So spellbound was he that he spent his nights at his
work, a practice which disturbed his father.
work, a practice which disturbed his father.
Weininger - 1946 - Mind and Death of a Genius
His lack of
grace was so much more remarkable when one noticed the
hesitating way his hand would grasp a thing and then sud-
denly take a hard grip on it. If his movements were hesitant
and weak, his grip was strong and hard, so that his hand was
no more a regular hand, but a fist. He dressed shabbily. His
way of walking was undecided, and he would often walk with
his chin resting on his chest. But sometimes he would race
along" (Taschenbuch, p. 6).
Gerber gives the following picture: "Nobody who had once
seen his face could ever forget it. The big dome of his fore-
head marked it. The face was peculiar looking because of the
large eyes; the look in them seemed to surround everything. In
spite of his youth, his face was not handsome: it was rather
ugly. Never did I see him laugh or smile. His face was always
dignified and serious. Only when he was outdoors in spring
did it seem to relax, and then become cheerful and bright. At
many concerts he would shine with happiness. In the most
wonderful moments we spent together, particularly when he
talked about an idea in which he was interested, his eyes were
filled with happiness. Otherwise his face was impenetrable.
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? 5?
Student and Genius
One could never, up to the last few months, find in his face
any hint of what was happening deep within his soul. The
taut muscles would often move, and sharp wrinkles would
appear on his face, as if they were caused by intolerable pain.
If asked for the reason, he controlled himself at once, gave a
vague or evasive answer, or talked about other matters, mak-
ing further questioning impossible. His manners would occa-
sionally elicit surprise, and often a smile. He cared little for
traditions and prejudices.
"The influence of his personality seemed strongest at night.
His body seemed to grow; there was something ghostlike in
his movements and there would be something demoniac in his
manner. And when, as happened at times, his conversation
became passionate, when he made a movement in the air with
his stick or his umbrella as if he were fighting an invisible
ghost, one was always reminded of a person from the imag-
inary circles of E. Th. A. Hoffmann.
"I have often thought of one particular evening: we had
been wandering around the Votivkirche for a long time. He
had kept me company to my home, and then I went back
with him part of the way until, finally, after hours of walking
late at night, we were outside my home again. We shook
hands. Not a sound was heard except our own voices, not a
soul in the street except the two of us. He looked at me and
whistled. 'Have you ever thought of your own double? What
if he came now? Your double is the man who knows every-
thing about you, even that which nobody tells. ' Then he
turned around and disappeared" (Taschenbuch, pp. 6-8).
No matter what form his activities took, they were rooted
deep within himself. He was never able to run away from
himself, to enjoy wholeheartedly things that other people
liked. He seemed always compelled to have a reason for his
behavior, even if that reason were acceptable only to himself.
No wonder that his conduct not infrequently called forth
smiles from the fellow men around him.
His attitude when he participated in the students' sport
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? Student and Genius 51
activities is a case in point. One might suppose that he took
part because he wanted to train his body, but that reason was
only part of the truth. What he wanted to do more than any-
thing else was to watch the students' delight in training (pos-
sibly because of unconscious homosexual leanings). It is
hardly surprising, however, that this gave him no satisfaction.
About that time he was for a short while a member of the
Society for the Social Sciences, but the group was apparently
not much to his liking. Weininger did not show any deep
interest in social or sociological problems, even though his
own concern was with the relation between man and woman,
and for a short period he dealt with problems in a field where
Feuerbach and Marx and Engels had tried building philo-
sophical systems on the basis of science. With his superficial
interest in these problems and the open contempt he later
felt for Feuerbach, Weininger certainly did not understand
Feuerbach's real achievement. That accomplishment lay in
bringing social problems to public attention at a time when
everything seemed to be in deadlock and in a world where
human life, the existence of religion, the word of God, and
the very form of government were accepted as fully known
facts which could not be changed.
It would seem that we can find only a single statement by
Weininger on social problems. In the light of his personality
this is not at all surprising. The ways and means to solve social
problems--if they could be solved at all--did not interest
him. Therefore, his one and only statement on social ques-
tions was founded on a moral base. He writes, "What is right
in socialism is that every man must find his own intrinsic
value, his own self, and then try to acquire property; and in
this he must not be checked from outside" (U. L. D. , p. 53).
Keen interest in psychological problems rather than in so-
cial problems is evinced also in his conversations with friends.
Though he never said much, he spent many evenings listening
to discussions of eternal human problems and the questions
of the day. In these debates he often returned to Beethoven,
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? 52 Student and Genius
saying, "Nobody else could be as happy as he must have been
when he worked out his great themes" (Tascheribuch, p. 14).
The artistic side of Weininger's personality is most clearly
seen in his attitude toward music, for his early familiarity with
music did not lapse but greatly influenced his development.
As the thinker appeared in him, his appreciation of music was
more closely associated with his intellectual activity; every
melody gave him the sense of a psychic phenomenon (see
Der Fall, p. 10). Each gave him the feeling of a scene which
seemed to belong especially to that particular melody. He
could, therefore, talk of a theme on willpower, a theme on the
heartbeat, a theme having the chill of empty space. These vi-
sions were concerned not only with emotions and moods, but
also with supreme, general problems. As Rappaport said, "He
was most decidedly a music psychologist. " Discovering that he
was endowed with a special music fantasy, Otto later (on Au-
gust 12, 1902) arrived at the conviction that he was a born
musician. He combined tones with thoughts to form pictures
in his mind, so that a series of notes--the melody--actually
became symbolic to him. Therefore, those melodies which had
the strongest effect on him were those most closely related to
the make-up of his own personality. It is typical that he did
not care for Wagner at the time when his state of mind was
governed by empirical science. Then Wagner's music did not
fit into Weininger's world. But when he was metaphysical and
speculative in the later period of his life, he developed a ro-
mantic love for the operas of Wagner. He could then exclaim,
"Never has a piece of art succeeded in fascinating so com-
pletely and in fulfilling the artistic demands of all times as
have the works of Wagner! " (U. L. D. , p. 85). The same love,
though to a smaller degree, he felt for the music of Beethoven.
He respected Mozart, Bach, and Handel as, in his opinion, the
most religious of composers. He' considered a melody in
Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite the supreme height of genius (U. L. D. ,
p. viii).
One might have expected Weininger to use his deep artis-
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? Student and Genius 53
tic feeling as a means to penetrate into the objective world,
but instead he employed even these for discovering the depths
of his mind. In the Preface to Sex and Character, he wrote
(p. iv): "An artist who reproduces the female form can con-
struct the typical without actually giving proof by a series of
measurements. The artist does not despise experience; on the
contrary, he regards it as a duty to gain experience; but for
him it is merely a starting point for self-exploration, just as art
is a searching of the world. "
To Weininger, art meant losing oneself in the world, a prin-
ciple he apparently had first observed through examining him-
self. Experience became a steppingstone for his research work.
He wanted through his artistic intuition to go further than
scientific research could take him. And the result was the work
he completed during the next year and a half. Thus we can
see one important characteristic of Sex and Character: it is to
a certain extent epic, passionate, full of burning faith, but full
also of pain and sorrow for what he conceived to be evil in the
world.
His sensitive and artistic mind promoted in him poetic
traits which in turn fostered a deep concern with literature.
He and his friends discussed Ibsen, Strindberg, and Zola on
many nights, and he had something special to say about each
of them. "Otto Weininger looked on those personalities as
only a genius could look on them" (Taschenbuch, p. 14). His
interest centered not only on these writers, but also on their
countries. In particular he loved Norway and its artists, es-
pecially Ibsen and Hamsun, thinking Ibsen the greatest writer
of all time and undertaking later to write about him. Yet
even while he was indulging his interest in the problems of the
literary world, he still kept up his work on his main problem,
man and woman.
In the meantime, during the late summer and early fall of
1901, he tried to find a sponsor who would recommend his
thesis to a publisher. The effort was not successful, and later
Otto took great care to keep any account of it from reaching
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? 54 Student and Genius
the public ear. It was only after some investigation that I ar-
rived at what he actually had done.
It may be recalled that Weininger's idea of bisexuality had
come to him through Sigmund Freud. The respect he had
for Freud was strange and mighty. What could have been
more natural than his going to Freud with his work?
The fact is that Otto Weininger did pay Freud a visit and
asked him to read his manuscript. Freud himself later wrote,
"It amazed me . . . that I could overlook the visit Wein-
inger paid me, but I have not forgotten it" (Kraus in Die
Wage, No. 43, October, 1906, p. 970).
To be quite sure how matters stood, I wrote to Freud, who
answered, "I was the first man to read through his manuscript
--and the first to give an unfavorable opinion of it" (Letter
IV). Swoboda reported: "If my memory serves me right it
must have been in the fall of 1901--I was not in Vienna at
the time--that Weininger went to Freud to ask his help in
finding a publisher. With the manuscript he also gave Freud
an essay on hysteria, which Freud did not like for several rea-
sons. First, he thought it was written ad captandam benevo-
lentiam; then, he criticized the method applied by Weininger
here and elsewhere, which, according to Freud, was too specu-
lative and too boldly deductive with regard to the scientific
treatment of the main subject. Talking about the deductive
method, Freud told Weininger that he acted like a robber in
a room of treasures--picking up what he could carry and de-
stroying the rest. . . . Freud told me that he never referred
to Weininger as stealing Fliess's property, but as a thief in the
scientific field" (Swoboda, Die Forschung, pp. 21-22). 5
How, then, did Freud react to Weininger's manuscript? It
should be noted that this manuscript was not Sex and Char-
acter, but Weininger's doctoral thesis. Accordingly, as Freud
wrote to me, "there were no depreciatory words about the
Jews and much less criticism of women. He had also to a
6 I have, however, received personal information from a reliable source that
the words Freud actually used were: "Sie haben das Schloss geoffnet mit einem
gestohlenem Schliissel. " (You have opened the lock with a stolen key. )
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? Student and Genius 55
large extent given consideration to my views on hysteria" (Let-
ter XIII). Freud's unfavorable reaction was more clearly rep-
resented in a letter he later wrote to Fliess: "I cannot think
that the damage Weininger may have caused you can be any-
thing but slight, because a rotten book like Sex and Character
cannot be taken seriously. To steal is not so easy as Weininger
imagined it" (Die Wage, No. 43, October, 1906, p. 971).
Freud's low opinion of Weininger's manuscript did not,
however, reflect his view of Weininger personally. Apparently
the young man must have made quite an impression, since
Freud used the following words about him,. "A slender,
grown-up youth with grave features and a veiled, quite beauti-
ful look in his eyes; I could not help feeling that I stood
in front of a personality with a touch of the genius" (Der
Fall, p. 14).
Thus, Otto Weininger went to Freud with his thesis,
though neither in his books nor in his letters does he mention
that visit. Small wonder that this connection between Freud
and Otto Weininger escaped the notice of later biographers.
Otto's own stubborn silence is probably to be explained by
Freud's sharp criticism. What, then, was Weininger's reaction
to the meeting with Freud? We can only imagine that he
must have been shocked when he learned Freud's opinion,
but it would be wrong to believe that this shock would keep
him from trying to place his manuscript with a publisher. And
a little later he did so by sending it to Professor Friedrich
Jodl for his recommendation. The author still had faith in his
book.
At that time, however, something new developed. A change
in Weininger's ideas apparently started with his study of
ethical-philosophical subjects, into which he plunged with
feverish activity. He was led beyond the frame given in his
thesis.
So spellbound was he that he spent his nights at his
work, a practice which disturbed his father. And since he did
not find sufficient quiet in his home, he moved and lived
alone (Letter XVIII).
In the course of these studies he made contact with new
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? 56 Student and Genius
friends, among them Rappaport, to whom he later became
very close. Although it seems unlikely that Weininger's in-
terior change resulted from such external influence as these
friends exerted, nevertheless external factors of the sort may
very well have been instrumental in urging forward a develop-
ment which was already under way.
Something else that may have caused him to turn more to
ethics and may have also made his research methods more
deductive and speculative was his discovery that the principles
of science simply did not cover his theories. Unbiased, dis-
passionate science carried on through laboratory research did
not permit the conclusions Weininger wanted. The conse-
quence was, as he himself confirmed, that he arrived at the
theory that scientific research resulted not only in exploration
of physical reality, but also in the adoption of a utilitarian
view on human life. In Sex and Character (p. 179) he was to
say: "Scientists are not universal, because a science deals with
only one subject, or, at the most, with several. "
His mental change is also to be seen in his book Vber die
letzten Dinge, which shows a steady development of his per-
sonality going along step by step with his thesis. While he was
drawing up his thesis, his ego was growing and he became
more and more conscious of its superiority. It was in this
period, in his own opinion, that he made his real contribution
to psychobiological research. There was in him a continuing
growth, a mounting crescendo. His life seems to be a restless
process of continuation and condensation, which, as Ewald
says, "gave to every one of his statements a touch of religious
initiation, of clear apocalyptic growth" (Letter V).
His faith in himself continued to grow in spite of the tem-
porary defeat administered to his manuscript. This strong de-
velopment of his personality led him to the conviction that he
would have to live his life to the full and not take any half
measures, a decision which was in itself an incentive for him
to go beyond the limits of his earlier way of living.
Thus, a change of mind now takes place; leaving studies of
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? Student and Genius 57
empirical scientific problems, he now begins to take an inter-
est in moral philosophy. He becomes preoccupied with ethical
discussions, and there are hints that a development was taking
place which soon would express itself.
The first practical evidence of this was his desire, in the
summer of 1900, to leave the Jewish religion and become a
Christian (see Der Fall, p. 5). His father thought there might
be some materialistic reason behind this plan. One must re-
member that Otto, in order to support himself, even poorly,
and to carry on his studies, had to be a private tutor. This was
a very hard way to make a living, particularly because, as a
Jew, he had greater difficulty in getting pupils than the Chris-
tian tutors had.
There is also another circumstance which may have con-
tributed to his decision. His home was not a Jewish home.
Quite the contrary. His father was anti-Semitic, and strongly
so, although he himself, maintaining a double attitude, be-
longed to the Jewish religion (Letter XIV). Since the father
was anti-Semitic, we may take it for granted that he never
gave his son any instruction in the Jewish religion. Nor did
the official Jewish Congregation in Vienna have any evidence
that Otto attended any Jewish school or as a boy showed any
interest in the Jewish religion (Letter I). The impression of a
non-Jewish home is strengthened by the fact that three of the
children joined the Christian church, that some of them mar-
ried non-Jews, and that the father left the Jewish religion with-
out belonging to any new denomination. All these facts would
support the belief that Otto was a Jew by descent only, never
by faith.
But the desire to become a Christian for material reasons
and the fact that he was an assimilated Jew cannot have been
the deciding arguments for his conversion. If he had a vague
feeling that there was a reason, it is unlikely that it was clear
to himself. There existed in his personality quite unconscious
tendencies which were now to provoke a complete break with
the past he had known thus far.
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? 58 Student and Genius
On July 21, 1902, Otto Weininger received his doctor's de-
gree for his thesis Sex and Character: A Psychobiological
Study, which was handed in on June 11 of the same year. On
the very day when he became doctor philosophiae he symbol-
ically entered the Christian church, the Protestant faith. (Paul
Biro, Die Sittlichkeitsmetaphysik Otto Weiningers, Vienna,
1927, p. 15; U. L. D. , p. xvii). But the question still remains:
when did he actually accept the Protestant faith? The Jewish
Congregation in Vienna gave me the following answer, "In
any case, he left the Jewish Congregation on May 28, 1902"
(Letter I).
This source shows that he seceded from the Jewish religion
two whole months before he supposedly became a Christian.
To suit Otto his conversion had to be marked, performed sym-
bolically. He deliberately left the impression that he left Juda-
ism and entered the Protestant church on the day he became
doctor philosophiae, though in reality such was not the case.
No one can tell us the circumstances of Otto's formal retire-
ment from the Jewish Congregation. Not one of his close
friends or of his biographers touched more than lightly on the
point. They accepted his gesture without any question. The
obvious and striking demonstration might have caused anyone
with some, experience to reflect on the matter and ask not
only why Otto should have left the Jewish religion on that
particular day, but whether or not he really did so. The knowl-
edge that he kept hidden from his companions the date of his
leaving his old religion and that he entered on his new affilia-
tion with such obvious demonstration is, as we shall see abun-
dantly later, proof that a change had already taken place
within him. And this gesture was an expression of his desire
to be noticed, to be sensational, to be in the limelight.
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? The Empty
Scene
Everything was well prepared beforehand for the gesture.
His conversion seemed impulsive, but was in reality an
expression of a tendency long dormant within him. At first
glance this change seems peculiar, but seen in connection
with his development, it fits well into the picture of his striv-
ing personality.
The same trend appeared also in the thesis Henrik Ibsen
and His Drama "Peer Gynt," which he wrote at the beginning
of 1902; in it he was mainly occupied with Ibsen's moral
ideals. Weininger struggled deeply with the moral problem in
general and consequently the writing was slow. Apparently he
was not only confused about the issue, but also burdened and
worried, a condition illustrated in a letter to Gerber (February
8, 1902): "I should like to conclude my notes and thoughts
on 'Peer Gynt. ' At the moment I write with great difficulty,
and I would like to have a talk with you to ease my mind and
to give my thoughts a chance to take form" (Taschenbuch,
p. 69).
It appears, then, that his preoccupation was speeding up
from the fall of 1901 until the summer of 1902. Nevertheless
he still showed interest in external matters, although mostly
those related to his personal sphere. On a postcard dated
June 17,1902, he wrote these words, not previously published:
"Take good care of my books, of the small ones because they
are not bound, and the big ones because they are not mine.
Protect them from Richard, especially Rote Quartal, which he
has perhaps already taken. I talked with Gerber Monday
about his 'heimisch Mark'; he is not yet decided. He'll be
here Thursday afternoon. Please tell Father the exact place
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? 6o
Empty Scene
(in the third street) where Tchwegler, Geschichte der Philo-
sophic is. I need the book. "
It seems then that Otto Weininger was at this time in close
contact with his surroundings. Yet in step with his external
occupation a strong activity was going on deep inside him,
weakening his self-assertion so that he withdrew more and
more into himself. In this way he became more shut in, and
the process apparently came to a close when he entered the
Protestant church. The decision, realized with a great exalta-
tion, was called forth by a strong restlessness and disturbance
in his mind. Preceded by this feverish preoccupation, his con-
version was an act intended for the attention of the public.
A warning of the disharmony in his mind was already no-
ticeable. His conversion to Protestantism expressed his search,
his effort to escape from conditions which he found unbear-
able into something he thought would bring relief, something
better. 1 And he had the hope that this relief would solve his
mental conflicts. Therefore his conversion was deeply serious;
at any rate, it was his desire for a clear conviction that com-
pelled him to take the step. 2
Most of all it was his lack of inner happiness which was
proved in this action. This want was apparent in the summer
of 1900 when he first thought of leaving the Jewish religion.
By conversion to the Christian faith, he then thought he would
be made happy. After having taken this great step, however, he
found that he was not happy after all, as may be clearly seen in
his letters to Gerber the same summer.
His unrest seemed to stem from his vain search for happi-
ness and mental peace. The disturbance had long been growing
and was later to rise in a crescendo to pathological reactions,
marked by self-accusation, conscientious scruples, feelings of
1 "Once the idealistic philosophy had shown Otto Weininger his new course,
what his master, Kant, from his earliest years had seen in Christianity, the re-
ligion which quite naturally conformed with the philosophy of personality and
liberty, he no longer hesitated. " Andre Spire, Quelques juifs (Paris, 1913),
pp. 185-86.
2 Carl Dallago, Otto Weininger und sein Werk (Innsbruck, 1912), p. n.
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? Empty Scene 61
unimportance and self-abasement. It is very likely that his
mental unrest was stirred by his feverish activity about prob-
lems which he felt were awaiting his solution. He was so intent
upon looking for the solutions that he probably had no time
to savor happiness even if the circumstances had been favor-
able. His good friend Lucka had this idea of him: "I do not
think that Otto Weininger ever in his life had a happy feeling
and he hardly knew vegetative peace" (Lucka, p. 5).
This lack of happiness was deeply ingrained in Weininger's
personality make-up. When the void reveals itself in one way
or another, its appearance proves that it originated in his own
mind and must be taken as a symptom of his mental state.
His closest associates were not aware of this condition in
Otto Weininger. Even his father did not perceive it. In a rough
sketch of his son, he wrote: "In all his thinking he was more gay
than somber until his twenty-first year; only in his studies and
in listening to music was he very serious. Not until less than a
year before his death did his mind become gloomy, but even
then there was nothing to worry about--except in November,
1902, when I was really concerned about him" (Der Fall, p. 7).
Swoboda too believed that Otto Weininger's mental condi-
tion in the period until November, 1902, was not materially
different from that of a healthy man. But he contradicts him-
self: "Those who knew Otto Weininger only from his writings
can have no idea of his mental state in this period (1900-1901).
Discussions on the most difficult philosophical subjects were
his greatest pleasure. He was quite indefatigable as he brought
up question after question during our frequent small parties,
which lasted late into the night or into the early morning.
Abstract regions, from which others would turn away with a
cold shiver, were his real home. He was, in short, a passionate
thinker, the prototype of a thinker. But he was not yet given to
brooding. " 3
Twenty-one years old and discussing problems that arose in
? Hermann Swoboda, Otto WeiningeTS Tod (Vienna, 1911), pp. 6-7. Here-
after this work is cited in the text simply as Swoboda.
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? 62
Empty Scene
"abstract regions from which others would turn away with a
cold shiver"! This sort of thinking must have meant something
other than full maturity. It must have expressed his desire to
penetrate into even the deepest problems in order to find a
strong foundation for life. This untiring, passionate, and
romantic search for an anchor in the metaphysical and
speculative world resulted from the struggle between his self-
reproach and his biological drives, a conflict that led to con-
scientious scruples and a sense of guilt and, naturally, furthered
his feeling of mental dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
The vicious circle of his doubts and contemplations had
early turned his thinking to brooding. The change had probably
occurred as early as 1900. His emotional life can never have
been particularly happy. As Rappaport says, "He was never
good-natured in the ordinary sense, that is, tolerant of those
qualities which help one to enjoy life without actually hurting
others; this lack was probably connected with the fact that he
never felt genial" (Der Fall, p. 11).
Yet the condition was not static. How lack of happiness was
wearing on him is apparent when we compare "Schauder"
(quoted on page 21) with an earlier poem. This earlier poem,
written in 1899, may give foundation to the theory that he was
not conscious of his own lack. It was written in shorthand on
the back of an admission card for a meeting of the Society for
Social Science on March 10, 1899. It has been more or less
completely deciphered with professional help. It is of all the
more interest because if has never been published before:
DER FALTER
Wiegt das Kopfchen zwischenzeitig bange (? ) --
lachen die Augen glitzem in Tranen
Und die Stimme wie (? ) sonst Klang (? )
zittert und bebt vor Sehnen.
Madel, Madel, sei klug und gescheit,
lass den Falter fliegen!
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? Empty Scene 63
Schau! Die Welt ist so gross, so weit
wirst ja noch andere kriegen.
Andere Falter, die so schbne (? )
und galantes (? ) gesponnen--
denn mag auch die Welt noch nach Jahr (? ) tausend Tone (? )
Falter flattern zur Sonnen!
grace was so much more remarkable when one noticed the
hesitating way his hand would grasp a thing and then sud-
denly take a hard grip on it. If his movements were hesitant
and weak, his grip was strong and hard, so that his hand was
no more a regular hand, but a fist. He dressed shabbily. His
way of walking was undecided, and he would often walk with
his chin resting on his chest. But sometimes he would race
along" (Taschenbuch, p. 6).
Gerber gives the following picture: "Nobody who had once
seen his face could ever forget it. The big dome of his fore-
head marked it. The face was peculiar looking because of the
large eyes; the look in them seemed to surround everything. In
spite of his youth, his face was not handsome: it was rather
ugly. Never did I see him laugh or smile. His face was always
dignified and serious. Only when he was outdoors in spring
did it seem to relax, and then become cheerful and bright. At
many concerts he would shine with happiness. In the most
wonderful moments we spent together, particularly when he
talked about an idea in which he was interested, his eyes were
filled with happiness. Otherwise his face was impenetrable.
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? 5?
Student and Genius
One could never, up to the last few months, find in his face
any hint of what was happening deep within his soul. The
taut muscles would often move, and sharp wrinkles would
appear on his face, as if they were caused by intolerable pain.
If asked for the reason, he controlled himself at once, gave a
vague or evasive answer, or talked about other matters, mak-
ing further questioning impossible. His manners would occa-
sionally elicit surprise, and often a smile. He cared little for
traditions and prejudices.
"The influence of his personality seemed strongest at night.
His body seemed to grow; there was something ghostlike in
his movements and there would be something demoniac in his
manner. And when, as happened at times, his conversation
became passionate, when he made a movement in the air with
his stick or his umbrella as if he were fighting an invisible
ghost, one was always reminded of a person from the imag-
inary circles of E. Th. A. Hoffmann.
"I have often thought of one particular evening: we had
been wandering around the Votivkirche for a long time. He
had kept me company to my home, and then I went back
with him part of the way until, finally, after hours of walking
late at night, we were outside my home again. We shook
hands. Not a sound was heard except our own voices, not a
soul in the street except the two of us. He looked at me and
whistled. 'Have you ever thought of your own double? What
if he came now? Your double is the man who knows every-
thing about you, even that which nobody tells. ' Then he
turned around and disappeared" (Taschenbuch, pp. 6-8).
No matter what form his activities took, they were rooted
deep within himself. He was never able to run away from
himself, to enjoy wholeheartedly things that other people
liked. He seemed always compelled to have a reason for his
behavior, even if that reason were acceptable only to himself.
No wonder that his conduct not infrequently called forth
smiles from the fellow men around him.
His attitude when he participated in the students' sport
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? Student and Genius 51
activities is a case in point. One might suppose that he took
part because he wanted to train his body, but that reason was
only part of the truth. What he wanted to do more than any-
thing else was to watch the students' delight in training (pos-
sibly because of unconscious homosexual leanings). It is
hardly surprising, however, that this gave him no satisfaction.
About that time he was for a short while a member of the
Society for the Social Sciences, but the group was apparently
not much to his liking. Weininger did not show any deep
interest in social or sociological problems, even though his
own concern was with the relation between man and woman,
and for a short period he dealt with problems in a field where
Feuerbach and Marx and Engels had tried building philo-
sophical systems on the basis of science. With his superficial
interest in these problems and the open contempt he later
felt for Feuerbach, Weininger certainly did not understand
Feuerbach's real achievement. That accomplishment lay in
bringing social problems to public attention at a time when
everything seemed to be in deadlock and in a world where
human life, the existence of religion, the word of God, and
the very form of government were accepted as fully known
facts which could not be changed.
It would seem that we can find only a single statement by
Weininger on social problems. In the light of his personality
this is not at all surprising. The ways and means to solve social
problems--if they could be solved at all--did not interest
him. Therefore, his one and only statement on social ques-
tions was founded on a moral base. He writes, "What is right
in socialism is that every man must find his own intrinsic
value, his own self, and then try to acquire property; and in
this he must not be checked from outside" (U. L. D. , p. 53).
Keen interest in psychological problems rather than in so-
cial problems is evinced also in his conversations with friends.
Though he never said much, he spent many evenings listening
to discussions of eternal human problems and the questions
of the day. In these debates he often returned to Beethoven,
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? 52 Student and Genius
saying, "Nobody else could be as happy as he must have been
when he worked out his great themes" (Tascheribuch, p. 14).
The artistic side of Weininger's personality is most clearly
seen in his attitude toward music, for his early familiarity with
music did not lapse but greatly influenced his development.
As the thinker appeared in him, his appreciation of music was
more closely associated with his intellectual activity; every
melody gave him the sense of a psychic phenomenon (see
Der Fall, p. 10). Each gave him the feeling of a scene which
seemed to belong especially to that particular melody. He
could, therefore, talk of a theme on willpower, a theme on the
heartbeat, a theme having the chill of empty space. These vi-
sions were concerned not only with emotions and moods, but
also with supreme, general problems. As Rappaport said, "He
was most decidedly a music psychologist. " Discovering that he
was endowed with a special music fantasy, Otto later (on Au-
gust 12, 1902) arrived at the conviction that he was a born
musician. He combined tones with thoughts to form pictures
in his mind, so that a series of notes--the melody--actually
became symbolic to him. Therefore, those melodies which had
the strongest effect on him were those most closely related to
the make-up of his own personality. It is typical that he did
not care for Wagner at the time when his state of mind was
governed by empirical science. Then Wagner's music did not
fit into Weininger's world. But when he was metaphysical and
speculative in the later period of his life, he developed a ro-
mantic love for the operas of Wagner. He could then exclaim,
"Never has a piece of art succeeded in fascinating so com-
pletely and in fulfilling the artistic demands of all times as
have the works of Wagner! " (U. L. D. , p. 85). The same love,
though to a smaller degree, he felt for the music of Beethoven.
He respected Mozart, Bach, and Handel as, in his opinion, the
most religious of composers. He' considered a melody in
Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite the supreme height of genius (U. L. D. ,
p. viii).
One might have expected Weininger to use his deep artis-
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? Student and Genius 53
tic feeling as a means to penetrate into the objective world,
but instead he employed even these for discovering the depths
of his mind. In the Preface to Sex and Character, he wrote
(p. iv): "An artist who reproduces the female form can con-
struct the typical without actually giving proof by a series of
measurements. The artist does not despise experience; on the
contrary, he regards it as a duty to gain experience; but for
him it is merely a starting point for self-exploration, just as art
is a searching of the world. "
To Weininger, art meant losing oneself in the world, a prin-
ciple he apparently had first observed through examining him-
self. Experience became a steppingstone for his research work.
He wanted through his artistic intuition to go further than
scientific research could take him. And the result was the work
he completed during the next year and a half. Thus we can
see one important characteristic of Sex and Character: it is to
a certain extent epic, passionate, full of burning faith, but full
also of pain and sorrow for what he conceived to be evil in the
world.
His sensitive and artistic mind promoted in him poetic
traits which in turn fostered a deep concern with literature.
He and his friends discussed Ibsen, Strindberg, and Zola on
many nights, and he had something special to say about each
of them. "Otto Weininger looked on those personalities as
only a genius could look on them" (Taschenbuch, p. 14). His
interest centered not only on these writers, but also on their
countries. In particular he loved Norway and its artists, es-
pecially Ibsen and Hamsun, thinking Ibsen the greatest writer
of all time and undertaking later to write about him. Yet
even while he was indulging his interest in the problems of the
literary world, he still kept up his work on his main problem,
man and woman.
In the meantime, during the late summer and early fall of
1901, he tried to find a sponsor who would recommend his
thesis to a publisher. The effort was not successful, and later
Otto took great care to keep any account of it from reaching
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? 54 Student and Genius
the public ear. It was only after some investigation that I ar-
rived at what he actually had done.
It may be recalled that Weininger's idea of bisexuality had
come to him through Sigmund Freud. The respect he had
for Freud was strange and mighty. What could have been
more natural than his going to Freud with his work?
The fact is that Otto Weininger did pay Freud a visit and
asked him to read his manuscript. Freud himself later wrote,
"It amazed me . . . that I could overlook the visit Wein-
inger paid me, but I have not forgotten it" (Kraus in Die
Wage, No. 43, October, 1906, p. 970).
To be quite sure how matters stood, I wrote to Freud, who
answered, "I was the first man to read through his manuscript
--and the first to give an unfavorable opinion of it" (Letter
IV). Swoboda reported: "If my memory serves me right it
must have been in the fall of 1901--I was not in Vienna at
the time--that Weininger went to Freud to ask his help in
finding a publisher. With the manuscript he also gave Freud
an essay on hysteria, which Freud did not like for several rea-
sons. First, he thought it was written ad captandam benevo-
lentiam; then, he criticized the method applied by Weininger
here and elsewhere, which, according to Freud, was too specu-
lative and too boldly deductive with regard to the scientific
treatment of the main subject. Talking about the deductive
method, Freud told Weininger that he acted like a robber in
a room of treasures--picking up what he could carry and de-
stroying the rest. . . . Freud told me that he never referred
to Weininger as stealing Fliess's property, but as a thief in the
scientific field" (Swoboda, Die Forschung, pp. 21-22). 5
How, then, did Freud react to Weininger's manuscript? It
should be noted that this manuscript was not Sex and Char-
acter, but Weininger's doctoral thesis. Accordingly, as Freud
wrote to me, "there were no depreciatory words about the
Jews and much less criticism of women. He had also to a
6 I have, however, received personal information from a reliable source that
the words Freud actually used were: "Sie haben das Schloss geoffnet mit einem
gestohlenem Schliissel. " (You have opened the lock with a stolen key. )
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? Student and Genius 55
large extent given consideration to my views on hysteria" (Let-
ter XIII). Freud's unfavorable reaction was more clearly rep-
resented in a letter he later wrote to Fliess: "I cannot think
that the damage Weininger may have caused you can be any-
thing but slight, because a rotten book like Sex and Character
cannot be taken seriously. To steal is not so easy as Weininger
imagined it" (Die Wage, No. 43, October, 1906, p. 971).
Freud's low opinion of Weininger's manuscript did not,
however, reflect his view of Weininger personally. Apparently
the young man must have made quite an impression, since
Freud used the following words about him,. "A slender,
grown-up youth with grave features and a veiled, quite beauti-
ful look in his eyes; I could not help feeling that I stood
in front of a personality with a touch of the genius" (Der
Fall, p. 14).
Thus, Otto Weininger went to Freud with his thesis,
though neither in his books nor in his letters does he mention
that visit. Small wonder that this connection between Freud
and Otto Weininger escaped the notice of later biographers.
Otto's own stubborn silence is probably to be explained by
Freud's sharp criticism. What, then, was Weininger's reaction
to the meeting with Freud? We can only imagine that he
must have been shocked when he learned Freud's opinion,
but it would be wrong to believe that this shock would keep
him from trying to place his manuscript with a publisher. And
a little later he did so by sending it to Professor Friedrich
Jodl for his recommendation. The author still had faith in his
book.
At that time, however, something new developed. A change
in Weininger's ideas apparently started with his study of
ethical-philosophical subjects, into which he plunged with
feverish activity. He was led beyond the frame given in his
thesis.
So spellbound was he that he spent his nights at his
work, a practice which disturbed his father. And since he did
not find sufficient quiet in his home, he moved and lived
alone (Letter XVIII).
In the course of these studies he made contact with new
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? 56 Student and Genius
friends, among them Rappaport, to whom he later became
very close. Although it seems unlikely that Weininger's in-
terior change resulted from such external influence as these
friends exerted, nevertheless external factors of the sort may
very well have been instrumental in urging forward a develop-
ment which was already under way.
Something else that may have caused him to turn more to
ethics and may have also made his research methods more
deductive and speculative was his discovery that the principles
of science simply did not cover his theories. Unbiased, dis-
passionate science carried on through laboratory research did
not permit the conclusions Weininger wanted. The conse-
quence was, as he himself confirmed, that he arrived at the
theory that scientific research resulted not only in exploration
of physical reality, but also in the adoption of a utilitarian
view on human life. In Sex and Character (p. 179) he was to
say: "Scientists are not universal, because a science deals with
only one subject, or, at the most, with several. "
His mental change is also to be seen in his book Vber die
letzten Dinge, which shows a steady development of his per-
sonality going along step by step with his thesis. While he was
drawing up his thesis, his ego was growing and he became
more and more conscious of its superiority. It was in this
period, in his own opinion, that he made his real contribution
to psychobiological research. There was in him a continuing
growth, a mounting crescendo. His life seems to be a restless
process of continuation and condensation, which, as Ewald
says, "gave to every one of his statements a touch of religious
initiation, of clear apocalyptic growth" (Letter V).
His faith in himself continued to grow in spite of the tem-
porary defeat administered to his manuscript. This strong de-
velopment of his personality led him to the conviction that he
would have to live his life to the full and not take any half
measures, a decision which was in itself an incentive for him
to go beyond the limits of his earlier way of living.
Thus, a change of mind now takes place; leaving studies of
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? Student and Genius 57
empirical scientific problems, he now begins to take an inter-
est in moral philosophy. He becomes preoccupied with ethical
discussions, and there are hints that a development was taking
place which soon would express itself.
The first practical evidence of this was his desire, in the
summer of 1900, to leave the Jewish religion and become a
Christian (see Der Fall, p. 5). His father thought there might
be some materialistic reason behind this plan. One must re-
member that Otto, in order to support himself, even poorly,
and to carry on his studies, had to be a private tutor. This was
a very hard way to make a living, particularly because, as a
Jew, he had greater difficulty in getting pupils than the Chris-
tian tutors had.
There is also another circumstance which may have con-
tributed to his decision. His home was not a Jewish home.
Quite the contrary. His father was anti-Semitic, and strongly
so, although he himself, maintaining a double attitude, be-
longed to the Jewish religion (Letter XIV). Since the father
was anti-Semitic, we may take it for granted that he never
gave his son any instruction in the Jewish religion. Nor did
the official Jewish Congregation in Vienna have any evidence
that Otto attended any Jewish school or as a boy showed any
interest in the Jewish religion (Letter I). The impression of a
non-Jewish home is strengthened by the fact that three of the
children joined the Christian church, that some of them mar-
ried non-Jews, and that the father left the Jewish religion with-
out belonging to any new denomination. All these facts would
support the belief that Otto was a Jew by descent only, never
by faith.
But the desire to become a Christian for material reasons
and the fact that he was an assimilated Jew cannot have been
the deciding arguments for his conversion. If he had a vague
feeling that there was a reason, it is unlikely that it was clear
to himself. There existed in his personality quite unconscious
tendencies which were now to provoke a complete break with
the past he had known thus far.
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? 58 Student and Genius
On July 21, 1902, Otto Weininger received his doctor's de-
gree for his thesis Sex and Character: A Psychobiological
Study, which was handed in on June 11 of the same year. On
the very day when he became doctor philosophiae he symbol-
ically entered the Christian church, the Protestant faith. (Paul
Biro, Die Sittlichkeitsmetaphysik Otto Weiningers, Vienna,
1927, p. 15; U. L. D. , p. xvii). But the question still remains:
when did he actually accept the Protestant faith? The Jewish
Congregation in Vienna gave me the following answer, "In
any case, he left the Jewish Congregation on May 28, 1902"
(Letter I).
This source shows that he seceded from the Jewish religion
two whole months before he supposedly became a Christian.
To suit Otto his conversion had to be marked, performed sym-
bolically. He deliberately left the impression that he left Juda-
ism and entered the Protestant church on the day he became
doctor philosophiae, though in reality such was not the case.
No one can tell us the circumstances of Otto's formal retire-
ment from the Jewish Congregation. Not one of his close
friends or of his biographers touched more than lightly on the
point. They accepted his gesture without any question. The
obvious and striking demonstration might have caused anyone
with some, experience to reflect on the matter and ask not
only why Otto should have left the Jewish religion on that
particular day, but whether or not he really did so. The knowl-
edge that he kept hidden from his companions the date of his
leaving his old religion and that he entered on his new affilia-
tion with such obvious demonstration is, as we shall see abun-
dantly later, proof that a change had already taken place
within him. And this gesture was an expression of his desire
to be noticed, to be sensational, to be in the limelight.
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? The Empty
Scene
Everything was well prepared beforehand for the gesture.
His conversion seemed impulsive, but was in reality an
expression of a tendency long dormant within him. At first
glance this change seems peculiar, but seen in connection
with his development, it fits well into the picture of his striv-
ing personality.
The same trend appeared also in the thesis Henrik Ibsen
and His Drama "Peer Gynt," which he wrote at the beginning
of 1902; in it he was mainly occupied with Ibsen's moral
ideals. Weininger struggled deeply with the moral problem in
general and consequently the writing was slow. Apparently he
was not only confused about the issue, but also burdened and
worried, a condition illustrated in a letter to Gerber (February
8, 1902): "I should like to conclude my notes and thoughts
on 'Peer Gynt. ' At the moment I write with great difficulty,
and I would like to have a talk with you to ease my mind and
to give my thoughts a chance to take form" (Taschenbuch,
p. 69).
It appears, then, that his preoccupation was speeding up
from the fall of 1901 until the summer of 1902. Nevertheless
he still showed interest in external matters, although mostly
those related to his personal sphere. On a postcard dated
June 17,1902, he wrote these words, not previously published:
"Take good care of my books, of the small ones because they
are not bound, and the big ones because they are not mine.
Protect them from Richard, especially Rote Quartal, which he
has perhaps already taken. I talked with Gerber Monday
about his 'heimisch Mark'; he is not yet decided. He'll be
here Thursday afternoon. Please tell Father the exact place
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? 6o
Empty Scene
(in the third street) where Tchwegler, Geschichte der Philo-
sophic is. I need the book. "
It seems then that Otto Weininger was at this time in close
contact with his surroundings. Yet in step with his external
occupation a strong activity was going on deep inside him,
weakening his self-assertion so that he withdrew more and
more into himself. In this way he became more shut in, and
the process apparently came to a close when he entered the
Protestant church. The decision, realized with a great exalta-
tion, was called forth by a strong restlessness and disturbance
in his mind. Preceded by this feverish preoccupation, his con-
version was an act intended for the attention of the public.
A warning of the disharmony in his mind was already no-
ticeable. His conversion to Protestantism expressed his search,
his effort to escape from conditions which he found unbear-
able into something he thought would bring relief, something
better. 1 And he had the hope that this relief would solve his
mental conflicts. Therefore his conversion was deeply serious;
at any rate, it was his desire for a clear conviction that com-
pelled him to take the step. 2
Most of all it was his lack of inner happiness which was
proved in this action. This want was apparent in the summer
of 1900 when he first thought of leaving the Jewish religion.
By conversion to the Christian faith, he then thought he would
be made happy. After having taken this great step, however, he
found that he was not happy after all, as may be clearly seen in
his letters to Gerber the same summer.
His unrest seemed to stem from his vain search for happi-
ness and mental peace. The disturbance had long been growing
and was later to rise in a crescendo to pathological reactions,
marked by self-accusation, conscientious scruples, feelings of
1 "Once the idealistic philosophy had shown Otto Weininger his new course,
what his master, Kant, from his earliest years had seen in Christianity, the re-
ligion which quite naturally conformed with the philosophy of personality and
liberty, he no longer hesitated. " Andre Spire, Quelques juifs (Paris, 1913),
pp. 185-86.
2 Carl Dallago, Otto Weininger und sein Werk (Innsbruck, 1912), p. n.
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? Empty Scene 61
unimportance and self-abasement. It is very likely that his
mental unrest was stirred by his feverish activity about prob-
lems which he felt were awaiting his solution. He was so intent
upon looking for the solutions that he probably had no time
to savor happiness even if the circumstances had been favor-
able. His good friend Lucka had this idea of him: "I do not
think that Otto Weininger ever in his life had a happy feeling
and he hardly knew vegetative peace" (Lucka, p. 5).
This lack of happiness was deeply ingrained in Weininger's
personality make-up. When the void reveals itself in one way
or another, its appearance proves that it originated in his own
mind and must be taken as a symptom of his mental state.
His closest associates were not aware of this condition in
Otto Weininger. Even his father did not perceive it. In a rough
sketch of his son, he wrote: "In all his thinking he was more gay
than somber until his twenty-first year; only in his studies and
in listening to music was he very serious. Not until less than a
year before his death did his mind become gloomy, but even
then there was nothing to worry about--except in November,
1902, when I was really concerned about him" (Der Fall, p. 7).
Swoboda too believed that Otto Weininger's mental condi-
tion in the period until November, 1902, was not materially
different from that of a healthy man. But he contradicts him-
self: "Those who knew Otto Weininger only from his writings
can have no idea of his mental state in this period (1900-1901).
Discussions on the most difficult philosophical subjects were
his greatest pleasure. He was quite indefatigable as he brought
up question after question during our frequent small parties,
which lasted late into the night or into the early morning.
Abstract regions, from which others would turn away with a
cold shiver, were his real home. He was, in short, a passionate
thinker, the prototype of a thinker. But he was not yet given to
brooding. " 3
Twenty-one years old and discussing problems that arose in
? Hermann Swoboda, Otto WeiningeTS Tod (Vienna, 1911), pp. 6-7. Here-
after this work is cited in the text simply as Swoboda.
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? 62
Empty Scene
"abstract regions from which others would turn away with a
cold shiver"! This sort of thinking must have meant something
other than full maturity. It must have expressed his desire to
penetrate into even the deepest problems in order to find a
strong foundation for life. This untiring, passionate, and
romantic search for an anchor in the metaphysical and
speculative world resulted from the struggle between his self-
reproach and his biological drives, a conflict that led to con-
scientious scruples and a sense of guilt and, naturally, furthered
his feeling of mental dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
The vicious circle of his doubts and contemplations had
early turned his thinking to brooding. The change had probably
occurred as early as 1900. His emotional life can never have
been particularly happy. As Rappaport says, "He was never
good-natured in the ordinary sense, that is, tolerant of those
qualities which help one to enjoy life without actually hurting
others; this lack was probably connected with the fact that he
never felt genial" (Der Fall, p. 11).
Yet the condition was not static. How lack of happiness was
wearing on him is apparent when we compare "Schauder"
(quoted on page 21) with an earlier poem. This earlier poem,
written in 1899, may give foundation to the theory that he was
not conscious of his own lack. It was written in shorthand on
the back of an admission card for a meeting of the Society for
Social Science on March 10, 1899. It has been more or less
completely deciphered with professional help. It is of all the
more interest because if has never been published before:
DER FALTER
Wiegt das Kopfchen zwischenzeitig bange (? ) --
lachen die Augen glitzem in Tranen
Und die Stimme wie (? ) sonst Klang (? )
zittert und bebt vor Sehnen.
Madel, Madel, sei klug und gescheit,
lass den Falter fliegen!
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 08:38 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89038364857 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? Empty Scene 63
Schau! Die Welt ist so gross, so weit
wirst ja noch andere kriegen.
Andere Falter, die so schbne (? )
und galantes (? ) gesponnen--
denn mag auch die Welt noch nach Jahr (? ) tausend Tone (? )
Falter flattern zur Sonnen!
