produce “comical nonsense.” If we subject these modes of expression to an analysis similar to the one used in studying wit, we shall find that there is no occasion in any of them for resorting to unconscious processes in our sense for the purpose of getting explanations. We are now also in a position to understand why the “witty” character may be added as an embellishment to caricature, exaggeration, and parody; it is the manifold character of the performance upon the “psychic stage”[65] that makes this possible. I am of the opinion that by transferring the wit-work into the system of the unconscious we have made a distinct gain, since it makes it possible for us to understand the fact that the various techniques to which wit admittedly adheres are on the other hand not its exclusive property. Many doubts, which have arisen in the beginning of our investigation of these techniques and which we were forced temporarily to leave, can now be conveniently cleared up. Hence we shall give due consideration to the doubt which expresses itself by asserting that the undeniable relation of wit to the unconscious is correct only for certain categories of tendency-wit, while we are ready to claim this relation for all forms and all the stages of development of wit. We may not shirk the duty of testing this objection. We may assume that we deal with a sure case of wit-formation in the unconscious when it concerns witticisms that serve unconscious tendencies, or those strengthened by unconscious tendencies, as, for example, most “cynical” witticisms. For in such cases the unconscious tendency draws the foreconscious thought down into the unconscious in order to remodel it there; a process to which the study of the psychology of the neuroses has added many analogies with which we are acquainted. But in the case of tendency-wit of other varieties, namely, harmless wit and the jest, this power seems to fall away, and the relation of the wit to the unconscious is an open question.