Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious

WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS BY PROFESSOR DR. SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. Authorized English Edition, with Introduction by A. A. BRILL, PH.B., M.D. Lecturer in Psychoanalysis and Abnormal Psychology, New York University; former Chief of Clinic of Psychiatry, Columbia University NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1916 Copyright, 1916, BY MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY NEW YORK _All Rights Reserved_ TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE In 1908 when it was agreed between Professor Freud and myself that I should be his translator, it was decided to render into English first the following five works: _Selected Papers on Hysteria and Psychoneuroses_,[1] _Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex_,[2] _The Interpretation of Dreams_,[3] _Psychopathology of Everyday Life_,[4] and the present volume. These works were selected because they represent the various stages of development of Professor Freud’s Psychoanalysis,[5] and also because it was thought that they contain the material which one must master before one is able to judge correctly the author’s theories or apply them in practice. This undertaking, which was fraught with many linguistic and other difficulties, has finally been accomplished with the edition of the present volume, and it is therefore with a sense of great satisfaction that the translator’s preface to this work is written. But although the original task is finished the translator’s work is only beginning. Psychoanalysis has made enormous strides. On the foun...