Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/299

 energy down into the unconscious, according to the familiar scheme.

I earnestly wish that it were possible for me on the one hand to present one decisive point in my conception of wit more clearly, and on the other hand to fortify it with compelling arguments. But as a matter of fact it is not a question here of two failures, but of one and the same failure. I can give no clearer exposition because I have no further testimony on behalf of my conception. The latter has developed as the result of my study of the technique and of comparison with dream-work, and indeed from this one side only. I now find that the dream-work is altogether excellently adapted to the peculiarities of wit. This conception is now concluded; if the conclusion leads us not to a familiar province, but rather to one that is strange and novel to our modes of thought, the conclusion is called a “hypothesis,” and the relation of the hypothesis to the material from which it is drawn is justly not accepted as “proof.” The hypothesis is admitted as “proved” only if it can be reached by other ways and if it can be shown to be the junction point for other associations. But such proof, in view of the fact that our knowledge of unconscious processes has hardly begun, cannot be had. Realizing then that we are on