III
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 busi-
ness house, and the comparison of the Prot-
estant 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 re-
ligion, but also its administration and admin-
istrators. 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 investi-

* 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.”
127

128 ANALYSIS

gation. 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 wit-
ticism by the kind of reaction that wit exerts
on the hearer. Sometimes wit is wit for its
own sake and serves no other particular pur-
pose; 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 tend-
ency 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 steady 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 en-
tirely independent classifications of witty pro-
ductions. Perhaps some one may have gotten
the impression that harmless witticisms are pre-
ponderately word-witticisms, whereas the com-
plicated techniques of thought-witticisms are
mostly made to serve strong tendencies. There

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 129

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 ex-
ample, 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 (Schittelreime)
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 com-
parisons with which we have already become ac-
quainted. I add a few more. “ They sent a
small Octavo to the University of Gottingen;
and received back in body and soul a quarto”
(a fourth-form boy).

“In order to erect this building well, one

180 ANALYSIS

must lay above all things a good foundation,
and I know of no firmer than by laying im-
mediately 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 unifica-
tion).

“ 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 repre-
sentation which puts what is usually considered
less important in the comparative and what is
considered more important in the positive de-
gree. 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 it-
self. But this rendering is no longer witty; it
is merely a correct and still too little respected
psychological fact suggesting what Lessing ex-
presses 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

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 181

misunderstanding. “ Harmless “ or “ abstract “
wit should in no way convey the same mean-
ing as “shallow ” or “ poor” wit. It is meant
only to designate the opposite of the “ tend-
ency ” 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 some-
thing worth while. The quality of a witticism,
however, is independent of the wit and repre-
sents the quality of the thought which is here
expressed wittily by means of a special contri-
vance. 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 dis-
tinction 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—astonish-
ing as it may seem—that our enjoyment of a
witticism is supplied by the combined impres-
sion 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. ⑧

182 ANALYSIS

The same thing applies to word-wit. When
we hear that “ experience consists simply of ex-
periencing what one wishes he had not cæperi-
enced,” we are puzzled, and believe that we
have learnt a new truth; it takes some time be-
fore we recognize in this disguise the platitude,
“adversity is the school of wisdom” (К.
Fischer). The excellent wit-activity which
seeks to define “experience” by the almost
exclusive use of the word “experience” de-
ceives 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 Jan-
uary (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

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 133

that we are inclined to lay stress on the sen-
tence as exceptionally witty.

Lichtenberg's witticisms are above all re-
markable 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 dis-
covered nothing less than the secret of mistakes
in reading." The following joke, whose tech-
nique (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-evi-
dent that the eyelid cleft opens just where the

3Cf. my Psychopathology of Everyday Life, translated by A.

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

184 ANALYSIS

cornea is exposed, until the science of evolu-
tion 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.

Pleasufe 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 under-
standing 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 presup-
posed 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 tech-

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 185

nique of this witticism, but shall center our at-
tention upon another, and that one the most
important factor. As I remember, this impro-
vised 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 tech-
nique of wit. The technical means of wit which -
we have described, such as condensation, dis-
placement, indirect expression, etc., have there-
fore the faculty to produce a feeling of pleas-
ure 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 con-
tained 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.

-
\

⑱⑥ ANALYSIS

At present we cannot go further without
first coming to an understanding with our phil-
osophical authorities.

The philosophers who adjudge wit to be a
part of the comic and deal with the latter itself
in the field of esthetics, characterize the æs-
thetic 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 it-
self. “This pleasure, this mode of conception
is purely æsthetical, it depends entirely on it-
self, its end is only itself an“ 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 purpose-
less, 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 fulfiliment 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

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 187

really the condition which underlies all gsthetic
thinking, but I know too little about esthetics
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 pleas-
ure—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 pres-
ent we cannot decide this, but we firmly main-
tain that at last we have established a connec-
tion between the technique of wit partly con-
trolled 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 pro-
duce pleasure in the hearer, we wish to mention
that, for the sake of simplicity and more lucid-
ity, 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.

138 ANALYSIS

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 rip-
ple of laughter; and as we have shown by fit-
ting examples (p. 132) at least a part of this
effect is due to the thought-content. The sud-

i | den irresistible outburst of laughter evoked by

wv

! 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.

Ee

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 139

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 lat-
ter has indeed very seldom been deemed worthy
of an investigation, as if an aversion had trans-
ferred itself here from the material to the sub-
ject; 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 prom-
inence of sexual Facts or relations through
speech. However, this definition is no sounder
than other definitions. A lecture on the anat-
omy of the sexual organs or on the physiology
of reproduction need not, in spite of this defini-
tion, have anything in common with an obscen-
ity. It must be added that the smutty joke
is directed toward a certain person who ex-
cites one sexually, and who becomes cognizant
of the speaker’s excitement by listening to the
smutty joke, and thereby in turn becomes sex-
ually excited. Instead of becoming sexually
excited the listener may react with shame and
embarrassment, which merely signifies a reac-
tion against the excitement and indirectly an
admission of the same. The smutty joke was

140 ANALYSIS

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 be-
yond 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. In
the whole mental domain of the psychology of
the neuroses, the sexual still includes the ex-
crementitious, 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 ob-

+ Cf. Three Contributions ‘to the Theory of Sex, 2nd Ed., 1916,

translated by A. A. Brill, Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous
and Menial Diseases.

.

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 141

scene 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 dis-
played.

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 pri-
mary pleasure. As it often happens, the de-
sire to see has here also replaced the desire to
touch." The libido for looking and touching is
found in every person in two forms, active and
passive, or masculine and feminine; and in ac-
cordance with the preponderance of sex char-
acteristics 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 ex-

.perience the usual fate of being covered up and

repressed, it develops into a mania for exhibi-
tionism, a familiar perversion among grown-up
men. In women the passive desire to exhibit

3 Moll's Kontrektationstrieb (Untersuchungen über die Libido
sexualies, 1898).

142 ANALYSIS

is almost regularly covered by the masked re-
action of sexual modesty; despite this, however,
| remnants of this desire may always be seen in
women’s dress. I need only mention how flexi-
ble and variable convention and circumstances
make that remaining portion of exhibitionism
still allowed to women.

The Transformation of the Obscenity into Ob-
scene Wit

In the case of men a great part of this striv- _
ing 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 mo-
tives. First, in order to make itself known to
the woman; and secondly, because the awak-
ening of the imagination through speech puts
the woman herself in a corresponding excite-
ment 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 mani-
fests 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 ap-
pears the defense reaction. In that case the

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 143

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 ag-
gression 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 develop-
ment of smutty wit; to be sure, this resistance
must be of the kind to indicate merely a defer-
ment 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 re-
sults 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

114 ANALYSIS

the opposite happens, here the presence of a
woman puts an end to smutty talk. The men
reserve this kind of conversation, which orig-
inally 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 pro-
duce pleasure is fulfilled. We shall later on
inquire into the deeper motive of this relation-
ship, 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

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 145

soon as the libidinous impulse of the first per- `
son, to satisfy himself through the woman, is

blocked, he immediately develops a hostile at-

titude towards this second person and takes the

originally intruding third person as his confed-

erate. 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 compli-
cated process which shows so many character-
isties 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 cul-
tured does the formal determination of wit
arise. The obscenity becomes witty and is tol-
erated only if it is witty. The technical means
of which it mostly makes use is allusion, i.e.,
substitution through a trifle, something re-
motely related, which the listener reconstructs
in his imagination as a full-fledged and direct
obscenity. The greater the disproportion be-
tween what is directly offered in the obscenity
and what is necessarily aroused by it in the

&

146 ANALYSIS

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 demon-
strated by examples.

The Function of Wit in the Service of the
Tendency

It now becomes comprehensible what wit ac-
complishes 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 be-
come inaccessible on account of the hindrance.
The hindrance in the way is really nothing
more than the higher degree of culture and edu-
cation which correspondingly increases the ina-
bility of the woman to tolerate the stark sex.
The woman thought of as present in the final
situation is still considered present, or her in-
fluence 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 obscen-
ities to broad smut.

The power which renders it difficult or im-

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 147

possible 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 con-
sciousness in severe nervous attacks whole com-
plexes 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 civili-
zation an important influence in the develop-
ment 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 dis-
position. In consequence of it, what was once
accepted as pleasureful is now counted unac-
ceptable 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 re-
nunciation very difficult; hence we discover that
tendency-wit furnishes us with a means to make
“the renunciation retrogressive and thus to re-
gain 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

-

148 ANALYSIS

same source. The coarse, obscene joke, how-
ever, 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 tech-
nique. We can also reiterate that owing to
our feelings we are in no position to distin-
guish in tendency-wit what part of the pleas-
ure 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 mis-
takes of judgment about the “goodness” of
the joke as far as it depends upon formal con-
ditions; 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 réle
of wit in the service of the hostile tendency
is the same.

Right from the start we meet with similar

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 149
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 touch-
ing a foreign people. But within our own cir-
cles we have nevertheless made progress in the
mastery of hostile emotions. Lichtenberg
drastically puts it when he says: “ Where now-
adays one says, 'I beg your pardon,” formerly
one had recourse to a cuff on the ear." Vio-
lent hostility, no longer tolerated by law, has
been replaced by verbal invectives, and the bet-
ter understanding of the concatenation of hu-
man emotions robs us, through its consequen-
tial “ 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

150 ANALYSIS

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 dispassion-
ate 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 hum-
bling 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 råle 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 surmount-
ing restrictions and of opening up otherwise
inaccessible pleasure sources. Moreover, the
listener will be induced by the gain in pleas-
ure to take our part, even if he is not alto-
gether convinced,—just as we on other ocea-
sions, when fascinated by harmless witticism,

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 151

were wont to overestimate the substance of the
sentence wittily expressed. “To prejudice
the laughter in one’s own favor” is a com-
pletely pertinent saying in the German lan-
guage.

One may recall Mr. N.’s witticism given in the
last chapter (p. 28). It is of an insulting na-
ture, 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 ap-
pealed to wit which assured his opinion a re-
ception 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 ap-
pointments met in the car a number of clergy-
men 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 ап
abolitionist.” “ Well, why do you preach your
doctrines up here? Why don’t you go over
into Kentucky?” “ Excuse me, are you a

152 ANALYSIS

preacher?” “I am, sir.” " Are you trying to
save souls from hell?” “Yes, sir, that's my
business.” “Well, why dont 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 circum-
stances 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 esthetic re-
sistance 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? “

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 158

and he received the ready reply, “ No, but
my father was.” The stranger would cer-
tainly have felled the imprvdent 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 requit-
ing 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,

154 ANALYSIS

In this factor, too, lies the charm of carica-
ture, 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 per-
sons 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

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 155

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 continua-
tion. 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 subjec-
tive 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 con-
sider 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
facade 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 facade is intended to dazzle the pry-
ing 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 facade, they
are in a position to conceal not only what they

156 | ANALYSIS

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 com-
ical facade 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 overpow-
ered by the automatism which here brings the
truth to light." 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 un-
burden 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

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

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 157

who employ him: “ Who in the world would
ever lend these people anything!” The ludi-
crousness 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 mar-
ried 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 wed-
lock 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 witti-
cism, 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 ap-
pears in the former examples only as the whip-

158 ANALYSIS

ping 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 facades are logical instead of comical—
they are sophistic thought-witticisms. In one
of them (p. 83) the agent knows how to cir-
cumvent 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 argu-
ments each of the whole series of the suitor’s
objections against the bride; only to the
last, which cannot be glossed over, he re-
joins, “Do you expect her to have no blem-
ishes 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 tech-
nique. But now something else interests us.
If the agent's speech is endowed with such a
strong semblance of logic, which on more care-
ful examination proves to be merely a sem-

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 159

blance, 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 facades
really mean what they assert even if these as-
sertions are deliberately falsely motivated.
Only this use of sophism for the veiled pres-
entation of the truth endows it with the char-
acter of wit, which is mainly dependent upon
tendency. What these two stories wish to in-
dicate is that the suitor really makes himself
ridiculous when he collects together so sedu-
lously 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 ex-
amples in which the agent quite correctly as-
sumes the råle of superiority, is much more

160 ANALYSIS

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 facade,
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 sacri-
fices.

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 agents rejoinder. " But what you
want will make three matches.” Here the re-
proach is no longer embodied in wit, but is
made directly to the man.

In all the preceding examples the veiled ag-
gression 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 ob-
ject of attack by wit may equally well be in-

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 161

stitutions, 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 fagade at that. No
matter how few the themes upon which tend-
ency-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. im-
pecunious gourmand who was caught eating
“ salmon with mayonnaise,” and about the tip-
pling 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 contra-
diction, I did not dare to admit the fact ex-
cept for one point in which his error is easily
demonstrable. The “ point ” chosen is the cor-

162 ANALYSIS

rect 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 pro-
cures 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 bare-
ness of virtuous renunciation. If we are re-
pelled 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 in-
dulging 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 sys-
tem 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 renuncia-
tions are supposed to be rewarded by gratifica-
tion— (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,

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 168

but how do I know whether I shall still be
alive to-morrow?
* Di doman’ non c'e certezza.
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 re-
nunciation 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 percepti-
ble 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 organiza-
tions do not do more towards making condi-
tions 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 pos-
sible only through the roundabout way of a
new understanding. One must be able to knit

”1i

1“ There is nothing certain about to-morrow,” Lorenzo dei
Medici.

164 ANALYSIS

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, be-
cause only the continuance of so many unful-
filled demands can develop the power to re-
cast 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 wit-
ticisms just discussed; they are cynical wit-
ticisms, 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 pre-
cepts, 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 at-
tempted to exert a more stringent suppression
than in the realm of sexuality. For our pur-
poses a single example suffices: the “ Entries
in the Album of Prince Carnival” mentioned
on page 108.

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 165

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 how-
ever, as we now see, is not in itself witty; it
shows besides an allusion (cab=public con- |
veyance), 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 protec-
tion; 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 organi-
zation 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,'
who is forced to it by the love of truth and the
zeal of reform. The strength of this witticism

⑧ his essays in the Politisch-anthropologischen Revue, II,
1908.

166 ANALYSIS

i 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

А particularly favorable case for tendency-
wit results if the intended eriticism 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 peo-
ple. 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 exist-
ence from the soil of Jewish national life.
They are stories which were invented by Jews
themselves and which are directed against Jew-
ish 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 shortcom-
ings as well as their merits, and the interest
of the person himself in the thing to be crit-
icised produces the subjective determination of
the wit-work which would otherwise be difficult
to bring about. Incidentally I do not know

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 167.

whether one often finds a people that makes
merry so unreservedly over its own shortcom-
ings.

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 coupć 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 dem-
ocratic mode of thought of the Jew who rec-
ognizes no difference between master and serv-
ant, but unfortunately this also disturbs dis-
cipline and co-operation. Another especially
interesting series of jokes presents the relation-
ship between the poor and the rich Jews: their
heroes are the “ shnorrer,”” and the charitable
gentleman or the baron. The shnorrer, who
was a regular Sunday-dinner guest at a cer-
tain 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

* An habitual beggar.,

168 ANALYSIS

shnorrer supplicates the baron for money to
visit the bathing resort Ostend, as the phy-
sician 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 displace-
ment-witticism which we could have taken as
a model of its kind. The baron is evidently
anxious to save his money, but the shnorrer re-
plies 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 exception-
ally unequipped with a facade 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, say-
ing, “ Do not go up to-day, the Baron is out
of sorts and refuses to give any one more than

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 169

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 speak-
ing 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 ob-
vious 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 distin-
guished only by the illustration of a single sit-
uation,

170 ANALYSIS

Other stories as the following, which, tech-
nically again presenting border-lines of wit,
have their origin in a deeply pessimistic cyn-
icism. 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, Doc-
tor,” 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,” an-
swered 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.

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 171

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 re-
ligious 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 tena-
ble) is such a cynical or critical witticism di-
ト ーー
rected 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 com-
mended 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 pardon-
nera; 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

172 ⑧ ANALYSIS

tendency. The joke is intended to mean noth-
ing else, but: Certainly he will forgive me; that
is what he is here for, and for no other pur-
pose have I engaged him (just as one retains
one’s doctor or one’s lawyer). Thus, the help-
less 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, aggres-
sive or hostile wit, and cynical wit (critical, blas-
phemous)—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 rail-
way 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 be-
lieve that you are. traveling to Lemberg. Well,
but I am sure that you are really traveling to
Cracow, so why lie about it?”

THE TENDENCIES OF WIT 178

This precious story, which creates an impres-
sion of exaggerated subtlety, evidently oper-
ates 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 technieal means—absurd-
ity—is paired here with another technique—
representation through the opposite, for, ac-
cording 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 con-
cern himself with the way the hearers will in-
terpret what one has said? Or is this merely
Jesuitical truth, and does not the real truthful-
ness consist much more in having a regard for
the hearer and of furnishing him an exact pic-
ture 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 cer-
tainty of our very knowledge—one of our
speculative gifts. Hence the name “ skeptical “

174 ANALYSIS

witticism will be the most expressive for
them.

In the course of our discussion of the tend-
encies of wit we have gotten perhaps many an
elucidation and certainly found numerous incen-
tives for further investigations. But the results
of this chapter combine with those of the pre-
ceding chapter to form a difficult problem. If
it be true that the pleasure created by wit is de--
pendent upon the technique) on one hand and
upon the tendency) on the other hand, under
what common point of view can these two ut-
terly different pleasure-sources of wit be
united?