surprised, and the discharge of the liberated emotional inhibition has been effected. The same is true of witticisms possessing a comic façade in which the comic serves to assist the wit-technique. A comic façade promotes the effect of wit in more than one way; it makes possible not only the automatism of the wit-process by riveting the attention, but also it facilitates the discharge of wit by sending ahead a discharge from the comic. Here the effect of the comic resembles that of a fascinating fore-pleasure, and we can thus understand that many witticisms are able to dispense entirely the fore-pleasures produced by other means of wit, and make use of only the comic as a fore-pleasure. Among the true techniques of wit it is especially displacement and representation through absurdity which, besides other properties, also develop the deviation of attention so desirable for the automatic discharge of the wit-process.[56] We already surmise, and later will be able to see more clearly, that in this condition of deviation of attention we have disclosed no unessential characteristic of the psychic process in the hearer of wit. In conjunction with this, we can understand something more. First, how it happens that we rarely ever know in a joke why we are laughing, although by analytical investigation we can determine the cause. This laughing is the result of an automatic process which was first made possible by keeping our conscious attention at a distance. Secondly, we arrive at an understanding of that characteristic of wit as a result of which wit can exert its full effect on the hearer only when it is new and when it comes to him as a surprise. This property of wit, which causes wit to be short-lived and forever urges the production of new wit, is evidently due to the fact that it is inherent in the surprising or the unexpected to succeed but once. When we repeat wit the awakened memory leads the attention to the first hearing. This also explains the desire to impart wit to others who have not heard it before, for the impression made by wit on the new hearer replenishes that part of the pleasure which has been lost by the lack of novelty. And an analogous motive probably urges the wit producer to impart his wit to others. _Elements Favoring the Wit-process_