Chapter VIII: Part 8

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.