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? SEX ^ CHARACTER
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? SEX &? CHARACTER
? SEX AND CHARACTER
By Otto Weininger
Authorised Translation FROM THE Sixth German Edition
A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers New York Chicago
rUBLISBED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH C. P. rUTNAlt't lOMt rRINTED IN V. S. A.
? Made in the United States of America
? NOTE TO THE SIXTH GERMAN EDITION (By the German Publisher)
There are few instances in the history of literature in which a work so mature in its scientific purpose and so original in its philosophic aspect as " Sex and Character " has been produced by a student who was at the time of its completion less than thirty years of age. " Sex and Character " was at once accepted by scientific authorities, who had direct knowledge of its sub- ject matter, as a book that demanded respectful consideration, whetherornotitsconclusionsmightbeaccepted. Itmayat once be admitted that the book is by no means in harmony with contemporarythought. IftheconclusionsofWeiningershould be accepted, discu^^sions concerning the emancipation of women, the relation of women to culture, and the results of sexuality would be deprived of their foundation. In this treatise, we have presented, with all the penetrating acumen of the trained logician, a characterisation of sexual types, " M " (the ideal man), and " W" (the ideal woman). The psychological phe- nomena are traced back to a final source and the author under- takes to present what he believes to be a definitive solution
altogether alien to the field of inquiry wherein the answer has hitherto been sought.
In the science of characterology, here formuliited for the first time, we have a strenuous scientific achievement of the first importance. All former psychologies have been the psy- chology of the male, written by men, and more or less consciously applicable only to man as distinguished from humanity. " Woman does not betray her secret," said Kant, and this has been true till now. But now she has revealed it --^by the voice of a man. The things women say about them- selveshavebeensuggestedbymen; theyrepeatthediscoveries, more or less real, which men have made about them. By a
? VI PUBLISHER'S NOTE
highly original method of analysis, a man has succeeded for the first time in giving scientific and abstract utterance to that which only some few great artists have suggested by concrete images hitherto. Weininger, working out an original system of characterology (psychological typology) rich in prospective possibilities, undertook the construction of a universal psy- chology of woman which penetrates to the nethermost depths, and is based not only on a vast systematic mastery of scientific knowledge, but on what can only be described as an appalling comprehension of the feminine soul in its most secret recesses. This newly created method embraces the whole domain of humanconsciousness; researchmustbecarriedoutonthelines laid down by Nature--in three stages, and from three distinct points of view : the biologico-physiological, the psychologically descriptive, and the philosophically appreciative. I will not dwell here on the equipment essential for such a task, the neces- sary combination of a comprehensive knowledge of natural history with a minute and exhaustive mastery of psychological and philosophical science--a combination destined, perhaps, to prove unique.
The general characterisation of the ideal woman, " W," is followed by the construction of individual types, which are finally resolved into two elemental figures (Platonic concep- tions to some extent), the Courtesan and the Mother. These are differentiated by their pre-occupation with the sexual act
(the main, and ir^the ultimate sense, sole interest of " W"), in the first case, as an end in itself, in the second as the process which results in the possession of a child. The abnormal type, the hysterical woman, leads up to a psychological (not physio- logical) theory of hysteria, which is acutely and convincingly defined as " the organic mendacity of woman. "
Weininger himself attached the highest importance to the ethico-philosophical chapters that conclude his work, in which he passes from the special problem of sexuality to the problems of individual talent, genius, aesthetics, memory, the ego, the Jewish race, and many others, nsing finally to the ultimate logical and moral principles of judgment. From his most universal standpoint he succeeds in estimating woman as a part ofhumanity,and,aboveall,subjectively. Herehedeliberately
;:
? PUBLISHER'S NOTE vu?
comes into sharp conflict with the fashionable tendencies towards an unscientific monism and its accompanying phe- nomena, pan-sexuality and the ethics of species, and charac- terises very aptly the customary superficialities of the many non-philosophical modern apostles, of whom Wilhelm Bo? lsche and Ellen Key are perhaps the most representative types. Weininger, in defiance of all reigning fashions, represents a consolidated dualism, closely related to the eternal systems of Plato, of Christianity, and of Kant, which finds an original issue in a bitterly tragic conception of the universe. Richard
Wagner gives artistic expression in his Parsifal to the con- ception Weininger sets forth scientifically. It is, in fact, the old doctrine of the divine life and of redemption to which the whole book, with its array of detail, is consecrated. In Kundry, Weininger recognises the most profound conception of woman in all literature. In her redemption by the spotless Parsifal, the young philosopher sees the way of mankind marked out; he contrasts with this the programme of the modern feminist movement, with its superficialities and its lies and so, in conclusion, the book returns to the problem, which, in spite of all its wealth of thought, remains its governing idea the problem of the sexes and the possibility of a moral relation between them--a moral relation fundamentally different from
whatiscommonlyunderstoodbytheterm,ofcourse. Inthis volume is revealed the mind of one who was, it may be believed, a conscientious student, and to whom life brought only unhap- pinessandtragedy. Nothoughtfulmancanlaydownthebook without being impressed by the earnestness and the honesty of the author's investigations.
? AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book is an attempt to place the relations of Sex in a new and decisive light. It is an attempt not to collect the greatest possible number of distinguishing characters, or to arrange into a system all the results of scientific measur- ing and experiment, but to refer to a single principle the whole contrast between man and woman. In this respect the book differs from all other works on the same subject. It does not linger over this or that detail, but presses on to its ultimate goal ; it does not heap investigation on investi- gation, but combmes the psychical differences between the sexes into a system ; it deals not with women, but with woman. It sets out, mdeed, from the most common and obvious facts, but intends to reach a smgle, concrete prin- ciple. This is not " inductive metaphysics "
approach to the heart of psychology.
The investigation is not of details, but of principles ; it
does not despise the laboratory, although the help of the laboratory, with regard to the deeper problems, is limited as compared with the results of introspective analysis. An artist who wishes to represent the female form can construct a type without actually giving formal proof by a series of measurements. The artist does not despise experimental results ; on the contrary, he regards it as a duty to gain experience ; but for him the collection of experimental knowledge is merely a starting-point for self-exploration,
and in art self-exploration is exploration of the world.
The psychology used in this exposition is purely philo- sophical, although its characteristic method, justified by the subject, is to set out from the most trivial details of ex- perience. Thetaskofthephilosopherdiffersfromthatof
; it is a gradual
? X AUTHOR'S PREFACE
the artist in one important respect. The one deals in sym- bols, the other in ideas. Art and philosophy stand to one anotherasexpressionandmeaning. Theartisthasbreathed in the world to breathe it out again ; the philosopher has the world outside him and he has to absorb it.
There is always something pretentious in theory ; and the real meaning--which in a work of art is Nature herself and in a philosophical system is a much condensed generalisa- tion, a thesis going to the root of the matter and proving itself--appears to strike against us harshly, almostoffensively. Where my exposition is anti-feminine, and that is nearly everywhere, men themselves will receive it with little hearti- ness or conviction ; their sexual egoism makes them prefer to see woman as they would like to have her, as they would like her to be.
I need not say that I am prepared for the answer women will have to the judgment I have passed on their sex. My investigation, indeed, turns against man in the end, and although in a deeper sense than the advocates of women's rights could anticipate, assigns to man the heaviest and mostrealblame. Butthiswillhelpmelittleandisofsuch a nature that it cannot in the smallest way rehabilitate me in the minds of women.
The analysis, however, goes further than the assignment ofblame; itrisesbeyondsimpleandsuperficialphenomena to heights from which there opens not only a view into the nature of woman and its meaning in the universe, but also the relation to mankind and to the ultimate and most lofty problems. AdefiniterelationtotheproblemofCultureis attained, and we reach the part to be played by woman in thesphereofidealaims. There,also,wheretheproblems of Culture and of Mankind coincide, I try not merely to explain but to assign values, for, indeed, in that region explanation and valuation are identical.
To such a wide outlook my investigation was as it were driven,notdeliberatelysteered,fromtheoutset. Theinade- quacy of all empirical psychological philosophy follows directly from empirical psychology itself. The respect for
? AUTHOR'S PREFACE xi
empirical knowledge will not be injured, but rather will the meaning of such knowledge be deepened, if man recognises in phenomena, and it is from phenomena that he sets out, any elements assuring him that there is something behind phenomena, if he espies the signs that prove the existence of something higher than phenomena, something that supports phenomena. We may be assured of such a first principle, although no living man can reach it. Towards such a principle this book presses and will not flag.
(Within the narrow limits to which as yet the problem of woman and of woman's rights has been confined, there has been no place for the venture to reach so high a goal. None the less the problem is bound intimately with the deepest riddles of existence. It can be solved, practically or theoretically, morally or metaphysically, only in relation to an interpretation of the cosmos.
Comprehension of the universe, or what passes for such, stands in no opposition to knowledge of details ; on the other hand all special knowledge acquires a deeper meaning because of it. Comprehension of the universe is self- creative ; it cannot arise, although the empirical knowledge of every age expects it, as a synthesis of however great a sum of empirical knowledge.
In this book there lie only the germs of a world-scheme, and these are allied most closely with the conceptions of Plato, Kant and Christianity. I have been compelled for the most part to fashion for myself the scientific, psycho- logical, philosophical, logical, ethical groundwork. I think that at the least I have laid the foundations of many things into which I could not go fully. I call special attention to the defects of this part of my work because I attach more importance to appreciation of what I have tried to say about the deepest and most general problems than to the interest which will certainly be aroused by my special investigation of the problem of woman.
The philosophical reader may take it amiss to find a treatment of the loftiest and ultimate problems coinciding with the investigation of a special problem of no great
? xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE
dignity ; I share with him this distaste. I may say, how- ever, that I have treated throughout the contrast between the sexes as the starting-point rather than the goal of my research. The investigation has yielded a harvest rich in its bearing on the fundamental problems of logic and their relations to the axioms of thought, on the theory of aesthetics, of love, and of the beautiful and the good, and on problems such as individuality and morality and their relations, on the phenomena of genius, the craving for immortality and Hebraism. Naturally these comprehensive interrelations aid the special problem, for, as it is considered from so many points of view, its scope enlarges. And if in this wider sense it be proved that culture can give only the smallest hope for the nature of woman, if the final results are a depreciation, even a negation of womanhood, there will be
no attempt in this to destroy what exists, to humble what has a value of its own. Horror of my own deed would overtake me were I here only destructive and had I left only a clean sheet. Perhaps the affirmations in my book are less articulate, but he that has ears to hear will hear them.
The treatise falls into two parts, the first biological- psychological, the second logical-philosophical. It may be objected that I should have done better to make two books, the one treating of purely physical science, the other intro- spective. It was necessary to be done with biology before turnmg to psychology. The second part treats of certain psychical problems in a fashion totally different from the method of any contemporary naturalist, and for that reason
I think that the removal of the first part of the book would have been at some risk to many readers. Moreover, the first part of the book challenges an attention and criticism from natural science possible in a few places only in the second part, which is chiefly introspective. Because the second part starts from a conception of the universe that is anti-positivistic, many will think it unscientific (although there is given a strong proof against Positivism). For the present I must be content with the conviction that I have rendered its due to Biology, and that I have established
? AUTHOR'S PREFACE xiii
an enduring position for non-biological, non-physiological psychology.
'My investigation may be objected to as in certain points notbeingsupportedbyenoughproof,butI seelittleforce in such an objection. For in these matters what can " proof " mean ? I am not dealing with mathematics or with the theory of cognition (except with the latter in two cases) ; I am dealing with empirical knowledge, and in that one can do no more than point to what exists ; in this region proof means no more than the agreement of new experience with old experience, and it is much the same whether the new phenomena have been produced experi- mentally by men, or have come straight from the creative hand of nature. Of such latter proofs my book contains many.
Finally, I should like to say that my book, if I may be allowed to judge it, is for the most part not of a quality to be understood and absorbed at the first glance. I point out this myself, to guide and protect the reader.
The less I found myself able in both parts of the book (and especially in the second) to confirm what now passes for knowledge, the more anxious I have been to point out coincidences where I found myself in agreement with what has already been known and said.
I have to thank Professor Dr. Laurenz Mu? llner for the great assistance he has given me, and Professor Dr. Friedrich Jodl for the kindly interest he has taken in my work from the beginning. I am specially indebted to the kind friends who have helped me with correction of the proofs.
CONTENTS Author's Preface to the First German Edition
FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART SEXUAL COMPLEXITY
Introduction
. . ix
On the development of general conceptions--Male and female --Contradictions--Transitional forms--Anatomyand natural endowment--Uncertainty of anatomy
CHAPTER I
Males and Females 5
Embryonic neutral condition -- Rudiments in the adult Degrees of " gonochorism "--Principle of intermediate forms Male and female--Need for typical conceptions--Resum6 Early anticipations
CHAPTER II
Male and Female Plasmas XI
Position of sexuality--Steenstrup's view adopted--Sexual characters--Internal secretions--Idioplasm--Arrhenoplasm --Thelyplasm--Variations--Proofs from the effects of cas- tration--Transplantation and transfusion--Organotherapy Individual differences between eells--Origin of intermediate sexual conditions--Brain--Excess of male births--Determi- nation of sex--Comparative pathology
--
? -- -- xvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER III
. . .
Pofe <<6
? The Laws of Sexual Attractiom
. .
Sexual preference--Probability of these being controlled by a law--First formula--First interpretation--Proofs--Hetero- stylism--Interpretation of heterostylism--Animal kingdom Furtherlaws--Secondformula Chemotaxis--Resemblances and differences--Goethe, " elective affinities--Marriage and free love--Effects on progeny
CHAPTER IV
Homo-sexuality and Pederasty
Homo-sexuals as intermediate forms--Inborn or acquired, healthy or diseased ? --A special instance of the law of attrac- tion--All men have the rudiments of homo-sexuality--Friend- ship and sexuality--Animals--Failure of medical treatment --Homo-sexuality, punishment and ethics--Distinction between homo-sexuality and pederasty
CHAPTER V
45
The Science of Character and the Science of Form . 53
Principle of sexually intermediate forms as fundamental prin- ciple ol the psychology rf>f individuals--Simultaneity or periodicity? --Methods of psychological investigation EJcamples--Individualised education--Conventionalising-- Parallelism between morphology and characterology--Phy- siognomy and the principles of psycho-physics--Method of the doctrine of variation--A new way of stating the prob- lem--Deductive morphology--Correlation--Outlook
Emancipated Women
. . .
64
CHAPTER VI
The woman question--Claim for emancipation and maleness^ Emancipation and homo-sexuality--Sexual preferences of emancipated women--Physiognomy of emancipated women Other celebrated womeo--Femaleness and emancipation
--
--"
? CONTENTS
Practical rules Genius essentially male--Movements of women in historical times--Periodicity--Biology and the conception of history--Outlook of the woman movement Its fundamental error
SECOND OR PRINCIPAL PART THE SEXUAL TYPES
CHAPTER I
Man and Woman
Bisexuality and unisexuality--Man or woman, male or female --Fundamental difficulty in characterology--Experiment, analysis of sensation and psychology--Dilthey--Conception of empirical character--What is and what is not the object of psychology--Character and individuality--Problem of characterology and the problem of the sexes
xvii Pagt
CHAPTER II
Male and Female Sexuality
The problem of a female psychology--Man as the interpreter of female psychology--Differences in the sexual impulse The absorbing and liberating factors--Intensity and activity --Sexual irritability of women--Larger field of the sexual life in woman--Local diff'erences in the perception of sexuality Local and periodical cessation of male sexuality--Differ- ences in the degrees of consciousness of sexuality
CHAPTER III
Male and Female Consciousness
Sensation and feeling--Avenarius' division into " element and '? character. " These inseparable at the earliest stage Process of " clarification "--Presentiments--Grades of under- standing--Forgetting--Paths and organisation--Conception of " henids "--The henid as the simplest, psychical datum
--Sexual differences in the organisation of the contents of b
85
79
93
--
? xviii CONTENTS
the mind--Sensibility--Certainty of judgment--Developed consciousness as a male character
CHAPTER IV
Talent and Genius
Genius and talent-- Genius and giftedness--Methods--Com- prehension of many men--What is meant by comprehending men--Great complexity of genius--Periods in psychic hfe No disparagement of famous men--Understanding and notic- ing--Universal consciousness of genius--Greatest distance from the henid stage--A higher grade of maleness--Genius always universal--The female devoid of genius or of hero- worship--Giftedness and sex
CHAPTER V
Talent and Memory
Organisation and the power of reproducing thoughts--Memory of experiences a sign of genius--Remarks and conclusions Remembrance and apperception--Capacity for comparison and acquisition--Reasons for the masculinity of music, drawing and painting--Degrees of genius--Relation of genius to ordinary men--Autobiography--Fixed ideas--Remem- brance of personal creations--Continuous and discontinu- ance memory--Continuity and piety--Past and present Past and future--Desire for immortality--Existing psycho- logical explanations--True origin--Inner development of man until death--Ontogenetic psychology or theoretical biography-- Woman lacking in the desire for immortality Further extension of relation of memory to genius--Memory and time--Postulate of timelessness--Value as a timeless quality--First law of the theory of value--Proofs--Individua- tion and duration constituents of value--Desire for immor- tality a special case--Desire for immortality in genius con- nected with timelessness, by his universal memory and the duration of his creations--Genius and history--Genius and nations--Genius and language--Men of action and men of science, not to be called men of genius--Philosophers, founders of reUgion and artists have genius
Pmft
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
Memory, Logic and Ethics
Psychology and " psychologismus "--Value
xix Page
. 14a
of memory Theory of memory--Doctrines of practice and of association
--Confusion with recognition --Memory peculiar to man Moral significance--Lies--Transition to logic-- Memory and the principle of identity--Memory and the syllogism Woman non-logical and non-ethical--Intellectual and moral knowledge--The intelligible ego
CHAPTER VII
Logic, Ethics and the Ego 153
Critics of the conception of the Ego--Hume: Lichtenberg, Mach--The ego of Mach and biology--Individuation and individuaUty--Logic and ethics as witnesses for the exist- ence of the ego--Logic--Laws of identity and of contraries --Their use and significance--Logical axioms as the laws of essence--Kant and Fichte--Freedom of thought and freedom of the will--Ethics--Relation to logic--The psychology of the Kantian ethics--Kant and Nietzsche
CHAPTER VIII
The ? ' I " Problem and Genius 165
Characterology and the belief in the *' I "--Awakening of the ego--Jean Paul, Novalis, Schelling--The awakening of the ego and the view of the world--Self-consciousness and arro- gance--The view of the genius to be more highly valued than that of other men--Final statements as to the idea of genius--The personality of the genius as the perfectly-con- scious microcosm--The naturally- synthetic activity of genius --Significant and symbolical--Definition of the genius in relation to ordinary men--Universality as freedom--Morality or immoraUty of genius ? --Duties towards self and others What duty to another is--Criticism of moral sympathy and social ethics--Understanding of other men as the one require-
--
? CONTENTS
ment of morality and knowledge--I and thou--Individualism and universalism--Morality only in monads--The man of greatest genius as the most moral man--Why man is faop voXiTiKov--Consciousness and morality--The great criminaf --Genius as duty and submission--Genius and crime Genius and insanity--Man as his own creator
CHAPTER IX
Male and Female Psychology i86^
SouUessness of woman--History of this knowledge--Woman devoid of genius--No masculine women in the true sense The unconnectedness of woman's nature due to her want of an ego--Revision of the henid-theory--Female " thought " --Idea and object--Freedom of the object--Idea and judg- ment--Nature of judgment--Woman and truth as a criterion of thought--Woman and logic --Woman non-moral, not immoral--Woman and soUtude--Womanly sympathy and modesty--The ego of women--Female vanity--Lack of true self-appreciation --Memory for compliments--Introspection and repentance--Justice and jealousy--Name and individu- aUty--Radical difference between male and female mental life--Psychology with and without soul--Is psychology a science ? --Soul and psychology--Problem of the influence of the psychical sexual characters of the male or the female
CHAPTER X
Motherhood and Prostitution <<14
Special characterology of woman--Mother and prostitute Relation of two types to the child--Woman polygamous Analogies between motherhood and sexuality--Motherhood and the race--Maternal love ethically indifferent--The pros- titute careless of the race--The prostitute, the criminal and the conqueror--Emperor and prostitute--Motive of the pros- titute--Coitus an end in itself--Coquetry--The sensations of the woman in coitus in relation to the rest of her life--The prostitute as the enemy--The friend of life and its enemy No prostitution amongst animals--Its origin a mystery
XX
--
? --
? CONTENTS xxi Fage
CHAPTER XI
Erotics and iEsxHETics 236
Women, and the hatred of women--Erotics and sexuality Platonic love--The idea of love--Beauty of women--Relation to sexual impulse--Love and beauty--Difference between aesthetics, logic and ethics--Modes of love--Projection phe- nomena--Beauty and morality--Nature and ethics--Natural and artistic beauty--Sexual love as guilt--Hate, love and morality--Creation of the devil--Love and sympathy--Love
and shyness--Love and vanity--Love of woman as a means to an end--Relation between the child and love, the child and sexuahty--Love and murder--Madonna-worship--Madonna, a male idea, without basis in womanhood--Woman sexual, not erotic--Sense of beauty in women--How man acts on woman--The fate of the woman--Why man loves woman
CHAPTER XII
The Nature of Woman and Her Significance in the Universe 252
Meaning of womanhood--Instinct for pairing or matchmaking --Man, and matchmaking--High valuation of coitus--Indi- vidual sexual impulse, a special case--Womanhood as pairing or universal sexuality--Organic falseness of woman Hysteria--Difference between man and beast, woman and man--The higher and lower life--Birth and death--Freedom and happiness--Happiness and man--Happiness and woman --Woman and the problem of existence--Non-existence of woman--Male and female friendship--Pairing identical with womanhood--Why women must be regarded as human Gantrast between subject--Object, matter, form, man,
woman--Meaning of henids--Formation of woman by man --Significance of woman in the universe--Man as something, woman as nothing--Psychological problem of the fear of woman--Womanhood and crime--Creation of woman by man's crime--Woman as his own sexuality accepted by man --Woman as the guilt of man--What man's love of woman is. in its deepest significance
Differences amongst men--Intermediate forms and racial anthropology -- Comparison of Judaism and femaleness --Jud. dsm as an idea--Antisemitism--Rictiard Wagner Similarities between Jews and women--Judaism in science The Jew not a monad--The Jew and the Englishman Natureofhumour--Humourandsatire--TheJewess--Deepest significance of Judaism--Want of faith--The Jew not non- mystical, yet impious--Want of earnestness, and pride--The Jew as opposed to the hero--Judaism and Christianity Origin of Christianity--Problem of the founders of religion --Christ as the conqueror of the Judaism in Himself--The founders of religions as the greatest of men--Conquest of
inherent Judaism necessary for all founders of reUgion Judaism and the present time--Judaism, femaleness, culture and humanity
CHAPI ERXIV
Woman and Mankind
The idea of humanity, and woman as the match-maker Goethe-worship--Womanising of man--Virginity and purity --Maleoriginoftheseideas- Failureofwomantounderstand the erotic--Woman's relation to sexuality--Coitus and love --Woman as the enemy of her own emancipation--Asceticism immoral--Sexual impulse as a want of respect-- Problem of the Jew--Problem of the woman--Problem of slavery--Moral relation to women--Man as the opponent of emancipation Ethical postulates--Two possibilities--The problem of women as the problem of humanity--Subjection of women Persistence or disappearance of the human race--True ground of the immorality of the sexual impulse--Earthly paternity--Inclusion of women in the conception of humanity --The mother and the education of the human race--Last questions
331
Index ? 350
--
? xxu? CONTENTS CHAPTER XIII
Judaism
^'^
301
? FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART SEXUAL COMPLEXITY
? INTRODUCTION
All thought begins with conceptions to a certain extent generalised, and thence is developed in two directions. On the one hand, generalisations become wider and wider, binding together by common properties a larger and larger number of phenomena, and so embracing a wider field of the world of facts. On the other hand, thought approaches more closely the meeting-point of all conceptions, the individual, the concrete complex unit towards which w^e approach only by thinking in an ever-narrowing circle, and by continually being able to add new specific and differen- tiating attributes to the general idea, " thing," or " some- thing. " It was known that fishes formed a class of the animal kingdom distinct from mammals, birds, or inverte- brates, long before it was recognised on the one hand that fishes might be bony or cartilaginous, or on the other that fishes, birds and mammals composed a group differing from
the invertebrates by many common characters.
The self-assertion of the mind over the world of facts in all its complexity of innumerable resemblances and differences has been compared with the rule of the struggle for existence among living beings. Our conceptions stand between us and reality. It is only step by step that we cancontrolthem. Asinthecaseofamadman,wemayfirst have to throw a net over the whole body so that some limit may be set to his struggles ; and only after the whole has been thus secured, is it possible to attend to the proper
restraint of each limb.
Two general conceptions have come down to us from
primitive mankind, and from the earliest times have held our mental processes in their leash. Many a time these
A
;
? 2 SEX AND CHARACTER
conceptions have undergone trivial corrections ; they have been sent to the workshop and patched in head and limbs they have been lopped and added to, expanded here, con- tracted there, as when new needs pierce through and through an old law of suffrage, bursting bond after bond. None the less, in spite of all amendment and alteration, we have still to reckon with the primitive conceptions, male and female.
It is true that among those we call women are some who are meagre, narrow-hipped, angular, muscular, energetic, highly mentalised ; there are " women " with short hair and deep voices, just as there are " men " who are beardless and gossiping. We know, in fact, that there are unwomanly women, man-like women, and unmanly, womanish, woman- like men. \We assign sex to human beings from their birth on one character only, and so come to add contradictory ideastoourconceptions. Suchacourseisillogical/
In private conversation or in society, in scientific or general meetings, we have all taken part in frothy discus- sions on " Man and Woman," or on the " Emancipation of Women. " There is a pitiful monotony in the fashion according to which, on such occasions, "men" and "women" have been treated as if, like red and white balls, they were alike in all respects save colour. In no case has the discussion been confined to an individual case, and as every one had different individuals in their mind, a real agreement was impossible. As people meant different things by the same words, there was a complete disharmony be- tween language and ideas. Is it really the case that all women and men are marked off sharply from each other, the women, on the one hand, alike in all points, the men on the other ? It is certainly the case that all previous treat- ment of the sexual differences, perhaps unconsciously, has implied this view. And yet nowhere else in nature is there such a yawning discontinuity. There are transitional forms between the metals and non-metals, between chemical com- binations and mixtures, between animals and plants, between phanerogams and cryptogams, and between mammals and
;
? INTRODUCTION
3 birds. Itisonlyinobediencetothemostgeneral,practical demand for a superficial view that we classify, make sharp divisions, pick out a single tune from the continuous melody of nature. But the old conceptions of the mind, like the customs of primitive commerce, become foolish in a new age. From the analogies I have given, the improbability may henceforward be taken for granted of finding in nature a sharp cleavage between all that is masculine on the one side and all that is feminine on the other ; or that a living being is so simple in this respect that it can be put wholly on one side or the other of the line. Matters are not so
clear.
In the controversy as to the woman question, appeal has
been made to the arbitration of anatomy, in the hope that by that aid a line could be drawn between those characters of males or females that are unalterable because inborn, and those that are acquired. (It was a strange adventure to attempt to decide the differences between the natural endowment of men and women on anatomical results to suppose that if all other investigation failed to establish the difference, the matter could be settled by a few more grains of brain-weight on the one side. ) ^However, the answer of the anatomists is clear enough, whether it refer to the brain or to any other portion of the body ; absolute sexual distinctions between all men on the one side and all women on the other do not exist) Although the skeleton of the hand of most men is different from that of most women, yet the sex cannot be determined with certainty either from the skeleton or from an isolated part with its muscles, tendons, skin, blood and nerves. The same is true of the chest, sacrum or skull. And what are we to say of the pelvis, that part of the skeleton in which, if anywhere, striking sexual differences exist ? It is almost universally believed that in the one case the pelvis is adapted for the act of parturition, intheothercaseisnotsoadapted. Andyetthecharacter of the pelvis cannot be taken as an absolute criterion of sex. There are to be found, and the wayfarer knows this as well as the anatomist, many women with narrow male-like pelves,
? SEX AND CHARACTER
4
and many men with the broad pelves of women. Are we then to make nothing of sexual differences ? That would imply, almost, that we could not distinguish between men and women.
From what quarter are we to seek help in our problem ? The old doctrine is insufficient, and yet we cannot make shift without it. If the received ideas do not suffice, it must be our task to seek out new and better guides.
;
? CHAPTER I
"MALES" AND "FEMALES"
In the widest treatment of most living things, a blunt separa- tion of them into males or females no longer suffices for the known facts. The limitations of these conceptions have beenfeltmoreorlessbymanywriters. Thefirstpurpose of this work is to make this point clear.
I agree with other authors who, in a recent treatment of the facts connected with this subject, have taken as a start- ing-point what has been established by embryology regard- ing the existence in human beings, plants, and animals of an embryonic stage neutral as regards sex.
These are differentiated by their pre-occupation with the sexual act
(the main, and ir^the ultimate sense, sole interest of " W"), in the first case, as an end in itself, in the second as the process which results in the possession of a child. The abnormal type, the hysterical woman, leads up to a psychological (not physio- logical) theory of hysteria, which is acutely and convincingly defined as " the organic mendacity of woman. "
Weininger himself attached the highest importance to the ethico-philosophical chapters that conclude his work, in which he passes from the special problem of sexuality to the problems of individual talent, genius, aesthetics, memory, the ego, the Jewish race, and many others, nsing finally to the ultimate logical and moral principles of judgment. From his most universal standpoint he succeeds in estimating woman as a part ofhumanity,and,aboveall,subjectively. Herehedeliberately
;:
? PUBLISHER'S NOTE vu?
comes into sharp conflict with the fashionable tendencies towards an unscientific monism and its accompanying phe- nomena, pan-sexuality and the ethics of species, and charac- terises very aptly the customary superficialities of the many non-philosophical modern apostles, of whom Wilhelm Bo? lsche and Ellen Key are perhaps the most representative types. Weininger, in defiance of all reigning fashions, represents a consolidated dualism, closely related to the eternal systems of Plato, of Christianity, and of Kant, which finds an original issue in a bitterly tragic conception of the universe. Richard
Wagner gives artistic expression in his Parsifal to the con- ception Weininger sets forth scientifically. It is, in fact, the old doctrine of the divine life and of redemption to which the whole book, with its array of detail, is consecrated. In Kundry, Weininger recognises the most profound conception of woman in all literature. In her redemption by the spotless Parsifal, the young philosopher sees the way of mankind marked out; he contrasts with this the programme of the modern feminist movement, with its superficialities and its lies and so, in conclusion, the book returns to the problem, which, in spite of all its wealth of thought, remains its governing idea the problem of the sexes and the possibility of a moral relation between them--a moral relation fundamentally different from
whatiscommonlyunderstoodbytheterm,ofcourse. Inthis volume is revealed the mind of one who was, it may be believed, a conscientious student, and to whom life brought only unhap- pinessandtragedy. Nothoughtfulmancanlaydownthebook without being impressed by the earnestness and the honesty of the author's investigations.
? AUTHOR'S PREFACE
This book is an attempt to place the relations of Sex in a new and decisive light. It is an attempt not to collect the greatest possible number of distinguishing characters, or to arrange into a system all the results of scientific measur- ing and experiment, but to refer to a single principle the whole contrast between man and woman. In this respect the book differs from all other works on the same subject. It does not linger over this or that detail, but presses on to its ultimate goal ; it does not heap investigation on investi- gation, but combmes the psychical differences between the sexes into a system ; it deals not with women, but with woman. It sets out, mdeed, from the most common and obvious facts, but intends to reach a smgle, concrete prin- ciple. This is not " inductive metaphysics "
approach to the heart of psychology.
The investigation is not of details, but of principles ; it
does not despise the laboratory, although the help of the laboratory, with regard to the deeper problems, is limited as compared with the results of introspective analysis. An artist who wishes to represent the female form can construct a type without actually giving formal proof by a series of measurements. The artist does not despise experimental results ; on the contrary, he regards it as a duty to gain experience ; but for him the collection of experimental knowledge is merely a starting-point for self-exploration,
and in art self-exploration is exploration of the world.
The psychology used in this exposition is purely philo- sophical, although its characteristic method, justified by the subject, is to set out from the most trivial details of ex- perience. Thetaskofthephilosopherdiffersfromthatof
; it is a gradual
? X AUTHOR'S PREFACE
the artist in one important respect. The one deals in sym- bols, the other in ideas. Art and philosophy stand to one anotherasexpressionandmeaning. Theartisthasbreathed in the world to breathe it out again ; the philosopher has the world outside him and he has to absorb it.
There is always something pretentious in theory ; and the real meaning--which in a work of art is Nature herself and in a philosophical system is a much condensed generalisa- tion, a thesis going to the root of the matter and proving itself--appears to strike against us harshly, almostoffensively. Where my exposition is anti-feminine, and that is nearly everywhere, men themselves will receive it with little hearti- ness or conviction ; their sexual egoism makes them prefer to see woman as they would like to have her, as they would like her to be.
I need not say that I am prepared for the answer women will have to the judgment I have passed on their sex. My investigation, indeed, turns against man in the end, and although in a deeper sense than the advocates of women's rights could anticipate, assigns to man the heaviest and mostrealblame. Butthiswillhelpmelittleandisofsuch a nature that it cannot in the smallest way rehabilitate me in the minds of women.
The analysis, however, goes further than the assignment ofblame; itrisesbeyondsimpleandsuperficialphenomena to heights from which there opens not only a view into the nature of woman and its meaning in the universe, but also the relation to mankind and to the ultimate and most lofty problems. AdefiniterelationtotheproblemofCultureis attained, and we reach the part to be played by woman in thesphereofidealaims. There,also,wheretheproblems of Culture and of Mankind coincide, I try not merely to explain but to assign values, for, indeed, in that region explanation and valuation are identical.
To such a wide outlook my investigation was as it were driven,notdeliberatelysteered,fromtheoutset. Theinade- quacy of all empirical psychological philosophy follows directly from empirical psychology itself. The respect for
? AUTHOR'S PREFACE xi
empirical knowledge will not be injured, but rather will the meaning of such knowledge be deepened, if man recognises in phenomena, and it is from phenomena that he sets out, any elements assuring him that there is something behind phenomena, if he espies the signs that prove the existence of something higher than phenomena, something that supports phenomena. We may be assured of such a first principle, although no living man can reach it. Towards such a principle this book presses and will not flag.
(Within the narrow limits to which as yet the problem of woman and of woman's rights has been confined, there has been no place for the venture to reach so high a goal. None the less the problem is bound intimately with the deepest riddles of existence. It can be solved, practically or theoretically, morally or metaphysically, only in relation to an interpretation of the cosmos.
Comprehension of the universe, or what passes for such, stands in no opposition to knowledge of details ; on the other hand all special knowledge acquires a deeper meaning because of it. Comprehension of the universe is self- creative ; it cannot arise, although the empirical knowledge of every age expects it, as a synthesis of however great a sum of empirical knowledge.
In this book there lie only the germs of a world-scheme, and these are allied most closely with the conceptions of Plato, Kant and Christianity. I have been compelled for the most part to fashion for myself the scientific, psycho- logical, philosophical, logical, ethical groundwork. I think that at the least I have laid the foundations of many things into which I could not go fully. I call special attention to the defects of this part of my work because I attach more importance to appreciation of what I have tried to say about the deepest and most general problems than to the interest which will certainly be aroused by my special investigation of the problem of woman.
The philosophical reader may take it amiss to find a treatment of the loftiest and ultimate problems coinciding with the investigation of a special problem of no great
? xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE
dignity ; I share with him this distaste. I may say, how- ever, that I have treated throughout the contrast between the sexes as the starting-point rather than the goal of my research. The investigation has yielded a harvest rich in its bearing on the fundamental problems of logic and their relations to the axioms of thought, on the theory of aesthetics, of love, and of the beautiful and the good, and on problems such as individuality and morality and their relations, on the phenomena of genius, the craving for immortality and Hebraism. Naturally these comprehensive interrelations aid the special problem, for, as it is considered from so many points of view, its scope enlarges. And if in this wider sense it be proved that culture can give only the smallest hope for the nature of woman, if the final results are a depreciation, even a negation of womanhood, there will be
no attempt in this to destroy what exists, to humble what has a value of its own. Horror of my own deed would overtake me were I here only destructive and had I left only a clean sheet. Perhaps the affirmations in my book are less articulate, but he that has ears to hear will hear them.
The treatise falls into two parts, the first biological- psychological, the second logical-philosophical. It may be objected that I should have done better to make two books, the one treating of purely physical science, the other intro- spective. It was necessary to be done with biology before turnmg to psychology. The second part treats of certain psychical problems in a fashion totally different from the method of any contemporary naturalist, and for that reason
I think that the removal of the first part of the book would have been at some risk to many readers. Moreover, the first part of the book challenges an attention and criticism from natural science possible in a few places only in the second part, which is chiefly introspective. Because the second part starts from a conception of the universe that is anti-positivistic, many will think it unscientific (although there is given a strong proof against Positivism). For the present I must be content with the conviction that I have rendered its due to Biology, and that I have established
? AUTHOR'S PREFACE xiii
an enduring position for non-biological, non-physiological psychology.
'My investigation may be objected to as in certain points notbeingsupportedbyenoughproof,butI seelittleforce in such an objection. For in these matters what can " proof " mean ? I am not dealing with mathematics or with the theory of cognition (except with the latter in two cases) ; I am dealing with empirical knowledge, and in that one can do no more than point to what exists ; in this region proof means no more than the agreement of new experience with old experience, and it is much the same whether the new phenomena have been produced experi- mentally by men, or have come straight from the creative hand of nature. Of such latter proofs my book contains many.
Finally, I should like to say that my book, if I may be allowed to judge it, is for the most part not of a quality to be understood and absorbed at the first glance. I point out this myself, to guide and protect the reader.
The less I found myself able in both parts of the book (and especially in the second) to confirm what now passes for knowledge, the more anxious I have been to point out coincidences where I found myself in agreement with what has already been known and said.
I have to thank Professor Dr. Laurenz Mu? llner for the great assistance he has given me, and Professor Dr. Friedrich Jodl for the kindly interest he has taken in my work from the beginning. I am specially indebted to the kind friends who have helped me with correction of the proofs.
CONTENTS Author's Preface to the First German Edition
FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART SEXUAL COMPLEXITY
Introduction
. . ix
On the development of general conceptions--Male and female --Contradictions--Transitional forms--Anatomyand natural endowment--Uncertainty of anatomy
CHAPTER I
Males and Females 5
Embryonic neutral condition -- Rudiments in the adult Degrees of " gonochorism "--Principle of intermediate forms Male and female--Need for typical conceptions--Resum6 Early anticipations
CHAPTER II
Male and Female Plasmas XI
Position of sexuality--Steenstrup's view adopted--Sexual characters--Internal secretions--Idioplasm--Arrhenoplasm --Thelyplasm--Variations--Proofs from the effects of cas- tration--Transplantation and transfusion--Organotherapy Individual differences between eells--Origin of intermediate sexual conditions--Brain--Excess of male births--Determi- nation of sex--Comparative pathology
--
? -- -- xvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER III
. . .
Pofe <<6
? The Laws of Sexual Attractiom
. .
Sexual preference--Probability of these being controlled by a law--First formula--First interpretation--Proofs--Hetero- stylism--Interpretation of heterostylism--Animal kingdom Furtherlaws--Secondformula Chemotaxis--Resemblances and differences--Goethe, " elective affinities--Marriage and free love--Effects on progeny
CHAPTER IV
Homo-sexuality and Pederasty
Homo-sexuals as intermediate forms--Inborn or acquired, healthy or diseased ? --A special instance of the law of attrac- tion--All men have the rudiments of homo-sexuality--Friend- ship and sexuality--Animals--Failure of medical treatment --Homo-sexuality, punishment and ethics--Distinction between homo-sexuality and pederasty
CHAPTER V
45
The Science of Character and the Science of Form . 53
Principle of sexually intermediate forms as fundamental prin- ciple ol the psychology rf>f individuals--Simultaneity or periodicity? --Methods of psychological investigation EJcamples--Individualised education--Conventionalising-- Parallelism between morphology and characterology--Phy- siognomy and the principles of psycho-physics--Method of the doctrine of variation--A new way of stating the prob- lem--Deductive morphology--Correlation--Outlook
Emancipated Women
. . .
64
CHAPTER VI
The woman question--Claim for emancipation and maleness^ Emancipation and homo-sexuality--Sexual preferences of emancipated women--Physiognomy of emancipated women Other celebrated womeo--Femaleness and emancipation
--
--"
? CONTENTS
Practical rules Genius essentially male--Movements of women in historical times--Periodicity--Biology and the conception of history--Outlook of the woman movement Its fundamental error
SECOND OR PRINCIPAL PART THE SEXUAL TYPES
CHAPTER I
Man and Woman
Bisexuality and unisexuality--Man or woman, male or female --Fundamental difficulty in characterology--Experiment, analysis of sensation and psychology--Dilthey--Conception of empirical character--What is and what is not the object of psychology--Character and individuality--Problem of characterology and the problem of the sexes
xvii Pagt
CHAPTER II
Male and Female Sexuality
The problem of a female psychology--Man as the interpreter of female psychology--Differences in the sexual impulse The absorbing and liberating factors--Intensity and activity --Sexual irritability of women--Larger field of the sexual life in woman--Local diff'erences in the perception of sexuality Local and periodical cessation of male sexuality--Differ- ences in the degrees of consciousness of sexuality
CHAPTER III
Male and Female Consciousness
Sensation and feeling--Avenarius' division into " element and '? character. " These inseparable at the earliest stage Process of " clarification "--Presentiments--Grades of under- standing--Forgetting--Paths and organisation--Conception of " henids "--The henid as the simplest, psychical datum
--Sexual differences in the organisation of the contents of b
85
79
93
--
? xviii CONTENTS
the mind--Sensibility--Certainty of judgment--Developed consciousness as a male character
CHAPTER IV
Talent and Genius
Genius and talent-- Genius and giftedness--Methods--Com- prehension of many men--What is meant by comprehending men--Great complexity of genius--Periods in psychic hfe No disparagement of famous men--Understanding and notic- ing--Universal consciousness of genius--Greatest distance from the henid stage--A higher grade of maleness--Genius always universal--The female devoid of genius or of hero- worship--Giftedness and sex
CHAPTER V
Talent and Memory
Organisation and the power of reproducing thoughts--Memory of experiences a sign of genius--Remarks and conclusions Remembrance and apperception--Capacity for comparison and acquisition--Reasons for the masculinity of music, drawing and painting--Degrees of genius--Relation of genius to ordinary men--Autobiography--Fixed ideas--Remem- brance of personal creations--Continuous and discontinu- ance memory--Continuity and piety--Past and present Past and future--Desire for immortality--Existing psycho- logical explanations--True origin--Inner development of man until death--Ontogenetic psychology or theoretical biography-- Woman lacking in the desire for immortality Further extension of relation of memory to genius--Memory and time--Postulate of timelessness--Value as a timeless quality--First law of the theory of value--Proofs--Individua- tion and duration constituents of value--Desire for immor- tality a special case--Desire for immortality in genius con- nected with timelessness, by his universal memory and the duration of his creations--Genius and history--Genius and nations--Genius and language--Men of action and men of science, not to be called men of genius--Philosophers, founders of reUgion and artists have genius
Pmft
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
Memory, Logic and Ethics
Psychology and " psychologismus "--Value
xix Page
. 14a
of memory Theory of memory--Doctrines of practice and of association
--Confusion with recognition --Memory peculiar to man Moral significance--Lies--Transition to logic-- Memory and the principle of identity--Memory and the syllogism Woman non-logical and non-ethical--Intellectual and moral knowledge--The intelligible ego
CHAPTER VII
Logic, Ethics and the Ego 153
Critics of the conception of the Ego--Hume: Lichtenberg, Mach--The ego of Mach and biology--Individuation and individuaUty--Logic and ethics as witnesses for the exist- ence of the ego--Logic--Laws of identity and of contraries --Their use and significance--Logical axioms as the laws of essence--Kant and Fichte--Freedom of thought and freedom of the will--Ethics--Relation to logic--The psychology of the Kantian ethics--Kant and Nietzsche
CHAPTER VIII
The ? ' I " Problem and Genius 165
Characterology and the belief in the *' I "--Awakening of the ego--Jean Paul, Novalis, Schelling--The awakening of the ego and the view of the world--Self-consciousness and arro- gance--The view of the genius to be more highly valued than that of other men--Final statements as to the idea of genius--The personality of the genius as the perfectly-con- scious microcosm--The naturally- synthetic activity of genius --Significant and symbolical--Definition of the genius in relation to ordinary men--Universality as freedom--Morality or immoraUty of genius ? --Duties towards self and others What duty to another is--Criticism of moral sympathy and social ethics--Understanding of other men as the one require-
--
? CONTENTS
ment of morality and knowledge--I and thou--Individualism and universalism--Morality only in monads--The man of greatest genius as the most moral man--Why man is faop voXiTiKov--Consciousness and morality--The great criminaf --Genius as duty and submission--Genius and crime Genius and insanity--Man as his own creator
CHAPTER IX
Male and Female Psychology i86^
SouUessness of woman--History of this knowledge--Woman devoid of genius--No masculine women in the true sense The unconnectedness of woman's nature due to her want of an ego--Revision of the henid-theory--Female " thought " --Idea and object--Freedom of the object--Idea and judg- ment--Nature of judgment--Woman and truth as a criterion of thought--Woman and logic --Woman non-moral, not immoral--Woman and soUtude--Womanly sympathy and modesty--The ego of women--Female vanity--Lack of true self-appreciation --Memory for compliments--Introspection and repentance--Justice and jealousy--Name and individu- aUty--Radical difference between male and female mental life--Psychology with and without soul--Is psychology a science ? --Soul and psychology--Problem of the influence of the psychical sexual characters of the male or the female
CHAPTER X
Motherhood and Prostitution <<14
Special characterology of woman--Mother and prostitute Relation of two types to the child--Woman polygamous Analogies between motherhood and sexuality--Motherhood and the race--Maternal love ethically indifferent--The pros- titute careless of the race--The prostitute, the criminal and the conqueror--Emperor and prostitute--Motive of the pros- titute--Coitus an end in itself--Coquetry--The sensations of the woman in coitus in relation to the rest of her life--The prostitute as the enemy--The friend of life and its enemy No prostitution amongst animals--Its origin a mystery
XX
--
? --
? CONTENTS xxi Fage
CHAPTER XI
Erotics and iEsxHETics 236
Women, and the hatred of women--Erotics and sexuality Platonic love--The idea of love--Beauty of women--Relation to sexual impulse--Love and beauty--Difference between aesthetics, logic and ethics--Modes of love--Projection phe- nomena--Beauty and morality--Nature and ethics--Natural and artistic beauty--Sexual love as guilt--Hate, love and morality--Creation of the devil--Love and sympathy--Love
and shyness--Love and vanity--Love of woman as a means to an end--Relation between the child and love, the child and sexuahty--Love and murder--Madonna-worship--Madonna, a male idea, without basis in womanhood--Woman sexual, not erotic--Sense of beauty in women--How man acts on woman--The fate of the woman--Why man loves woman
CHAPTER XII
The Nature of Woman and Her Significance in the Universe 252
Meaning of womanhood--Instinct for pairing or matchmaking --Man, and matchmaking--High valuation of coitus--Indi- vidual sexual impulse, a special case--Womanhood as pairing or universal sexuality--Organic falseness of woman Hysteria--Difference between man and beast, woman and man--The higher and lower life--Birth and death--Freedom and happiness--Happiness and man--Happiness and woman --Woman and the problem of existence--Non-existence of woman--Male and female friendship--Pairing identical with womanhood--Why women must be regarded as human Gantrast between subject--Object, matter, form, man,
woman--Meaning of henids--Formation of woman by man --Significance of woman in the universe--Man as something, woman as nothing--Psychological problem of the fear of woman--Womanhood and crime--Creation of woman by man's crime--Woman as his own sexuality accepted by man --Woman as the guilt of man--What man's love of woman is. in its deepest significance
Differences amongst men--Intermediate forms and racial anthropology -- Comparison of Judaism and femaleness --Jud. dsm as an idea--Antisemitism--Rictiard Wagner Similarities between Jews and women--Judaism in science The Jew not a monad--The Jew and the Englishman Natureofhumour--Humourandsatire--TheJewess--Deepest significance of Judaism--Want of faith--The Jew not non- mystical, yet impious--Want of earnestness, and pride--The Jew as opposed to the hero--Judaism and Christianity Origin of Christianity--Problem of the founders of religion --Christ as the conqueror of the Judaism in Himself--The founders of religions as the greatest of men--Conquest of
inherent Judaism necessary for all founders of reUgion Judaism and the present time--Judaism, femaleness, culture and humanity
CHAPI ERXIV
Woman and Mankind
The idea of humanity, and woman as the match-maker Goethe-worship--Womanising of man--Virginity and purity --Maleoriginoftheseideas- Failureofwomantounderstand the erotic--Woman's relation to sexuality--Coitus and love --Woman as the enemy of her own emancipation--Asceticism immoral--Sexual impulse as a want of respect-- Problem of the Jew--Problem of the woman--Problem of slavery--Moral relation to women--Man as the opponent of emancipation Ethical postulates--Two possibilities--The problem of women as the problem of humanity--Subjection of women Persistence or disappearance of the human race--True ground of the immorality of the sexual impulse--Earthly paternity--Inclusion of women in the conception of humanity --The mother and the education of the human race--Last questions
331
Index ? 350
--
? xxu? CONTENTS CHAPTER XIII
Judaism
^'^
301
? FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART SEXUAL COMPLEXITY
? INTRODUCTION
All thought begins with conceptions to a certain extent generalised, and thence is developed in two directions. On the one hand, generalisations become wider and wider, binding together by common properties a larger and larger number of phenomena, and so embracing a wider field of the world of facts. On the other hand, thought approaches more closely the meeting-point of all conceptions, the individual, the concrete complex unit towards which w^e approach only by thinking in an ever-narrowing circle, and by continually being able to add new specific and differen- tiating attributes to the general idea, " thing," or " some- thing. " It was known that fishes formed a class of the animal kingdom distinct from mammals, birds, or inverte- brates, long before it was recognised on the one hand that fishes might be bony or cartilaginous, or on the other that fishes, birds and mammals composed a group differing from
the invertebrates by many common characters.
The self-assertion of the mind over the world of facts in all its complexity of innumerable resemblances and differences has been compared with the rule of the struggle for existence among living beings. Our conceptions stand between us and reality. It is only step by step that we cancontrolthem. Asinthecaseofamadman,wemayfirst have to throw a net over the whole body so that some limit may be set to his struggles ; and only after the whole has been thus secured, is it possible to attend to the proper
restraint of each limb.
Two general conceptions have come down to us from
primitive mankind, and from the earliest times have held our mental processes in their leash. Many a time these
A
;
? 2 SEX AND CHARACTER
conceptions have undergone trivial corrections ; they have been sent to the workshop and patched in head and limbs they have been lopped and added to, expanded here, con- tracted there, as when new needs pierce through and through an old law of suffrage, bursting bond after bond. None the less, in spite of all amendment and alteration, we have still to reckon with the primitive conceptions, male and female.
It is true that among those we call women are some who are meagre, narrow-hipped, angular, muscular, energetic, highly mentalised ; there are " women " with short hair and deep voices, just as there are " men " who are beardless and gossiping. We know, in fact, that there are unwomanly women, man-like women, and unmanly, womanish, woman- like men. \We assign sex to human beings from their birth on one character only, and so come to add contradictory ideastoourconceptions. Suchacourseisillogical/
In private conversation or in society, in scientific or general meetings, we have all taken part in frothy discus- sions on " Man and Woman," or on the " Emancipation of Women. " There is a pitiful monotony in the fashion according to which, on such occasions, "men" and "women" have been treated as if, like red and white balls, they were alike in all respects save colour. In no case has the discussion been confined to an individual case, and as every one had different individuals in their mind, a real agreement was impossible. As people meant different things by the same words, there was a complete disharmony be- tween language and ideas. Is it really the case that all women and men are marked off sharply from each other, the women, on the one hand, alike in all points, the men on the other ? It is certainly the case that all previous treat- ment of the sexual differences, perhaps unconsciously, has implied this view. And yet nowhere else in nature is there such a yawning discontinuity. There are transitional forms between the metals and non-metals, between chemical com- binations and mixtures, between animals and plants, between phanerogams and cryptogams, and between mammals and
;
? INTRODUCTION
3 birds. Itisonlyinobediencetothemostgeneral,practical demand for a superficial view that we classify, make sharp divisions, pick out a single tune from the continuous melody of nature. But the old conceptions of the mind, like the customs of primitive commerce, become foolish in a new age. From the analogies I have given, the improbability may henceforward be taken for granted of finding in nature a sharp cleavage between all that is masculine on the one side and all that is feminine on the other ; or that a living being is so simple in this respect that it can be put wholly on one side or the other of the line. Matters are not so
clear.
In the controversy as to the woman question, appeal has
been made to the arbitration of anatomy, in the hope that by that aid a line could be drawn between those characters of males or females that are unalterable because inborn, and those that are acquired. (It was a strange adventure to attempt to decide the differences between the natural endowment of men and women on anatomical results to suppose that if all other investigation failed to establish the difference, the matter could be settled by a few more grains of brain-weight on the one side. ) ^However, the answer of the anatomists is clear enough, whether it refer to the brain or to any other portion of the body ; absolute sexual distinctions between all men on the one side and all women on the other do not exist) Although the skeleton of the hand of most men is different from that of most women, yet the sex cannot be determined with certainty either from the skeleton or from an isolated part with its muscles, tendons, skin, blood and nerves. The same is true of the chest, sacrum or skull. And what are we to say of the pelvis, that part of the skeleton in which, if anywhere, striking sexual differences exist ? It is almost universally believed that in the one case the pelvis is adapted for the act of parturition, intheothercaseisnotsoadapted. Andyetthecharacter of the pelvis cannot be taken as an absolute criterion of sex. There are to be found, and the wayfarer knows this as well as the anatomist, many women with narrow male-like pelves,
? SEX AND CHARACTER
4
and many men with the broad pelves of women. Are we then to make nothing of sexual differences ? That would imply, almost, that we could not distinguish between men and women.
From what quarter are we to seek help in our problem ? The old doctrine is insufficient, and yet we cannot make shift without it. If the received ideas do not suffice, it must be our task to seek out new and better guides.
;
? CHAPTER I
"MALES" AND "FEMALES"
In the widest treatment of most living things, a blunt separa- tion of them into males or females no longer suffices for the known facts. The limitations of these conceptions have beenfeltmoreorlessbymanywriters. Thefirstpurpose of this work is to make this point clear.
I agree with other authors who, in a recent treatment of the facts connected with this subject, have taken as a start- ing-point what has been established by embryology regard- ing the existence in human beings, plants, and animals of an embryonic stage neutral as regards sex.
In the case of a human embryo of less than five weeks, for instance, the sex to which it would afterwards beiong cannot be recognised. In the fifth week of fcetal life pro- cesses begin which, by the end of the fifth month of preg- nancy, have turned the genital rudiments, at first alike m the sexes, into one sex and have determined the sex of the whole organism. The details of these processes need not be described more fully here. It can be shown that how- ever distinctly unisexual an adult plant, animal or human being may be, there is always a certain persistence of the bisexual character,<never a complete disappearance of the
charactersoftheandevelopedsex) Sexualdifferentiation,in fact, is never complete. All the peculiarities of the male sex may be present in the female in some form, however weakly developed ; and so also the sexual characteristics of the woman persist in the man, although perhaps they are not so completely rudimentary. The characters of the other sex occur in the one sex in a vestigial form. Thus, in the
? 6 SEX AND CHARACTER
case of human beings, in which our interest is greatest, to take an example, it will be found that the most womanly woman has a growth of colourless hair, known as "lanugo" in the position of the male beard ; and in the most manly man there are developed under the skin of the breast masses of glandular tissue connected with the nipples. ^This con- dition of things has been minutely investij^ated in the true genital organs and ducts, the region called the " urino-geni- tal tract," and in each sex there has been found a complete but rudimentary set of parallels to the organs of the other sex. /
These embryological conclusions can be brought into relation with another set of facts. Haeckel has used the word " gonochorism " for the separation ol the sexes, and in different classes and groups of creatures different degrees of gonochorism may be noted. Different kmds of animals and plants may be distinguished by the extent to which the characters of one sex are rudimentary in the other. The most extreme case of sexual differentiation, the sharpest gonochorism, occurs in sexual dimorphism, that is to say, in that condition of affairs in which (as for instance in some water-fleas) the males and females of the same species differ as much or even more from each other as the members of different species, or genera. There is not so sharply marked gonochorism amongst vertebrates as in the caseofCrustaceaorinsects. Amongsttheformertheredoes not exist a distinction betwee i m des and females so complete as to reach sexual dimorphis n. A condition much more frequent amongst them is the occurrence of forms inter- mediate in regard to sex, what is called abnormal hermaph- roditism ; whilst in certain fishes hermaphroditism is the
normal condition.
I must point out here that it must not be assumed that
there exist only extreme males with scanty remnants of the female condition, extreme females with traces of the male, hermaphrodite or transitional forms, and wide gaps between theseconditions. I amdealingspeciallywithhumanbeings, but what I have to say of them might be applied, with more
? I
7 or less modification, to nearly all creatures in which sexual
"MALES" AND "FEMALES"
reproduction takes place.
Amongst human beings the state of the case is as follows :
There exist all sorts of intermediate conditions between male andfemale--sexualtransitionalforms. Inphysicalinquiries an " ideal gas " is assumed, that is to say, a gas, the be- haviour of which follows the law of Boyle-Guy-Lussac exactly, although, in fact, no such gas exists, and laws are deduced from this so that the deviations from the ideal laws maybeestablishedinthecaseofactuallyexistinggases. In the same fashion we may suppose the existence of an ideal man, M, and of an ideal woman, W, as sexual types, although these types do not actually exist. Such types not only can be constructed, but must be constructed. As in
art so in science, the real purpose is to reach the type, the Platonic Idea. The science of physics investigates the behaviour of bodies that are absolutely rigid or absolutely elastic, in the full knowledge that neither the one nor the other actually exists. The intermediate conditions actually existing between the two absolute states of matter serve merely as a starting-point for investigation of the *' types" and in the practical application of the theory are treated as mixtures and exhaustively analysed. So also there exist only the intermediate stages between absolute males and females, the absolute conditions never presenting them- selves.
Let it be noted clearly that I am discussing the existence not merely of embryonic sexual neutrality, but of a per- manent bisexual condition. Nor am I taking into con- sideration merely those intermediate sexual conditions, those bodily or psychical hermaphrodites upon which, up to the present, attention has been concentrated. In
^'anotherrespectmyconceptionisnew. Untilnow,indeal- ing with sexual intermediates, only hermaphrodites were considered ; as if, to use a physical analogy, there were in between the two extremes a single group of intermediate forms, and not an intervening tract equally beset with stages in different degrees of transition.
? 8 SEX AND CHARACTER
The fact is that males and females are like two sub- stances combined in different proportions, but with either element never wholly missing. We find, so to speak, never either a man or a woman, but only the male con- ditionandthefemalecondition. Anyindividual,"A"or " B," is never to be designated merely as a man or a woman, but by a formula showing that it is a composite of male and female characters in different proportions, for instance, as follows :
la'W Xss'M
always remembering that each of the factors a, a, ss, ss' must be greater than o and less than unity.
Further proofs of the validity of this conception are numerous, and I have already given, in the preface, a few of the most general. We may recall the existence of " men " with female pelves and female breasts, with narrow waists, overgrowth of the hair of the head; or of " women " with small hips and flat breasts, with deep bass voices and beards (the presence of hair on the chin is more common than is supposed, as women naturally are at pains to remove it ; I am not speaking of the special growth that often appears on the faces of women who have reached middle age). All such peculiarities, many of them coin- ciding in the same individuals, are well known to doctors and anatomists, although their general significance has not been understood.
One of the most striking proofs of the view that I have been unfolding is presented by the great range of numerical variation to be found where sexual characters have been measured either by the same or by different anthropological oranatomicalworkers.