Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/188

 The joke is intended to mean nothing else, but: Certainly he will forgive me; that is what he is here for, and for no other purpose have I engaged him (just as one retains one’s doctor or one’s lawyer). Thus, the helpless dying man is still conscious of the fact that he has created God for himself and has clothed Him with the power in order to make use of Him as occasion arises. The so-called creature makes itself known as the Creator only a short time before his extinction. Skeptical Wit To the three kinds of tendency-wit discussed so far—exhibitionistic or obscene wit, aggressive or hostile wit, and cynical wit (critical, blasphemous)—I desire to add a fourth and the most uncommon of all, whose character can be elucidated by a good example. Two Jews met in a train at a Galician railway station. “Where are you traveling?” asked one. “To Cracow,” was the reply. “Now see here, what a liar you are!” said the first one, bristling. “When you say that you are traveling to Cracow, you really wish me to believe that you are traveling to Lemberg. Well, but I am sure that you are really traveling to Cracow, so why lie about it?”