Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/244

 psychic channels,” do I seem to deviate from the analogies that Lipps uses. The knowledge that I have gained about the fact that psychic energy can be displaced from one idea to another along certain association channels, and about the almost indestructible conservation of the traces of psychic processes, have actually made it possible for me to attempt such a representation of the unknown. In order to obviate the possibility of a misunderstanding I must add that I am making no attempt to proclaim that cells and fibers, or the neuron system in vogue nowadays, represent these psychic paths, even if such paths would have to be represented by the organic elements of the nervous system in a manner which cannot yet be indicated. Laughter as a Discharge Thus, according to our assumption, the conditions for laughter are such that a sum of psychic energy hitherto employed in the occupation of some paths may experience free discharge. And since not all laughter, (but surely the laughter of wit), is a sign of pleasure, we shall be inclined to refer this pleasure to the release of previously existing static energy (Besetzungsenergie). When we see that