only if they do not belong to the naïve alone. As a matter of fact we suspect that this mechanism which is so completely foreign to wit is a part—perhaps the essential part—of the psychic process of the comic. This aspect—it is perhaps the most important aspect of the naïve—thus represents the naïve as a form of the comic. Whatever is added to the wit-pleasure by the naïve speeches in our examples is “comical” pleasure. Concerning the latter we might be inclined to make a general assumption that this pleasure originates through an economized expenditure by comparing the utterance of some one else with our own. But since we are here in the presence of very broad views we shall first conclude our consideration of the naïve. The naïve would thus be a form of the comic, in so far as its pleasure originates from the difference in expenditure which results in our effort to understand the other person; and it resembles wit through the condition that the expenditure saved by the comparison must be an inhibition expenditure.[1]
- ↑ I have everywhere identified the naïve with the naïve-comic, a practice which is certainly not permissible in all cases. But it is sufficient for our purposes to study the characteristics of the naïve as exhibited by the “naïve joke” and the “naïve obscenity.” It is our intention to proceed from here with the investigation of the nature of the comic.
