Page:Freud - Wit and its relation to the unconscious.djvu/90

 simpler, though less glaring case of nonsense-wit.

“Never to be born would be best for mortal man.” “But,” added the sages of the Fliegende Blätter, “hardly one man in a hundred thousand has this luck.”

The modern appendix to the ancient philosophical saying is pure nonsense, and becomes still more stupid through the addition of the seemingly careful “hardly.” But this appendix in attaching itself to the first sentence incontestably and correctly limits it. It can thus open our eyes to the fact that that piece of wisdom so reverently scanned, is neither more nor less than sheer nonsense. He who is not born of woman is not mortal; for him there exists no “good” and no “best.” The nonsense of the joke, therefore, serves here to expose and present another bit of nonsense as in the case of the artilleryman. Here I can add a third example which, owing to its context, scarcely deserves a detailed description. It serves, however, to illustrate the use of nonsense in wit in order to represent another element of nonsense.

A man about to go upon a journey intrusted his daughter to his friend, begging him to watch over her chastity during his absence. When he returned some months later he found that she