Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/13

Rh pathological states and represent the prototypes of such abnormal mental conditions as neurotic symptoms, hallucinations, and deliria. He also shows that all these productions are senseful and purposive, and that their strange and peculiar appearance is due to distortions produced by various psychic processes. These views are confirmed in the present volume, where it is demonstrated that wit, which belongs to aesthetics, is subject to the same laws, shows the same mechanism, and serves the same tendencies as the other psychic productions. With his wonted profundity and ingenuity the author adds the solution of wit to those of the neuroses, dreams, and psychopathological acts.

I take great pleasure in tendering my thanks to Mr. Horatio Winslow, who has read the manuscript and has given me valuable suggestions in the choice of expressions and in the selection of substitutes for those witticisms that could not be translated.