“The pun is the lowest form of wit” “Yes, that means it is the foundation of all wit”.

The line appears as a short exchange: someone complains that punning is the lowest kind of wit, and the punster flips the insult by treating “lowest” as “base,” concluding that puns must therefore be the foundation on which wit is built. The earliest located printing presents the speakers as unnamed.

A defense of puns that turns a put-down into praise by reinterpreting “lowest” as “supporting base,” implying that even if puns are simple, they underpin other kinds of humor.

“I hate Punning!”—said a gentleman well known at Bath,—“it is the lowest of all wit.”—“Then (replied the Punster whom he addressed) you must acknowledge it to be the foundation of all wit!”

“Punning is the lowest sort of wit.” … “It is so, and is therefore the foundation of all wit!”

“A pun is the lowest form of wit.” … “Therefore the foundation of all humor.”