Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/325

 things in their ideation content by means of a manifold expenditure or by means of a sort of ideational mimicry.

When a child or a person of the common people or one belonging to a certain race imparts or depicts something, one can easily observe that he is not content to make his ideas intelligible to the hearer through the choice of correct words alone, but that he also represents the contents of the same through his expressive motions. Thus he designates the quantities and intensities of “a high mountain” by raising his hands over his head, and those of “a little dwarf” by lowering his hand to the ground. If he broke himself of the habit of depicting with his hands, he would nevertheless do it with his voice, and if he should also control his voice, one may be sure that in picturing something big he would distend his eyes, and describing something little he would press his eyes together. It is not his own affects that he thus expresses, but it is really the content of what he imagines.

Shall we now assume that this need for mimicry is first aroused through the demand for imparting, whereas a good part of this manner of representation still escapes the attention of the hearer? I rather believe that this mimicry, though less vivid, exists even if all imparting