Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/218

 sometimes we overvalue the quality of the wit on account of our admiration for the thought contained therein, and then again we overestimate the value of the thought on account of the pleasure afforded us by the witty investment. We know not what gives us pleasure nor at what we are laughing. This uncertainty of our judgment, assuming it to be a fact, may have given the motive for the formation of wit in the literal sense. The thought seeks the witty disguise because it thereby recommends itself to our attention and can thus appear to us more important and valuable than it really is; but above all because this disguise fascinates and confuses our reason. We are apt to attribute to the thought the pleasure derived from the witty form, and we are not inclined to consider improper what has given us pleasure, and in this way deprive ourselves of a source of pleasure. For if wit made us laugh it was because it established in us a mood most unfavorable to reason, which in turn has forced upon us that state of mind which was once contented with mere playing and which wit has attempted to replace with all the means at its command. Although we have already established the fact that such wit is harmless and does not yet show a tendency, we may not deny that, strictly speaking, it is the