc., nor would we have

arrived at such a comprehensive agreement in the means of representation
of wit and dreams, if our previous knowledge of dream-work had not
influenced our conception of the technique of wit; so that at the bottom we
find that wit confirms only those tentative theories which we brought to it
from our study of dreams. Such a genesis of agreement would be no certain
guarantee of its stability beyond our preconceived judgment. No other
author has thought of considering condensation, displacement, and indirect
expression as active factors of wit. This might be a possible objection, but
nevertheless it would not be justified. It might just as well be said that in
order to recognize the real agreement between dreams and wit our ordinary
knowledge must be augmented by a specialized knowledge of dream-work.
However, the decision will really depend only upon the question whether
the examining critic can prove that such a conception of the technique of
wit in the individual examples is forced, and that other nearer and farther-
reaching interpretations have been suppressed in favor of mine; or whether
the critic will have to admit that the tentative theories derived from the
study of dreams can be really confirmed through wit. My opinion is that we
have nothing to fear from such a critic and that our processes of reduction
have confidently pointed out in which forms of expression we must search
for the techniques of wit. That we designated these techniques by names
which previously anticipated the result of the agreement between the
technique of wit and the dream-work was our just prerogative, and really
nothing more than an easily justified simplification.
There is still another objection which would not be vital, but which could
not be so completely refuted. One might think that the techniques of wit
that fit in so well considering the ends we have in view deserve recognition,
but that they do not represent all possible techniques of wit or even all those
in use. Also that we have selected only the techniques of wit which were
influenced by and would suit the pattern of the dream-work, whereas others
ignored by us would have demonstrated that such an agreement was not
common to all cases. I really do not trust myself to make the assertion that I
have succeeded in explaining all the current witticisms with reference to
their techniques, and I therefore admit the possibility that my enumeration
of wit-techniques may show many gaps. But I have not purposely excluded
from my discussion any form of technique that was clear to me, and I can
affirm that the most frequent, the most essential, and the most characteristic
technical means of wit have not eluded my attention.

Wit as an Inspiration

Wit possesses still another character which entirely corresponds to our
conception of the wit-work as originally discovered in our study of dreams.
It is true that it is common to hear one say “I made a joke,” but one feels
that one behaves differently during this process than when one pronounces
a judgment or offers an objection. Wit shows in a most pronounced manner
the character of an involuntary “inspiration” or a sudden flash of thought. A
moment before one cannot tell what kind of joke one is going to make,
though it lacks only the words to clothe it. One usually experiences
something indefinable which I should like most to compare to an absence,
or sudden drop of intellectual tension; then all of a sudden the witticism
appears, usually simultaneously with its verbal investment. Some of the
means of wit are also utilized in the expression of thought along other lines,
as in the cases of comparison and allusion. I can purposely will to make an
allusion. In doing this I have first in mind (in the inner hearing) the direct
expression of my thought, but as I am inhibited from expressing the same
through some objection from the situation in question, I almost resolve to
substitute the direct expression by a form of indirect expression, and then I
utter it in the form of an allusion. But the allusion that comes into existence
in this manner having been formed under my continuous control is never
witty, no matter how useful it may be. On the other hand, the witty allusion
appears without my having been able to follow up these preparatory stages
in my mind. I do not wish to attribute too much value to this procedure, it is
scarcely decisive, but it does agree well with our assumption that in wit-
formation a stream of thought is dropped for a moment and suddenly
emerges from the unconscious as a witticism.
Witticisms also evince a peculiar behavior along the lines of association
of ideas. Frequently they are not at the disposal of our memory when we
look for them; on the other hand, they often appear unsolicited and at places
in our train of thought where we cannot understand their presence. Again,
these are only minor qualities, but none the less they point to their
unconscious origin.
Let us now collect the properties of wit whose formation can be referred
to the unconscious. Above all there is the peculiar brevity of wit which,
though not an indispensable, is a marked and distinctive characteristic

feature. When we first encountered it we were inclined to see in it an
expression of a tendency to economize, but owing to very evident
objections we ourselves depreciated the value of this conception. At present
we look upon it more as a sign of the unconscious elaboration which the
thought of wit has undergone. The process of condensation which
corresponds to it in dreams we can correlate with no other factor than with
the localization in the unconscious, and we must assume that the conditions
for such condensations which are lacking in the foreconscious are present in
the unconscious mental process.[58] It is to be expected that in the process of
condensation some of the elements subjected to it become lost, while others
which take over their occupation energy are strengthened by the
condensation or are built up too energetically. The brevity of wit, like the
brevity of dreams, would thus be a necessary concomitant manifestation of
the condensation which occurs in both cases; both times it is a result of the
condensation process. The brevity of wit is indebted also to this origin for
its peculiar character which though not further assignable produces a
striking impression.

The Unconscious and the Infantile

We have defined above the one result of condensation—the manifold
application of the same material, play upon words, and similarity of sound
—as a localized economy, and have also referred the pleasure produced by
harmless wit to that economy. At a later place we have found that the
original purpose of wit consisted in producing this kind of pleasure from
words, a process which was permitted to the individual during the stage of
playing, but which became banked in during the course of intellectual
development or by rational criticism. Now we have decided upon the
assumption that such condensations as serve the technique of wit originate
automatically and without any particular purpose during the process of
thinking in the unconscious. Have we not here two different conceptions of
the same fact which seem to be incompatible with each other? I do not think
so. To be sure, there are two different conceptions, and they demand to be
brought in unison, but they do not contradict each other. They are merely
somewhat strange to each other, and as soon as we have established a
relationship between them we shall probably gain in knowledge. That such

condensations are sources of pleasure is in perfect accord with the
supposition that they easily find in the unconscious the conditions necessary
for their origin; on the other hand, we see the motivation for the sinking into
the unconscious in the circumstance that the pleasure-bringing condensation
necessary to wit easily results there. Two other factors also, which upon
first examination seem entirely foreign to each other and which are brought
together quite accidentally, will be recognized on deeper investigation as
intimately connected, and perhaps may be found to be substantially the
same. I am referring to the two assertions that on the one hand wit could
form such pleasure-bringing condensations during its development in the
stage of playing, that is, during the infancy of reason; and, on the other
hand, that it accomplishes the same function on higher levels by
submerging the thought into the unconscious. For the infantile is the source
of the unconscious. The unconscious mental processes are no others than
those which are solely produced during infancy. The thought which sinks
into the unconscious for the purpose of wit-formation only revisits there the
old homestead of the former playing with words. The thought is put back
for a moment into the infantile state in order to regain in this way childish
pleasure-sources. If, indeed, one were not already acquainted with it from
the investigation of the psychology of the neuroses, wit would surely
impress one with the idea that the peculiar unconscious elaboration is
nothing else but the infantile type of the mental process. Only it is by no
means an easy matter to grasp, in the unconscious of the adult, this peculiar
infantile manner of thinking, because it is usually corrected, so to say, statu
nascendi. However, it is successfully grasped in a series of cases, and then
we always laugh about the “childish stupidity.” In fact every exposure of
such an unconscious fact affects us in a “comical” manner.[59]
It is easier to comprehend the character of these unconscious mental
processes in the utterances of patients suffering from various psychic
disturbances. It is very probable that, following the assumption of old
Griesinger, we would be in a position to understand the deliria of the insane
and to turn them to good account as valuable information, if we would not
make the demands of conscious thinking upon them, but instead treat them
as we do dreams by means of our art of interpretation.[60] In the dream, too,
we were able to show the “return of psychic life to the embryonal state.”[61]
In discussing the processes of condensation we have entered so deeply
into the signification of the analogy between wit and dreams that we can

here be brief. As we know that displacements in dream-work point to the
influence of the censor of conscious thought, we will consequently be
inclined to assume that an inhibiting force also plays a part in the formation
of wit when we find the process of displacement among the techniques of
wit. We also know that this is commonly the case; the endeavor of wit to
revive the old pleasure in nonsense or the old pleasure in word-play meets
with resistance in every normal state, a resistance which is exerted by the
protest of critical reason, and which must be overcome in each individual
case. But a radical distinction between wit and dreams is shown in the
manner in which the wit-work solves this difficulty. In the dream-work the
solution of this task is brought about regularly through displacements and
through the choice of ideas which are remote enough from the objectionable
ones to secure passage through the censor; the latter themselves are but
offsprings of those whose psychic energy they have taken upon themselves
through full transference. The displacements are therefore not lacking in
any dream and are far more comprehensive; they not only comprise the
deviations from the trend of thought but also all forms of indirect
expression, the substitution for an important but offensive element of one
seemingly indifferent and harmless to the censor which form very remote
allusions to the first, they include substitution also occurring through
symbols, comparisons, or trifles. It is not to be denied that parts of this
indirect representation really originate in the foreconscious thoughts of the
dream,—as, for example, symbolical representation and representation
through comparisons—because otherwise the thought would not have
reached the state of the foreconscious expression. Such indirect expressions
and allusions, whose reference to the original thought is easily findable, are
really permissible and customary means of expression even in our
conscious thought. The dream-work, however, exaggerates the application
of these means of indirect expression to an unlimited degree. Under the
pressure of the censor any kind of association becomes good enough for
substitution by allusion; the displacement from one element to any other is
permitted. The substitution of the inner associations (similarity, causal
connection, etc.) by the so-called outer associations (simultaneity,
contiguity in space, assonance) is particularly conspicuous and
characteristic of the dream-work.

The Difference between Dream-technique and Wit-technique

All these means of displacement also occur as techniques of wit, but
when they do occur they usually restrict themselves to those limits
prescribed for their use in conscious thought; in fact they may be lacking,
even though wit must regularly solve a task of inhibition. One can
comprehend this retirement of the process of displacement in wit-work
when one remembers that wit usually has another technique at its disposal
through which it defends itself against inhibitions. Indeed, we have
discovered nothing more characteristic of it than just this technique. For wit
does not have recourse to compromises as does the dream, nor does it evade
the inhibition; it insists upon retaining the play with words or nonsense
unaltered, but thanks to the ambiguity of words and multiplicity of thought-
relations, it restricts itself to the choice of cases in which this play or
nonsense may appear at the same time admissible (jest) or senseful (wit).
Nothing distinguishes wit from all other psychic formations better than this
double-sidedness and this double-dealing; by emphasizing the “sense in
nonsense,” the authors have approached nearest the understanding of wit, at
least from this angle.
Considering the unexceptional predominance of this peculiar technique
in overcoming inhibitions in wit, one might find it superfluous that wit
should make use of the displacement-technique even in a single case. But
on the one hand certain kinds of this technique remain useful for wit as
objects and sources of pleasure—as, for example, the real displacement
(deviation of the trend of thought) which in fact shares in the nature of
nonsense,—and on the other hand one must not forget that the highest stage
of wit, tendency-wit, must frequently overcome two kinds of inhibitions
which oppose both itself and its tendency (p. 147), and that allusion and
displacements are qualified to facilitate this latter task.
The numerous and unrestricted application of indirect representation, of
displacements, and especially of allusions in the dream-work, has a result
which I mention not because of its own significance but because it became
for me the subjective inducement to occupy myself with the problem of wit.
If a dream analysis is imparted to one unfamiliar with the subject and
unaccustomed to it, and the peculiar ways of allusions and displacements
(objectionable to the waking thoughts but utilized by the dream-work) are

explained, the hearer experiences an uncomfortable impression; he declares
these interpretations to be “witty,” but it seems obvious to him that these are
not successful jokes but forced ones which run contrary to the rules of wit.
This impression can be easily explained; it is due to the fact that the dream-
work operates with the same means as wit, but in the application of the
same the dream exceeds the bounds which wit restricts. We shall soon learn
that in consequence of the rôle of the third person wit is bound by a certain
condition which does not affect the dream.

Irony—Negativism

Among those techniques which are common to both wit and dreams
representation through the opposite and the application of absurdity are
especially interesting. The first belongs to the strongly effective means of
wit as shown in the examples of “outdoing wit” (p. 98). The representation
through the opposite, unlike most of the wit-techniques, is unable to
withdraw itself from conscious attention. He who intentionally tries to make
use of wit-work, as in the case of the “habitual wit,” soon discovers that the
easiest way to answer an assertion with a witticism is to concentrate one’s
mind on the opposite of this assertion and trust to the chance flash of
thought to brush aside the feared objection to this opposite by means of a
different interpretation. Maybe the representation through its opposite is
indebted for such a preference to the fact that it forms the nucleus of
another pleasurable mode of mental expression, for an understanding of
which we do not have to consult the unconscious. I refer to irony, which is
very similar to wit and is considered a subspecies of the comic. The essence
of irony consists in imparting the very opposite of what one intended to
express, but it precludes the anticipated contradiction by indicating through
the inflections, concomitant gestures, and through slight changes in style—
if it is done in writing—that the speaker himself means to convey the
opposite of what he says. Irony is applicable only in cases where the other
person is prepared to hear the reverse of the statement actually made, so
that he cannot fail to be inclined to contradict. As a consequence of this
condition ironic expressions are particularly subject to the danger of being
misunderstood. To the person who uses it, it gives the advantage of readily
avoiding the difficulties to which direct expressions, as, for example,

invectives, are subject. In the hearer it produces comic pleasure, probably
by causing him to make preparations for contradiction, which are
immediately found to be unnecessary. Such a comparison of wit with a form
of the comical that is closely allied to it might strengthen us in the
assumption that the relation of wit to the unconscious is the peculiarity that
also distinguishes it from the comical.[62]
In dream-work, representation through the opposite has a far more
important part to play than in wit. The dream not only delights in
representing a pair of opposites by means of one and the same composite
image, but in addition it often changes an element from the dream-thoughts
into its opposite, thus causing considerable difficulty in the work of
interpretation. In the case of any element capable of having an opposite it is
impossible to tell whether it is to be taken negatively or positively in the
dream-thoughts.[63]
I must emphasize that as yet this fact has by no means been understood.
Nevertheless, it seems to give indications of an important characteristic of
unconscious thinking which in all probability results in a process
comparable to “judging.” Instead of setting aside judgments the
unconscious forms “repressions.” The repression may correctly be
described as a stage intermediate between the defense reflex and
condemnation.[64]

The Unconscious as the Psychic Stage of the Wit-work

Nonsense, or absurdity, which occurs so often in dreams and which has
made them the object of so much contempt, has never really come into
being as the result of an accidental shuffling of conceptual elements, but
may in every case be proven to have been purposely admitted by the dream-
work. Nonsense and absurdity are intended to express embittered criticism
and scornful contradiction within the dream-thoughts. Absurdity in the
dream-content thus stands for the judgment: “It’s pure nonsense,” expressed
in dream-thoughts. In my work on the Interpretation of Dreams, I have
placed great emphasis on the demonstration of this fact because I thought
that I could in this manner most strikingly controvert the error expressed by
many that the dream is no psychic phenomenon at all—an error which bars
the way to an understanding of the unconscious. Now we have learnt (in the

analysis of certain tendency-witticisms on p. 73) that nonsense in wit is
made to serve the same purposes of expression. We also know that a
nonsensical façade of a witticism is peculiarly adapted to enhance the
psychic expenditure in the hearer and hence also to increase the amount to
be discharged through laughter. Moreover, we must not forget that nonsense
in wit is an end in itself, since the purpose of reviving the old pleasure in
nonsense is one of the motives of the wit-work. There are other ways to
regain the feeling of nonsense in order to derive pleasure from it; caricature,
exaggeration, parody, and travesty utilize the same and thus produce
“comical nonsense.” If we subject these modes of expression to an analysis
similar to the one used in studying wit, we shall find that there is no
occasion in any of them for resorting to unconscious processes in our sense
for the purpose of getting explanations. We are now also in a position to
understand why the “witty” character may be added as an embellishment to
caricature, exaggeration, and parody; it is the manifold character of the
performance upon the “psychic stage”[65] that makes this possible.
I am of the opinion that by transferring the wit-work into the system of
the unconscious we have made a distinct gain, since it makes it possible for
us to understand the fact that the various techniques to which wit admittedly
adheres are on the other hand not its exclusive property. Many doubts,
which have arisen in the beginning of our investigation of these techniques
and which we were forced temporarily to leave, can now be conveniently
cleared up. Hence we shall give due consideration to the doubt which
expresses itself by asserting that the undeniable relation of wit to the
unconscious is correct only for certain categories of tendency-wit, while we
are ready to claim this relation for all forms and all the stages of
development of wit. We may not shirk the duty of testing this objection.
We may assume that we deal with a sure case of wit-formation in the
unconscious when it concerns witticisms that serve unconscious tendencies,
or those strengthened by unconscious tendencies, as, for example, most
“cynical” witticisms. For in such cases the unconscious tendency draws the
foreconscious thought down into the unconscious in order to remodel it
there; a process to which the study of the psychology of the neuroses has
added many analogies with which we are acquainted. But in the case of
tendency-wit of other varieties, namely, harmless wit and the jest, this
power seems to fall away, and the relation of the wit to the unconscious is
an open question.

But now let us consider the case of the witty expression of a thought that
is not without value in itself and that comes to the surface in the course of
the association of mental processes. In order that this thought may become a
witticism, it is of course necessary that it make a choice among the possible
forms of expression in order to find the exact form that will bring along the
gain in word-pleasure. We know from self-observation that this choice is
not made by conscious attention; but the selection will certainly be better if
the occupation energy of the foreconscious thought is lowered to the
unconscious. For in the unconscious, as we have learnt from the dream-
work, the paths of association emanating from a word are treated on a par
with associations from objects. The occupation energy from the
unconscious presents by far the more favorable conditions for the selection
of the expression. Moreover, we may assume without going farther that the
possible expression which contains the gain in word-pleasure exerts a
lowering effect on the still fluctuating self-command of the foreconscious,
similar to that exerted in the first case by the unconscious tendency. As an
explanation for the simpler case of the jest we may imagine that an ever
watchful intention of attaining the gain in word-pleasure seizes the
opportunity offered in the foreconscious of again drawing the investing
energy down into the unconscious, according to the familiar scheme.
I earnestly wish that it were possible for me on the one hand to present
one decisive point in my conception of wit more clearly, and on the other
hand to fortify it with compelling arguments. But as a matter of fact it is not
a question here of two failures, but of one and the same failure. I can give
no clearer exposition because I have no further testimony on behalf of my
conception. The latter has developed as the result of my study of the
technique and of comparison with dream-work, and indeed from this one
side only. I now find that the dream-work is altogether excellently adapted
to the peculiarities of wit. This conception is now concluded; if the
conclusion leads us not to a familiar province, but rather to one that is
strange and novel to our modes of thought, the conclusion is called a
“hypothesis,” and the relation of the hypothesis to the material from which
it is drawn is justly not accepted as “proof.” The hypothesis is admitted as
“proved” only if it can be reached by other ways and if it can be shown to
be the junction point for other associations. But such proof, in view of the
fact that our knowledge of unconscious processes has hardly begun, cannot
be had. Realizing then that we are on soil still virgin, we shall be content to

project from our viewpoint of observation one narrow slender plank into the
unexplored region.
We shall not build a great structure on such a foundation as this. If we
correlate the different stages of wit to the mental dispositions favorable to
them we may say: The jest has its origin in the happy mood; what seems to
be peculiar to it is an inclination to lower the psychic static energies
(Besetzungen). The jest already makes use of all the characteristic
techniques of wit and satisfies the fundamental conditions of the same
through the choice of such an assortment of words or mental associations as
will conform not only to the requirements for the production of pleasure,
but also conform to the demands of the intelligent critic. We shall conclude
that the sinking of the mental energy to the unconscious stage, a process
facilitated by the happy mood, has already taken place in the case of the
jest. The mood does away with this requirement in the case of harmless wit
connected with the expression of a valuable thought; here we must assume
a particular personal adaptation which finds it as easy to come to
expression as it is for the foreconscious thought to sink for a moment into
the unconscious. An ever watchful tendency to renew the original resultant
pleasure of wit exerts thereby a lowering effect upon the still fluctuating
foreconscious expression of the thought. Most people are probably capable
of making jests when in a happy mood; aptitude for joking independent of
the mood is found only in a few persons. Finally, the most powerful
incentive for wit-work is the presence of strong tendencies which reach
back into the unconscious and which indicate a particular fitness for witty
productions; these tendencies might explain to us why the subjective
conditions of wit are so frequently fulfilled in the case of neurotic persons.
Even the most inapt person may become witty under the influence of strong
tendencies.

Differences Between Wit and Dreams

This last contribution, the explanation of wit-work in the first person,
though still hypothetical, strictly speaking, ends our interest in wit. There
still remains a short comparison of wit to the more familiar dream and we
may expect that, outside of the one agreement already considered, two such
diverse mental activities should show nothing but differences. The most

important difference lies in their social behavior. The dream is a perfectly
asocial psychic product. It has nothing to tell to anyone else, having
originated in an individual as a compromise between conflicting psychic
forces it remains incomprehensible to the person himself and has therefore
altogether no interest for anybody else. Not only does the dream find it
unnecessary to place any value on intelligibleness, but it must even guard
against being understood, as it would then be destroyed; it can only exist in
disguised form. For this reason the dream may make use freely of the
mechanism that controls unconscious thought processes to the extent of
producing undecipherable disfigurements. Wit, on the other hand, is the
most social of all those psychic functions whose aim is to gain pleasure. It
often requires three persons, and the psychic process which it incites always
requires the participation of at least one other person. It must therefore bind
itself to the condition of intelligibleness; it may employ disfigurement made
practicable in the unconscious through condensation and displacement, to
no greater extent than can be deciphered by the intelligence of the third
person. As for the rest, wit and dreams have developed in altogether
different spheres of the psychic life, and are to be classed under widely
separated categories of the psychological system. No matter how concealed
the dream is still a wish, while wit is a developed play. Despite its apparent
unreality the dream retains its relation to the great interests of life; it seeks
to supply what is lacking through a regressive detour of hallucinations; and
it owes its existence solely to the strong need for sleep during the night.
Wit, on the other hand, seeks to draw a small amount of pleasure from the
free and unencumbered activities of our psychic apparatus, and later to
seize this pleasure as an incidental gain. It thus secondarily reaches to
important functions relative to the outer world. The dream serves
preponderately to guard from pain while wit serves to acquire pleasure; in
these two aims all our psychic activities meet.

VII
WIT AND THE VARIOUS FORMS OF THE COMIC

We have approached the problems of the comic in an unusual manner. It
appeared to us that wit, which is usually regarded as a subspecies of the
comic, offered enough peculiarities to warrant our taking it directly under
consideration, and thus it came about that we avoided discussing its relation
to the more comprehensive category of the comic as long as it was possible
to do so, yet we did not proceed without picking up on the way some hints
that might be valuable for studying the comic. We found it easy to ascertain
that the comic differs from wit in its social behavior. The comic can be
content with only two persons, one who finds the comical, and one in whom
it is found. The third person to whom the comical may be imparted
reinforces the comic process, but adds nothing new to it. In wit, however,
this third person is indispensable for the completion of the pleasure-bearing
process, while the second person may be omitted, especially when it is not a
question of aggressive wit with a tendency. Wit is made, while the comical
is found; it is found first of all in persons, and only later by transference
may be seen also in objects, situations, and the like. We know, too, in the
case of wit that it is not strange persons, but one’s own mental processes
that contain the sources for the production of pleasure. In addition we have
heard that wit occasionally reopens inaccessible sources of the comic, and
that the comic often serves wit as a façade to replace the fore-pleasure
usually produced by the well-known technique (p. 236). All of this does not
really point to a very simple relationship between wit and the comic. On the
other hand, the problems of the comic have shown themselves to be so
complicated, and have until now so successfully defied all attempts made
by the philosophers to solve them, that we have not been able to justify the
expectation of mastering it by a sudden stroke, so to speak, even if we
approach it along the paths of wit. Incidentally we came provided with an
instrument for investigating wit that had not yet been made use of by others;
namely, the knowledge of dream-work. We have no similar advantage at our

disposal for comprehending the comic, and we may therefore expect that
we shall learn nothing about the nature of the comic other than that which
we have already become aware of in wit; in so far as wit belongs to the
comic and retains certain features of the same unchanged or modified in its
own nature.

The Naïve

The species of the comic that is most closely allied to wit is the naïve.
Like the comic the naïve is found universally and is not made like in the
case of wit. The naïve cannot be made at all, while in the case of the pure
comic the question of making or evoking the comical may be taken into
account. The naïve must result without our intervention from the speech and
actions of other persons who take the place of the second person in the
comic or in wit. The naïve originates when one puts himself completely
outside of inhibition, because it does not exist for him; that is, if he seems to
overcome it without any effort. What conditions the function of the naïve is
the fact that we are aware that the person does not possess this inhibition,
otherwise we should not call it naïve but impudent, and instead of laughing
we should be indignant. The effect of the naïve, which is irresistible, seems
easy to understand. An expenditure of that inhibition energy which is
commonly already formed in us suddenly becomes inapplicable when we
hear the naïve and is discharged through laughter; as the removal of the
inhibition is direct, and not the result of an incited operation, there is no
need for a suspension of attention. We behave like the hearer in wit, to
whom the economy of inhibition is given without any effort on his part.
In view of the understanding about the genesis of inhibitions which we
obtained while tracing the development of play into wit, it will not surprise
us to learn that the naïve is mostly found in children, although it may also
be observed in uneducated adults, whom we look on as children as far as
their intellectual development is concerned. For the purposes of comparison
with wit, naïve speech is naturally better adapted than naïve actions, for
speech and not actions are the usual forms of expression employed by wit.
It is significant, however, that naïve speeches, such as those of children, can
without straining also be designated as “naïve witticisms.” The points of

agreement as well as demonstration between wit and naïveté will become
clear to us upon consideration of a few examples.[66]
A little girl of three years was accustomed to hear from her German
nurse the exclamatory word “Gesundheit” (God bless you!; literally, may
you be healthy!) whenever she happened to sneeze. While suffering from a
severe cold during which the profuse coughing and sneezing caused her
considerable pain, she pointed to her chest and said to her father, “Daddy,
Gesundheit hurts.”
Another little girl of four years heard her parents refer to a Jewish
acquaintance as a Hebrew, and on later hearing the latter’s wife referred to
as Mrs. X, she corrected her mother, saying, “No, that is not her name; if
her husband is a Hebrew she is a Shebrew.”
In the first example the wit is produced through the use of a contiguous
association in the form of an abstract thought for the concrete action. The
child so often heard the word “Gesundheit” associated with sneezing that
she took it for the act itself. While the second example may be designated
as word-wit formed by the technique of sound similarity. The child divided
the word Hebrew into He-brew and having been taught the genders of the
personal pronouns, she naturally imagined that if the man is a He-brew his
wife must be a She-brew. Both examples could have originated as real
witticisms upon which we would have unwillingly bestowed a little mild
laughter. But as examples of naïveté they seem excellent and cause loud
laughter. But what is it here that produces the difference between wit and
naïveté? Apparently it is neither the wording nor the technique, which is the
same for both wit and the naïve, but a factor which at first sight seems
remote from both. It is simply a question whether we assume that the
speakers had the intention of making a witticism or whether we assume that
they—the children—wished to draw an earnest conclusion, a conclusion
held in good faith though based on uncorrected knowledge. Only the latter
case is one of naïveté. It is here that our attention is first called to the
mechanism in which the second person places himself into the psychic
process of the person who produces the wit.
The investigation of a third example will confirm this opinion. A brother
and a sister, the former ten and the latter twelve years old, produce a play of
their own composition before an audience of uncles and aunts. The scene
represents a hut on the seashore. In the first act the two dramatist-actors, a

poor fisherman and his devoted wife, complain about the hard times and the
difficulty of getting a livelihood. The man decides to sail over the wide
ocean in his boat in order to seek wealth elsewhere, and after a touching
farewell the curtain is drawn. The second act takes place several years later.
The fisherman has come home rich with a big bag of money and tells his
wife, whom he finds waiting in front of the hut, what good luck he has had
in the far countries. His wife interrupts him proudly, saying: “Nor have I
been idle in the meanwhile,” and opens the hut, on whose floor the
fisherman sees twelve large dolls representing children asleep. At this point
of the drama the performers were interrupted by an outburst of laughter on
the part of the audience, a thing which they could not understand. They
stared dumfounded at their dear relatives, who had thus far behaved
respectably and had listened attentively. The explanation of this laughter
lies in the assumption on the part of the audience that the young dramatists
know nothing as yet about the origin of children, and were therefore in a
position to believe that a wife would actually boast of bearing offspring
during the prolonged absence of her husband, and that the husband would
rejoice with her over it. But the results achieved by the dramatists on the
basis of this ignorance may be designated as nonsense or absurdity.
These examples show that the naïve occupies a position midway between
wit and the comic. As far as wording and contents are concerned, the naïve
speech is identical with wit; it produces a misuse of words, a bit of
nonsense, or an obscenity. But the psychic process of the first person or
producer which, in the case of wit, offered us so much that was interesting
and puzzling, is here entirely absent. The naïve person imagines that he is
using his thoughts and expressions in a simple and normal manner; he has
no other purpose in view, and receives no pleasure from his naïve
production. All the characteristics of the naïve lie in the conception of the
hearer, who corresponds to the third person in the case of wit. The
producing person creates the naïve without any effort. The complicated
technique, which in wit serves to paralyze the inhibition produced by the
critical reason, does not exist here, because the person does not possess this
inhibition, and he can therefore readily produce the senseless and the
obscene without any compromise. The naïve may be added to the realm of
wit if it comes into existence after the important function of the censor, as
observed in the formula for wit-formation, has been reduced to zero.

If the affective determination of wit consists in the fact that both persons
should be subject to about the same inhibitions or inner resistances, we may
say now that the determination of the naïve consists in the fact that one
person should have inhibitions which the other lacks. It is the person
provided with inhibitions who understands the naïve, and it is he alone who
gains the pleasure produced by the naïve. We can easily understand that this
pleasure is due to the removal of inhibitions. Since the pleasure of wit is of
the same origin—a kernel of word-pleasure and nonsense-pleasure, and a
shell of removal- and release-pleasure,—the similarity of this connection to
the inhibition thus determines the inner relationship between the naïve and
wit. In both cases pleasure results from the removal of inner inhibitions. But
the psychic process of the recipient person (which in the naïve regularly
corresponds with our ego, whereas in wit we may also put ourselves in
place of the producing person) is by as much more complicated in the case
of the naïve as it is simpler in the producing person in wit. For one thing,
the naïve must produce the same effect upon the receiving person as wit
does, this may be fully confirmed by our examples, for just as in wit the
removal of the censor has been made possible by the mere effort of hearing
the naïve. But only a part of the pleasure created by the naïve admits of this
explanation, in other cases of naïve utterances, even this portion would be
endangered, as, for example, while listening to naïve obscenities. We would
react to a naïve obscenity with the same indignation felt toward a real
obscenity, were it not for the fact that another factor saves us from this
indignation and at the same time furnishes the more important part of the
pleasure derived from the naïve.
This other factor is the result of the condition mentioned before, namely,
that in order to recognize the naïve we have to be cognizant of the fact that
there are no inner inhibitions in the producing person. It is only when this is
assured that we laugh instead of being indignant. Hence we take into
consideration the psychic state of the producing person; we imagine
ourselves in this same psychic state and endeavor to understand it by
comparing it to our own. This putting ourselves into the psychic state of the
producing person and comparing it with our own results in an economy of
expenditure which we discharge through laughing.
We might prefer the simpler explanation, namely, that when we reflect
that the person has no inhibition to overcome our indignation becomes
superfluous; the laughing therefore results at the cost of economized

indignation. In order to avoid this conception, which is, in general,
misleading, I shall distinguish more sharply between two cases that I had
treated as one in the above discussion. The naïve, as it appears to us, may
either be in the nature of a witticism, as in our example, or an obscenity, or
of anything generally objectionable; which becomes especially evident if
the naïve is expressed not in speech but in action. This latter case is really
misleading; for it might lead one to assume that the pleasure originated
from the economized and transformed indignation. The first case is the
illuminating one. The naïve speech in the example “Hebrew” can produce
the effect of a light witticism and give no cause for indignation; it is
certainly the more rare, or the more pure and by far the more instructive
case. In so far as we think that the child took the syllable “he” in “Hebrew”
seriously, and without any additional reason identified it with the masculine
personal pronoun, the increase in pleasure as a result of hearing it has no
longer anything to do with the pleasure of the wit. We shall now consider
what has been said from two viewpoints, first how it came into existence in
the mind of the child, and secondly, how it would occur to us. In following
this comparison we find that the child has discovered an identity and has
overcome barriers which exist in us, and by continuing still further it may
express itself as follows: “If you wish to understand what you have heard,
you may save yourself the expenditure necessary for holding these barriers
in place.” The expenditure which became freed by this comparison is the
source of pleasure in the naïve, and is discharged through laughter; to be
sure, it is the same expenditure which we would have converted into
indignation if our understanding of the producing person, and in this case
the nature of his utterance, had not precluded it. But if we take the case of
the naïve joke as a model for the second case, viz., the objectionable naïve,
we shall see that here, too, the economy in inhibition may originate directly
from the comparison. That is, it is unnecessary for us to assume an incipient
and then a strangulated indignation, an indignation corresponding to a
different application of the freed expenditure, against which, in the case of
wit, complicated defensive mechanisms were required.

Source of Comic Pleasure in the Naïve

This comparison and this economy of expenditure that occur as the result
of putting one’s self into the psychic process of the producing person can
have an important bearing on the naïve only if they do not belong to the
naïve alone. As a matter of fact we suspect that this mechanism which is so
completely foreign to wit is a part—perhaps the essential part—of the
psychic process of the comic. This aspect—it is perhaps the most important
aspect of the naïve—thus represents the naïve as a form of the comic.
Whatever is added to the wit-pleasure by the naïve speeches in our
examples is “comical” pleasure. Concerning the latter we might be inclined
to make a general assumption that this pleasure originates through an
economized expenditure by comparing the utterance of some one else with
our own. But since we are here in the presence of very broad views we shall
first conclude our consideration of the naïve. The naïve would thus be a
form of the comic, in so far as its pleasure originates from the difference in
expenditure which results in our effort to understand the other person; and it
resembles wit through the condition that the expenditure saved by the
comparison must be an inhibition expenditure.[67]
Before concluding we shall rapidly point out a few agreements and
differences between the conceptions at which we have just arrived and
those that have been known for a long time in the psychology of the comic.
The putting one’s self into the psychic process of another and the desire to
understand him is obviously nothing else than the “comic burrowing”
(komisches Leihen) which has played a part in the analysis of the comic
ever since the time of Jean Paul; the “comparing” of the psychic process of
another with our own corresponds to a “psychological contrast,” for which
we here at last find a place, after we did not know what to do with it in wit.
But in our explanation of comic pleasure we take issue with many authors
who contend that this pleasure originates through the fluctuation of our
attention to and fro between contrasting ideas. We are unable to see how
such a mechanism could produce pleasure, and we point to the fact that in
the comparing of contrasts there results a difference in expenditure which, if
not used for anything else, becomes capable of discharge and hence a
source of pleasure.[68]
It is with misgiving only that we approach the problem of the comic. It
would be presumptuous to expect from our efforts any decisive contribution
to the solution of this problem after the works of a large number of
excellent thinkers have not resulted in an explanation that is in every

respect satisfactory. As a matter of fact, we intend simply to follow out into
the province of the comic certain observations that have been found
valuable in the study of wit.

Occurrence and Origin of the Comic

The comical appears primarily as an unintentional discovery in the social
relations of human beings. It is found in persons, that is, in their
movements, shapes, actions, and characteristic traits. In the beginning it is
found probably only in their psychical peculiarities and later on in their
mental qualities, especially in the expression of these latter. Even animals
and inanimate objects become comical as the result of a widely used
method of personification. However, the comical can be considered apart
from the person in whom it is found, if the conditions under which a person
becomes comical can be discerned. Thus arises the comical situation, and
this knowledge enables us to make a person comical at will by putting him
into situations in which the conditions necessary for the comic are bound up
with his actions. The discovery that it is in our power to make another
person comical opens the way to unsuspected gains in comic pleasure, and
forms the foundation of a highly developed technique. It is also possible to
make one’s self just as comical as others. The means which serve to make a
person comical are transference into comic situations, imitations, disguise,
unmasking, caricature, parody, travesty, and the like. It is quite evident that
these techniques may enter into the service of hostile or aggressive
tendencies. A person may be made comical in order to render him
contemptible or in order to deprive him of his claims to dignity and
authority. But even if such a purpose were regularly at the bottom of all
attempts to make a person comical this need not necessarily be the meaning
of the spontaneous comic.
As a result of this superficial survey of the manifestations of the comic
we can readily see that the comic originates from wide-spread sources, and
that conditions so specialized as those found in the naïve cannot be
expected in the case of the comic. In order to get a clue to the conditions
that are applicable to the comic the selection of the first example is most
important. We will examine first the comic movement because we
remember that the most primitive stage performance, the pantomime, uses

this means to make us laugh. The answer to the question, Why do we laugh
at the actions of clowns? would be that they appear to us immoderate and
inappropriate; that is, we really laugh over the excessive expenditure of
energy. Let us look for the same condition outside of the manufactured
comic, that is, under circumstances where it may unintentionally be found.
The child’s motions do not appear to us comical, even if it jumps and
fidgets, but it is comical to see a little boy or girl follow with the tongue the
movement of his pen-holder when he is trying to master the art of writing;
we see in these additional motions a superfluous expenditure of energy
which under similar conditions we should save. In the same way we find it
comical to see unnecessary motions or even marked exaggeration of
expressive motions in adults. Among the genuinely comic cases we might
mention the motions made by the bowler after he has released the ball while
he is following its course as though he were still able to control it; all
grimaces which exaggerate the normal expression of the emotions are
comical, even if they are involuntary, as in the case of persons suffering
from St. Vitus’ dance (chorea); the impassioned movements of a modern
orchestra leader will appear comical to every unmusical person, who cannot
understand why they are necessary. Indeed, the comic element found in
bodily shapes and physiognomy is a branch of the comic of motion, in that
they are conceived as though they were the result of motion that either has
been carried too far or is purposeless. Wide exposed eyes, a crook-shaped
nose bent towards the mouth, handle-like ears, a hunch back, and all similar
physical defects probably produce a comical impression only in so far as
the movements that would be necessary to produce these features are
imagined, whereby the nose and other parts of the body are pictured as
more movable than they actually are. It is certainly comical if some one can
“wiggle his ears,” and it would undoubtedly be a great deal more comical if
he could raise and lower his nose. A large part of the comical impression
that animals make upon us is due to the fact that we perceive in them
movements which we cannot imitate.

Comic of Motion

But how does it come about that we laugh as soon as we have recognized
that the actions of some one else are immoderate and inappropriate? I

believe that we laugh because we compare the motions observed in others
with those which we ourselves should produce if we were in their place.
The two persons must naturally be compared in accordance with the same
standard, but this standard is my own innervation expenditure connected
with my idea of motion in the one case as well as the other. This assertion is
in need of discussion and amplification.
What we are here putting into juxtaposition is, on the one hand, the
psychic expenditure of a given idea, and on the other hand, the content of
this idea. We maintain that the former is not primarily and principally
independent of the latter—the content of the idea—particularly because the
idea of something great requires a larger expenditure than the idea of
something small. As long as we are concerned only with the idea of
different coarse movements we shall encounter no difficulties in the
theoretical determination of our thesis or in establishing its proof through
observation. It will be shown that in this case an attribute of the idea
actually coincides with an attribute of the object conceived, although
psychology warns us of confusions of this sort.
I obtain an idea of a definite coarse movement by performing this motion
or by imitating it, and in so doing I set a standard for this motion in my
feelings of innervation.[69]
Now if I perceive a similar more or less coarse motion in some one else,
the surest way to the understanding—to apperception—of the same is to
carry it out imitatively and the comparison will then enable me to decide in
which motion I expended more energy. Such an impulse to imitate certainly
arises on perceiving a movement. But in reality I do not carry out the
imitation any more than I still spell out words simply because I have learnt
to read by means of spelling. Instead of imitating the movement by my
muscles I substitute the idea of the same through my memory traces of the
expenditures necessary for similar motions. Perceiving, or “thinking,”
differs above all from acting or carrying out things by the fact that it entails
a very much smaller displacement of energy and keeps the main
expenditure from being discharged. But how is the quantitative factor, the
more or less big element of the movement perceived, given expression in
the idea? And if the representation of the quantity is left off from the idea
that is composed of qualities, how am I to differentiate the ideas of different
big movements, how am I to compare them?

Here, physiology shows the way in that it teaches us that even while an
idea is in the process of conception innervations proceed to the muscles,
which naturally represent only a moderate expenditure. It is now easy to
assume that this expenditure of innervation which accompanies the
conception of the idea is utilized to represent the quantitative factor of the
idea, and that when a great motion is imagined it is greater than it would be
in the case of a small one. The conception of greater motions would thus
actually be greater, that is, it would be a conception accompanied by greater
expenditure.

Ideational Mimicry

Observation shows directly that human beings are in the habit of
expressing the big and small things in their ideation content by means of a
manifold expenditure or by means of a sort of ideational mimicry.
When a child or a person of the common people or one belonging to a
certain race imparts or depicts something, one can easily observe that he is
not content to make his ideas intelligible to the hearer through the choice of
correct words alone, but that he also represents the contents of the same
through his expressive motions. Thus he designates the quantities and
intensities of “a high mountain” by raising his hands over his head, and
those of “a little dwarf” by lowering his hand to the ground. If he broke
himself of the habit of depicting with his hands, he would nevertheless do it
with his voice, and if he should also control his voice, one may be sure that
in picturing something big he would distend his eyes, and describing
something little he would press his eyes together. It is not his own affects
that he thus expresses, but it is really the content of what he imagines.
Shall we now assume that this need for mimicry is first aroused through
the demand for imparting, whereas a good part of this manner of
representation still escapes the attention of the hearer? I rather believe that
this mimicry, though less vivid, exists even if all imparting is left out of the
question, that it comes about when the person imagines for himself alone,
or thinks of something in a graphic manner; that then such a person, just as
in talking, expresses through his body the idea of big and small which
manifests itself at least through a change of innervation in the facial
expressions and sensory organs. Indeed, I can imagine that the bodily

innervation which is consensual to the content of the idea conceived is the
beginning and origin of mimicry for purposes of communication. For, in
order to be in a position to serve this purpose, it is only necessary to
increase it and make it conspicuous to the other. When I take the view that
this “expression of the ideation content” should be added to the expression
of the emotions, which are known as a physical by-effect of psychic
processes, I am well aware that my observations which refer to the category
of the big and small do not exhaust the subject. I myself could add still
other things, even before reaching to the phenomenon of tension through
which a person physically indicates the accumulation of his attention and
the niveau of abstraction upon which his thoughts happen to rest. I maintain
that this subject is very important, and I believe that tracing the ideation
mimicry in other fields of æsthetics would be just as useful for the
understanding of the comic as it is here.
To return to the comic movement, I repeat that with the perception of a
certain motion the impulse to conceive it will be given through a certain
expenditure. In the “desire to understand,” in the apperception of this
movement I produce a certain expenditure, and I behave in this part of the
psychic process just as if I put myself in the place of the person observed.
Simultaneously I probably grasp the aim of the motion, and through former
experiences I am able to estimate the amount of expenditure necessary to
attain this aim. I thereby drop out of consideration the person observed and
behave as if I myself wished to attain the aim of the motion. These two
ideational possibilities depend on a comparison of the motion observed with
my own inhibited motion. In the case of an immoderate or inappropriate
movement on the part of the other, my greater expenditure for
understanding becomes inhibited statu nascendi during the mobilization as
it were, it is declared superfluous and stands free for further use or for
discharge through laughing. If other favorable conditions supervened this
would be the nature of the origin of pleasure in comic movement,—an
innervation expenditure which, when compared with one’s own motion,
becomes an inapplicable surplus.

Comparison of Two Kinds of Expenditure as Pleasure-sources

We now note that we must continue our discussion by following two
different paths; first, to determine the conditions for the discharge of the
surplus; secondly, to test whether the other cases of the comic can be
conceived similarly to our conception of comic motion.
We shall turn first to the latter task and after considering comic
movement and action we shall turn to the comic found in the psychic
activities and peculiarities of others.
As an example of this kind we may consider the comical nonsense
produced by ignorant students at examinations; it is more difficult,
however, to give a simple example of the peculiarities. We must not be
confused by the fact that nonsense and foolishness which so often act in a
comical manner are nevertheless not perceived as comical in all cases, just
as the same things which once made us laugh because they seemed comical
later may appear to us contemptible and hateful. This fact, which we must
not forget to take into account, seems only to show that besides the
comparison familiar to us other relations come into consideration for the
comic effect,—conditions which we can investigate in other connections.
The comic found in the mental and psychic attributes of another person is
apparently again the result of a comparison between him and my own ego.
But it is remarkable that it is a comparison which mostly furnishes the result
opposite to that obtained through comic movement and action. In the latter
case it is comical if the other person assumes a greater expenditure than I
believe to be necessary for me; in the case of psychic activity it is just the
reverse, it is comical if the other person economizes in expenditure, which I
consider indispensable; for nonsense and foolishness are nothing but
inferior activities. In the first case I laugh because he makes it too difficult
for himself, and in the latter case because he makes it too easy for himself.
In the case of the comic effect it seems to be a question only of the
difference between the two energy expenditures—the one of “feeling one’s
self into something” (Einfühlung)—and the other of the ego—and it makes
no difference in whose favor this difference inclines. This peculiarity, which
at first confuses our judgment, disappears, however, when we consider that
it is in accord with our personal development towards a higher stage of
culture, to limit our muscular work and increase our mental work. By
heightening our mental expenditure we produce a diminution of motion

expenditure for the same activity. Our machines bear witness to this cultural
success.[70]
Thus it coincides with a uniform understanding that that person appears
comical to us who puts forth too much expenditure in his psychical
activities and too little in his mental activities; and it cannot be denied that
in both cases our laughing is the expression of a pleasurably perceived
superiority which we adjudge to ourselves in comparison with him. If the
relation in both cases becomes reversed, that is, if the somatic expenditure
of the other is less and the psychic expenditure greater, then we no longer
laugh, but are struck with amazement and admiration.[71]

Comic of Situation.

The origin of the comic pleasure discussed here, that is, the origin of such
pleasure in a comparison of the other person with one’s own self in respect
to the difference between the identification expenditure
(Einfühlungsaufwand) and normal expenditure—is genetically probably the
most important. It is certain, however, that it is not the only one. We have
learned before to disregard any such comparison between the other person
and one’s self, and to obtain the pleasure-bringing difference from one side
only, either from identification, or from the processes in one’s own ego,
proving thereby that the feeling of superiority bears no essential relations to
comic pleasure. A comparison is indispensable, however, for the origin of
this pleasure, and we find this comparison between two energy expenditures
which rapidly follow each other and refer to the same function. It is
produced either in ourselves by way of identification with the other, or we
find it without any identification in our own psychic processes. The first
case, in which the other person still plays a part, though he is not compared
with ourselves, results when the pleasure-producing difference of energy
expenditures comes into existence through outer influences which we can
comprehend as a “situation,” for which reason this species of comic is also
called the “comic of situation.” The peculiarities of the person who
furnishes the comic do not here come into essential consideration; we laugh
when we admit to ourselves that had we been placed in the same situation
we should have done the same thing. Here we draw the comic from the
relation of the individual to the often all-too-powerful outer world, which is

represented in the psychic processes of the individual by the conventions
and necessities of society, and even by his bodily needs. A typical example
of the latter is when a person engaged in an activity, which claims all his
psychic forces, is suddenly disturbed by a pain or excremental need. The
opposite case which furnishes us the comic difference through
identification, lies between the great interest which existed before the
disturbance occurred and the minimum left for his psychic activity after the
disturbance made its appearance. The person who furnishes us this
difference again becomes comical through inferiority; but he is only inferior
in comparison with his former ego and not in comparison with us, for we
know that in a similar case we could not have behaved differently. It is
remarkable, however, that we find this inferiority of the person only in the
case where we “feel ourselves” into some one, that is, we can only find it
comical in the other, whereas we ourselves are conscious only of painful
emotions when such or similar embarrassments happen to us. It is by
keeping away the painful from our own person that we are probably first
enabled to enjoy as pleasurable the difference which resulted from the
comparison of the changing energy.

Comic of Expectation

The other source of the comic, which we find in our own changes of
investing energy, lies in our relations to the future, which we are
accustomed to anticipate through our ideas of expectation. I assume that a
quantitatively determined expenditure underlies our every idea of
expectation, which in case of disappointment becomes diminished by a
certain difference, and I again refer to the observations made before
concerning “ideational mimicry.” But it seems to me easier to demonstrate
the real mobilized psychic expenditure for the cases of expectation. It is
well known concerning a whole series of cases that the manifestation of
expectation is formed by motor preliminaries; this is first of all true of cases
in which the expected events make demands on my motility, and these
preparations are quantitatively determinable without anything further. If I
am expecting to catch a ball thrown at me, I put my body in states of
tension in order to enable me to withstand the collision with the ball, and
the superfluous motions which I make if the ball turns out to be light make

me look comical to the spectators. I allowed myself to be misled by the
expectation to exert an immoderate expenditure of motion. A similar thing
happens if, for example, I lift out a basket of fruit which I took to be heavy
but which was hollow and formed out of wax in order to deceive me. By its
upward jerk my arm betrays the fact that I have prepared a superfluous
innervation for this purpose and hence I am laughed at. In fact there is at
least one case in which the expectation expenditure can be directly
demonstrated by means of physiological experimentation with animals. In
Pawlof’s experiments with salivary secretions of dogs who, provided with
salivary fistulæ, are shown different kinds of food, it is noticed that the
amount of saliva secreted through the fistulæ depends on whether the
conditions of the experiment have strengthened or disappointed the dogs’
expectation to be fed with the food shown them.
Even where the thing expected lays claims only to my sensory organs,
and not to my motility, I may assume that the expectation manifests itself in
a certain motor emanation causing tension of the senses, and I may even
conceive the suspension of attention as a motor activity which is equivalent
to a certain amount of expenditure. Moreover, I can presuppose that the
preparatory activity of expectation is not independent of the amount of the
expected impression, but that I represent mimically the bigness and
smallness of the same by means of a greater or smaller preparatory
expenditure, just as in the case of imparting something and in the case of
thinking when there is no expectation. The expectation expenditure
naturally will be composed of many components, and also for my
disappointment diverse factors will come into consideration; it is not only a
question whether the realized event is perceptibly greater or smaller than
the expected one, but also whether the expectation is worthy of the great
interest which I had offered for it. In this manner I am instructed to
consider, besides the expenditure for the representation of bigness and
smallness (the conceptual mimicry), also the expenditure for the tension of
attention (expectation expenditure), and in addition to these two
expenditures there is in all cases the abstraction expenditure. But these
other forms of expenditure can easily be reduced to the one of bigness and
smallness, for what we call more interesting, more sublime, and even more
abstract, are only particularly qualified special cases of what is greater. Let
us add to this that, among other things, Lipps holds that the quantitative, not
the qualitative, contrast is primarily the source of comic pleasure, and we

shall be altogether content to have chosen the comic element of motion as
the starting-point of our investigation.
In working out Kant’s thesis, “The comic is an expectation dwindled into
nothing,” Lipps made the attempt in his book, often cited here, to trace the
comic pleasure altogether to expectation. Despite the many instructive and
valuable results which this attempt brought to light I should like to agree
with the criticism expressed by other authors, namely, that Lipps has
formulated a field of origin of the comic which is much too narrow, and that
he could not subject its phenomena to his formula without much forcing.

Caricature

Human beings are not satisfied with enjoying the comic as they
encounter it in life, but they aim to produce it purposely, thus we discover
more of the nature of the comic by studying the methods employed in
producing the comic. Above all one can produce comical elements in one’s
personality for the amusement of others, by making one’s self appear
awkward or stupid. One then produces the comic exactly as if one were
really so, by complying with the condition of comparison which leads to the
difference of expenditure; but one does not make himself laughable or
contemptible through this; indeed, under certain circumstances one can
even secure admiration. The feeling of superiority does not come into
existence in the other when he knows that the actor is only shamming, and
this furnishes us a good new proof that the comic is independent in
principle of the feeling of superiority.
To make another comical, the method most commonly employed is to
transfer him into situations wherein he becomes comical regardless of his
personal qualities, as a result of human dependence upon external
circumstances, especially social factors; in other words, one resorts to the
comical situation. This transferring into a comic situation may be real as in
practical jokes, such as placing the foot in front of one so that he falls like a
clumsy person, or making one appear stupid by utilizing his credulity to
make him believe some nonsense, etc., or it can be feigned by means of
speech or play. It is a good aid in aggression, in the service of which
production of the comic is wont to place itself in order that the comic

pleasure may be independent of the reality of the comic situation; thus
every person is really defenseless against being made comical.
But there are still other means of making one comical which deserve
special attention and which in part also show new sources of comic
pleasure. Imitation, for example, belongs here; it accords the hearer an
extraordinary amount of pleasure and makes its subject comic, even if it
still keeps away from the exaggeration of caricature. It is much easier to
fathom the comic effect of caricature than that of simple imitation.
Caricature, parody and travesty, like their practical counterpart—
unmasking, range themselves against persons and objects who command
authority and respect and who are exalted in some sense—these are
procedures tending towards degradation.[72] In the transferred psychic sense,
the exalted is equivalent to something great and I want to make the
statement, or more accurately to repeat the statement, that psychic greatness
like somatic greatness is exhibited by means of an increased expenditure. It
needs little observation to ascertain that when I speak of the exalted I give a
different innervation to my voice, I change my facial expression, an attempt
to bring my entire bearing as it were into complete accord with the dignity
of that which I present. I impose upon myself a dignified restriction not
much different than if I were coming into the presence of an illustrious
personage, monarch, or prince of science. I can scarcely err when I assume
that this added innervation of conceptual mimicry corresponds to an
increased expenditure. The third case of such an added expenditure I readily
find when I indulge in abstract trains of thought instead of in the concrete
and plastic ideas. If I can now imagine that the mentioned processes for
degrading the illustrious are quite ordinary, that during their activity I need
not be on my guard and in whose ideal presence I may, to use a military
formula, put myself “at ease,” all that saves me the added expenditure of
dignified restriction. Moreover, the comparison of this manner of
presentation instigated by identification with the manner of presentation to
which I have been hitherto accustomed which seeks to present itself at the
same time, again produces a difference in expenditure which can be
discharged through laughter.
As is known, caricature brings about the degradation by rendering
prominent one feature, comic in itself, from the entire picture of the exalted
object, a feature which would be overlooked if viewed with the entire
picture. Only by isolating this feature can the comic effect be obtained

which spreads in our memory over the whole picture. This has, however,
this condition; the presence of the exalted itself must not force us into a
disposition of reverence. Where such a comical feature is really lacking
then caricature unhesitatingly creates it by exaggerating one that is not
comical in itself. It is again characteristic of the origin of comic pleasure
that the effect of the caricature is not essentially impaired through such a
falsifying of reality.

Unmasking

Parody and travesty accomplish the degradation of the exalted by other
means; they destroy the uniformity between the attributes of persons
familiar to us and their speech and actions; by replacing either the
illustrious persons or their utterances by lowly ones. Therein they differ
from caricature, but not through the mechanism of the production of the
comic pleasure. The same mechanism also holds true in unmasking, which
comes into consideration only where some one has attached to himself
dignity and authority which in reality should be taken from him. We have
seen the comic effect of unmasking through several examples of wit, for
example, in the story of the fashionable lady who in her first labor-pains
cries: “Ah, mon Dieu!” but to whom the physician paid no attention until
she screamed: “A-a-a-ai-e-e-e-e-e-e-E-E-E!” Being now acquainted with
the character of the comic, we can no longer dispute that this story is really
an example of comical unmasking and has no just claim to the term
witticism. It recalls wit only through the setting, through the technical
means of “representation through a trifle”; here it is the cry which was
found sufficient to indicate the point. The fact remains, however, that our
feeling for the niceties of speech, when we call on it for judgment, does not
oppose calling such a story a witticism. We can find the explanation for this
in the reflection that usage of speech does not enter scientifically into the
nature of wit so far as we have evolved it by means of this painstaking
examination. As it is a function of the activities of wit to reopen hidden
sources of comic pleasure (p. 150), every artifice which does not bring to
light barefaced comic may in looser analogy be called a witticism. This is
especially true in the case of unmasking, though in other methods of comic-
making the appellation also holds good.[73]

In the mechanism of “unmasking” one can also utilize those processes of
comic-making already known to us which degrade the dignity of
individuals in that they call attention to one of the common human frailties,
but particularly to the dependence of his mental functions upon physical
needs. Unmasking them becomes equivalent to the reminder: This or that
one who is admired like a demigod is only a human being like you and me
after all. Moreover, all efforts in this mechanism serve to lay bare the
monotonous psychic automatism which is behind wealth and apparent
freedom of psychic achievements. We have become acquainted with
examples of such “unmasking” through the witticisms dealing with
marriage agents, and at that time to be sure we felt doubt whether we could
rightly count these stories as wit. Now we can decide with more certainty
that the anecdote of the echo who reinforces all assertions of the marriage
agent and in the end reinforces the latter’s admission that the bride has a
hunch back with the exclamation “And what a hunch!” is essentially a
comic story, an example of the unmasking of the psychic automatism. But
here the comic story serves only as a façade; to any one who wishes to note
the hidden meaning of the marriage agent, the whole remains a splendidly
put together piece of wit. He who does not penetrate so far sees only the
comic story. The same is true of the other witticism of the agent who, to
refute an objection, finally confirms the truth through the exclamation: “But
who in the world would lend them anything?” This is a comic unmasking
which serves as a façade for a witticism. Still the character of the wit is here
quite evident, as the speech of the agent is at the same time an expression
through the opposite. In trying to prove that the people are rich he proves at
the same time that they are not rich but very poor. Wit and the comic unite
here and teach us that a statement may be simultaneously witty and
comical.
We eagerly grasp the opportunity to return from the comic of unmasking
to wit, for our real task is to explain the relation between wit and comic and
not to determine the nature of the comic. Hence to the case of uncovering
the psychic automatism, wherein our feeling left us in doubt as to whether
the matter was comical or witty, we add another, the case of nonsense-wit,
wherein likewise wit and the comic fuse. But our investigation will
ultimately show us that in this second case the meeting of wit and comic
may be theoretically deduced.

In the discussion of the techniques of wit we have found that giving free
play to such modes of thinking as are common in the unconscious and
which in consciousness are conceived only as “faulty thinking,” furnishes
the technical means of a great many witticisms. We had then doubted their
witty character and were inclined to classify them simply as comic stories.
We could come to no decision regarding our uncertainty because in the first
place the real character of wit was not familiar to us. Later we found this
character by following the analogy to the dream-work as to the compromise
formed by the wit-work between the demands of the rational critic and the
impulse not to abandon the old word-pleasure and nonsense-pleasure. What
thus came into existence as a compromise, when the foreconscious thought
was left for a moment to unconscious elaboration, satisfied both demands in
all cases, but it presented itself to the critic, in various forms and had to
stand various criticisms from it. In one case wit succeeded in surreptitiously
assuming the form of an unimportant but none the less admissible
proposition; a second time it smuggled itself into the expression of a
valuable thought. But within the outer limit of the compromise activity it
made no effort to satisfy the critic, and defiantly utilizing the pleasure-
sources at its disposal, it appeared before the critic as pure nonsense. It had
no fear of provoking contradiction because it could rely on the fact that the
hearer would decipher the disfigurement of the expression through the
operation of his unconscious and thus give back to it its meaning.
Now in what case will wit appear to the critic as nonsense? Particularly
when it makes use of those modes of thought, which are common in the
unconscious, but forbidden in conscious thought; that is, when it resorts to
faulty thinking. Some of the modes of thinking, of the unconscious, have
also been retained in conscious thinking, for example, many forms of
indirect expression, allusions, etc., even though their conscious use has to
be much restricted. Using these techniques wit will arouse little or no
opposition on the part of the critic; but this only happens when it also uses
that technical means with which conscious thought no longer cares to have
anything to do. Wit can still further avoid offending if it disguises the faulty
thinking by investing it with a semblance of logic as in the story of the
fancy cake and liqueur, salmon with mayonnaise, and similar ones. But
should it present the faulty thinking undisguised, the critic is sure to protest.

The Meeting of Wit and the Comic

In this case, something else comes to the aid of wit. The faulty thinking,
which as a form of thinking of the unconscious, wit utilizes for its
technique, appears comical to the critic, although this is not necessarily the
case. The conscious giving of free play to the unconscious and to those
forms of thinking which are rejected as faulty, furnishes a means for the
production of comic pleasure. This can be easily understood, as a greater
expenditure is surely needed for the production of the foreconscious
investing energy than for the giving of free play to the unconscious. When
we hear the thought which is formed like one from the unconscious we
compare it to its correct form, and this results in a difference of expenditure
which gives origin to comic pleasure. A witticism which makes use of such
faulty thinking as its technique and therefore appears absurd can produce a
comic impression at the same time. If we do not strike the trail of the wit,
there remains to us only the comic or funny story.
The story of the borrowed kettle, which showed a hole on being returned,
whereupon the borrower excused himself by stating that in the first place he
had not borrowed the kettle; secondly, that it already had a hole when he
borrowed it; and thirdly, that he had returned it intact without any hole (p.
82), is an excellent example of a purely comic effect through giving free
play to one’s unconscious modes of thinking. Just this mutual neutralization
of several thoughts, each of which is well motivated in itself, is the province
of the unconscious. Corresponding to this, the dream in which the
unconscious thoughts become manifest, also shows an absence of either—
or.[74] These are expressed by putting the thoughts next to one another. In
that dream example given in my Interpretation of Dreams,[75] which in spite
of its complication I have chosen as a type of the work of interpretation, I
seek to rid myself of the reproach that I have not removed the pains of a
patient by psychic treatment. My arguments are: 1. she is herself to blame
for her illness, because she does not wish to accept my solution, 2. her pains
are of organic origin, therefore none of my concern, 3. her pains are
connected with her widowhood, for which I am certainly not to blame, 4.
her pains resulted from an injection with a dirty syringe, which was given
by another. All these motives follow one another just as though one did not
exclude the other. In order to escape the reproach that it was nonsense I had
to insert the words “either—or” instead of the “and” of the dream.

A similar comical story is the one which tells of a blacksmith in a
Hungarian village who has committed a crime punishable by death; the
bürgomaster, however, decreed that not the smith but a tailor was to be
hanged, as there were two tailors in the village but only one blacksmith,
and the crime had to be expiated. Such a displacement of guilt from one
person to another naturally contradicts all laws of conscious logic, but in no
ways the mental trends of the unconscious. I am in doubt whether to call
this story comic, and still I put the story of the kettle among the witticisms.
Now I admit that it is far more correct to designate the latter as comic rather
than witty. But now I understand how it happens that my feelings, usually
so reliable, can leave me in the lurch as to whether this story be comic or
witty. The case in which I cannot come to a conclusion through my feelings
is the one in which the comic results through the uncovering of modes of
thought which exclusively belong to the unconscious. A story of that kind
can be comic and witty at the same time; but it will impress me as being
witty even if it be only comic, because the use of the faulty thinking of the
unconscious reminds me of wit, just as in the case of the arrangements for
the uncovering of the hidden comic discussed before (p. 325).
I must lay great stress upon making clear this most delicate point of my
analysis, namely, the relation of wit to the comic, and will therefore
supplement what has been said with some negative statements. First of all, I
call attention to the fact that the case of the meeting of wit and comic
treated here (p. 327) is not identical with the preceding one. I grant it is a
fine distinction, but it can be drawn with certainty. In the preceding case the
comic originated from the uncovering of the psychic automatism. This is in
no way peculiar to the unconscious alone and it does not at all play a
conspicuous part in the technique of wit. Unmasking appears only
accidentally in relation with wit, in that it serves another technique of wit,
namely, representation through the opposite. But in the case of giving free
play to unconscious ways of thinking the union of wit and comic is an
essential one, because the same method which is used by the first person in
wit as the technique of releasing pleasure will naturally produce comic
pleasure in the third person.
We might be tempted to generalize this last case and seek the relation of
wit to the comic in the fact that the effect of wit upon the third person
follows the mechanism of comic pleasure. But there is no question about
that; contact with the comic is not in any way found in all nor even in most

witticisms; in most cases wit and the comic can be cleanly separated. As
often as wit succeeds in escaping the appearance of absurdity, which is to
say in most witticisms of double meaning or of allusion, one cannot
discover any effect in the hearer resembling the comic. One can make the
test with examples previously cited or with some new ones given here.
Congratulatory telegram to be sent to a gambler on his 70th birthday.
“Trente et quarante”[76] (word-division with allusion).
Madame de Maintenon was called Madame de Maintenant (modification
of a name).
We might further believe that at least all jokes with nonsense façades
appear comical and must impress us as such. But I recall here the fact that
such witticisms often have a different effect on the hearer, calling forth
confusion and a tendency to rejection (see footnote, p. 212). Therefore it
evidently depends whether the nonsense of the wit appears comical or
common plain nonsense, and the conditions for this we have not yet
investigated. Accordingly we hold to the conclusion that wit, judging by its
nature, can be separated from the comic, and that it unites with it on the one
hand only in certain special cases, on the other in the tendency to gain
pleasure from intellectual sources.
In the course of these examinations concerning the relations of wit and
the comic there revealed itself to us that distinction which we must
emphasize as most significant, and which at the same time points to a
psychologically important characteristic of the comic. We had to transfer to
the unconscious the source of wit-pleasure; there is no occasion which can
be discovered for the same localization of the comic. On the contrary all
analyses which we have made thus far indicate that the source of comic
pleasure lies in the comparison of two expenditures, both of which we must
adjudge to the foreconscious. Wit and the comic can above all be
differentiated in the psychic localization; wit is, so to speak, the
contribution to the comic from the sphere of the unconscious.

Comic of Imitation

We need not blame ourselves for digressing from the subject, for the
relation of wit to the comic is really the occasion which urged us to the

examination of the comic. But it is time for us to return to the point under
discussion, to the treatment of the means which serve to produce the comic.
We have advanced the discussion of caricature and unmasking, because
from both of them we can borrow several points of similarity for the
analysis of the comic of imitation. Imitation is mostly replaced by
caricature, which consists in the exaggeration of certain otherwise not
striking traits, and also bears the character of degradation. Still this does not
seem to exhaust the nature of imitation; it is incontestable that in itself it
represents an extraordinarily rich source of comic pleasure, for we laugh
particularly over faithful imitations. It is not easy to give a satisfactory
explanation of this if we do not accept Bergson’s view,[77] according to
which the comic of imitation is put next to the comic produced by
uncovering the psychic automatism. Bergson believes that everything gives
a comic impression which manifests itself in the shape of a machine-like
inanimate movement in the human being. His law is that “the attitudes,
gestures, and movements of the human body are laughable in exact
proportion as that body reminds us of a mere machine.” He explains the
comic of imitation by connecting it with a problem formulated by Pascal in
his Thoughts, why is it that we laugh at the comparison of two faces that are
alike although neither of them excites laughter by itself. “The truth is that a
really living life should never repeat itself. Wherever there is repetition or
complete similarity, we always suspect some mechanism at work behind the
living.” Analyze the impression you get from two faces that are too much
alike, and you will find that you are thinking of two copies cast in the same
mould, or two impressions of the same soul, or two reproductions of the
same negative,—in a word, of some manufacturing process or other. This
deflection of life towards the mechanical is here the real cause of laughter
(l. c., p. 34). We might say, it is the degradation of the human to the
mechanical or inanimate. If we accept these winning arguments of Bergson,
it is moreover not difficult to subject his view to our own formula. Taught
by experience that every living being is different and demands a definite
amount of expenditure from our understanding, we find ourselves
disappointed when, as a result of a perfect agreement or deceptive imitation,
we need no new expenditure. But we are disappointed in the sense of being
relieved, and the expenditure of expectation which has become superfluous
is discharged through laughter. The same formula will also cover all cases
of comic rigidity considered by Bergson, such as professional habits, fixed

ideas, and modes of expression which are repeated on every occasion. All
these cases aim to compare the expenditure of expectation with what is
commonly required for the understanding, whereby the greater expectation
depends on observation of individual variety and human plasticity. Hence in
imitation the source of comic pleasure is not the comic of situation but that
of expectation.
As we trace the comic pleasure in general to comparison, it is incumbent
upon us to investigate also the comic element of the comparison itself,
which likewise serves as a means of producing the comic. Our interest in
this question will be enhanced when we recall that in the case of
comparison the “feeling” as to whether something was to be classed as
witty or merely comical often left us in the lurch (v. p. 114).
The subject really deserves more attention than we can bestow upon it.
The main quality for which we ask in comparison is whether it is pertinent,
that is, whether it really calls our attention to an existing agreement between
two different objects. The original pleasure in refinding the same thing
(Groos, p. 103) is not the only motive which favors the use of comparison.
Besides this there is the fact that comparison is capable of a utilization
which facilitates intellectual work; when for example, as is usually the case,
one compares the less familiar to the more familiar, the abstract to the
concrete, and explains through this comparison the more strange and the
more difficult objects. With every such comparison, especially of the
abstract to the concrete, there is a certain degradation and a certain
economy in abstraction expenditure (in the sense of a conceptual mimicry)
yet this naturally does not suffice to render prominent the character of the
comic. The latter does not emerge suddenly from the freed pleasure of the
comparison but comes gradually; there are many cases which only touch the
comic, in which one might doubt whether they show the comic character.
The comparison undoubtedly becomes comical when the niveau difference
of the expenditure of abstraction between the two things compared becomes
increased, if something serious and strange, especially of intellectual or
moral nature is compared to something banal and lowly. The former release
of pleasure and the contribution from the conditions of conceptual mimicry
may perhaps explain the gradual change—which is determined by
quantitative relations,—from the universally pleasurable to the comic,
which takes place during the comparison. I am certainly avoiding
misunderstandings in that I emphasize that I deduce the comic pleasure in

the comparison, not from the contrast of the two things compared but from
the difference of the two abstraction expenditures. The strange which is
difficult to grasp, the abstract and really intellectually sublime, through its
alleged agreement with a familiar lowly one, in the imagination of which
every abstraction expenditure disappears, is now itself unmasked as
something equally lowly. The comic of comparison thus becomes reduced
to a case of degradation.
The comparison, as we have seen above, can now be witty without a
trace of comic admixture, especially when it happens to evade the
degradation. Thus the comparison of Truth to a torch which one cannot
carry through a crowd without singeing somebody’s beard is pure wit,
because it takes an obsolete expression (“The torch of truth”) at its full
value and not at all in a comical sense, and because the torch as an object
does not lack a certain distinction, though it is a concrete object. However, a
comparison may just as well be witty as comic, and what is more one may
be independent of the other, in that the comparison becomes an aid for
certain techniques of wit, as, for example, unification or allusion. Thus
Nestroy’s comparison of memory to a “Warehouse” (p. 120) is
simultaneously comical and witty, first, on account of the extraordinary
degradation to which the psychological conception must consent in the
comparison to a “Warehouse,” and secondly, because he who utilizes the
comparison is a clerk, and in this comparison he establishes a rather
unexpected unification between psychology and his vocation. Heine’s
verse, “until at last the buttons tore from the pants of my patience,” seems
at first an excellent example of a comic degrading comparison, but on
closer reflection we must ascribe to it also the attribute of wittiness, since
the comparison as a means of allusion strikes into the realm of the obscene
and causes a release of pleasure from the obscene. Through a union not
altogether incidental the same material also gives us a resultant pleasure
which is at the same time comical and witty; it does not matter whether or
not the conditions of the one promote the origin of the other, such a union
acts confusingly on the “feeling” whose function it is to announce to us
whether we have before us wit or the comic, and only a careful examination
independent of the disposition of pleasure can decide the question.
As tempting as it would be to trace these more intimate determinations of
comic pleasure, the author must remember that neither his previous
education nor his daily vocation justifies him in extending his investigations

beyond the spheres of wit, and he must confess that it is precisely the
subject of comic comparison which makes him feel his incompetence.
We are quite willing to be reminded that many authors do not recognize
the clear notional and objective distinction between wit and comic, as we
were impelled to do, and that they classify wit merely as “the comic of
speech” or “of words.” To test this view let us select one example of
intentional and one of involuntary comic of speech and compare it with wit.
We have already mentioned before that we are in a good position to
distinguish comic from witty speech. “With a fork and with effort, his
mother pulled him out of the mess,” is only comical, but Heine’s verse
about the four castes of the population of Göttingen: “Professors, students,
Philistines, and cattle,” is exquisitely witty.
As an example of the intentional comic of speech I will take as a model
Stettenheim’s Wippchen. We call Stettenheim witty because he possesses
the cleverness that evokes the comic. The wit which one “has” in
contradistinction to the wit which one “makes,” is indeed correctly
conditioned by this ability. It is true that the letters of Wippchen are also
witty in so far as they are interspersed with a rich collection of all sorts of
witticisms, some of which very successful ones, (as “festively undressed”
when he speaks of a parade of savages), but what lends the peculiar
character to these productions is not these isolated witticisms, but the
superabundant flow of comic speech contained therein. Originally
Wippchen was certainly meant to represent a satirical character, a
modification of Freytag’s Schmock, one of those uneducated persons who
trade in the educational treasure of the nation and abuse it; but the pleasure
in the comic effect experienced in representing this person seems gradually
to have pushed to the background the author’s satirical tendency.
Wippchen’s productions are for the most part “comic nonsense.” The author
has justly utilized the pleasant mood resulting from the accumulation of
such achievements to present beside the altogether admissible material all
sorts of absurdities which would be intolerable in themselves. Wippchen’s
nonsense appears to be of a specific nature only on account of its special
technique. If we look closer into some of these “witticisms,” we find that
some forms which have impressed their character on the whole production
are especially conspicuous. Wippchen makes use mostly of compositions
(fusions), of modifications of familiar expressions and quotations. He
replaces some of the banal elements in these expressions by others which

are usually more pretentious and more valuable. This naturally comes near
to the techniques of wit.

The Comic of Speech

Some of the fusions taken from the preface and the first pages are the
following: “Turkey’s money is like the hay of the sea.” This is only a
condensation of the two expressions, “Money like hay,” “Money like the
sands of the sea.” Or: “I am nothing but a leafless pillar which tells of a
vanished splendor,” which is a fusion of “leafless trunk” and “a pillar
which, etc.” Or: “Where is Ariadne’s thread which leads out of the Scylla of
this Augean stable?” for which three different Greek myths contribute an
element each.
The modifications and substitutions can be treated collectively without
much forcing; their character can be seen from the following examples
which are peculiar to Wippchen, they are regularly permeated by a different
wording which is more fluent, most banal, and reduced to mere platitudes.
“To hang my paper and ink high.” The saying: “To hang one’s bread-
basket high,” expresses metaphorically the idea of placing one under
difficult conditions. But why not stretch this figure to other material?
“Already in my youth Pegasus was alive in me.” When the word
“pegasus” is replaced by “the poet,” one can recognize it as an expression
often used in autobiographies. Naturally “pegasus” is not the proper word to
replace the words “the poet,” but it has thought associations to it and is a
high-sounding word.
From Wippchen’s other numerous productions some examples can be
shown which present the pure comic. As an example of comic
disillusionment the following can be cited: “For hours the battle raged,
finally it remained undecisive”; an example of comical unmasking (of
ignorance) is the following: “Clio, the Medusa of history,” or quotations
like the following: “Habent sua fata morgana.” But our interest is aroused
more by the fusions and modifications because they recall familiar
techniques of wit. We may compare them to such modification witticisms as
the following: “He has a great future behind him,” and Lichtenberg’s
modification witticisms such as: “New baths heal well,” etc. Should

Wippchen’s productions having the same technique be called witticisms, or
what distinguishes them from the latter?
It is surely not difficult to answer this. Let us remember that wit presents
to the hearer a double face, and forces him to two different views. In
nonsense-witticisms such as those mentioned last, one view, which
considers only the wording, states that they are nonsense; the other view,
which, in obedience to suggestion, follows the road that leads through the
hearer’s unconscious, finds very good sense in these witticisms. In
Wippchen’s wit-like productions one of these views of wit is empty, as if
stunted. It is a Janus head with only one countenance developed. One would
get nowhere should he be tempted to proceed by means of this technique to
the unconscious. The condensations lead to no case in which the two fused
elements really result in a new sense; they fall to pieces when an attempt is
made to analyze them. As in wit, the modifications and substitutions lead to
a current and familiar wording, but they themselves tell us little else and as
a rule nothing that is of any possible use. Hence the only thing remaining to
these “witticisms” is the nonsense view. Whether such productions, which
have freed themselves from one of the most essential characters of wit,
should be called “bad” wit or not wit at all, every one must decide as he
feels inclined.
There is no doubt that such stunted wit produces a comic effect for which
we can account in more than one way. Either the comic originates through
the uncovering of the unconscious modes of thinking in a manner similar to
the cases considered above, or the wit originates by comparison with
perfect wit. Nothing prevents us from assuming that we here deal with a
union of both modes of origin of the comic pleasure. It is not to be denied
that it is precisely the inadequate dependence on wit which here shapes the
nonsense into comic nonsense.

Comic of Inadequacy

There are, of course, other quite apparent cases, in which such
inadequacy produced by the comparison with wit, makes the nonsense
irresistibly comic. The counterpart to wit, the riddle, can perhaps give us
better examples for this than wit itself. A facetious question states: What is
this: It hangs on the wall and one can dry his hands on it? It would be a

foolish riddle if the answer were: a towel. On the contrary this answer is
rejected with the statement: No, it is a herring,—“But, for mercy’s sake,” is
the objection, “a herring does not hang on the wall.”—“But you can hang
it there,”—“But who wants to dry his hands on a herring?”—“Well,” is the
soft answer, “you don’t have to.” This explanation given through two
typical displacements show how much this question lacks of being a real
riddle, and because of this absolute insufficiency it impresses one as
irresistibly comic, rather than mere nonsensical foolishness. Through such
means, that is, by not restricting essential conditions, wit, riddles, and other
forms, which in themselves produce no comic pleasure, can be made into
sources of comic pleasure.
It is not so difficult to understand the case of the involuntary comic of
speech which we can perhaps find realized with as much frequency as we
like in the poems of Frederika Kempner.[78]
ANTI-VIVISECTION.

Fraternal sentiment should urge us
To champion the Guinea-pig,
For has it not a soul like ours,
Although most likely not as big?

Or a conversation between a loving couple.
THE CONTRAST.

The young wife whispers “I’m so happy,”
“And I!” chimes in her husband’s voice,
“Because your virtues, dearest help-mate,
Reveal the wisdom of my choice.”

There is nothing here which makes one think of wit. Doubtless, however,
it is the inadequacy of these “poetic productions,” as the very extraordinary
clumsiness of the expressions which recall the most commonplace or
newspaper style, the ingenious poverty of thoughts, the absence of every
trace of poetic manner of thinking or speaking,—it is all these inadequacies
which make these poems comic. Nevertheless it is not at all self-evident
that we should find Kempner’s poems comical; many similar productions
we merely consider very bad, we do not laugh at them but are rather vexed
with them. But here it is the great disparity in our demand of a poem which
impels us to the comic conception; where this difference is less, we are
inclined to criticise rather than laugh. The comic effect of Kempner’s poetic

productions is furthermore assured by the additional circumstances of the
lady author’s unmistakably good intentions, and by the fact that her helpless
phrases disarm our feeling of mockery and anger. We are now reminded of
a problem the consideration of which we have so far postponed. The
difference of expenditure is surely the main condition of the comic pleasure,
but observation teaches that such difference does not always produce
pleasure. What other conditions must be added, or what disturbances must
be checked in order that pleasure should result from the difference of
expenditure? But before proceeding with the answers to these questions we
wish to verify what was said in the conclusions of the former discussion,
namely, that the comic of speech is not synonymous with wit, and that wit
must be something quite different from speech comic.
As we are about to attack the problem just formulated, concerning the
conditions of the origin of comic pleasure from the difference of
expenditure, we may permit ourselves to facilitate this task so as to cause
ourselves some pleasure. To give a correct answer to this question would
amount to an exhaustive presentation of the nature of the comic for which
we are fitted neither by ability nor authority. We shall therefore again be
content to elucidate the problem of the comic only so far as it distinctly
separates itself from wit.
All theories of the comic were objected to by the critics on the ground
that in defining the comic these theories overlooked the essential element of
it. This can be seen from the following theories, with their objections. The
comic depends on a contrasting idea; yes, in so far as this contrast effects
one comically and in no other way. The feeling of the comic results from
the dwindling away of an expectation; yes, if the disappointment does not
prove to be painful. There is no doubt that these objections are justified, but
they are overestimated if one concludes from them that the essential
characteristic mark of the comic has hitherto escaped our conception. What
depreciates the general validity of these definitions are conditions which are
indispensable for the origin of the comic pleasure, but which will be
searched in vain for the nature of comic pleasure. The rejection of the
objections and the explanations of the contradictions to the definitions of
the comic will become easy for us, only after we trace back comic pleasure
to the difference resulting from a comparison of two expenditures. Comic
pleasure and the effect by which it is recognized—laughter, can originate
only when this difference is no longer utilizable and when it is capable of

discharge. We gain no pleasurable effect, or at most a flighty feeling of
pleasure in which the comic does not appear, if the difference is put to other
use as soon as it is recognized. Just as special precautions must be taken in
wit, in order to guard against making new use of expenditure recognized as
superfluous, so also can comic pleasure originate only under relations
which fulfil this latter condition. The cases in which such differences of
expenditure originate in our ideational life are therefore uncommonly
numerous, while the cases in which the comic originates from them is
comparatively very rare.

The Conditions of Isolation of the Comic

Two observations obtrude themselves upon the observer who reviews
even only superficially the origin of comic pleasure from the difference of
expenditure; first, that there are cases in which the comic appears regularly
and as if necessarily; and, in contrast to these cases, others in which this
appearance depends on the conditions of the case and on the viewpoint of
the observer; but secondly, that unusually large differences very often
triumph over unfavorable conditions, so that the comic feeling originates in
spite of it. In reference to the first point one may set up two classes, the
inevitable comic and the accidental comic, although one will have to be
prepared from the beginning to find exceptions in the first class to the
inevitableness of the comic. It would be tempting to follow the conditions
which are essential to each class.
What is important in the second class are the conditions of which one
may be designated as the “isolation” of the comic case. A closer analysis
renders conspicuous relations something like the following:
a) The favorable condition for the origin of comic pleasure is brought
about by a general happy disposition in which “one is in the mood for
laughing.” In happy toxic states almost everything seems comic, which
probably results from a comparison with the expenditure in normal
conditions. For wit, the comic, and all similar methods of gaining pleasure
from the psychic activities, are nothing but ways to regain this happy state
—euphoria—from one single point, when it does not exist as a general
disposition of the psyche.

b) A similar favorable condition is produced by the expectation of the
comic or by putting one’s self in the right mood for comic pleasure. Hence
when the intention to make things comical exists and when this feeling is
shared by others, the differences required are so slight that they probably
would have been overlooked had they been experienced in unpremeditated
occurrences. He who decides to attend a comic lecture or a farce at the
theater is indebted to this intention for laughing over things which in his
everyday life would hardly produce in him a comic effect. He finally laughs
at the recollection of having laughed, at the expectation of laughing, and at
the appearance of the one who is to present the comic, even before the latter
makes the attempt to make him laugh. It is for this reason that people admit
that they are ashamed of that which made them laugh at the theater.
c) Unfavorable conditions for the comic result from the kind of psychic
activity which may occupy the individual at the moment. Imaginative or
mental activity tending towards serious aims disturbs the discharging
capacity of the investing energies which the activity needs for its own
displacements, so that only unexpected and great differences of expenditure
can break through to form comic pleasure. All manner of mental processes
far enough removed from the obvious to cause a suspension of ideational
mimicry are unfavorable to the comic; in abstract contemplation there is
hardly any room left for the comic, except when this form of thinking is
suddenly interrupted.
d) The occasion for releasing comic pleasure vanishes when the attention
is fixed on the comparison capable of giving rise to the comic. Under such
circumstances the comic force is lost from that which is otherwise sure to
produce a comic effect. A movement or a mental activity cannot become
comical to him whose interest is fixed at the time of comparing this
movement with a standard which distinctly presents itself to him. Thus the
examiner does not see the comical in the nonsense produced by the student
in his ignorance; he is simply annoyed by it, whereas the offender’s
classmates who are more interested in his chances of passing the
examination than in what he knows, laugh heartily over the same nonsense.
The teacher of dancing or gymnastics seldom has any eyes for the comic
movements of his pupils, and the preacher entirely loses sight of humanity’s
defects of character, which the writer of comedy brings out with so much
effect. The comic process cannot stand examination by the attention, it must
be able to proceed absolutely unnoticed in a manner similar to wit. But for

good reasons, it would contradict the nomenclature of “conscious
processes” which I have used in The Interpretation of Dreams, if one
wished to call it of necessity unconscious. It rather belongs to the
foreconscious, and one may use the fitting name “automatic” for all those
processes which are enacted in the foreconscious and dispense with the
attention energy which is connected with consciousness. The process of
comparison of the expenditures must remain automatic if it is to produce
comic pleasure.

Conditions Disturbing the Discharge

e) It is exceedingly disturbing to the comic if the case from which it
originates gives rise at the same time to a marked release of affect. The
discharge of the affective difference is then as a rule excluded. Affects,
disposition, and the attitude of the individual in occasional cases make it
clear that the comic comes or goes with the viewpoint of the individual
person; that only in exceptional cases is there an absolute comic. The
dependence or relativity of the comic is therefore much greater than of wit,
which never happens but is regularly made, and at its production one may
already give attention to the conditions under which it finds acceptance. But
affective development is the most intensive of the conditions which disturb
the comic, the significance of which is well known.[79] It is therefore said
that the comic feeling comes most in tolerably indifferent cases which
evince no strong feelings or interests. Nevertheless it is just in cases with
affective release that one may witness the production of a particularly
strong expenditure-difference in the automatism of discharge. When
Colonel Butler answers Octavio’s admonitions with “bitter laughter,”
exclaiming:

“Thanks from the house of Austria!”

his bitterness has thus not prevented the laughter which results from the
recollection of the disappointment which he believes he has experienced;
and on the other hand, the magnitude of this disappointment could not have
been more impressively depicted by the poet than by showing it capable of
affecting laughter in the midst of the storm of unchained affects. It is my
belief that this explanation may be applicable in all cases in which laughing
occurs on other than pleasurable occasions, and in conjunction with
exceedingly painful or tense affects.
f) If we also mention that the development of the comic pleasure can be
promoted by means of any other pleasurable addition to the case which acts
like a sort of contact-effect (after the manner of the fore-pleasure principle
in the tendency-wit), then we have discussed surely not all the conditions of
comic pleasure, yet enough of them to serve our purpose. We then see that
no other assumption so easily covers these conditions, as well as the
inconstancy and dependence of the comic effect, as this: the assumption that
comic pleasure is derived from the discharge of a difference, which under
many conditions can be diverted to a different use than discharge.

It still remains to give a thorough consideration of the comic of the
sexual and obscene, but we shall only skim over it with a few observations.
Here, too, we shall take the act of exposing one’s body as the starting-point.
An accidental exposure produces a comical effect on us, because we
compare the ease with which we attained the enjoyment of this view with
the great expenditure otherwise necessary for the attainment of this object.
The case thus comes nearer to the naïve-comic, but it is simpler than the
latter. In every case of exhibitionism in which we are made spectators—or,
in the case of the smutty joke hearers,—we play the part of the third person,
and the person exposed is made comical. We have heard that it is the
purpose of wit to replace obscenity and in this manner to reopen a source of
comic pleasure that has been lost. On the contrary, spying out an exposure
forms no example of the comic for the one spying, because the effort he
exerts thereby abrogates the condition of comic pleasure; the only thing
remaining is the sexual pleasure in what is seen. If the spy relates to another
what he has seen, the person looked at again becomes comical, because the

viewpoint that predominates is that the expenditure was omitted which
would have been necessary for the concealment of the private parts. At all
events, the sphere of the sexual or obscene offers the richest opportunities
for gaining comic pleasure beside the pleasurable sexual stimulation, as it
exposes the person’s dependence on his physical needs (degradation) or it
can uncover behind the spiritual love the physical demands of the same
(unmasking.)

The Psychogenesis of the Comic

An invitation to seek the understanding of the comic in its psychogenesis
comes surprisingly from Bergson’s well written and stimulating book
Laughter. Bergson, whose formula for the conception of the comic
character has already become known to us—“mechanization of life,” “the
substitution of something mechanical for the natural”—reaches by obvious
associations from automatism to the automaton, and seeks to trace a series
of comic effects to the blurred memories of children’s toys. In this
connection he once reaches this viewpoint, which, to be sure, he soon
drops; he seeks to trace the comic to the after-effect of childish pleasure.
“Perhaps we ought even to carry simplification still farther, and, going back
to our earliest recollection, try to discover in the games that amused us as
children the first faint traces of the combinations that make us laugh as
grown-up persons.”... “Above all, we are too apt to ignore the childish
element, so to speak, latent in most of our joyful emotions” (p. 67). As we
have now traced wit to that childish playing with words and thoughts which
is prohibited by the rational critic, we must be tempted to trace also these
infantile roots of the comic, conjectured by Bergson.
As a matter of fact we meet a whole series of conditions which seem
most promising, when we examine the relation of the comic to the child.
The child itself does not by any means seem comic to us, although its
character fulfills all conditions which, in comparison to our own, would
result in a comic difference. Thus we see the immoderate expenditure of
motion as well as the slight psychic expenditure, the control of the psychic
activities through bodily functions, and other features. The child gives us a
comic impression only when it does not behave as a child but as an earnest
grown-up, and even then it affects us only in the same manner as other

persons in disguise; but as long as it retains the nature of the child our
perception of it furnishes us a pure pleasure, which perhaps recalls the
comic. We call it naïve in so far as it displays to us the absence of
inhibitions, and we call naïve-comic those of its utterances which in another
we would have considered obscene or witty.
On the other hand the child lacks all feeling for the comic. This sentence
seems to say no more than that this comic feeling, like many others, first
makes its appearance in the course of psychic development; and that would
by no means be remarkable, especially since we must admit that it shows
itself distinctly even during years which must be accredited to childhood.
Nevertheless it can be demonstrated that the assertion that the child lacks
feeling for the comic has a deeper meaning than one would suppose. In the
first place it will readily be seen that it cannot be different, if our conception
is correct, that the comic feeling results from a difference of expenditure
produced in the effort to understand the other. Let us again take comic
motion as an example. The comparison which furnishes the difference reads
as follows, when put in conscious formulæ: “So he does it,” and: “So I
would do it,” or “So I have done it.” But the child lacks the standard
contained in the second sentence, it understands simply through imitation; it
just does it. Education of the child furnishes it with the standard: “So you
shall do it,” and if it now makes use of the same in comparisons, the nearest
conclusion is: “He has not done it right, and I can do it better.” In this case
it laughs at the other, it laughs at him with a feeling of superiority. There is
nothing to prevent us from tracing this laughter also to a difference of
expenditure; but according to the analogy with the examples of laughter
occurring in us we may conclude that the comic feeling is not experienced
by the child when it laughs as an expression of superiority. It is a laughter
of pure pleasure. In our own case whenever the judgment of our own
superiority occurs we smile rather than laugh, or if we laugh, we are still
able to distinguish clearly this conscious realization of our superiority from
the comic which makes us laugh.
It is probably correct to say that in many cases which we perceive as
“comical” and which we cannot explain, the child laughs out of pure
pleasure, whereas the child’s motives are clear and assignable. If, for
instance, some one slips on the street and falls, we laugh because this
impression—we know not why—is comical. The child laughs in the same
case out of a feeling of superiority or out of joy over the calamity of others.

It amounts to saying: “You fell, but I did not.” Certain pleasure motives of
the child seems to be lost for us grown-ups, but as a substitute for these we
perceive under the same conditions the “comic” feeling.

The Infantile and the Comic

If we were permitted to generalize, it would seem very tempting to
transfer the desired specific character of the comic into the awakening of
the infantile, and to conceive the comic as a regaining of “lost infantile
laughing.” One could then say, “I laugh every time over a difference of
expenditure between the other and myself, when I discover in the other the
child.” Or expressed more precisely, the whole comparison leading to the
comic would read as follows:
“He does it this way—I do it differently—
He does it just as I did when I was a child.”

This laughter would thus result every time from the comparison between
the ego of the grown-up and the ego of the child. The uncertainty itself of
the comic difference, causing now the lesser and now the greater
expenditure to appear comical to me, would correspond to the infantile
determination; the comic therein is actually always on the side of the
infantile.
This is not contradicted by the fact that the child itself as an object of
comparison does not make a comic impression on me but a purely
pleasurable one, nor by the fact that this comparison with the infantile
produces a comic effect only when any other use of the difference is
avoided. For the conditions of the discharge come thereby into
consideration. Everything that confines a psychic process in an association
of ideas works against the discharge of the surplus occupation of energy and
directs the same to other utilization; whatever isolates a psychic act favors
the discharge. By consciously focussing on the child as the person of
comparison, the discharge necessary for the production of comic pleasure
therefore becomes impossible; only in foreconscious energetic states is
there a similar approach to the isolation which we may moreover also
ascribe to the psychic processes in the child. The addition to the
comparison: “Thus I have also done it as a child,” from which the comic

effect would emanate, could come into consideration for the average
difference only when no other association could obtain control over the
freed surplus.
If we still continue with our attempt to find the nature of the comic in the
foreconscious association of the infantile, we have to go a step further than
Bergson and admit that the comparison resulting in the comic need not
necessarily awake old childish pleasure and play, but that it is enough if it
touches the childish nature in general, perhaps even childish pain. Herein
we deviate from Bergson, but remain consistent with ourselves, when we
connect the comic pleasure not with remembered pleasure but always with a
comparison. This is possible, for cases of the first kind comprise in a
measure those which are regularly and irresistibly comic. Let us now draw
up the scheme of the comic possibilities instanced above. We stated that the
comic difference would be found either
(a) through a comparison between the other and one’s self, or (b) through
a comparison altogether within the other, or (c) through a comparison
altogether within one’s self.
In the first case the other would appear to me as a child, in the second he
would put himself on the level of a child, and in the third I would find the
child in myself. To the first class belong the comic of movement and of
forms, of psychic activity and of character. The infantile corresponding to it
would be the motion-impulse and the inferior mental and moral
development of the child, so that the fool would perhaps become comical to
me by reminding me of a lazy child, and the bad person by reminding me of
a naughty child. The only time one might speak of a childish pleasure lost
to grown-ups would be where the child’s own motion pleasure came into
consideration.
The second case, in which the comic altogether depends on identification
with the other, comprises numerous possibilities such as the comic
situation, exaggeration (caricature), imitation, degradation, and unmasking.
It is under this head that the presentation of infantile viewpoints mostly take
place. For the comic situation is largely based on embarrassment, in which
we feel again the helplessness of the child. The worst of these
embarrassments, the disturbance of other activities through the imperative
demands of natural wants, corresponds to the child’s lack of control of the
physical functions. Where the comic situation acts through repetitions it is

based on the pleasure of constant repetition peculiar to the child (asking
questions, telling stories), through which it makes itself a nuisance to
grown-ups. Exaggeration, which also affords pleasure even to the grown-up
in so far as it is justified by his reason, corresponds to the characteristic
want of moderation in the child, and its ignorance of all quantitative
relations which it later really learns to know as qualitative. To keep within
bounds, to practice moderation even in permissible feelings is a late fruit of
education, and is gained through opposing inhibitions of the psychic
activity acquired in the same association. Wherever this association is
weakened as in the unconscious of dreams and in the monoideation of the
psychoneuroses, the want of moderation of the child again makes its
appearance.
The understanding of comic imitation has caused us many difficulties so
long as we left out of consideration the infantile factor. But imitation is the
child’s best art and is the impelling motive of most of its playing. The
child’s ambition is not so much to distinguish himself among his equals as
to imitate the big fellows. The relation of the child to the grown-up
determines also the comic of degradation, which corresponds to the
lowering of the grown-up in the life of the child. Few things can afford the
child greater pleasure than when the grown-up lowers himself to its level,
disregards his superiority, and plays with the child as its equal. The
alleviation which furnishes the child pure pleasure is a debasement used by
the adult as a means of making things comic and as a source of comic
pleasure. As for unmasking we know that it is based on degradation.
The infantile determination of the third case, the comic of expectation,
presents most of the difficulties; this really explains why those authors who
put this case to the foreground in their conception of the comic, found no
occasion to consider the infantile factor in their studies of the comic. The
comic of expectation is farthest from the child’s thoughts, the ability to
understand this is the latest quality to appear in him. Most of those cases
which produce a comic effect in the grown-up are probably felt by the child
as a disappointment. One can refer, however, to the blissful expectation and
gullibility of the child in order to understand why one considers himself as
comical “as a child,” when he succumbs to comic disappointment.
If the preceding remarks produce a certain probability that the comic
feeling may be translated into the thought; everything is comic that does not

fit the grown-up, I still do not feel bold enough,—in view of my whole
position to the problem of the comic—to defend this last proposition with
the same earnestness as those that I formulated before. I am unable to
decide whether the lowering to the level of the child is only a special case
of comic degradation, or whether everything comical fundamentally
depends on the degradation to the level of the child.[80]

Humor

An examination of the comic, however superficial it may be, would be
most incomplete if it did not devote at least a few remarks to the
consideration of humor. There is so little doubt as to the essential
relationship between the two that a tentative explanation of the comic must
furnish at least one component for the understanding of humor. It does not
matter how much appropriate and important material was presented as an
appreciation of humor, which, as one of the highest psychic functions,
enjoys the special favor of thinkers, we still cannot elude the temptation to
express its essence through an approach to the formulæ given for wit and
the comic.
We have heard that the release of painful emotions is the strongest
hindrance to the comic effect. Just as aimless motion causes harm, stupidity
mischief, and disappointment pain;—the possibility of a comic effect
eventually ends, at least for him who cannot defend himself against such
pain, who is himself affected by it or must participate in it, whereas the
disinterested party shows by his behavior that the situation of the case in
question contains everything necessary to produce comic effect. Humor is
thus a means to gain pleasure despite the painful affects which disturb it; it
acts as a substitute for this affective development, and takes its place. If we
are in a situation which tempts us to liberate painful affects according to our
habits, and motives then urge us to suppress these affects statu nascendi, we
have the conditions for humor. In the cases just cited the person affected by
misfortune, pain, etc., could obtain humoristic pleasure while the
disinterested party laughs over the comic pleasure. We can only say that the
pleasure of humor results at the cost of this discontinued liberation of affect;
it originates through the economized expenditure of affect.

The Economy in Expenditure of Affect

Humor is the most self-sufficient of the forms of the comic; its process
consummating itself in one single person and the participation of another
adds nothing new to it. I can enjoy the pleasure of humor originating in
myself without feeling the necessity of imparting it to another. It is not easy
to tell what happens dining the production of humoristic pleasure in a
person; but one gains a certain insight by investigating these cases of humor
which have emanated from persons with whom we have entered into a
sympathetic understanding. By sympathetically understanding the
humoristic person in these cases one gets the same pleasure. The coarsest
form of humor, the so-called humor of the gallows or grim-humor
(Galgenhumor), may enlighten us in this regard. The rogue, on being led to
execution on Monday, remarked: “Yes, this week is beginning well.” This is
really a witticism, as the remark is quite appropriate in itself, on the other
hand it is displaced in the most nonsensical fashion, as there can be no
further happening for him this week. But it required humor to make such
wit, that is, to overlook what distinguished the beginning of this week from
other weeks, and to deny the difference which could give rise to motives for
very particular emotional feelings. The case is the same when on the way to
the gallows he requests a neckerchief for his bare neck, in order to guard
against taking cold, a precaution which would be quite praiseworthy under
different circumstances, but becomes exceedingly superfluous and
indifferent in view of the impending fate of this same neck. We must say
that there is something like greatness of soul in this blague, in this clinging
to his usual nature and in deviating from that which would overthrow and
drive this nature into despair. This form of grandeur of humor thus appears
unmistakably in cases in which our admiration is not inhibited by the
circumstances of the humoristic person.
In Victor Hugo’s Ernani the bandit who entered into a conspiracy against
his king, Charles I, of Spain, (Charles V, as the German Emperor), falls into
the hands of his most powerful enemy; he foresees his fate; as one
convicted of high treason his head will fall. But this prospect does not deter
him from introducing himself as a hereditary Grandee of Spain and from
declaring that he has no intention of waiving any prerogative belonging to
such personage. A Grandee of Spain could appear before his royal master
with his head covered. Well:

“Nos têtes ont le droit
De tomber couvertes devant de toi.”[81]

This is excellent humor and if we do not laugh on hearing it, it is because
our admiration covers the humoristic pleasure. In the case of the rogue who
did not wish to take cold on the way to the gallows we roar with laughter.
The situation which should have driven this criminal to despair, might have
evoked in us intense pity, but this pity is inhibited because we understand
that he who is most concerned is quite indifferent to the situation. As a
result of this understanding the expenditure for pity, which was already
prepared in us, became inapplicable and we laughed it off. The indifference
of the rogue, which we notice has cost him a great expenditure of psychic
labor, infects us as it were.
Economy of sympathy is one of the most frequent sources of humoristic
pleasure. Mark Twain’s humor usually follows this mechanism. When he
tells us about the life of his brother, how, as mi employee in a large road-
building enterprise, he was hurled into the air through a premature
explosion of a blast, to come to earth again far from the place where he was
working, feelings of sympathy for this unfortunate are invariably aroused in
us. We should like to inquire whether he sustained no injury in this
accident; but the continuation of the story that the brother lost a half-day’s
pay for being away from the place he worked diverts us entirely from
sympathy and makes us almost as hard-hearted as that employer, and just as
indifferent to the possible injury to the victim’s health. Another time Mark
Twain presents us his pedigree, which he traces back almost as far back as
one of the companions of Columbus. But after describing the character of
this ancestor, whose entire possessions consisted of several pieces of linen
each bearing a different mark, we cannot help laughing at the expense of the
stored-up piety, a piety which characterized our frame of mind at the
beginning of this family history. The mechanism of humoristic pleasure is
not disturbed by our knowing that this family history is a fictitious one, and
that this fiction serves a satirical tendency to expose the embellishments
which result in imparting such pedigrees to others; it is just as independent
of the conditions of reality as the manufactured comic. Another of Mark
Twain’s stories relates how his brother constructed for himself subterranean
quarters into which he brought a bed, a table, and a lamp, and that as a roof
he used a large piece of sail-cloth with a hole through the centre; how
during the night after the room was completed, a cow being driven home

fell through the opening in the ceiling on to the table and extinguished the
lamp; how his brother helped patiently to hoist the animal out and to
rearrange everything; how he did the same thing when the same disturbance
was repeated the following night; and then every succeeding night; such a
story becomes comical through repetition. But Mark Twain closes with the
information that in the forty-sixth night when the cow again fell through,
his brother finally remarked that the thing was beginning to grow
monotonous; and here we can no longer restrain our humoristic pleasure,
for we had long expected to hear how the brother would express his anger
over this chronic malheur. The slight humor which we draw from our own
life we usually produce at the expense of anger instead of irritating
ourselves.[82]

Forms of Humor

The forms of humor are extraordinarily varied according to the nature of
the emotional feelings which are economized in favor of humor, as
sympathy, anger, pain, compassion, etc. And this series seems incomplete
because the sphere of humor experiences a constant enlargement, as often
as an artist or writer succeeds in mastering humoristically the, as yet,
unconquered emotional feelings and in making them, through artifices
similar to those in the above example, a source of humoristic pleasure. Thus
the artists of Simplicissimus have worked wonders in gaining humor at the
expense of fear and disgust. The manifestations of humor are above all
determined by two peculiarities, which are connected with the conditions of
its origin. In the first place, humor may appear fused with wit or any other
form of the comic; whereby it is entrusted with the task of removing a
possible emotional development which would form a hindrance to the
pleasurable effect. Secondly, it can entirely set aside this emotional
development or only partially, which is really the more frequent case,
because the simpler function and the different forms of “broken”[83] humor,
results in that humor which smiles under its tears. It withdraws from the
affect a part of its energy and gives instead the accompanying humoristic
sound.
As may be noticed by former examples the humoristic pleasure gained by
entering into sympathy with a thing results from a special technique

resembling displacement through which the liberation of affect held ready is
disappointed and the energy occupation is deflected to other, and, not often,
to secondary matters. This does not help us, however, to understand the
process by which the displacement from the development of affect proceeds
in the humoristic person himself. We see that the recipient intimates the
producer of the humor in his psychic processes, but we discover nothing
thereby concerning the forces which make this process possible in the latter.
We can only say, when, for example, somebody succeeds in paying no
heed to a painful affect because he holds before himself the greatness of the
world’s interest as a contrast to his own smallness, that we see in this no
function of humor but one of philosophic thinking, and we gain no pleasure
even if we put ourselves into his train of thought. The humoristic
displacement is therefore just as impossible in the light of conscious
attention as is the comic comparison; like the latter it is connected with the
condition to remain in the foreconscious—that is to say, to remain
automatic.
One reaches some solution of humoristic displacement if one examines it
in the light of a defense process. The defense processes are the psychic
correlates of the flight reflex and follow the task of guarding against the
origin of pain from inner sources; in fulfilling this task they serve the
psychic function as an automatic adjustment, which finally proves harmful
and therefore must be subjected to the control of the conscious thinking. A
definite form of this defense, the failure of repression, I have demonstrated
as the effective mechanism in the origin of the psychoneuroses. Humor can
now be conceived as the loftiest variant of this defense activity. It disdains
to withdraw from conscious attention the ideas which are connected with
the painful affect, as repression does, and thus it overcomes the defense
automatism. It brings this about by finding the means to withdraw the
energy resulting from the liberation of pain which is held in readiness and
through discharge changes the same into pleasure. It is even credible that it
is again the connection with the infantile that puts at humor’s disposal the
means for this function. Only in childhood did we experience intensively
painful affects over which to-day as grown-ups we would laugh; just as a
humorist laughs over his present painful affects. The elevation of his ego, of
which humoristic displacement gives evidence,—the translation of which
would read: I am too big to have these causes affect me painfully—he could
find in the comparison of his present ego with his infantile ego. This

conception is to some extent confirmed by the rôle which falls to the
infantile in the neurotic processes of repression.

The Relation of Humor to Wit and Comic

On the whole humor is closer to the comic than wit. Like the former its
psychic localization is in the foreconscious, whereas wit, as we had to
assume, is formed as a compromise between the unconscious and the
foreconscious. On the other hand, humor has no share in the peculiar nature
in which wit and the comic meet, a peculiarity which perhaps we have not
hitherto emphasized strongly enough. It is a condition for the origin of the
comic that we be induced to apply—either simultaneously or in rapid
succession—to the same thought function two different modes of ideas,
between which the “comparison” then takes place and thus forms the comic
difference. Such differences originate between the expenditure of the
stranger and one’s own, between the usual expenditure and the emergency
expenditure, between an anticipated expenditure and one which has already
occurred.[84]
The difference between two forms of conception resulting
simultaneously, which work with different expenditures, comes into
consideration in wit, in respect to the hearer. The one of these two
conceptions, by taking the hints contained in the witticism, follows the train
of thought through the unconscious, while the other conception remains on
the surface and presents the witticism like any wording from the
foreconscious which has become conscious. Perhaps it would not be
considered an unjustified statement if we should refer the pleasure of the
witticism heard to the difference between these two forms of presentation.
Concerning wit we here repeat our former statement concerning its
Janus-like double-facedness, a simile we used when the relation between
wit and the comic still appeared to us unsettled.[85]
The character thus put into the foreground becomes indistinct when we
deal with humor. To be sure, we feel the humoristic pleasure where an
emotional feeling is evaded, which we might have expected as a pleasure
usually belonging to the situation; and in so far humor really falls under the
broadened conception of the comic of expectation. But in humor it is no
longer a question of two different kinds of presentations having the same

content; the fact that the situation comes under the domination of a painful
emotional feeling which should have been avoided, puts an end to possible
comparison with the nature in the comic and in wit. The humoristic
displacement is really a case of that different kind of utilization of a freed
expenditure which proved to be so dangerous for the comic effect.

Formulæ for Wit, Comic, and Humor

Now, that we have reduced the mechanism of humoristic pleasure to a
formula analogous to the formula of comic pleasure and of wit, we are at
the end of our task. It has seemed to us that the pleasure of wit originates
from an economy of expenditure in inhibition, of the comic from an
economy of expenditure in thought, and of humor from an economy of
expenditure in feeling. All three activities of our psychic apparatus derive
pleasure from economy. They all strive to bring back from the psychic
activity a pleasure which has really been lost in the development of this
activity. For the euphoria which we are thus striving to obtain is nothing but
the state of a bygone time in which we were wont to defray our psychic
work with slight expenditure. It is the state of our childhood in which we
did not know the comic, were incapable of wit, and did not need humor to
make us happy.

INDEX

A
Abstract wit, 128
Absurdity, 77
Actuality, 186
Æsthetics, vi
Agassiz, 54
Aggression, 138, 152, 160, 232
Alluring-premiums, 210
Allusions, 107, 108, 232
Ambiguity, 45
Ambitious impulse, 219
Application of same material, 49
Aristotle, 184
Attributions, 121
Automatic process, 238
Automatisms, 85, 86, 87, 235, 358
B
Bain, 226, 322
Bergson, 301, 337, 360
Blasphemous witticisms, 171

Bleuler, 278
Bonmot, 43
Brevity, 10, 29, 52, 243
Brill, 22, 31, 35, 37, 38, 56
C
Caricature, 280, 303, 320
Censor, 260
Characterization-wit, 71
Child, 190, 309, 362
Childhood, 149
Comic, 4, 10, 221, 287, 313
element, 88
façade, 236
its origin, 302
its psychogenesis, 360
of expectation, 317
of imitation, 336
Comic, of speech, 345
motion, 304
pleasure, its origin, 351
situations, 303, 314
Comical character, 277
Comparison, 113
with unification, 130
Composition, 31
Condensation, 20, 48
examples of, 21, 22, 23
in dreams, 31, 49, 256
with modification and substitution, 25
Conflict, 163

Contrast, 8
Critical witticisms, 171
Cynical tendency, 204
witticisms and self-criticism, 166
Cynicism, 65, 161
pessimistic, 170
D
Darwin, 226
Defence, 138
reaction, 142
Derision, 157
De Quincey, 22
Disguise, 303
Displacement, 67, 61, 161
in dreams, 256
Displacement-wit, 68, 71, 237
Don Quixote, 377
Double meaning, 40, 103
and displacement, 66
of a name, 41
Doubt in witty comparisons, 118
Dream-formation, 260
Dream-work, 249, 275
Dreams, 30, 250, 251
Dugas, 224, 242
E
Economy, 49, 52, 242, 245
of psychic expenditure, 180

Ehrenfels, 165
Exaggeration, 280
Exhibitionism, 142
F
Façade, 155, 158
Facetious questions, 238
Falke, 14, 80, 95
Falstaff, Sir John, 376
Faulty thinking, 81, 84
Fechner, 188, 207, 280
Fischer, 3, 4, 6, 11, 43, 47, 55, 89, 132, 136
Flaubert, 24
Foreconscious, 282
Fore-pleasure, 209, 211
G
Goethe, 133
Grim-humor, 372
Groos, 183, 184, 185, 195
Gross, 278
H
Harmless wit, 128, 211, 219, 222, 284
and tendency-wit, 130
Heine, 9, 15, 26, 43, 44, 47, 55, 57, 92, 94, 106, 109, 119, 122, 171, 215,
216, 223, 341
Heymans, 9, 215
Holmes, 37
Hugo, 373
Humor, 370

Mark Twain’s, 374
I
Imitations, 303, 322
Impulse to impart wit, 200
Indirect expression, 100
with allusion, 101
Infantile and the comic, 364
Inhibitions, 140, 197, 206, 230, 231, 236, 290
expenditure of, 180
Insults, 209
Invectives, 148, 277
Ironical wit, 100
Irony, 276
J
Jest, 197, 201, 211, 274, 284
Johnson, 45
Jokes, cynical, 164
good or poor, 182
Jewish, 59, 72, 97, 166, 218
smutty, 139, 140, 145, 233
K
Kant, 320
Kleinpaul, 198
Kraepelin, 7
L
Lassalle, 115
Laugh, 221
Laughter as a discharge, 228
its determination, 224, 226

Lessing, 97, 130
Libido, 141
Lichtenberg, 39, 78, 89, 95, 97, 104, 115, 118, 121, 122, 129, 132, 149, 218
Lipps, 3, 4, 6, 10, 30, 93, 215, 227, 254, 320, 326
M
Manifold application, 40, 45
Matthews, 44
Michelet, 78
Modification, 42
Moll, 141
Morality, 163
Motives, 214, 239
N
Naïve, 290
characteristics of, 295
examples of, 291
Negativism, 276
Nestroy, 120, 341
Nonsense, 72, 192, 200, 279
Nonsense-witticisms, 76
O
Obscene wit, 138, 203
Obscenity, 142
Omission, 82, 107, 232
Outdoing wit, 96, 97
P
Parody, 280, 324
Pascal, 337

Paul, 3, 7, 8, 18, 29, 301
Persons in tendency-wit, 144, 221, 222, 230, 231, 240
Perversion, 141
Phillips, 151
Play, 211
and jest, 195
on words, 40
Playing with words, 196
Pleasure in nonsense, 190, 271
mechanisms of wit, 177
sources, 150
Psychic energy, 227
Psychoneuroses, 147
Puns, 53
R
Recognition, 183
Regression, 259
Representation through the opposite, 93, 95
through the minute, 111, 112
Repression, 147, 205, 211
Riddle, 232
Rousseau, J. B., 91
Rousseau, J. J., 33
S
Sancho Panza, 216
Satire, 43, 137
Schnitzler, 42
Sense in nonsense, 73, 74, 75, 199

Sexual elements, 139, 140, 219
Shakespeare, 222
Shake-up rhymes, 129
Sky-larking, 192
Smutty jokes, 139, 145, 233
Society, 150
Sophism, 82, 83, 159
Sophistic displacement, 161
faulty thinking, 78, 79
Soulié, 57
Sound, similarity, 39
Spencer, 225
Spinoza, 106
Stettenheim, 343
Subjective determinations, 155, 156, 166, 215, 217
Substitutive formation, 20
T
Tendencies of wit, 127, 206
Tendency to economy, 49
Tendency-wit, 130
its effect, 210
Thought-wit, 128
its techniques, 154
Travesty, 280, 324
U
Ueberhorst, 91
Unconscious, 254, 255, 269, 279, 281, 329
and the infantile, 268

Unification, 45, 88, 117, 121, 188
Unmasking, 303, 324
V
Vischer, 3, 8, 128
Voltaire, 91
W
Winslow, 45
Wish fulfilment, 249, 253
Wit, 4
and comic, 4, 330
and dreams, 249, 273, 285
and rebellion against authority, 153
as an inspiration, 265
as a social process, 214
by word-division, 32
definitions of, 6, 7, 8
desire to impart it, 239
double-facedness of, 240
harmless, 128
hostile and obscene, 138
in the service of tendencies, 146
ironical, 100
its motives, 214
its subjective determinations, 155
its tendencies, 127
Wit, literature of, 134
outdoing, 96, 97
pleasure mechanisms of, 177, 230
psychogenesis of, 177, 195, 200
shallow, 131
skeptical, 172, 173
technique of, 14, 194, 240
Wit-work, its formula, 261

Witticism and riddle, 232
critical, 171
Witticisms, blasphemous, 171
Witty nonsense, 211, 212
Woman, unyieldingness of, 143
Word-division, 32, 33, 34
Word-pleasure, 190
Word-wit, 128, 131

1. Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. Co., 2nd Ed., 1912.

2. Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. Co., 2nd Ed., 1916.

3. The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen & Unwin, London.

4. The Macmillan Co., New York, and T. Fisher Unwin, London.

5. This expression is used advisedly in order to distinguish it from other methods of “analysis,”
which Professor Freud fully disavows. Cf. The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, translated
by A. A. Brill, The Psychoanalytic Review, June-Sept., 1916.

6. Cf. the works of Freud, Abraham, Rank, and others.

7. Cf. Freud: Totem and Taboo, a translation in preparation, and the works of Jones, Rank and
Sachs, Jung, and Storfer.

8. Cf. Freud, Berny, Rank, and Sachs, and Sperber.

9. Cf. Freud: Leonardo da Vinci, a translation in preparation, and the works of many others.

10. Cf. v. Hug-Hellmuth: Aus dem Seelenleben des Kindes, and the works of Jones, Pfister, and
many others.

11. Cf. the works of Freud, Putnam, Hitschmann, Winterstein, and others.

12. Beiträge zur Aesthetik, edited by Theodor Lipps and Richard Maria Werner, VI,—a book to
which I am indebted for the courage and capacity to undertake this attempt.

13. J. V. Falke: Lebenserinnerungen, 1897.

14. Since this joke will occupy us again and we do not wish to disturb the discussion following
here, we shall find occasion later to point out a correction in Lipps’s given interpretation which
follows our own.

15. The same holds true for Lipps’s interpretation.

16. Psychanalysis: Its Theories and Application, 2nd Ed., p. 331.

17. This same witticism was supposed to have been coined before by Heine concerning Alfred
de Musset.

18. One of the complications involved in the technique of this example lies in the fact that the
modification through which the omitted abuse is substituted is to be taken as an allusion to the latter,
for it leads to it only through a process of deduction.

19. Another factor which I shall mention later on is also effective in the technique of this
witticism. It has to do with the inner character of the modification (representation through the
opposite—contradiction). The technique of wit does not hesitate to make use simultaneously of
several means, with which, however, we can only become acquainted in their sequential order.

20. Translation of 4th Ed. by A. A. Brill, the Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen & Unwin,
London.

21. The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 280.

22. Cited by Brill: Psychanalysis, p. 335.

23. l. c., p. 334.

24. The excellence of these jokes depends upon the fact that they, at the same time, present
another technical means of a much higher order.

25. Given by Translator.

26. This resembles an excellent joke of Oliver Wendell Holmes cited by Brill: “Put not your
trust in money, but put your money in trust.” A contradiction is here announced which does not
appear. At all events it is a good example of the untranslatableness of the witticisms of such
technique.

27. Brill cites a very analogous modification wit: Amantes—Amentes (lovers—lunatics).

28. Compare here K. Fischer (p. 85), who applies the term “double meaning” to those witticisms
in which both meanings are not equally prominent, but where one overshadows the other. I have
applied this term differently. Such a nomenclature is a matter of choice. Usage of speech has
rendered no definite decision about them.

29. L. c., page 339.

30. Heine’s answer is a combination of two wit-techniques—a displacement and an allusion—
for he does not say directly: “He is an ox.”

31. The word “take,” owing to its meanings, lends itself very well towards the formation of
plays upon words, a pure example of which I wish to cite as a contrast to the displacement mentioned
above. While walking with his friend, in front of a café, a well-known stock-plunger and bank
director made this proposal: “Let us go in and take something.” His friend held him back and said:
“My dear sir, remember there are people in there.”

32. For the latter see a later chapter. It will perhaps not be superfluous to add here a few words
for better understanding. The displacement regularly occurs between a statement and an answer, and
turns the stream of thought to a direction different from the one started in the statement. The
justification for separating the displacement from the double meaning is best seen in the examples
where both are combined, that is, where the wording of the statement admits of a double meaning
which was not intended by the speaker, but which reveals in the answer the way to the displacement
(see examples).

33. See Chapter III.

34. A similar nonsense technique results when the joke aims to maintain a connection which
seems to be removed through the special conditions of its content. A joke of this sort is related by J.
Falke (l. c.): “Is this the place where the Duke of Wellington spoke these words?” “Yes, this is the
place; but he never spoke these words.”

35. Following an example of the Greek Anthology.

36. Cf. my Interpretation of Dreams, Chap. VI, The Dream Work, translated by A. A. Brill, The
Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen & Unwin, London.

37. The word tendency encountered hereafter in the expression “Tendency-Wit” (Tendenz Witz)
is used adjectively in the same sense as in the familiar phrase “Tendency Play.”

38. Cf. my Psychopathology of Everyday Life, translated by A. A. Brill, The Macmillan Co.,
New York, and T. Fisher Unwin, London.

39. Cf. Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, 2nd Ed., 1916, translated by A. A. Brill,
Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases.

40. Moll’s Kontrektationstrieb (Untersuchungen über die Libido sexualies, 1898).

41. It is the same mechanism that controls “slips of the tongue” and other phenomena of self-
betrayal. Cf. The Psychopathology of Everyday Life.

42. “There is nothing certain about to-morrow,” Lorenzo del Medici.

43. See his essays in the Politisch-anthropologischen Revue, II, 1903.

44. An habitual beggar.

45. If I may be permitted to anticipate what later is discussed in the text I can here throw some
light upon the condition which seems to be authoritative in the usage of language when it is a
question of calling a joke “good” or “poor.” If by means of a double meaning or slightly modified
word I have gotten from one idea to another by a short route, and if this does not also simultaneously
result in senseful association between the two ideas, then I have made a “poor” joke. In this poor joke
one word or the “point” forms the only existing association between the two widely separated ideas.
The joke “Home-Roulard” used above is such an example. But a “good” joke results if the infantile
expectation is right in the end and if with the similarity of the word another essential similarity in
meaning is really simultaneously produced—as in the examples Traduttore—Traditore (translator—
traitor), and Amantes—Amentes (lovers—lunatics). The two disparate ideas which are here linked by
an outer association are held together besides by a senseful connection which expresses an important
relationship between them. The outer association only replaces the inner connection; it serves to

indicate the latter or to clarify it. Not only does “translator” sound somewhat similar to “traitor,” but
he is a sort of a traitor whose claims to that name are good. The same may be said of Amantes—
Amentes. Not only do the words bear a resemblance, but the similarity between “love” and “lunacy”
has been noted from time immemorial.
The distinction made here agrees with the differentiation, to be made later, between a
“witticism” and a “jest.” However, it would not be correct to exclude examples like Home-Roulard
from the discussion of the nature of wit. As soon as we take into consideration the peculiar pleasure
of wit, we discover that the “poor” witticisms are by no means poor as witticisms, i.e., they are by no
means unsuited for the production of pleasure.

46. Die Spiele der Menschen, 1899, p. 153.

47. Vorschule der Aesthetik, 1, XVII.

48. Chapter XVII.

49. Kleinpaul: Die Rätsel der Sprache, 1890.

50. Vorschule der Aesthetik, Vol. 1, V, p. 51, 2nd Ed., Leipzig, 1897.

51. The nonsense-witticisms, which have been somewhat slighted in this treatise, deserve a short
supplementary comment.
In view of the significance attributed by our conception to the factor “sense in nonsense,” one
might be tempted to demand that every witticism should be a nonsense-joke. But this is not
necessary, because only the play with thoughts inevitably leads to nonsense, whereas the other source
of wit-pleasure, the play with words, makes this impression incidental and does not regularly invoke
the criticism connected with it. The double root of wit-pleasure—from the play with words and
thoughts, which corresponds to the most important division into word- and thought-witticisms—sets
its face against a short formulation of general principles about wit as a tangible aggravation of
difficulties. The play with words produces laughter, as is well known, in consequence of the factor of
recognition described above, and therefore suffers suppression only in a small degree. The play with
thoughts cannot be motivated through such pleasure: it has suffered a very energetic suppression and
the pleasure which it can give is only the pleasure of released inhibitions. Accordingly one may say
that wit-pleasure shows a kernel of the original play-pleasure and a shell of removal-pleasure.
Naturally we do not grant that the pleasure in nonsense-wit is due to the fact that we have succeeded
in making nonsense despite the suppression, while we do notice that the play with words gives us
pleasure. Nonsense, which has remained fixed in thought-wit, acquires secondarily the function of
stimulating our attention through confusion, it serves as a reinforcement of the effect of wit, but only
when it is insistent, so that the confusion can anticipate the intellect by a definite fraction of time.
That nonsense in wit may also be employed to represent a judgment contained within the thought has
been demonstrated by the example on p. 73. But even this is not the primal signification of nonsense
in wit.
A series of wit-like productions for which we have no appropriate name, but which may lay
claim to the designation of “witty nonsense,” may be added to the nonsense-jokes. They are very
numerous, but I shall cite only two examples: As the fish was served to a guest at the table he put
both hands twice into the mayonnaise and then ran them through his hair. Being looked at by his
neighbor with astonishment he seemed to have noticed his mistake and excused himself, saying:
“Pardon me, I thought it was spinach.”

Or: “Life is like a suspension bridge,” said the one. “How is that?” asked the other. “How should
I know?” was the answer.
These extreme examples produce an effect through the fact that they give rise to the expectation
of wit, so that one makes the effort to find the hidden sense behind the nonsense. But none is found,
they are really nonsense. Under that deception it was possible for one moment to liberate the pleasure
in nonsense. These witticisms are not altogether without tendencies, they furnish the narrator a
certain pleasure in that they deceive and annoy the hearer. The latter then calms his anger by
resolving that he himself should take the place of the narrator.

52. H. Spencer, The Physiology of Laughter (first published in Macmillan’s Magazine for
March, 1860), Essays, Vol. 11, 1901.

53. Different points in this declaration would demand an exhaustive inquiry into an investigation
of the pleasure of the comic, a thing that other authors have already done, and which, at all events,
does not touch our discussion. It seems to me that Spencer was not happy in his explanation of why
the discharge happens to find just that path, the excitement of which results in the physical picture of
laughter. I should like to add one single contribution to the subject of the physiological explanation of
laughter, that is, to the derivation or interpretation of the muscular actions that characterize laughter
—a subject that has been often treated before and since Darwin, but which has never been
conclusively settled. According to the best of my knowledge the grimaces and contortions of the
corners of the mouth that characterize laughter appear first in the satisfied and satiated nursling when
he drowsily quits the breasts. There it is a correct motion of expression since it bespeaks the
determination to take no more nourishment, an “enough,” so to speak, or rather a “more than
enough.” This primal sense of pleasurable satiation may have furnished the smile, which ever
remains the basic phenomenon of laughter, the later connection with the pleasurable processes of
discharge.

54. Cf. The Interpretation of Dreams, Chap. VII, also On the Psychic Force, etc., in the above
cited book of Lipps (p. 123), where he says: “This is the general principle: The dominant factors of
the psychic life are not represented by the contents of consciousness but by those psychic processes
which are unconscious. The task of psychology, provided it does not limit itself to a mere description
of the content of consciousness, must also consist of revealing the nature of these unconscious
processes from the nature of the contents of consciousness and its temporal relationship. Psychology
must itself be a theory of these processes. But such a psychology will soon find that there exist quite
a number of characteristics of these processes which are unrepresented in the corresponding contents
of consciousness.”

55. Heymans (Zeitschrift für Psychol., XI) has taken up the viewpoint of the nascent state in a
somewhat different connection.

56. Through an example of displacement-wit I desire to discuss another interesting character of
the technique of wit. The genial actress Gallmeyer when once asked how old she was is said to have
answered this unwelcome question with abashed and downcast eyes, by saying, “In Brünn.” This is a
very good example of displacement. Having been asked her age, she replied by naming the place of
her birth, thus anticipating the next query, and in this manner she wishes to imply: “This is a question
which I prefer to pass by.” And still we feel that the character of the witticism does not here come to
expression undimmed. The deviation from the question is too obvious; the displacement is much too
conspicuous. Our attention understands immediately that it is a matter of an intentional displacement.
In other displacement-witticisms the displacement is disguised and our attention is riveted by the
effort to discover it. In one of the displacement-witticisms (p. 69) the reply to the recommendation of

the horse—“What in the world should I do in Monticello at 6:30 in the morning?”—the displacement
is also an obtrusive one, but as a substitute for it it acts upon the attention in a senseless and
confusing manner, whereas in the interrogation of the actress we know immediately how to dispose
of her displacement answer.
The so-called “facetious questions” which may make use of the best techniques deviate from wit
in other ways. An example of the facetious question with displacement is the following: “What is a
cannibal who devours his father and mother?—Answer: An orphan.—And when he has devoured all
his other relatives?—Sole-heir.—And where can such a monster ever find sympathy?—In the
dictionary under S.” The facetious questions are not full witticisms because the required witty
answers cannot be guessed like the allusions, omissions, etc., of wit.

57. Cf. The Interpretation of Dreams, Chapter VII.

58. Besides the dream-work and the technique of wit I have been able to demonstrate
condensation as a regular and significant process in another psychic occurrence, in the mechanism of
normal (not purposive) forgetting. Singular impressions put difficulties in the way of forgetting;
impressions in any way analogous are forgotten by becoming fused at their points of contact. The
confusion of analogous impressions is one of the first steps in forgetting.

59. Many of my patients while under psychoanalytic treatment are wont to prove regularly by
their laughter that I have succeeded in demonstrating faithfully to their conscious perception the
veiled unconscious; they laugh also when the content of what is disclosed does not at all justify this
laughter. To be sure, it is conditional that they have approached this unconscious closely enough to
grasp it when the physician has conjectured it and presented it to them.

60. In doing this we must not forget to reckon with the distortion brought about by the censor
which is still active in the psychoses.

61. The Interpretation of Dreams.

62. The character of the comical which is referred to as its “dryness” also depends in the
broadest sense upon the differentiation of the things spoken from the antics accompanying it.

63. The Interpretation of Dreams, p. 296.

64. This very remarkable and still inadequately understood behavior of antagonistic
relationships is probably not without value for the understanding of the symptom of negativism in
neurotics and in the insane. Cf. the two latest works on the subject: Bleuler, “Über die negative
Suggestibilität,” Psych.-Neurol. Wochenschrift, 1904, and Otto Groos’s Zur Differential diagnostik
negativistischer Phänomene, also my review of the Gegensinn der Urworte, in Jahrb. f.
Psychonalyse II, 1910.

65. An expression of G. T. Fechner’s which has acquired significance from the point of view of
my conception.

66. Given by Translator.

67. I have everywhere identified the naïve with the naïve-comic, a practice which is certainly
not permissible in all cases. But it is sufficient for our purposes to study the characteristics of the
naïve as exhibited by the “naïve joke” and the “naïve obscenity.” It is our intention to proceed from
here with the investigation of the nature of the comic.

68. Also Bergson (Laughter, An essay on the Meaning of the Comic, translated by Brereton and
Rothwell, The Macmillan Co., 1914) rejects with sound arguments this sort of explanation of comic
pleasure, which has unmistakably been influenced by the effort to create an analogy to the laughing
of a person tickled. The explanation of comic pleasure by Lipps which might, in connection with his
conception of the comic, be represented as an “unexpected trifle,” is of an entirely different nature.

69. The recollection of this innervation expenditure will remain the essential part of the idea of
this motion, and there will always be methods of thought in my psychic life in which the idea will be
represented by nothing else than this expenditure. In other connections a substitute for this element
may possibly be put in the form of other ideas, for instance the visual idea of the object of the
motion, or it may be put in the form of the word-idea; and in certain types of abstract thought a sign
instead of the full content itself may suffice.

70. “What one has not in his head,” as the saying goes, “he must have in his legs.”

71. The problem has been greatly confused by the general conditions determining the comic,
whereby the comic pleasure is seen to have its source now in a too-muchness and now in a not-
enoughness.

72. Degradation: A. Bain (The Emotions and the Will, 2nd Ed., 1865) states: “The occasion of
the ludicrous is the degradation of some person of interest possessing dignity, in circumstances that
excite no other strong emotion” (p. 248).

73. “Thus every conscious and clever evocation of the comic is called wit, be it the comic of
views or situations. Naturally we cannot use this view of wit here.” Lipps, l. c., p. 78.

74. At the most this is inserted by the dreamer as an explanation.

75. l. c., p. 294.

76. “Trente et quarante” is a gambling game.

77. Bergson, l. c., p. 29.

78. Sixth Ed., Berlin, 1891.

79. “You may well laugh, that no longer concerns you.”

80. That comic pleasure has its source in the “quantitative contrast,” in the comparison of big
and small, which ultimately also expresses the essential relation of the child to the grown-up, would
indeed be a peculiar coincidence if the comic had nothing else to do with the infantile.

81. “Our heads have the right to fall covered before thee.”

82. The excellent humoristic effect of a character like that of the fat knight, Sir John Falstaff, is
based on economised contempt and indignation. To be sure we recognise in him the unworthy glutton
and fashionably dressed swindler, but our condemnation is disarmed through a whole series of
factors. We understand that he knows himself to be just as we estimate him; he impresses us through
his wit; and besides that, his physical deformity produces a contact-effect in favor of a comic
conception of his personality instead of a serious one; as if our demands for morality and honor must
recoil from such a big stomach. His activities are altogether harmless and are almost excused by the
comic lowness of those he deceives. We admit that the poor devil has a right to live and enjoy

himself like any one else, and we almost pity him because in the principal situation we find him a
puppet in the hands of one much his superior. It is for this reason that we cannot bear him any grudge
and turn all we economize in him in indignation into comic pleasure which he otherwise provides. Sir
John’s own humor really emanates from the superiority of an ego which neither his physical nor his
moral defects can rob of its joviality and security.
On the other hand the courageous knight Don Quixote de la Mancha is a figure who possesses
no humor, and in his seriousness furnishes us a pleasure which can be called humoristic although its
mechanism shows a decided deviation from that of humor. Originally Don Quixote is a purely comic
figure, a big child whose fancies from his books on knighthood have gone to his head. It is known
that at first the poet wanted to show only that phase of his character, and that the creation gradually
outgrew the author’s original intentions. But after the poet endowed this ludicrous person with the
profoundest wisdom and noblest aims and made him the symbolic representation of an idealism, a
man who believed in the realization of his aims, who took duties seriously and promises literally, he
ceased to be a comic personality. Like humoristic pleasure which results from a prevention of
emotional feelings it originates here through the disturbance of comic pleasure. However, in these
examples we already depart perceptibly from the simple cases of humor.

83. A term which is used in quite a different sense in the Aesthetik of Theo. Vischer.

84. If one does not hesitate to do some violence to the conception of expectation, one may
ascribe—according to the process of Lipps—a very large sphere of the comic to the comic of
expectation; but probably the most original cases of the comic which result through a comparison of
a strange expenditure with one’s own will fit least into this conception.

85. The characteristic of the “double face” naturally did not escape the authors. Melinaud, from
whom I borrowed the above expression, conceives the condition for laughing in the following
formula: “Ce qui fait rire c’est qui est à la fois, d’un coté, absurde et de l’autre, familier” (“Pourquoi
rit-on?” Revue de deux mondes, February, 1895). This formula fits in better with wit than with the
comic, but it really does not altogether cover the former. Bergson (l. c., p. 96) defines the comic
situation by the “reciprocal interference of series,” and states: “A situation is invariably comic when
it belongs simultaneously to two altogether independent series of events and is capable of being
interpreted in two entirely different meanings at the same time.” According to Lipps the comic is “the
greatness and smallness of the same.”

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect
retained.
Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the
end of the last chapter.

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