Breton says spontaneous, ‘automatic’ writing is “the true function of thought.” Has it a true function opposed to one false or opposed to the unreal? What about thought at all corresponds to its
contradiction? What would be a false function of thought? Given the opposite of function is nonfunction what would a nonfunctional thought once thought look like? (We admit correspondence with reality’s not a criterion.)
The true function of thought is spontaneity itself, like the Ding an sich of thought. Its occurrence is always sudden, has a mind of its own (so to speak). Its thing in itself, without characteristics, qualities, descriptive appendages, an unbounded transparency made translucent only by means of connection to other thoughts, fellow sharers in the illimitable.
