Women are altogether to blame for the unpleasant asso-
ciations
which are so unfortunately connected with "old maids.
Weininger - 1903 - Sex and Character
The Jew takes nothing seriously; he is frivolous, and jests about anything, about the Christian's Christianity, the Jew's baptism.
He is neither a true realist nor a true empiricist.
Here I must state certain limitations to my agreement with Chamber- lain's conclusions.
The Jew is not really a convinced empiricist in the fashion of the English philosophers.
The empiricist believes in the possibility of reaching a complete system of knowledge on an empirical basis ; he hopes for
theperfectionofscience. TheJewdoesnotreallybelievein
? 32 2 SEX AND CHARACTER
knowledge, nor is he a sceptic, for he doubts his own scepti- cism. Ontheotherhand,abroodingcarehoversoverthe non-metaphysical system of Avenarius, and even in Ernst Mach's adherence to relativity there are signs of a deeply reverent attitude. The empiricists must not be accused of Judaism because they are shallow.
The Jew is the impious man in the widest sense. Piety is not something near things nor outside things ; it is the groundworkofeverything. TheJewhasbeenincorrectly called vulgar, simply because he does not concern himself with metaphysics. All true culture that comes from within, all that a man believes to be true and that so is true for him, depend on reverence. Reverence is not limited to the mystic or the religious man ; all science and all scepticism, everything that a man truly believes, have reverence as the fundamental quality. Naturally it displays itself in dif- ferent ways, in high seriousness and sanctity, in earnestness and enthusiasm. The Jew is never either enthusiastic or indif- ferent, he is neither ecstatic nor cold. He reaches neither the heights nor the depths. His restraint becomes meagreness, hiscopiousnessbecomesbombast. Shouldheventureinto the boundless realms of inspired thought, he seldom
reachesbeyondpathos. Andalthoughhecannotembrace the whole world, he is for ever covetous of it.
Discrimination and generalisation, strength and love, science and poetry, every real and deep emotion of the human heart, have reverence as their essential basis. It is not necessary that faith, as in men of genius, should be in relation only to metaphysical entity ; it can extend also to the empirical world and appear fully there, and yet none the less be faith in oneself, in worth, in truth, in the absolute, in God.
As the comprehensive view of religion and piety that I havegivenmayleadtomisconstruction,I proposetoeluci- date it further. True piety is not merely the possession of piety,butalsothestruggletopossessit; itisfoundequally in the convinced believer in God (Handel or Fechner), and alsointhedoubtingseeker(LenauandDu? rer); itneednot
? !
j
I
JUDAISM
be made obvious to the world (as in the case of Bach), it maydisplayitselfonlyinareverentattitude(Mozart). Nor is piety necessarily connected with the appearance of a Founder ; the ancient Greeks were the most reverent people that have lived, and hence their culture was highest; but their religion had no personal Founder.
Religion is the creation of the all ; and all that humanity can be is only through religion. So far from the Jew being religious, as has been assumed, he is profoundly irreligious
Were there need to elaborate my verdict on the Jews I might point out that the Jews, alone of peoples, do not try to make converts to their faith, and that when converts are made they serve as objects of puzzled ridicule to them. Need I refer to the meaningless formality and the repetitions of Jewish prayer ? Need I remind readers that the Jewish religion is a mere historical tradition, a memorial of such incidents as the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, with the consequent thanks of cowards to their Saviour ; and thatitisnoguidetothemeaningandconductoflife? The Jew is truly irreligious and furthest of mankind from faith. There is no relation between the Jew himself and the universe ; he has none of the heroism of faith, just as he has none of the disaster of absolute unbelief.
It is not, then, mysticism that the Jew is without, as Chamberlainmaintains,butreverence. Ifhewereonlyan honest-minded materialist or a frank evolutionist ! He is not a critic, but only critical ; he is not a sceptic in the Cartesian sense, not a doubter who sets out from doubt towards truth, but an ironist ; as, for instance, to take a conspicuous example, Heine.
What, then, is the Jew if he is nothing that a man can be ? What goes on within him if he is utterly without finality, if there is no ground in him which the plumb hne of psychology may reach ?
The psychological contents of the Jewish mind are always double or multiple. There are always before him two or many possibilities, where the Aryan, although he sees as widelv, feels himself limited in his choice. I think that the
323
? SEX AND CHARACTER
324
idea of Judaism consists in this want of reality, this absence
of any fundamental relation to the thing-in-and-for-itself. ^ He stands, so to speak, outside reality, without ever entering it. He can never make himself one with anything--never enter into real relationships. He is a zealot without zeal ; . - he has no share in the unlimited, the unconditioned. He is
without simplicity of faith, and so is always turning to each new interpretation, so seeming more alert than the Aryan. Internal multiplicity is the essence of Judaism, internal simplicity that of the Aryan.
It might be urged that the Jewish double-mindedness is modern, and is the result of new knowledge struggling with the old orthodoxy. The education of the Jew, however, only accentuates his natural qualities, and the doubting Jew turns with a renewed zeal to money-making, in which onlyhecanfindhisstandardofvalue. Acuriousproofof the absence of simplicity in the mind of the Jew is that he seldom sings, not from bashfulness, but because he does not believe in his own singing. Just as the acuteness of Jews has nothing to do with true power of differentiating, so his shyness about singing or even about speaking in clear positive tones has nothing to do with real reserve. It is a kind of inverted pride ; having no true sense of his own worth, he fears being made ridiculous by his singing or speech. TheembarrassmentoftheJewextendstothings which have nothing to with the real ego.
IthasbeenseenhowdifficultitistodefinetheJew. He has neither severity nor tenderness. He is both tenacious andweak. Heisneitherkingnorleader,slavenorvassal. He has no share in enthusiasm, and yet he has little equanimity. Nothing is self-evident to him, and yet he is astonished at nothing. He has no trace of Lohengrin in him, and none of Telramund. He is ridiculous as a member of a students' corps and he is equally ridiculous as a "philister. " Because he believes in nothing, he takes refuge in materialism ; from this arises his avarice, which is simply an attempt to convince himself that something has a permanent value. And yet he is no real tradesman ; what
? JUDAISM 325
is unreal, insecure in German commerce, is the result of the Jewish speculative interest.
The erotics of the Jew are sentimentalisni, and their humour is satire. Perhaps examples may help to explain my interpretation of the Jewish character, and I point readily to Ibsen's King Hakon in the " Pretenders," and to his Dr. Stockmann in '* The Enemy of the People. " These may make clear what is for ever absent in the Jew. Judaism and Christianity form the greatest possible contrasts ; the former is bereft of all true faith and of inner identity, the latter is the highest expression of the highest faith. Chris- tianityisheroismatitshighestpoint Judaismistheextreme
;
of cowardliness.
Chamberlain has said much that is true and striking as to
the fearful awe-struck want of understanding that the Jew displays with regard to the person and teaching of Christ, for the combination of warrior and sufferer in Him, for His life and death. None the less, it would be wrong to state that the Jew is an enemy of Christ, that he represents the anti-Christ ; it is only that he feels no relation with Him. It is strong-minded Aryans, malefactors, who hate Jesus. The Jew does not get beyond being bewildered and disturbed by Him, as something that passes his wit to understand.
And yet it has stood the Jew in good stead that the New Testament seemed the outcome and fine flower of the Old, the fulfilment of its Messianic prophecies. The polar oppo- sition between Judaism and Christianity makes the origin of the latter from the former a deep riddle ; it is the riddle of the psychology of the founder of religions.
What is the difference between the genius who founds a religion and other kinds of genius ? What is it that has led him to found the religion ?
The main difference is no other than that he did not always believe in the God he worships. Tradition relates of Buddha, as of Christ, that they were subject to greater temptations than other men. Two others, Mahomet and Luther, were epileptic. Epilepsy is the disease of the
SEX AND CHARACTER
326
criminal ; Caesar, Narses, Napoleon, the greatest of the criminals, were epileptics.
The founder of a religion is the man who has lived without God and yet has struggled towards the greatest faith. How is it possible for a bad man to transform him- self ? As Kant, although he was compelled to admit the fact, asked in his " Philosophy of Religion," how can an evil tree bring forth good fruit ? The inconceivable mystery of the transformation into a good man of one who has lived evilly all the days and years of his life has actually realised itself
in the case of some six or seven historical personages. These have been the founders of religions.
Other men of genius are good from their birth ; the religious founder acquires goodness. The old existence ceasesutterlyandisreplacedbythenew. Thegreaterthe man, the more must perish in him at the regeneration. I am inclined to think that Socrates, alone amongst the Greeks, approached closely to the founders of religion perhaps he made the decisive struggle with evil in the four- and-twenty hours during which he stood alone at Potidaea.
The founder of a religion is the man for whom no problem has been solved from his birth. He is the man with the least possible sureness of conviction, for whom everything is doubtful and uncertain, and who has to conquer every- thing for himself in this life. One has to struggle against illness and physical weakness, another trembles on the brink of the crimes which are possible for him, yet another has been in the bonds of sin from his birth. It is only a formal statement to say that original sin is the same in all persons ; it differs materially for each person. Here one, there another, each as he was born, has chosen what is senseless and worthless, has preferred instinct to his will, or pleasure to love ; only the founder of a religion has had original sin in its absolute form ; in him everything is doubtful, everything is in question. He has to meet every problem and free himself from all guilt. He has to reach firm ground from the deepest abyss ; he has to surmount the nothingness in him and bind himself to the utmost
;
? ? JUDAISM 327
reality. And so it may be said of him that he frees himself of original sin, that in him God becomes man, but also that the man becomes God ; in him was all error and all guilt ; in him there comes to be all expiation and redemption.
Thus the founder of a religion is the greatest of the geniuses, for he has vanquished the most. He is the man who has accomplished victoriously what the deepest thinkers of mankind have thought of only timorously as a possibility, the complete regeneration of a man, the reversal of his will. Other great men of genius have, indeed, to fight against evil, but the bent of their souls is towardsthegood. Thefounderofareligionhassomuch in him of evil, of the perverse, of earthly passion, that he must fight with the enemy withm him for forty days in the wilderness, without food or sleep. It was only thus that he can conquer and overcome the death within him and free himself for the highest life. Were it otherwise there would be no impulse to found a faith. The founder of a religion is thus the very antipodes of the emperor ; emperor and
Galilean are at the two poles of thought. In Napoleon's life, also, there was a moment when a conversion took place; but this was not a turning away from earthly life, but the deliberate decision tor the treasure and power and splendour of the earthly life. Napoleon was great in the colossal intensity with which he flung from him all the ideal, all relation to the absolute, in the magnitude of his guilt. The founder of religion, on the other hand, cannot and will not bring to man anything except that which was most difficult for himself to attain, the reconciliation with God. He knows that he himself was the man most laden with guilt, and he atones for the guilt by his death on the
cross.
There were two possibilities in Judaism. Before the
birth of Christ, these two, negation and affirmation, were together awaiting choice. Christ was the man who con- quered in Himself Judaism, the greatest negation, and created Christianity, the strongest affirmation and the most
? 328 SEX AND CHARACTER
direct opposite of Judaism. Now the choice has been made ; the old Israel has divided into Jews and Christians, and Judaism has lost the possibility of producing greatness. The new Judaism has been unable to produce men like Samson and Joshua, the least Jewish of the old Jews. In the history of the world, Christendom and Jewry represent negation and affirmation. In old Israel there was the highest possibility of mankind, the possibility of Christ. The other possibility is the Jew.
I must guard against misconception ; I do not mean that there was any approach to Christianity in Judaism; the one is the absolute negation of the other ; the relation between the two is only that which exists between all pairs of direct opposites. EvenmorethaninthecaseofpietyandJudaism, Judaism and Christianity can best be contrasted by what each respectively excludes. Nothing is easier than to be Jewish,nothingsodifficultastobeChristian. Judaismis the abyss over which Christianity is erected, and for that reason the Aryan dreads nothing so deeply as the Jew.
I am not disposed to believe, with Chamberlain, that the birth of the Saviour in Palestine was an accident. Christ was a Jew, precisely that He might overcome the Judaism within Him, for he who triumphs over the deepest doubt reaches the highest faith ; he who has raised himself above the most desolate negation is most sure in his position of affirmation. Judaism was the peculiar, original sin of Christ ; it was His victory over Judaism that made Him greaterthanBuddhaorConfucius. Christwasthegreatest man because He conquered the greatest enemy. Perhaps He was, and will remain, the only Jew to conquer Judaism. The first of the Jews to become wholly the Christ was also the last who made the transition. It may be, however, that
there still lies in Judaism the possibility of producing a Christ, and that the founder of the next religion will pass through Jewry.
On no other supposition can we account for the long persistence of the Jewish race which has outlived so many other peoples. Without at least some vague hope, the Jews
? JUDAISM
329 could not have survived, and the hope is that there must be something in Judaism for Judaism ; it is the idea of a Mes- siah, of one who shall save them from Judaism. Every other race has had some special watchword, and, on realis- ingtheirwatchword,theyhaveperished. TheJewshave failed to realise their watchword, and so their vitality per- sists. The Jewish nature has no other metaphysical mean- ing than to be the spring from which the founders of rehgionwillcome. Theirtraditiontoincreaseandmultiply is connected with this vague hope, that out of them shall cometheMessiah, ThepossibilityofbegettingChristsis
the meaning of Judaism. % As in the Jew there are the greatest possibilities, so also in him are the meanest actualities ; he is adapted to most
things and realises fewest.
Judaism, at the present day, has reached its highest point
since the time of Herod. Judaism is the spirit of modern life. Sexuality is accepted, and contemporary ethics sing the praises of pairing. Unhappy Nietzsche must not be made responsible for the shameful doctrines of Wilhelm Bo? lsche. Nietzsche himself understood asceticism, and perhaps it was only as a revulsion from the evils of his own asceticism that he attached value to the opposite concep- tion. It is the Jew and the woman who are the apostles of pairing to bring guilt on humanity.
Our age is not only the most Jewish but the most feminine. It is a time when art is content with daubs and seeks its inspirationinthesportsofanimals; thetimeofasuperficial anarchy, with no feeling for Justice and the State ; a time of communistic ethics, of the most foolish of historical views, the materialistic interpretation of history ; a time of capitalism and of Marxism ; a time when history, life, and science are no more than political economy and technical instruction ; a time when genius is supposed to be a form of madness ; a time with no great artists and no great philosophers ; a time without originality and yet with the most foolish craving for originality; a time when the cult of the Virgin has been replaced by that of the Demi-
? SEX AND CHARACTER
330
vierge. It is the time when pairing has not only been approved but has been enjoined as a duty.
But from the new Judaism the new Christianity may be pressing forth ; mankind waits for the new founder of reli- gion, and, as in the year one, the age presses for a decision. The decision must be made between Judaism and Chris- tianity, between business and culture, between male and female, between the race and the individual, between un- worthiness and worth, between the earthly and the higher life,betweennegationandtheGod-like. Mankindhasthe choicetomake. Thereareonlytwopoles,andthereisno middle way.
? CHAPTER XIV
WOMAN AND MANKIND
At last we are ready, clear-eyed and well armed, to deal with the question of the emancipation of women. Our eyes are clear, for we have freed them from the thronging specks of dubiety that had hitherto obscured the question, and we are armed with a well-founded grasp of theory, and a secure ethical basis. We are far from the maze in which this controversy usually lies, and our investigation has got beyond the mere statement of different natural capacity for men and women, to a point whence the part of women in the world-whole and the meaning of her relation to humanity can be estimated. I am not going to deal with any practical applications of my results ; the latter are not nearly optimistic enough for me to hope that they could have any effect on the progress of political movements. I refrain from working out laws of social hygiene, and content myself with facing the problem from the standpoint of that conception of humanity which pervades the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Thisconceptionisingreatdangerfromwoman. Woman is able, in a quite extraordinary way, to produce the im- pression that she herself is really non-sexual, and that her sexuality is only a concession to man. But be that as it may, at the present time men have almost allowed them- selves to be persuaded by woman that their strongest and most markedly characteristic desire lies in sexuality, that it is only through woman that they can hope to satisfy their truest and best ambitions, and that chastity is an un- natural and impossible state for them. How often it
? SEX AND CHARACTER
happens that young men who are wrapped up in their work are told by women to whom they appeal and who would prefer to have them paying them attention, or even as sons- in-law, that " they ought not to work too hard," that they ought to " enjoy life. " At the bottom of this sort of advice there lies a feeling on the woman's part, which is none the less real because it is unconscious, that her whole significance and existence depend on her mission as a procreating agent, and that she goes to the wall if man is allowed to occupy himself altogether with other than sexual matters.
That women will ever change in this respect is doubtful. There is nothing to show that she ever was different. It may be that to-day the physical side of the question is more to the fore than formerly, since a great deal of the " woman movement" of the times is merely a desire to be "free," to shake off the trammels of motherhood ; as a whole the practical results show that it is revolt from motherhood towards prostitution, a prostitute emancipation rather than the emancipation of woman that is aimed at : a bold bid for thesuccessofthecourtesan. Theonlyrealchangeisman's behaviour towards the movement. Under the influence of modern Judaism, men seem inclined to accept woman's estimate of them and to bow before it.
Masculine chastity is laughed at, and the feeling that woman is the evil influence in man's life is no longer under- stood, and men are not ashamed of their own lust.
It is now apparent from where this demand for " seeing life," the Dionysian view of the music-hall, the cult of Goethe in so far as he follows Ovid, and this quite modern "coitus-cult" comes. There is no doubt that the move- ment is so widespread that very few men have the courage to acknowledge their chastity, preferring to pretend that they are regular Don Juans. Sexual excess is held to be the most desirable characteristic of a man of the world, and sexuality has attained such pre-eminence that a man is doubted unless he can, as it were, show proofs of his prowess. Chastity, on the other hand, is so despised that
332
--
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
333 many a really pure lad attempts to appear a blase roue. It is even true that those who are modest are ashamed of the
feeling ; but there is another, the modern form of shame not the eroticist's shame, but the shame of the woman who has no lover, who has not received appraisement from the opposite sex. Hence it comes that men make it their business to tell each other what a rignt and proper pleasure they take in " doing their duty " by the opposite sex. And
women are careful to let it be known that only what is " manly " in man can appeal to them : and man takes their measure of his manliness and makes it his own. Man's qualifications as a male have, in fact, become identical with his value with women, in women's eyes.
But God forbid that it should be so ; that w ould mean that there are no longer any men.
Contrast with this the fact that the high value set on women's virtue originated with man, and w^ill always come from men worthy of the name ; it is the projection of man's own ideal of spotless purity on the object of his love.
But there should be no mistaking this true chastity for the shivering and shaking before contact, which is soon changed for delighted acquiescence, nor for the hysterical suppression of sexual desires. The outward endeavour to correspond to man's demand for physical purity must not be taken for anything but a fear lest the buyer will fight shy of the bargain ; least of all the care which women so often take to choose only the man who can give them most value must not deceive any one (it has been called the "high value" or '* self-respect" a girl has for herself) ! If one remembers the view women take of virginity, there can be very little doubt that woman's one end is the bringing about of universal pairing as the only means by which they acquire a real existence ; that women desire pairing, and nothing else, even if they personally appear to beasuninterestedaspossibleinsensualmatters. Allthis can be fully proved from the generality of the match- making instinct.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
334
In order to be fully persuaded of this, woman's attitude
towards the virginity of those of her own sex must be considered.
It is certain that women have a very low opinion of the unmarried. It is, in fact, the one female condition which has a negative value for woman. Women only respect a woman when she is married ; even if she is unhappily married to a hideous, weak, poor, common, tyrannical, " impossible " man, she is, nevertheless, married, has received value, existence. Even if a woman has had a short experience of the freedom of a courtesan's life, even if she has been on the streets, she still stands higher in a woman's estimation than the old maid, who works and toils alone in her room, without ever having known lawful or unlawful union with a man, the enduring or fleeting ecstasy of love.
Even a young and beautiful girl is never valued by a woman for her attractions as such (the sense of the beauti- ful is wanting in woman since they have no standard in themselves to measure it by), but merely because she has more prospect of enslaving a man. The more beautiful a young girl is, the more promising she appears to other women, the greater her value to woman as the match- maker in her mission as guardian of the race ; it is only this unconscious feeling which makes it possible for a woman to take pleasure in the beauty of a young girl. It goes without saying that this can only happen when the woman in question has already achieved her own end (because, otherwise, envy of a contemporary, and the fear of having her own chances jeopardised by others, would overcome other considerations). She must first of all attain her own union, and then she is ready to help others.
Women are altogether to blame for the unpleasant asso- ciations which are so unfortunately connected with "old maids. " One often hears men talking respectfully of an elderly woman ; but every woman and girl, whether married or single, has nothing but contempt for such a one, even
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
335 when, as is often the case, they are unconscious that it is so with them. I once heard a married woman, whose talents and beauty put jealousy quite out of the question, making fun of her plain and elderly Italian governess for repeatedly saying that : " lo sono ancora una virgine " (that she was still a virgin). The interpretation put on the words was that the speaker wished to admit she had made a virtue of necessity, and would have been very glad to get rid of her virginity if she could have done so without detriment to her
position in life.
This is the most important point of all : women not
only disparage and despise the virginity of other women, but they set no value on their own state of virginity (except that men prize it so highly). This is why they look upon every married woman as a sort of superior being. The deep impression made on women by the sexual act can be most plainly seen by the respect which girls pay to a married woman, of however short a standing ; which points to their idea of their existence being the attainment of the same zenith themselves. They look upon other young girls, on the contrary, as being, like themseves, still imperfect beings awaiting consummation.
I think I have said enough to show that experience con- firms the deduction I made from the importance of the pairing instinct in women, the deduction that virgin worship is of male, not female origin.
A man demands chastity in himself and others, most of all from the being he loves ; a woman wants the man with most experience and sensuality, not virtue. Woman has no comprehension of paragons. On the contrary, it is well known that a woman is most ready to fly to the arms of the man with the widest reputation for bemg a Don Juan.
Wom^an requires man to be sexual, because she only gains existence through his sexuality. Women have no sense of a man's love, as a superior phenomenon, they only perceive that side of him which unceasingly desires and appropriates the object of his affections, and men who have
? SEX AND CHARACTER
336
none or very little of the instinct of brutality developed in them have no influence on them.
As for the higher, platonic love of man, they do not want it ; it flatters and pleases them, but it has no signi- ficance for them, and if the homage on bended knees lasts too long, Beatrice becomes just as impatient as Mes- salina.
In coitus lies woman's greatest humiliation, in love her supremest exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not love, she proves that she wishes to be humiliated and not worshipped. The ultimate opponent of the emancipation of women is woman.
It is not because sexual union is voluptuous, not because it is the typical example of all the pleasures of the lower life, that it is immoral. Asceticism, which would regard pleasure in itself as immoral, is itself immoral, inasmuch it attributes immorality to an action because of the external consequences of it, not because of immorality in the thing itself ; it is the imposition of an alien, not an inherent law. A man may seek pleasure, he may strive to make his life easier and more pleasant ; but he must not sacrifice a moral law. Asceticism attempts to make man moral by self- repression and will give him credit and praise for morality simply because he has denied himself certain things. Asceticism must be rejected from the point of view of ethics and of psychology inasmuch as it makes virtue the efifect of a cause, and not the thing itself. Asceticism is a dangerous although attractive guide ; since pleasure is one of the chief things that beguile men from the higher path, it is easy to suppose that its mere abandonment is meritorious.
In itself, however, pleasure is neither moral nor immoral. It is only when the desire for pleasure conquers the desire for worthiness that a human being has fallen.
Coitus is immoral because there is no man who does not usewomanatsuchtimesasameanstoanend; forwhom pleasure does not, in his own as well as her being, during that time represent the value of mankind.
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
337 During coitus a man forgets all about everything, he forgets the woman ; she has no longer a psychic but only aphysicalexistenceforhim. Heeitherdesiresachildby her or the satisfaction of his own passion ; in neither case does he use her as an end in herself, but for an outside cause.
This and this alone makes coitus immoral.
There is no doubt that woman is the missionary of sexual
union, and that she looks upon herself, as on everything else, merelyasameanstoitsends. Shewantsamantosatisfy her passion or to obtain children ; she is willing to be used by man as a tool, as a thing, as an object, to be treated as his property, to be changed and modelled according to his good pleasure. But we should not allow ourselves to be used by others as means to an end.
Kundry appealed often to Parsifal's compassion for her yearnings : but here we see the weakness of sympathetic morality, which attempts to grant every desire of those around, however wrong such wishes may be. Ethics and morality based on sympathy are equally absurd, since they make the " ought " dependent on the " will," (whether it be the will of oneself, or of others, or of society, it is all the same,) instead of making the "will" dependent on the " ought " ; they take as a standard of morality concrete cases of human history, concrete cases of human happiness, concrete moments in life instead of the idea.
But the question is : how ought man to treat woman ? As she herself desires to be treated or as the moral idea would dictate ?
If he is going to treat her as she wishes, he must have intercourse with her, for she desires it ; he must beat her, for she likes to be hurt ; he must hypnotise her, since she wishes to be hypnotised ; he must prove to her by his attentions how little he thinks of himself, for she likes compliments, and has no desire to be respected for herself.
If he is going to treat her as the moral idea demands, he must try to see in her the concept of mankind and endeavour to respect her. Even although woman
Y
SEX AND CHARACTER
is only a function of man, a function he can degrade or raise at will, and women do not wish to be more or anything else than what man makes them, it is no more a moral arrangement than the suttee of Indian widows, which, even though it be voluntary and insisted upon by them, is none the less terrible barbarity.
The emancipation of woman is analogous to the eman- cipation of Jews and negroes. Undoubtedly the principal reason why these people have been treated as slaves and inferiors is to be found in their servile dispositions ; their desire for freedom is not nearly so strong as that of the Indo-Germans. And even although tHe whites in America at the present day find it necessary to keep themselves quite aloof from the negro population because they make such a bad use of their freedom, yet in the war of the Northern
States against the Federals, which resulted in the freedom of the slaves, right was entirely on the side of the emanci- pators.
Although the humanity of Jews, negroes, and still more of women, is weighed down by many immoral impulses although in these cases there is so much more to fight against than in the case of Aryan men, still we must try to respect mankind, and to venerate the idea of humanity (by whichI donotmeanthehumancommunity,butthebeing, man, the soul as part of the spiritual world). No matter how degraded a criminal may be, no one ought to arrogate to himself the functions of the law ; no man has the right to lynch such an offender.
The problem of woman and the problem of the Jews are absolutely identical with the problem of slavery, and they must be solved in the same way. No one should be op- pressed, even if the oppression is of such a kind as to be unfelt as such. The animals about a house are not " slaves," because they have no freedom in the proper sense of the word which could be taken away.
But woman has a faint idea of her incapacity, a last remnant, however weak, of the free intelligible ego, simply because there is no such thing as an absolute woman.
338
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? ? WOMAN AND MANKIND
339 Women are human beings, and must be treatea as such, even if they themselves do not wish it. Woman and man have the same rights. That is not to say that women ought to have an equal share in political affairs. From the utilitarian standpoint such a concession, certainly at present and probably always, would be most undesirable ; in New Zealand, where, on ethical principles, women have been enfranchised,theworstresultshavefollowed. Aschildren, imbeciles and criminals would be justly prevented from taking any part in public affairs even if they were numeri- callyequalorinthemajority; womanmustinthesameway
be kept from having a share in anything which concerns the public welfare, as it is much to be feared that the mere effect of female influence would be harmful. Just as the results of science do not depend on whether all men accept them or not, so justice and injustice can be dealt out to the woman, although she is unable to distinguish between them, and she need not be afraid that injury will be done her, as justice and not might will be the deciding factor in her treatment. But justice is always the same whether for man or woman. No one has a right to forbid things to a woman because they are " unwomanly " ; neither should any man be so mean as to talk of his unfaithful wife's doings as if they were his affair. Woman must be looked upon as an individual and as if she were a free individual, not as one of a species, not as a sort of creation from the various wants of man's nature ; even though woman herself may never prove worthy of such a lofty view.
Thus this book may be considered as the greatest honour everpaidtowomen. Nothingbutthemostmoralrelation towards women should be possible for men ; there should be neither sexuality nor love, for both make woman the means to an end, but only the attempt to understand her. Most men theoretically respect women, but practically they thoroughly despise them ; according to my ideas this method should be reversed. It is impossible to think highly pf women, but it does not follow that we are to despise
? SEX AND CHARACTER
them for ever. It is unfortunate that so many great ano famousmenhavehadmeanviewsonthispoint. Theviews of Schopenhauer and Demosthenes as to the emancipation of women are good instances. So also Goethe's
Immer is so das Ma? dchen bescha? ftigt und reifet im stillen Ha? uslicher Tugend entgegen, den klugen Mann zu beglu? cken. Wu? nscht sie dann endlich zu lesen, so wa? hlt sie gewisslich ein
Kochbuch,
is scarcely better than Moliere's
. . . Une femme en sait tonjours assez, Quand la capacite de son esprit se hausse
A connaitre un pourpoint d'avec un haut de chausse.
Men will have to overcome their dislike for masculine women, for that is no more than a mean egoism. If women ever become masculine by becoming logical and ethical, they would no longer be such good material for man's projection; butthatisnotasufficientreasonforthepresent method of tying woman down to the needs of her husband and children and forbidding her certain things because they are masculine.
For even if the possibility of morality is incompatible with the idea of the absolute woman, it does not follow that man is to make no effort to save the average woman from further deterioration ; much less is he to help to keep woman as she is. In every living woman the presence of whatKantcalls"thegermofgood"mustbeassumed it
;
is the remnant of a free state which makes it possible for Woman to have a dim notion of her destiny. The theo- retical possibility of grafting much more on this " germ of good" should never be lost sight of, even although nothing has ever been done, or even if nothing could ever be done in that respect.
The basis and the purpose of the universe is the good, and the whole world exists under a moral law ; even to the animals, which are mere phenomena, we assign moral values^ holding the elephant, for instance, to be higher than the
340
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
341 snake, notwithstanding the fact that we do not make an animal accountable when it kills another. In the case of woman, however, we regard her as responsible if she com- mits murder, and in this alone is a proof that women are above the animals. If it be the case that womanliness is simply immorality, then woman must cease to be womanly
and try to be manly.
I mustgivewarningagainstthedangerofwomantrying
merely to liken herself outwardly to man, for such a course would simply plunge her more deeply into womanliness. It is only too likely that the efforts to emancipate women will result not in giving her real freedom, in letting her reach free-will, but merely in enlarging the range of her caprices.
It seems to me that if we look the facts of the case in the face there are only two possible courses open for women : either to pretend to accept man's ideas, and to think that they believe what is really opposed to their whole, unchanged nature, to assume a horror of immorality (as if they were moral themselves), of sexuality (as if they desired platonic love) ; or to openly admit that they are wrapped up in husband and children, without bein. i^ con- scious of all that such an admission implies, of the shame- lessness and self-immolation of it.
Unconscious hypocrisy, or cynical identification with their natural instincts ; nothing else seems possible for woman.
But it is neither agreement nor disagreement with, but rather the denial and overcoming of her womanishness that a woman should aim at. If a woman really were to wish, for instance, for man's chastity, it would mean that she had conquered the woman in her, it would mean that pairing was no longer of supreme importance to her and that her aim was no longer to further it. But here is the trouble : such pretensions must not be accepted as genuine, even although here and there they are actually putforward. Forawomanwholongedforman'spurity
is, apart from her hysteria, so stupid and so incapable of
"
? SEX AND CHARACTER
truthfulness that she is unable to perceive that she is in this way negating herself, making herself absolutely worthless, without existence !
It is difficult to decide which is preferable : the unlimited hypocrisy which can appropriate the thing that is most foreign to it, i. e. , the ascetic ideal, or the ingenuous admira- tion for the reformed rake, the complacent devotion to him. The principal problem of the woman question lies in the fact that in each case woman's one desire is to put all responsibility on man, and in this it is identical with the problem of mankind.
Friedrich Nietzsche says in one of his books : " To underestimate the real difficulties of the man and woman problem, to fail to admit the abysmal antagonism and the inevitable nature of the constant strain between the two, to dream of equal rights, education, responsibilities and duties, is the mark of the superficial observer, and any thinker who has been found shallow in these difficult places--shallow by nature--should be looked upon as untrustworthy, as a useless and treacherous guide ; he will, no doubt, be one of those who 'briefly deal with' all the real problems of life, death and eternity--who never gets to the bottom of things. But the man who is not superficial, who has depth of thought as well as of purpose, the depth which not only makes him desire right but endows him with determination and strength to do right, must always look on woman from the oriental standpoint : --as a possession, as private property, as something born to serve and be dependent on him--he must see the marvellous reasonableness of the Asiatic instinct of superiority over women, as the Greeks of old saw it, those worthy successors and disciples of the Eastern school. It was an attitude towards woman which, as is well known, from Homer's time till that of Pericles, grew with the growth of culture, and increased in strength step by step, and gradually became quite oriental. What a necessary, logical, desirable growth for mankind ! if we could only attain to it ourselves !
342
The great individualist is here thinking in the terms of
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
343 social ethics, and the autonomy of his moral doctrine is over- shadowed by the ideas of caste, groups, and divisions. And so, for the benefit of society, to preserve the place of men, he would place woman in subjection, so that the voice of the wish for emancipation could no longer be heard, and so that we might be freed from the false and foolish cry of the existing advocates of women's rights, ad- vocates who have no suspicion of the real source of woman bondage. But I quoted Nietzsche, not to convict him of want of logic, but to lead to the point that the solution of the problem of humanity is bound up with the solution of the woman problem. If any one should think it a high- flown idea that man should respect woman as an entity, a real existence, and not use her merely as a means to an end, that he should recognise in her the same rights and the same duties (those of building up one's own moral personality) as his own, then he must reflect that man cannot solve the ethical problem in his own case, if he continues to lower the idea of humanity in the women by
using her simply for his own purposes.
Coitus is the price man has to pay to women, undei the
Asiatic system, for their oppression. And although it is true that women may be more than content with such recom- pence for the worst form of slavery, man has no right to take part in such conduct, simply because he also is morally damaged by it.
Even technically the problem of humanity is not soluble for man alone ; he has to consider woman even if he only wishes to redeem himself ; he must endeavour to get her to abandonherimmoraldesignsonhim. Womenmustreally and truly and spontaneously relinquish coitus. That un- doubtedly means that woman, as woman, must disappear,
and until that has come to pass there is no possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Pythagoras, Plato, Christianity (as opposed to Judaism), Tertullian, Swift, Wagner, Ibsen, all these have urged the freedom of woman, not the emancipation of woman from man, but rather the emancipation of woman from herself.
--
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344
It is easy to bear Nietzsche's anathema in such company !
But it is very hard for woman to reach such a goal by her own strength. The spark in her is so flickering that it always needs the fire of man to relight it ; she must have an example to go by. Christ is an example ; He freed the fallen Magdalen, He swept away her past and expiated it for her. Wagner, the greatest man since Christ's time, under- stood to the full the real significance of that act : until woman ceases to exist as woman for man she cannot cease being woman. Kundry could only be released from
Klingsor's curse by the help of a sinless, immaculate man Parsifal. This shows ^the complete harmony between the psychological and philosophical deduction which is dealt with in Wagner's " Parsifal," the greatest work in the world's literature. It is man's sexuality which first gives woman existence as woman. Woman will exist as long as man's guilt is inexpiated, until he has really vanquished his own sexuality.
It is only in this way that the eternal opposition to all anti-feministic tendencies can be avoided ; the view that says, since woman is there, being what she is, and not to be altered, man must endeavour to make terms with her
;
it is useless to fight, because there is nothing which can be exterminated. Butithasbeenshownthatwomanisnega- tive and ceases to exist the moment man determines to be nothing but true existence.
That which must be fought against is not an affair of ever unchangeable existence and essence : it is something which can be put an end to, and which ought to be put an end to.
This is the way, and no other, to solve the woman ques- tion, and this comes from comprehending it. The solution may appear impossible, its tone exaggerated, its claims over- stated, its requirements too exacting. Undoubtedly there has been little said about the woman question, as women talk of it ; we have been dealing with a subject on which
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
345 women are silent, and must always remain silent--the
bondage which sexuality implies.
This woman question is as old as sex itself, and as young
as mankind. And the answer to it ? Man must free him- self of sex, for in that way, and that way alone, can he free woman. In his purity, not, as she believes, in his impurity, lies her salvation. She must certainly be destroyed, as woman ; but only to be raised again from the ashes--new, restored to youth--as a real human being.
So long as there are two sexes there will always be a woman question, just as there will be the problem of mankind. Christ was mindful of this when, according to the account of one of the Fathers of the Church--Clemens--He talked with Salome, without the optimistic palliation of the sex which St. Paul and Luther invented later : death will last so long as women bring forth, and truth will not prevail until the two become one, until from man and woman a third self, neither man nor woman, is evolved.
Now for the first time, looking at the woman question as the most important problem of mankind, the demand for the sexual abstinence on the part of both sexes is put forwardwithgoodreason. Toseektogroundthisclaim, on the prejudicial effects on the health following sexual intercourse would be absurd, for any one with knowledge of the physical frame could upset such a theory at all
points; tofoundit ontheimmoralityofpassionwouldalso be wrong, because that would introduce a heteronomous motive into ethics. St. Augustine, however, must certainly have been aware, when he advocated chastity for all man- kind, that the objection raised to it would be that m such a case the whole human race would quickly disappear from the face of the earth.
This extraordmary apprehension, the worst part of which appears to be the thought that the race would be extermi- nated, shows not only the greatest unbelief in individual immortalityandeternallifeformoralwell-doers; itisnot
? SEX AND CHARACTER
only most irreligious, but it proves at the same time the cowardice of man and his incapacity to live an individual life. To any one who thinks thus, the earth can only mean the turmoil and press of those on it ; death must seem less terrible to such a man than isolation. If the immortal, moral part of his personality were really vigorous, he would have courage to look this result in the face ; he would not fear the death of the body, nor attempt to substitute the miserable certainty of the continuation of the race for his lack of faith in the eternal life of the soul. The rejection of sexuality is merely the death of the physical life, to put m its place the full development of the spiritual life.
Hence it follows that it cannot be a moral duty to provide for the continuance of the race. This common argument appears to me to be so extraordinarily false that I am almost ashamed to meet it. Yet at the risk of making myself ridiculous I must ask if any one ever consummated coitus to avoid the great danger of letting the human race die out, if he failed in his duty ? And would it not follow that any man who prefers chastity would be open to the charge of immoral conduct ? Every form of fecundity is loathsome, and no one who is honest with himself feels bound to provide for the continuity of the human race. And what we do not realise to be a duty, is not a duty.
On the contrary, it is immoral to procreate a human being for any secondary reason, to bring a being into the limita- tions of humanity, the conditions made for him by his parentage ; the fundamental reason why the possible freedom and spontaneity of a human being is limited is that he was begotteninsuchanimmoralfashion. Thatthehumanrace should persist is of no interest whatever to reason ; he who would perpetuate humanity would perpetuate the problem and the guilt, the only problem and the only guilt. The only true goal is divinity and the union of humanity with the Godhead ; that is the real choice between good and
evil, between existence and negation. The moral sanction that has been invented for coitus, in supposing that there
346
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
is an ideal attitude to the act in which only the propagation of the race is thought of, is no sufficient defence. There is no such imperative in the mind of man ; it is merely an ingenious defence of a desire, and there is the fundamental immorality in it, that the being to be created has no power of choice with regard to his parents. As for the sexual union in which the production of children is prevented, there is no possible justification.
Sexual union has no place in the idea of mankind, not because ascetism is a duty, but because in it woman becomes the object, the cause, and man does what he will with her, looks upon her merely as a " thing," not as a living human being with an inner, psychic, existence. And so man despises woman the moment coitus is over, and the woman knows that she is despised, even although a few minutes before she thought herself adored.
The only thing to be respected in man is the idea of mankind ; this disparagement of woman (and himself), in- duced by coitus, is the surest proof that it is opposed to that idea of mankind. Any one who is ignorant of what this Kantian "idea of mankind" means, may perhaps under- stand it when he thinks of his sisters, his mother, his female relatives ; it concerns them all : for our own sakes, then, woman ought to treated as human, respected and not
degraded, all sexuality implying degradation.
But man can only respect woman when she herself ceases
to wish to be object and material for man ; if there is any question of emancipation it should be the emancipation from the prostitute element. It has never until now been made clear where the bondage of woman lies ; it is in the sove- reign, all too welcome power wielded on them by the Phallus. Th . ;re can be no doubt that the men who have really desired the emancipation of women are the men who are not very sexual, who have no great craving for love, who are not very profound, but who are men of noble and spiritual minds. I am not going to try to palliate the erotic motives of man, nor to represent his antipathy to the " emancipated woman " as being in any sense less than
347
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348
it is; it is much easier to go with the majority, than, as Kant did, to dimb, painfully and slowly, to the heights of isolation.
But a great deal of what is taken for enmity to emanci- pation is due to the want of confidence in its possibility. Man does not really want woman as a slave : he is usually only too anxious for a companion. The education which the woman of the present day receives is not calculated to fit her for the battle against her real bondage. The last resource of her " womanly " teacher, if she declines to do this or that, is to say that no man will have her unless she does it. Women's education is directed solely to prepar-
ing them for their marriage, the happy state in which they are to find their crown. Such training would have little effect on man, but it serves to accentuate woman's womanishness, her dependence, and her servile condition. The education of woman must be taken out of the hands of woman ; the education of mankind must be taken out of the hands of the mother. This is the first step towards placing woman in a relation to the idea of mankind, which since the beginning she has done more than anything else
to hinder.
A woman who had really given up her sexual self, who wishedtobeatpeacewouldbenolonger"woman. " She would have ceased to be " woman," she would have received the inward and spiritual sign as well as the outward form of regeneration.
Can such a thing be ?
There is no absolute woman, but even so to say " yes " to the above question is like giving one's assent to a miracle. Emancipation will not make woman happier ; it will not ensure her salvation, and it is a long road which leads to God. No being in the transition stage between freedom and slavery can be happy. But will woman choose to abandon slavery in order to become unhappy ? The question is not merely if it be possible for woman to
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
349 become moral. It is this : is it possible for woman really to wish to realise the problem of existence, the conception of guilt ? Can she really desire freedom ? This can happen only by her being penetrated by a^ ideal, brought to the guiding star. It can happen only if the categorical im- perative were to become active in woman ; only if woman can place herself in relation to the moral idea, the idea of
humanity.
In that way only can there be an emancipation of woman.
3
? \
I
I
\
Esthetics and Erotics, Chap.
theperfectionofscience. TheJewdoesnotreallybelievein
? 32 2 SEX AND CHARACTER
knowledge, nor is he a sceptic, for he doubts his own scepti- cism. Ontheotherhand,abroodingcarehoversoverthe non-metaphysical system of Avenarius, and even in Ernst Mach's adherence to relativity there are signs of a deeply reverent attitude. The empiricists must not be accused of Judaism because they are shallow.
The Jew is the impious man in the widest sense. Piety is not something near things nor outside things ; it is the groundworkofeverything. TheJewhasbeenincorrectly called vulgar, simply because he does not concern himself with metaphysics. All true culture that comes from within, all that a man believes to be true and that so is true for him, depend on reverence. Reverence is not limited to the mystic or the religious man ; all science and all scepticism, everything that a man truly believes, have reverence as the fundamental quality. Naturally it displays itself in dif- ferent ways, in high seriousness and sanctity, in earnestness and enthusiasm. The Jew is never either enthusiastic or indif- ferent, he is neither ecstatic nor cold. He reaches neither the heights nor the depths. His restraint becomes meagreness, hiscopiousnessbecomesbombast. Shouldheventureinto the boundless realms of inspired thought, he seldom
reachesbeyondpathos. Andalthoughhecannotembrace the whole world, he is for ever covetous of it.
Discrimination and generalisation, strength and love, science and poetry, every real and deep emotion of the human heart, have reverence as their essential basis. It is not necessary that faith, as in men of genius, should be in relation only to metaphysical entity ; it can extend also to the empirical world and appear fully there, and yet none the less be faith in oneself, in worth, in truth, in the absolute, in God.
As the comprehensive view of religion and piety that I havegivenmayleadtomisconstruction,I proposetoeluci- date it further. True piety is not merely the possession of piety,butalsothestruggletopossessit; itisfoundequally in the convinced believer in God (Handel or Fechner), and alsointhedoubtingseeker(LenauandDu? rer); itneednot
? !
j
I
JUDAISM
be made obvious to the world (as in the case of Bach), it maydisplayitselfonlyinareverentattitude(Mozart). Nor is piety necessarily connected with the appearance of a Founder ; the ancient Greeks were the most reverent people that have lived, and hence their culture was highest; but their religion had no personal Founder.
Religion is the creation of the all ; and all that humanity can be is only through religion. So far from the Jew being religious, as has been assumed, he is profoundly irreligious
Were there need to elaborate my verdict on the Jews I might point out that the Jews, alone of peoples, do not try to make converts to their faith, and that when converts are made they serve as objects of puzzled ridicule to them. Need I refer to the meaningless formality and the repetitions of Jewish prayer ? Need I remind readers that the Jewish religion is a mere historical tradition, a memorial of such incidents as the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, with the consequent thanks of cowards to their Saviour ; and thatitisnoguidetothemeaningandconductoflife? The Jew is truly irreligious and furthest of mankind from faith. There is no relation between the Jew himself and the universe ; he has none of the heroism of faith, just as he has none of the disaster of absolute unbelief.
It is not, then, mysticism that the Jew is without, as Chamberlainmaintains,butreverence. Ifhewereonlyan honest-minded materialist or a frank evolutionist ! He is not a critic, but only critical ; he is not a sceptic in the Cartesian sense, not a doubter who sets out from doubt towards truth, but an ironist ; as, for instance, to take a conspicuous example, Heine.
What, then, is the Jew if he is nothing that a man can be ? What goes on within him if he is utterly without finality, if there is no ground in him which the plumb hne of psychology may reach ?
The psychological contents of the Jewish mind are always double or multiple. There are always before him two or many possibilities, where the Aryan, although he sees as widelv, feels himself limited in his choice. I think that the
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? SEX AND CHARACTER
324
idea of Judaism consists in this want of reality, this absence
of any fundamental relation to the thing-in-and-for-itself. ^ He stands, so to speak, outside reality, without ever entering it. He can never make himself one with anything--never enter into real relationships. He is a zealot without zeal ; . - he has no share in the unlimited, the unconditioned. He is
without simplicity of faith, and so is always turning to each new interpretation, so seeming more alert than the Aryan. Internal multiplicity is the essence of Judaism, internal simplicity that of the Aryan.
It might be urged that the Jewish double-mindedness is modern, and is the result of new knowledge struggling with the old orthodoxy. The education of the Jew, however, only accentuates his natural qualities, and the doubting Jew turns with a renewed zeal to money-making, in which onlyhecanfindhisstandardofvalue. Acuriousproofof the absence of simplicity in the mind of the Jew is that he seldom sings, not from bashfulness, but because he does not believe in his own singing. Just as the acuteness of Jews has nothing to do with true power of differentiating, so his shyness about singing or even about speaking in clear positive tones has nothing to do with real reserve. It is a kind of inverted pride ; having no true sense of his own worth, he fears being made ridiculous by his singing or speech. TheembarrassmentoftheJewextendstothings which have nothing to with the real ego.
IthasbeenseenhowdifficultitistodefinetheJew. He has neither severity nor tenderness. He is both tenacious andweak. Heisneitherkingnorleader,slavenorvassal. He has no share in enthusiasm, and yet he has little equanimity. Nothing is self-evident to him, and yet he is astonished at nothing. He has no trace of Lohengrin in him, and none of Telramund. He is ridiculous as a member of a students' corps and he is equally ridiculous as a "philister. " Because he believes in nothing, he takes refuge in materialism ; from this arises his avarice, which is simply an attempt to convince himself that something has a permanent value. And yet he is no real tradesman ; what
? JUDAISM 325
is unreal, insecure in German commerce, is the result of the Jewish speculative interest.
The erotics of the Jew are sentimentalisni, and their humour is satire. Perhaps examples may help to explain my interpretation of the Jewish character, and I point readily to Ibsen's King Hakon in the " Pretenders," and to his Dr. Stockmann in '* The Enemy of the People. " These may make clear what is for ever absent in the Jew. Judaism and Christianity form the greatest possible contrasts ; the former is bereft of all true faith and of inner identity, the latter is the highest expression of the highest faith. Chris- tianityisheroismatitshighestpoint Judaismistheextreme
;
of cowardliness.
Chamberlain has said much that is true and striking as to
the fearful awe-struck want of understanding that the Jew displays with regard to the person and teaching of Christ, for the combination of warrior and sufferer in Him, for His life and death. None the less, it would be wrong to state that the Jew is an enemy of Christ, that he represents the anti-Christ ; it is only that he feels no relation with Him. It is strong-minded Aryans, malefactors, who hate Jesus. The Jew does not get beyond being bewildered and disturbed by Him, as something that passes his wit to understand.
And yet it has stood the Jew in good stead that the New Testament seemed the outcome and fine flower of the Old, the fulfilment of its Messianic prophecies. The polar oppo- sition between Judaism and Christianity makes the origin of the latter from the former a deep riddle ; it is the riddle of the psychology of the founder of religions.
What is the difference between the genius who founds a religion and other kinds of genius ? What is it that has led him to found the religion ?
The main difference is no other than that he did not always believe in the God he worships. Tradition relates of Buddha, as of Christ, that they were subject to greater temptations than other men. Two others, Mahomet and Luther, were epileptic. Epilepsy is the disease of the
SEX AND CHARACTER
326
criminal ; Caesar, Narses, Napoleon, the greatest of the criminals, were epileptics.
The founder of a religion is the man who has lived without God and yet has struggled towards the greatest faith. How is it possible for a bad man to transform him- self ? As Kant, although he was compelled to admit the fact, asked in his " Philosophy of Religion," how can an evil tree bring forth good fruit ? The inconceivable mystery of the transformation into a good man of one who has lived evilly all the days and years of his life has actually realised itself
in the case of some six or seven historical personages. These have been the founders of religions.
Other men of genius are good from their birth ; the religious founder acquires goodness. The old existence ceasesutterlyandisreplacedbythenew. Thegreaterthe man, the more must perish in him at the regeneration. I am inclined to think that Socrates, alone amongst the Greeks, approached closely to the founders of religion perhaps he made the decisive struggle with evil in the four- and-twenty hours during which he stood alone at Potidaea.
The founder of a religion is the man for whom no problem has been solved from his birth. He is the man with the least possible sureness of conviction, for whom everything is doubtful and uncertain, and who has to conquer every- thing for himself in this life. One has to struggle against illness and physical weakness, another trembles on the brink of the crimes which are possible for him, yet another has been in the bonds of sin from his birth. It is only a formal statement to say that original sin is the same in all persons ; it differs materially for each person. Here one, there another, each as he was born, has chosen what is senseless and worthless, has preferred instinct to his will, or pleasure to love ; only the founder of a religion has had original sin in its absolute form ; in him everything is doubtful, everything is in question. He has to meet every problem and free himself from all guilt. He has to reach firm ground from the deepest abyss ; he has to surmount the nothingness in him and bind himself to the utmost
;
? ? JUDAISM 327
reality. And so it may be said of him that he frees himself of original sin, that in him God becomes man, but also that the man becomes God ; in him was all error and all guilt ; in him there comes to be all expiation and redemption.
Thus the founder of a religion is the greatest of the geniuses, for he has vanquished the most. He is the man who has accomplished victoriously what the deepest thinkers of mankind have thought of only timorously as a possibility, the complete regeneration of a man, the reversal of his will. Other great men of genius have, indeed, to fight against evil, but the bent of their souls is towardsthegood. Thefounderofareligionhassomuch in him of evil, of the perverse, of earthly passion, that he must fight with the enemy withm him for forty days in the wilderness, without food or sleep. It was only thus that he can conquer and overcome the death within him and free himself for the highest life. Were it otherwise there would be no impulse to found a faith. The founder of a religion is thus the very antipodes of the emperor ; emperor and
Galilean are at the two poles of thought. In Napoleon's life, also, there was a moment when a conversion took place; but this was not a turning away from earthly life, but the deliberate decision tor the treasure and power and splendour of the earthly life. Napoleon was great in the colossal intensity with which he flung from him all the ideal, all relation to the absolute, in the magnitude of his guilt. The founder of religion, on the other hand, cannot and will not bring to man anything except that which was most difficult for himself to attain, the reconciliation with God. He knows that he himself was the man most laden with guilt, and he atones for the guilt by his death on the
cross.
There were two possibilities in Judaism. Before the
birth of Christ, these two, negation and affirmation, were together awaiting choice. Christ was the man who con- quered in Himself Judaism, the greatest negation, and created Christianity, the strongest affirmation and the most
? 328 SEX AND CHARACTER
direct opposite of Judaism. Now the choice has been made ; the old Israel has divided into Jews and Christians, and Judaism has lost the possibility of producing greatness. The new Judaism has been unable to produce men like Samson and Joshua, the least Jewish of the old Jews. In the history of the world, Christendom and Jewry represent negation and affirmation. In old Israel there was the highest possibility of mankind, the possibility of Christ. The other possibility is the Jew.
I must guard against misconception ; I do not mean that there was any approach to Christianity in Judaism; the one is the absolute negation of the other ; the relation between the two is only that which exists between all pairs of direct opposites. EvenmorethaninthecaseofpietyandJudaism, Judaism and Christianity can best be contrasted by what each respectively excludes. Nothing is easier than to be Jewish,nothingsodifficultastobeChristian. Judaismis the abyss over which Christianity is erected, and for that reason the Aryan dreads nothing so deeply as the Jew.
I am not disposed to believe, with Chamberlain, that the birth of the Saviour in Palestine was an accident. Christ was a Jew, precisely that He might overcome the Judaism within Him, for he who triumphs over the deepest doubt reaches the highest faith ; he who has raised himself above the most desolate negation is most sure in his position of affirmation. Judaism was the peculiar, original sin of Christ ; it was His victory over Judaism that made Him greaterthanBuddhaorConfucius. Christwasthegreatest man because He conquered the greatest enemy. Perhaps He was, and will remain, the only Jew to conquer Judaism. The first of the Jews to become wholly the Christ was also the last who made the transition. It may be, however, that
there still lies in Judaism the possibility of producing a Christ, and that the founder of the next religion will pass through Jewry.
On no other supposition can we account for the long persistence of the Jewish race which has outlived so many other peoples. Without at least some vague hope, the Jews
? JUDAISM
329 could not have survived, and the hope is that there must be something in Judaism for Judaism ; it is the idea of a Mes- siah, of one who shall save them from Judaism. Every other race has had some special watchword, and, on realis- ingtheirwatchword,theyhaveperished. TheJewshave failed to realise their watchword, and so their vitality per- sists. The Jewish nature has no other metaphysical mean- ing than to be the spring from which the founders of rehgionwillcome. Theirtraditiontoincreaseandmultiply is connected with this vague hope, that out of them shall cometheMessiah, ThepossibilityofbegettingChristsis
the meaning of Judaism. % As in the Jew there are the greatest possibilities, so also in him are the meanest actualities ; he is adapted to most
things and realises fewest.
Judaism, at the present day, has reached its highest point
since the time of Herod. Judaism is the spirit of modern life. Sexuality is accepted, and contemporary ethics sing the praises of pairing. Unhappy Nietzsche must not be made responsible for the shameful doctrines of Wilhelm Bo? lsche. Nietzsche himself understood asceticism, and perhaps it was only as a revulsion from the evils of his own asceticism that he attached value to the opposite concep- tion. It is the Jew and the woman who are the apostles of pairing to bring guilt on humanity.
Our age is not only the most Jewish but the most feminine. It is a time when art is content with daubs and seeks its inspirationinthesportsofanimals; thetimeofasuperficial anarchy, with no feeling for Justice and the State ; a time of communistic ethics, of the most foolish of historical views, the materialistic interpretation of history ; a time of capitalism and of Marxism ; a time when history, life, and science are no more than political economy and technical instruction ; a time when genius is supposed to be a form of madness ; a time with no great artists and no great philosophers ; a time without originality and yet with the most foolish craving for originality; a time when the cult of the Virgin has been replaced by that of the Demi-
? SEX AND CHARACTER
330
vierge. It is the time when pairing has not only been approved but has been enjoined as a duty.
But from the new Judaism the new Christianity may be pressing forth ; mankind waits for the new founder of reli- gion, and, as in the year one, the age presses for a decision. The decision must be made between Judaism and Chris- tianity, between business and culture, between male and female, between the race and the individual, between un- worthiness and worth, between the earthly and the higher life,betweennegationandtheGod-like. Mankindhasthe choicetomake. Thereareonlytwopoles,andthereisno middle way.
? CHAPTER XIV
WOMAN AND MANKIND
At last we are ready, clear-eyed and well armed, to deal with the question of the emancipation of women. Our eyes are clear, for we have freed them from the thronging specks of dubiety that had hitherto obscured the question, and we are armed with a well-founded grasp of theory, and a secure ethical basis. We are far from the maze in which this controversy usually lies, and our investigation has got beyond the mere statement of different natural capacity for men and women, to a point whence the part of women in the world-whole and the meaning of her relation to humanity can be estimated. I am not going to deal with any practical applications of my results ; the latter are not nearly optimistic enough for me to hope that they could have any effect on the progress of political movements. I refrain from working out laws of social hygiene, and content myself with facing the problem from the standpoint of that conception of humanity which pervades the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.
Thisconceptionisingreatdangerfromwoman. Woman is able, in a quite extraordinary way, to produce the im- pression that she herself is really non-sexual, and that her sexuality is only a concession to man. But be that as it may, at the present time men have almost allowed them- selves to be persuaded by woman that their strongest and most markedly characteristic desire lies in sexuality, that it is only through woman that they can hope to satisfy their truest and best ambitions, and that chastity is an un- natural and impossible state for them. How often it
? SEX AND CHARACTER
happens that young men who are wrapped up in their work are told by women to whom they appeal and who would prefer to have them paying them attention, or even as sons- in-law, that " they ought not to work too hard," that they ought to " enjoy life. " At the bottom of this sort of advice there lies a feeling on the woman's part, which is none the less real because it is unconscious, that her whole significance and existence depend on her mission as a procreating agent, and that she goes to the wall if man is allowed to occupy himself altogether with other than sexual matters.
That women will ever change in this respect is doubtful. There is nothing to show that she ever was different. It may be that to-day the physical side of the question is more to the fore than formerly, since a great deal of the " woman movement" of the times is merely a desire to be "free," to shake off the trammels of motherhood ; as a whole the practical results show that it is revolt from motherhood towards prostitution, a prostitute emancipation rather than the emancipation of woman that is aimed at : a bold bid for thesuccessofthecourtesan. Theonlyrealchangeisman's behaviour towards the movement. Under the influence of modern Judaism, men seem inclined to accept woman's estimate of them and to bow before it.
Masculine chastity is laughed at, and the feeling that woman is the evil influence in man's life is no longer under- stood, and men are not ashamed of their own lust.
It is now apparent from where this demand for " seeing life," the Dionysian view of the music-hall, the cult of Goethe in so far as he follows Ovid, and this quite modern "coitus-cult" comes. There is no doubt that the move- ment is so widespread that very few men have the courage to acknowledge their chastity, preferring to pretend that they are regular Don Juans. Sexual excess is held to be the most desirable characteristic of a man of the world, and sexuality has attained such pre-eminence that a man is doubted unless he can, as it were, show proofs of his prowess. Chastity, on the other hand, is so despised that
332
--
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
333 many a really pure lad attempts to appear a blase roue. It is even true that those who are modest are ashamed of the
feeling ; but there is another, the modern form of shame not the eroticist's shame, but the shame of the woman who has no lover, who has not received appraisement from the opposite sex. Hence it comes that men make it their business to tell each other what a rignt and proper pleasure they take in " doing their duty " by the opposite sex. And
women are careful to let it be known that only what is " manly " in man can appeal to them : and man takes their measure of his manliness and makes it his own. Man's qualifications as a male have, in fact, become identical with his value with women, in women's eyes.
But God forbid that it should be so ; that w ould mean that there are no longer any men.
Contrast with this the fact that the high value set on women's virtue originated with man, and w^ill always come from men worthy of the name ; it is the projection of man's own ideal of spotless purity on the object of his love.
But there should be no mistaking this true chastity for the shivering and shaking before contact, which is soon changed for delighted acquiescence, nor for the hysterical suppression of sexual desires. The outward endeavour to correspond to man's demand for physical purity must not be taken for anything but a fear lest the buyer will fight shy of the bargain ; least of all the care which women so often take to choose only the man who can give them most value must not deceive any one (it has been called the "high value" or '* self-respect" a girl has for herself) ! If one remembers the view women take of virginity, there can be very little doubt that woman's one end is the bringing about of universal pairing as the only means by which they acquire a real existence ; that women desire pairing, and nothing else, even if they personally appear to beasuninterestedaspossibleinsensualmatters. Allthis can be fully proved from the generality of the match- making instinct.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
334
In order to be fully persuaded of this, woman's attitude
towards the virginity of those of her own sex must be considered.
It is certain that women have a very low opinion of the unmarried. It is, in fact, the one female condition which has a negative value for woman. Women only respect a woman when she is married ; even if she is unhappily married to a hideous, weak, poor, common, tyrannical, " impossible " man, she is, nevertheless, married, has received value, existence. Even if a woman has had a short experience of the freedom of a courtesan's life, even if she has been on the streets, she still stands higher in a woman's estimation than the old maid, who works and toils alone in her room, without ever having known lawful or unlawful union with a man, the enduring or fleeting ecstasy of love.
Even a young and beautiful girl is never valued by a woman for her attractions as such (the sense of the beauti- ful is wanting in woman since they have no standard in themselves to measure it by), but merely because she has more prospect of enslaving a man. The more beautiful a young girl is, the more promising she appears to other women, the greater her value to woman as the match- maker in her mission as guardian of the race ; it is only this unconscious feeling which makes it possible for a woman to take pleasure in the beauty of a young girl. It goes without saying that this can only happen when the woman in question has already achieved her own end (because, otherwise, envy of a contemporary, and the fear of having her own chances jeopardised by others, would overcome other considerations). She must first of all attain her own union, and then she is ready to help others.
Women are altogether to blame for the unpleasant asso- ciations which are so unfortunately connected with "old maids. " One often hears men talking respectfully of an elderly woman ; but every woman and girl, whether married or single, has nothing but contempt for such a one, even
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
335 when, as is often the case, they are unconscious that it is so with them. I once heard a married woman, whose talents and beauty put jealousy quite out of the question, making fun of her plain and elderly Italian governess for repeatedly saying that : " lo sono ancora una virgine " (that she was still a virgin). The interpretation put on the words was that the speaker wished to admit she had made a virtue of necessity, and would have been very glad to get rid of her virginity if she could have done so without detriment to her
position in life.
This is the most important point of all : women not
only disparage and despise the virginity of other women, but they set no value on their own state of virginity (except that men prize it so highly). This is why they look upon every married woman as a sort of superior being. The deep impression made on women by the sexual act can be most plainly seen by the respect which girls pay to a married woman, of however short a standing ; which points to their idea of their existence being the attainment of the same zenith themselves. They look upon other young girls, on the contrary, as being, like themseves, still imperfect beings awaiting consummation.
I think I have said enough to show that experience con- firms the deduction I made from the importance of the pairing instinct in women, the deduction that virgin worship is of male, not female origin.
A man demands chastity in himself and others, most of all from the being he loves ; a woman wants the man with most experience and sensuality, not virtue. Woman has no comprehension of paragons. On the contrary, it is well known that a woman is most ready to fly to the arms of the man with the widest reputation for bemg a Don Juan.
Wom^an requires man to be sexual, because she only gains existence through his sexuality. Women have no sense of a man's love, as a superior phenomenon, they only perceive that side of him which unceasingly desires and appropriates the object of his affections, and men who have
? SEX AND CHARACTER
336
none or very little of the instinct of brutality developed in them have no influence on them.
As for the higher, platonic love of man, they do not want it ; it flatters and pleases them, but it has no signi- ficance for them, and if the homage on bended knees lasts too long, Beatrice becomes just as impatient as Mes- salina.
In coitus lies woman's greatest humiliation, in love her supremest exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not love, she proves that she wishes to be humiliated and not worshipped. The ultimate opponent of the emancipation of women is woman.
It is not because sexual union is voluptuous, not because it is the typical example of all the pleasures of the lower life, that it is immoral. Asceticism, which would regard pleasure in itself as immoral, is itself immoral, inasmuch it attributes immorality to an action because of the external consequences of it, not because of immorality in the thing itself ; it is the imposition of an alien, not an inherent law. A man may seek pleasure, he may strive to make his life easier and more pleasant ; but he must not sacrifice a moral law. Asceticism attempts to make man moral by self- repression and will give him credit and praise for morality simply because he has denied himself certain things. Asceticism must be rejected from the point of view of ethics and of psychology inasmuch as it makes virtue the efifect of a cause, and not the thing itself. Asceticism is a dangerous although attractive guide ; since pleasure is one of the chief things that beguile men from the higher path, it is easy to suppose that its mere abandonment is meritorious.
In itself, however, pleasure is neither moral nor immoral. It is only when the desire for pleasure conquers the desire for worthiness that a human being has fallen.
Coitus is immoral because there is no man who does not usewomanatsuchtimesasameanstoanend; forwhom pleasure does not, in his own as well as her being, during that time represent the value of mankind.
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
337 During coitus a man forgets all about everything, he forgets the woman ; she has no longer a psychic but only aphysicalexistenceforhim. Heeitherdesiresachildby her or the satisfaction of his own passion ; in neither case does he use her as an end in herself, but for an outside cause.
This and this alone makes coitus immoral.
There is no doubt that woman is the missionary of sexual
union, and that she looks upon herself, as on everything else, merelyasameanstoitsends. Shewantsamantosatisfy her passion or to obtain children ; she is willing to be used by man as a tool, as a thing, as an object, to be treated as his property, to be changed and modelled according to his good pleasure. But we should not allow ourselves to be used by others as means to an end.
Kundry appealed often to Parsifal's compassion for her yearnings : but here we see the weakness of sympathetic morality, which attempts to grant every desire of those around, however wrong such wishes may be. Ethics and morality based on sympathy are equally absurd, since they make the " ought " dependent on the " will," (whether it be the will of oneself, or of others, or of society, it is all the same,) instead of making the "will" dependent on the " ought " ; they take as a standard of morality concrete cases of human history, concrete cases of human happiness, concrete moments in life instead of the idea.
But the question is : how ought man to treat woman ? As she herself desires to be treated or as the moral idea would dictate ?
If he is going to treat her as she wishes, he must have intercourse with her, for she desires it ; he must beat her, for she likes to be hurt ; he must hypnotise her, since she wishes to be hypnotised ; he must prove to her by his attentions how little he thinks of himself, for she likes compliments, and has no desire to be respected for herself.
If he is going to treat her as the moral idea demands, he must try to see in her the concept of mankind and endeavour to respect her. Even although woman
Y
SEX AND CHARACTER
is only a function of man, a function he can degrade or raise at will, and women do not wish to be more or anything else than what man makes them, it is no more a moral arrangement than the suttee of Indian widows, which, even though it be voluntary and insisted upon by them, is none the less terrible barbarity.
The emancipation of woman is analogous to the eman- cipation of Jews and negroes. Undoubtedly the principal reason why these people have been treated as slaves and inferiors is to be found in their servile dispositions ; their desire for freedom is not nearly so strong as that of the Indo-Germans. And even although tHe whites in America at the present day find it necessary to keep themselves quite aloof from the negro population because they make such a bad use of their freedom, yet in the war of the Northern
States against the Federals, which resulted in the freedom of the slaves, right was entirely on the side of the emanci- pators.
Although the humanity of Jews, negroes, and still more of women, is weighed down by many immoral impulses although in these cases there is so much more to fight against than in the case of Aryan men, still we must try to respect mankind, and to venerate the idea of humanity (by whichI donotmeanthehumancommunity,butthebeing, man, the soul as part of the spiritual world). No matter how degraded a criminal may be, no one ought to arrogate to himself the functions of the law ; no man has the right to lynch such an offender.
The problem of woman and the problem of the Jews are absolutely identical with the problem of slavery, and they must be solved in the same way. No one should be op- pressed, even if the oppression is of such a kind as to be unfelt as such. The animals about a house are not " slaves," because they have no freedom in the proper sense of the word which could be taken away.
But woman has a faint idea of her incapacity, a last remnant, however weak, of the free intelligible ego, simply because there is no such thing as an absolute woman.
338
;
? ? WOMAN AND MANKIND
339 Women are human beings, and must be treatea as such, even if they themselves do not wish it. Woman and man have the same rights. That is not to say that women ought to have an equal share in political affairs. From the utilitarian standpoint such a concession, certainly at present and probably always, would be most undesirable ; in New Zealand, where, on ethical principles, women have been enfranchised,theworstresultshavefollowed. Aschildren, imbeciles and criminals would be justly prevented from taking any part in public affairs even if they were numeri- callyequalorinthemajority; womanmustinthesameway
be kept from having a share in anything which concerns the public welfare, as it is much to be feared that the mere effect of female influence would be harmful. Just as the results of science do not depend on whether all men accept them or not, so justice and injustice can be dealt out to the woman, although she is unable to distinguish between them, and she need not be afraid that injury will be done her, as justice and not might will be the deciding factor in her treatment. But justice is always the same whether for man or woman. No one has a right to forbid things to a woman because they are " unwomanly " ; neither should any man be so mean as to talk of his unfaithful wife's doings as if they were his affair. Woman must be looked upon as an individual and as if she were a free individual, not as one of a species, not as a sort of creation from the various wants of man's nature ; even though woman herself may never prove worthy of such a lofty view.
Thus this book may be considered as the greatest honour everpaidtowomen. Nothingbutthemostmoralrelation towards women should be possible for men ; there should be neither sexuality nor love, for both make woman the means to an end, but only the attempt to understand her. Most men theoretically respect women, but practically they thoroughly despise them ; according to my ideas this method should be reversed. It is impossible to think highly pf women, but it does not follow that we are to despise
? SEX AND CHARACTER
them for ever. It is unfortunate that so many great ano famousmenhavehadmeanviewsonthispoint. Theviews of Schopenhauer and Demosthenes as to the emancipation of women are good instances. So also Goethe's
Immer is so das Ma? dchen bescha? ftigt und reifet im stillen Ha? uslicher Tugend entgegen, den klugen Mann zu beglu? cken. Wu? nscht sie dann endlich zu lesen, so wa? hlt sie gewisslich ein
Kochbuch,
is scarcely better than Moliere's
. . . Une femme en sait tonjours assez, Quand la capacite de son esprit se hausse
A connaitre un pourpoint d'avec un haut de chausse.
Men will have to overcome their dislike for masculine women, for that is no more than a mean egoism. If women ever become masculine by becoming logical and ethical, they would no longer be such good material for man's projection; butthatisnotasufficientreasonforthepresent method of tying woman down to the needs of her husband and children and forbidding her certain things because they are masculine.
For even if the possibility of morality is incompatible with the idea of the absolute woman, it does not follow that man is to make no effort to save the average woman from further deterioration ; much less is he to help to keep woman as she is. In every living woman the presence of whatKantcalls"thegermofgood"mustbeassumed it
;
is the remnant of a free state which makes it possible for Woman to have a dim notion of her destiny. The theo- retical possibility of grafting much more on this " germ of good" should never be lost sight of, even although nothing has ever been done, or even if nothing could ever be done in that respect.
The basis and the purpose of the universe is the good, and the whole world exists under a moral law ; even to the animals, which are mere phenomena, we assign moral values^ holding the elephant, for instance, to be higher than the
340
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
341 snake, notwithstanding the fact that we do not make an animal accountable when it kills another. In the case of woman, however, we regard her as responsible if she com- mits murder, and in this alone is a proof that women are above the animals. If it be the case that womanliness is simply immorality, then woman must cease to be womanly
and try to be manly.
I mustgivewarningagainstthedangerofwomantrying
merely to liken herself outwardly to man, for such a course would simply plunge her more deeply into womanliness. It is only too likely that the efforts to emancipate women will result not in giving her real freedom, in letting her reach free-will, but merely in enlarging the range of her caprices.
It seems to me that if we look the facts of the case in the face there are only two possible courses open for women : either to pretend to accept man's ideas, and to think that they believe what is really opposed to their whole, unchanged nature, to assume a horror of immorality (as if they were moral themselves), of sexuality (as if they desired platonic love) ; or to openly admit that they are wrapped up in husband and children, without bein. i^ con- scious of all that such an admission implies, of the shame- lessness and self-immolation of it.
Unconscious hypocrisy, or cynical identification with their natural instincts ; nothing else seems possible for woman.
But it is neither agreement nor disagreement with, but rather the denial and overcoming of her womanishness that a woman should aim at. If a woman really were to wish, for instance, for man's chastity, it would mean that she had conquered the woman in her, it would mean that pairing was no longer of supreme importance to her and that her aim was no longer to further it. But here is the trouble : such pretensions must not be accepted as genuine, even although here and there they are actually putforward. Forawomanwholongedforman'spurity
is, apart from her hysteria, so stupid and so incapable of
"
? SEX AND CHARACTER
truthfulness that she is unable to perceive that she is in this way negating herself, making herself absolutely worthless, without existence !
It is difficult to decide which is preferable : the unlimited hypocrisy which can appropriate the thing that is most foreign to it, i. e. , the ascetic ideal, or the ingenuous admira- tion for the reformed rake, the complacent devotion to him. The principal problem of the woman question lies in the fact that in each case woman's one desire is to put all responsibility on man, and in this it is identical with the problem of mankind.
Friedrich Nietzsche says in one of his books : " To underestimate the real difficulties of the man and woman problem, to fail to admit the abysmal antagonism and the inevitable nature of the constant strain between the two, to dream of equal rights, education, responsibilities and duties, is the mark of the superficial observer, and any thinker who has been found shallow in these difficult places--shallow by nature--should be looked upon as untrustworthy, as a useless and treacherous guide ; he will, no doubt, be one of those who 'briefly deal with' all the real problems of life, death and eternity--who never gets to the bottom of things. But the man who is not superficial, who has depth of thought as well as of purpose, the depth which not only makes him desire right but endows him with determination and strength to do right, must always look on woman from the oriental standpoint : --as a possession, as private property, as something born to serve and be dependent on him--he must see the marvellous reasonableness of the Asiatic instinct of superiority over women, as the Greeks of old saw it, those worthy successors and disciples of the Eastern school. It was an attitude towards woman which, as is well known, from Homer's time till that of Pericles, grew with the growth of culture, and increased in strength step by step, and gradually became quite oriental. What a necessary, logical, desirable growth for mankind ! if we could only attain to it ourselves !
342
The great individualist is here thinking in the terms of
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
343 social ethics, and the autonomy of his moral doctrine is over- shadowed by the ideas of caste, groups, and divisions. And so, for the benefit of society, to preserve the place of men, he would place woman in subjection, so that the voice of the wish for emancipation could no longer be heard, and so that we might be freed from the false and foolish cry of the existing advocates of women's rights, ad- vocates who have no suspicion of the real source of woman bondage. But I quoted Nietzsche, not to convict him of want of logic, but to lead to the point that the solution of the problem of humanity is bound up with the solution of the woman problem. If any one should think it a high- flown idea that man should respect woman as an entity, a real existence, and not use her merely as a means to an end, that he should recognise in her the same rights and the same duties (those of building up one's own moral personality) as his own, then he must reflect that man cannot solve the ethical problem in his own case, if he continues to lower the idea of humanity in the women by
using her simply for his own purposes.
Coitus is the price man has to pay to women, undei the
Asiatic system, for their oppression. And although it is true that women may be more than content with such recom- pence for the worst form of slavery, man has no right to take part in such conduct, simply because he also is morally damaged by it.
Even technically the problem of humanity is not soluble for man alone ; he has to consider woman even if he only wishes to redeem himself ; he must endeavour to get her to abandonherimmoraldesignsonhim. Womenmustreally and truly and spontaneously relinquish coitus. That un- doubtedly means that woman, as woman, must disappear,
and until that has come to pass there is no possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Pythagoras, Plato, Christianity (as opposed to Judaism), Tertullian, Swift, Wagner, Ibsen, all these have urged the freedom of woman, not the emancipation of woman from man, but rather the emancipation of woman from herself.
--
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344
It is easy to bear Nietzsche's anathema in such company !
But it is very hard for woman to reach such a goal by her own strength. The spark in her is so flickering that it always needs the fire of man to relight it ; she must have an example to go by. Christ is an example ; He freed the fallen Magdalen, He swept away her past and expiated it for her. Wagner, the greatest man since Christ's time, under- stood to the full the real significance of that act : until woman ceases to exist as woman for man she cannot cease being woman. Kundry could only be released from
Klingsor's curse by the help of a sinless, immaculate man Parsifal. This shows ^the complete harmony between the psychological and philosophical deduction which is dealt with in Wagner's " Parsifal," the greatest work in the world's literature. It is man's sexuality which first gives woman existence as woman. Woman will exist as long as man's guilt is inexpiated, until he has really vanquished his own sexuality.
It is only in this way that the eternal opposition to all anti-feministic tendencies can be avoided ; the view that says, since woman is there, being what she is, and not to be altered, man must endeavour to make terms with her
;
it is useless to fight, because there is nothing which can be exterminated. Butithasbeenshownthatwomanisnega- tive and ceases to exist the moment man determines to be nothing but true existence.
That which must be fought against is not an affair of ever unchangeable existence and essence : it is something which can be put an end to, and which ought to be put an end to.
This is the way, and no other, to solve the woman ques- tion, and this comes from comprehending it. The solution may appear impossible, its tone exaggerated, its claims over- stated, its requirements too exacting. Undoubtedly there has been little said about the woman question, as women talk of it ; we have been dealing with a subject on which
? WOMAN AND MANKIND
345 women are silent, and must always remain silent--the
bondage which sexuality implies.
This woman question is as old as sex itself, and as young
as mankind. And the answer to it ? Man must free him- self of sex, for in that way, and that way alone, can he free woman. In his purity, not, as she believes, in his impurity, lies her salvation. She must certainly be destroyed, as woman ; but only to be raised again from the ashes--new, restored to youth--as a real human being.
So long as there are two sexes there will always be a woman question, just as there will be the problem of mankind. Christ was mindful of this when, according to the account of one of the Fathers of the Church--Clemens--He talked with Salome, without the optimistic palliation of the sex which St. Paul and Luther invented later : death will last so long as women bring forth, and truth will not prevail until the two become one, until from man and woman a third self, neither man nor woman, is evolved.
Now for the first time, looking at the woman question as the most important problem of mankind, the demand for the sexual abstinence on the part of both sexes is put forwardwithgoodreason. Toseektogroundthisclaim, on the prejudicial effects on the health following sexual intercourse would be absurd, for any one with knowledge of the physical frame could upset such a theory at all
points; tofoundit ontheimmoralityofpassionwouldalso be wrong, because that would introduce a heteronomous motive into ethics. St. Augustine, however, must certainly have been aware, when he advocated chastity for all man- kind, that the objection raised to it would be that m such a case the whole human race would quickly disappear from the face of the earth.
This extraordmary apprehension, the worst part of which appears to be the thought that the race would be extermi- nated, shows not only the greatest unbelief in individual immortalityandeternallifeformoralwell-doers; itisnot
? SEX AND CHARACTER
only most irreligious, but it proves at the same time the cowardice of man and his incapacity to live an individual life. To any one who thinks thus, the earth can only mean the turmoil and press of those on it ; death must seem less terrible to such a man than isolation. If the immortal, moral part of his personality were really vigorous, he would have courage to look this result in the face ; he would not fear the death of the body, nor attempt to substitute the miserable certainty of the continuation of the race for his lack of faith in the eternal life of the soul. The rejection of sexuality is merely the death of the physical life, to put m its place the full development of the spiritual life.
Hence it follows that it cannot be a moral duty to provide for the continuance of the race. This common argument appears to me to be so extraordinarily false that I am almost ashamed to meet it. Yet at the risk of making myself ridiculous I must ask if any one ever consummated coitus to avoid the great danger of letting the human race die out, if he failed in his duty ? And would it not follow that any man who prefers chastity would be open to the charge of immoral conduct ? Every form of fecundity is loathsome, and no one who is honest with himself feels bound to provide for the continuity of the human race. And what we do not realise to be a duty, is not a duty.
On the contrary, it is immoral to procreate a human being for any secondary reason, to bring a being into the limita- tions of humanity, the conditions made for him by his parentage ; the fundamental reason why the possible freedom and spontaneity of a human being is limited is that he was begotteninsuchanimmoralfashion. Thatthehumanrace should persist is of no interest whatever to reason ; he who would perpetuate humanity would perpetuate the problem and the guilt, the only problem and the only guilt. The only true goal is divinity and the union of humanity with the Godhead ; that is the real choice between good and
evil, between existence and negation. The moral sanction that has been invented for coitus, in supposing that there
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is an ideal attitude to the act in which only the propagation of the race is thought of, is no sufficient defence. There is no such imperative in the mind of man ; it is merely an ingenious defence of a desire, and there is the fundamental immorality in it, that the being to be created has no power of choice with regard to his parents. As for the sexual union in which the production of children is prevented, there is no possible justification.
Sexual union has no place in the idea of mankind, not because ascetism is a duty, but because in it woman becomes the object, the cause, and man does what he will with her, looks upon her merely as a " thing," not as a living human being with an inner, psychic, existence. And so man despises woman the moment coitus is over, and the woman knows that she is despised, even although a few minutes before she thought herself adored.
The only thing to be respected in man is the idea of mankind ; this disparagement of woman (and himself), in- duced by coitus, is the surest proof that it is opposed to that idea of mankind. Any one who is ignorant of what this Kantian "idea of mankind" means, may perhaps under- stand it when he thinks of his sisters, his mother, his female relatives ; it concerns them all : for our own sakes, then, woman ought to treated as human, respected and not
degraded, all sexuality implying degradation.
But man can only respect woman when she herself ceases
to wish to be object and material for man ; if there is any question of emancipation it should be the emancipation from the prostitute element. It has never until now been made clear where the bondage of woman lies ; it is in the sove- reign, all too welcome power wielded on them by the Phallus. Th . ;re can be no doubt that the men who have really desired the emancipation of women are the men who are not very sexual, who have no great craving for love, who are not very profound, but who are men of noble and spiritual minds. I am not going to try to palliate the erotic motives of man, nor to represent his antipathy to the " emancipated woman " as being in any sense less than
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348
it is; it is much easier to go with the majority, than, as Kant did, to dimb, painfully and slowly, to the heights of isolation.
But a great deal of what is taken for enmity to emanci- pation is due to the want of confidence in its possibility. Man does not really want woman as a slave : he is usually only too anxious for a companion. The education which the woman of the present day receives is not calculated to fit her for the battle against her real bondage. The last resource of her " womanly " teacher, if she declines to do this or that, is to say that no man will have her unless she does it. Women's education is directed solely to prepar-
ing them for their marriage, the happy state in which they are to find their crown. Such training would have little effect on man, but it serves to accentuate woman's womanishness, her dependence, and her servile condition. The education of woman must be taken out of the hands of woman ; the education of mankind must be taken out of the hands of the mother. This is the first step towards placing woman in a relation to the idea of mankind, which since the beginning she has done more than anything else
to hinder.
A woman who had really given up her sexual self, who wishedtobeatpeacewouldbenolonger"woman. " She would have ceased to be " woman," she would have received the inward and spiritual sign as well as the outward form of regeneration.
Can such a thing be ?
There is no absolute woman, but even so to say " yes " to the above question is like giving one's assent to a miracle. Emancipation will not make woman happier ; it will not ensure her salvation, and it is a long road which leads to God. No being in the transition stage between freedom and slavery can be happy. But will woman choose to abandon slavery in order to become unhappy ? The question is not merely if it be possible for woman to
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349 become moral. It is this : is it possible for woman really to wish to realise the problem of existence, the conception of guilt ? Can she really desire freedom ? This can happen only by her being penetrated by a^ ideal, brought to the guiding star. It can happen only if the categorical im- perative were to become active in woman ; only if woman can place herself in relation to the moral idea, the idea of
humanity.
In that way only can there be an emancipation of woman.
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Esthetics and Erotics, Chap.
