To complete our theory it remains for us to mention a spurious kind of
wit, the play upon words, the _calembourg_, the pun, to which may be added
the equivocation, the _double entendre_, the chief use of which is the
expression of what is obscene. Just as the witticism brings two very
different real objects under one concept, the pun brings two different
concepts, by the assistance of accident, under one word. The same contrast
appears, only familiar and more superficial, because it does not spring
from the nature of things, but merely from the accident of nomenclature.
In the case of the witticism the identity is in the concept, the
difference in the reality, but in the case of the pun the difference is in
the concepts and the identity in the reality, for the terminology is here
the reality. It would only be a somewhat far-fetched comparison if we were
to say that the pun is related to the witticism as the parabola (_sic_) of
the upper inverted cone to that of the lower. The misunderstanding of the
word or the _quid pro quo_ is the unintentional pun, and is related to it
exactly as folly is to wit. Thus the deaf man often affords occasion for
laughter, just as much as the fool, and inferior writers of comedy often
use the former for the latter to raise a laugh.
I have treated laughter here only from the psychical side; with regard to
the physical side, I refer to what is said on the subject in the
“Parerga,” vol. II. ch. vi., § 98.(18)
§ 14. By means of these various discussions it is hoped that both the
difference and the relation between the process of knowledge that belongs
to the reason, rational knowledge, the concept on the one hand, and the
direct knowledge in purely sensuous, mathematical intuition or perception,
and apprehension by the understanding on the other hand, has been clearly
brought out. This remarkable relation of our kinds of knowledge led us
almost inevitably to give, in passing, explanations of feeling and of
laughter, but from all this we now turn back to the further consideration
of science as the third great benefit which reason confers on man, the
other two being speech and deliberate action. The general discussion of
science which now devolves upon us, will be concerned partly with its
form, partly with the foundation of its judgments, and lastly with its
content.