The faster runs the horse the shorter grow the reins.”
(Needle and thread.)
Apparent contradiction is a favourite means of mystification, as in the questions “What teaches without speaking?” A book. “What two things are together early and late, and yet never touch each other?” Parallel lines. The East African Schamlala have a riddle which is metaphorical. “My grandfather’s cattle low when they are driven away, and are quiet coming home.” This refers to the water gourds carried by the women, which clatter when taken away empty, and are silent as they come back filled.[340] A German riddle of this kind is:
“Ich hab’ einen Rücken und kann nicht liegen;
Ich hab zwei Flügel und kann nicht fliegen;
Ich hab ein Bein und kann nicht stehen;
Ich kann wohl laufen, aber nicht gehen.”
(Nase.)
I can not here examine other forms of logical experimentation with the exception of the phenomena of wit, which are too important to be omitted from our review. Primarily wit should be classed with the comic, of which we shall speak in another connection, but at times it overreaches these limits, and more general grounds must be assigned for it in logical experimentation. When wit is free from sarcasm and assumes the form of playful judgment, as Kuno Fischer says, then its most natural expression is in the riddle and the proverb. The evolution of such serious wit as Jean Paul’s is possible only to a highly cultured people, and Nietzsche, the most brilliant German exponent of modern witticism, displays a certain tendency to proverb. “To be stiff to his inferiors is wisdom for the hedgehog” has the true flavour of the terse sayings found among all primitive people. The satisfaction afforded by true wit is due to the playful conquest of logical difficulties; some statement is made which confuses by its unusual conjunction of ideas, and we hail as a victory the sudden emergence of the hidden meaning. Therefore it would be a mistake to call the pleasure produced by wit exclusively a play with reason, since constructive imagination and the formulation of the abstract are also involved. When the negro produces this—“God keeps the flies off the ox that has no tail”—he gives us an expression of wit illustrating abstract judgment which may be accompanied by the stronger emotion.