Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/97

 and, in relation to the Idea, negative Wit; exciting laughter in those to whom it is addressed:—it is Wit as the source of the Ridiculous; for Error in its direct and intuitive aspect is essentially ridiculous.

What this Age attempts to reach is not Wit in the first sense, of which even its theories are silent, but in the second,—namely, in the form of derision, and as exciting laughter;—laughter being a means pointed out by the instinct of Nature itself, for refreshing the mind exhausted by long-continued weariness, and in some measure enlivening its stagnation by the stirring emotion which it communicates. But even in this shape Wit remains necessarily inaccessible to this Age, for in order freely to perceive and represent Error in direct and self-evident clearness it is necessary to be oneself superior to Error. This Age has no Wit;—but rather it is often the object of Wit, and that most frequently when, in its own estimation, it is most witty;—i.e. it then manifests to the intelligent observer, in its own person, Folly and Error in their highest perfection; but without the slightest suspicion of doing so. He who, in order to paint the Age to the life, has put things into its mouth to which it often unexpectedly gives utterance with the greatest possible gravity,—he may securely call himself a Wit.

How then does the Third Age acquire its measure of the Ridiculous, and the kind of scoffing irony which serves it in place of Wit? Thus:—it sets it down as indisputable that its Truth is the right Truth; and whatever is contrary to that must be false. Should any one then take up the opposite position he is of course in error,—which is absurd: and hereupon it shows, in striking examples, how entirely different the opposite view is from its own, and that in no single point can they coalesce; which indeed may be true. This once laughed at, it readily finds those who will join the laugh, if it only apply to the right quarter. Assuming a scientific form, according to established custom, this