In Lipps’s book we find among the examples of “witty enumeration” (Koordination) the following verse, which stands nearest to Heine’s “students, professors, Philistines, and cattle.” “_With a fork and with much effort his mother pulled him from a mess._” “As if effort were an instrument like the fork,” adds Lipps by way of explanation. But we get the impression that there is nothing witty in this sentence. To be sure it is very comical, whereas Heine’s co-ordination is undoubtedly witty. We shall, perhaps, recall these examples later when we shall no longer be forced to evade the problem of the relationship between wit and the comic. _Representation Through the Opposite_ We have remarked in the example of the Duke and the dyer that it would still have been a joke by means of unification had the dyer replied, “No, I fear that the horse could not stand being boiled.” In substituting a “yes” for the “no” which rightly belonged there, we meet a new technical means of wit the application of which we shall study in other examples. This joke, which resembles the one we have just cited from K. Fischer, is somewhat simpler. “_Frederick the Great heard of a Silesian clergyman who had the reputation of communicating with spirits. He sent for him and received him with the following question: ‘Can you call up ghosts?’ ‘At your pleasure, your majesty,’ replied the clergyman, ‘but they won’t come.’_” Here it is perfectly obvious that the wit lies in the substitution of its opposite for the only possible answer, “No.” To complete this substitution “but” had to be added to “yes,” so that “yes” plus “but” gives the equivalent for “no.” This “representation through the opposite,” as we choose to call it, serves the mechanism of wit in several ways. In the following cases it appears almost in its pure form: “_This woman resembles Venus de Milo in many points. Like her she is extraordinarily old, has no teeth, and has white spots on the yellow surface of her body_” (Heine). Here ugliness is depicted by making it agree with the most beautiful. Of course these agreements consist of attributes expressed in double meaning or of matters of slight importance. The latter applies to the second example. “_The attributes of the greatest men were all united in himself. Like Alexander his head was tilted to one side: like Cæsar he always had something in his hair. He could drink coffee like Leibnitz, and once settled in his armchair he forgot eating and drinking like Newton, and like him had to be awakened. He wore a wig like Dr. Johnson, and like Cervantes the fly of his trousers was always open_” (Lichtenberg: _The Great Mind_).