No More Learning

We have really only one clue ; we have to rely uponthefemaleelementinmen. Theprincipleofsexually intermediate forms is the authority for what we know about women through men.
I shall define and complete the application of this principle later on. In its indefinite form, the principle would seem to imply that the most womanish man would be best able to describe woman, and that the
j
? MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY 87
description might be completed by the real woman. This, however, is extremely doubtful. I must point out that a man can have a considerable proportion of female- ness in him without necessarily, to the same extent, being able to portray intermediate forms. It is the more remark- able that the male can give a faithful account of the nature of the female ; since, indeed, it must be admitted from the extreme maleness of successful portrayers of women that we cannot dispute the existence of this capacity in the abstract male ; this power of the male over the female is a most remarkable problem, and we shall have to consider it later. For the present we must take it as a fact, and pro- ceed to inquire in what lies the actual psychological difference between male and female.
It has been sought to attribute the fundamental difference of the sexes to the existence of a stronger sexual impulse in man, and to derive everything else from that. Apart from the question as to whether the phrase "sexual instinct" denotes a simple and real thing, it is to be doubted if there is proof of such a difference. It is not more probable than the ancient theories as to the influence of the "unsatistied womb" in the female, or of the " semen retentum " in men, and we have to be on guard against the current tendency to refer nearly everything to sublimated sexual instinct. No sys- tematic theory could be founded on a generalisation so vague. It is most improbable that the greater or lesser strength of the sexual impulse determines other qualities.
O^s a matter of fact, the statements that men have stronger sexual impulses than women, or that women have them stronger than men, are false. The strength of the sexual impulse in a man does not depend upon the proportion of masculinity in his composition, and in the same way the degree of femininity of a woman does not determine her sexual impulse*' These differences in mankind still await classification.
Contrary to the general opinion, there is no difference in the total sexual impulses of the sexes. However, if we examine the matter in respect to the two component forces
? 88 SEX AND CHARACTER
into which Albert Moll analysed the impulse, we shall find that a difference does exist. These forces may be termed the " liberating " and the " uniting " impulses. The first appears in the form of the discomfort caused by the accu- mulation of ripe sexual cells ; the second is the desire of the ripe individual for sexual completion. Both impulses are possessed by the male ; in the female only the latter is present. Theanatomyandthephysiologicalprocessesof the sexes bear out the distinction.
In this connection it may be noted that only the most male youths are addicted to masturbation, and although it is often disputed, I believe that similar vices occur only among the maler of women, and are absent from the female nature.
I must now discuss the "uniting" impulse of women, for that plays the chief, if not the sole part in her sexuality. But it must not be supposed that this is greater in one sex than the other. Any such idea comes from a confusion between the desire for a thing and the stimulus towards the active part in securing what is desired. Throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, the male reproductive cells are the motile, active agents, which move through space to seek out the passive female cells, and this physiological difference is sometimes confused with the actual wish for, or stimulus to,sexualunion. Andtoaddtotheconfusion,ithappens, in the animal kingdom particularly, that the male, in addition to the directly sexual stimulus, has the instinct to pursue and bodily capture the female, whilst the latter has only the passive part to be taken possession of. These differences of habit must not be mistaken for real differences of desire.
It can be shown, moreover, that woman is sexually much more excitable (not more sensitive) physiologically than man.
/The condition of sexual excitement is the supreme moment ofawoman'slife. ; Thewomanisdevotedwhollytosexual matters, that is to say, to the spheres of begetting and of reproduction. Her relations to her husband and children
complete her life, whereas the male is something more than
? MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY 89
sexual. In this respect, rather than in the relative strength of the sexual impulses, there is a real difference between the sexes. y It is important to distinguish between the intensity with which sexual matters are pursued and the proportion of the total activities of life that are devoted to them and to their accessory cares. The greater absorption of the human female by the sphere of sexual activities is the most signifi- cant difference between the sexes.
The female, moreover, is completely occupied and content with sexual matters, whilst the male is interested in much else, in war and sport, in social affairs and feasting, in philo- sophy and science, in business and politics, in religion and art. I do not mean to imply that this difference has always existed, as I do not think that important. As in the case of the Jewish question, it may be said that the Jews have their present character because it has been forced upon them, and that at one time they were different. It is now impossible to prove this, and we may leave it to those who believe in the modification by the environment to accept it. The his- torical evidence is equivocal on the point. In the question of women, we have to take people as they exist to-day. If, however, we happen to come on attributes that could not possibly have been grafted on them from without, we may believethatsuchhavealwaysbeenwiththem. Ofcontem- porary women at least one thing is certain. Apart from an exception to be noted in chap. xii. ,(it is certain that when the female occupies herself with matters outside the
interests of sex, it is for the man that she loves or by whom she wishes to be loved^ She takes no real interest in the things for themselves. It may happen that a real female learnsLatin; ifso,itisforsomesuchpurposeastohelpher son who is at school. Desire for a subject and ability for it, interest in it, and the facility for acquiring it, are usually proportional. Hewhohasslightmuscleshasnodesireto wield an axe ; those without the faculty for mathematics do not desire to study that subject. Talent seems to be rare and feeble in the real female (although possibly it is merely that the dominant sexuality prevents its development), with
the result that woman has no power of forming the com- binations which, although they do not actually make the individuality, certainly shape it.
Corresponding to true women, there are extremely female men who are to be found always in the apartments of the women, and who are interested in nothing but love and sexualmatters. Suchmen,however,arenottheDonJuans.
(The female principle is, then, nothing more than sexuality the male principle is sexual and something more. ') This difference is notable in the different way in which men and women enter the period of puberty. In the case of the male the onset of puberty is a crisis; he feels that something new and strange has come into his being, that something has been added to his powers and feelmgs independently of hiswill. Thephysiologicalstimulustosexualactivityappears to come from outside his being, to be independent of his will, and many men remember the disturbing event throughout their after lives. The woman, on the other hand, not only is not disturbed by the onset of puberty, but feels that her importance has been increased by it. The male, as a youth, hasnolongingfortheonsetofsexualmaturity thefemale,
;
from the time when she is still quite a young girl, looks forward to that time as one from which everything is to be expected. Man's arrival at maturity is frequently accom- panied by feelings of repulsion and disgust ; the young female watches the development of her body at the approach of puberty with excitement and impatient delight. It seems as if the onset of puberty were a side path in the normal development of man, whereas in the case of woman it is the directconclusion. Therearefewboysapproachingpuberty to whom the idea that they would marry (in the general sense, not a particular girl) would not appear ridiculous, whilst the smallest girl is almost invariably excited and interested in the question of her future marriage.
For such reasons a woman assigns positive value only to her period of maturity in her own case and in that of other women ; in childhood, as in old age, she has no real relation to the world. \The thought of her childhood is for her, later on,
;
? 90
SEX AND CHARACTER
? MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY 91
only the remembrance of her stupidity ; she faces the /approachofoldagewithdislikeandabhorrence^ Theonly real memories of her childhood are connected with sex, and these fade away in the intensely greater significance of her maturity. The passage of a woman from virginity is the great dividing point of her life, whilst the corresponding event in the case of a male has very little relation to the
course of his life. /
Woman is only sexual, man is partly sexual, and this
difference reveals itself in various ways. The parts of the male body by stimulation of which sexuality is excited are limited in area, and are strongly localised, whilst in the case of the woman, they are diffused over her whole body, so that stimulation may take place almost from any part. When in the second chapter of Part I. , I explained that sexuality is distributed over the whole body in both sexes, I did not mean that, therefore, the sense organs, through which the definite impulses are stimulated, were equally distributed. There are, certainly, areas of greater excitability, even in the case of the woman, but there is not, as in the man, a sharp division between the sexual areas and the body generally.
'The morphological isolation of the sexual area from the rest of the body in the case of man, may be taken as sym- bolical of the relation of sex to his whole nature. / Just as there is a contrast between the sexual and the sexless parts of a man's body, so there is a time-change in his sexuality.
&he female is always sexual, the male is sexual only inter- mittently. The sexual instinct is always active in woman (as to the apparent exceptions to this sexuality of women, I shall have to speak later on), whilst in man it is at rest from time to time. And thus it happens that the sexual impulse of the male is eruptive in character and so appears stronger. The real difference between the sexes is that in the male the desire is periodical, in the female continuous/
This exclusive and persisting sexuality of the female has important physical and psychical consequences. As the sexuality of the male is an adjunct to his life, it is possible for him to keep it in the physiological background, and out
? SEX AND CHARACTER
of his consciousness. And so a man can lay aside his sexuality and not have to reckon with it. A woman has not her sexuality limited to periods of time, nor to localised organs. (And so it happens that a man can know about his sexuality, whilst a woman is unconscious of it and can in all good faith deny it, because she is nothing but sexuality, because she is sexuality itself. )
vjt is impossible for women, because they are only sexual to recognise their sexuality, because recognition of anything requires duality. With man it is not only that he is not merely sexual, but anatomically and physiologically he can " detach " himself from it. That is why he has the power to enter into whatever sexual relations he desires ; if he likes he can limit or increase such relations ; he can refuse orassenttothem. HecanplaythepartofaDonJuanor a monk. He can assume which he will. To put it bluntly, man possesses sexual organs ; her sexual organs possess woman. /
We i^ay, therefore, deduce from the previous arguments that man has the power of consciousness of his sexuality and so can act against it, whilst the woman appears to be without this power. This implies, moreover, that there is greater differentiation in man, as in him the sexual and the unsexual parts of his nature are sharply separated. The possibility or impossibility of being aware of a particular definite object is, however, hardly a part of the customary meaning of the word consciousness, which is generally used as implying that if a being is conscious he can be conscious ofanyobject. Thisbringsmetoconsiderthenatureof the female consciousness, and I must take a long detour to consider it.
92
? CHAPTER III
MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS
Before proceeding to consider the main difference between the psychical hfe of the sexes, so far as the latter takes subjective and objective things as its contents, a few psy- chological soundings must be taken, and conceptions formulated. As the views and principles of prevailing systems of psychology have been formed without con- sideration of the subject of this book, it is not surprising that they contain little that I am able to use. (At present there is no psychology but many psychologists^ and it would really be a matter of caprice on my part to choose any particular school and attempt to apply its principles to my subject. I shall rather try to lay down a few useful
principles on my own account.
The endeavours to reach a comprehensive and unifying
conception of the whole psychical process by referring it to a single principle have been particularly evident in the relations between perceptions and sensations suggested by different psychologists. Herbart, for instance, derived the sensations from elementary ideas, whilst Horwicz supposed them to come from perceptions. Most modern psychologists have insisted that such monistic attempts must be fruitless. None the less there was some truth in the view.
/To discover this truth, however, it is necessary to make a distinction that has been overlooked by modern workers. We must distinguish between the perceiving of a percep- tion, feeling of a sensation, thinking a thought from the later repetitions of the process in which recognition plays a
? SEX AND CHARACTER
94
part. In many cases this distinction is of fundamental importance.
Every simple, clear, plastic perception and every distinct idea, before it could be put into words, passes through a stage (which may indeed be very short) of indistinctness. So also in the case of association ; for a longer or shorter time before the elements about to be grouped have actually come together, there is a sort of vague, generalised expecta- tionorpresentimentofassociation^ Leibnitz,inparticular, has worked at kindred processes, and I believe them to underlie the attempts of Herbart and Horwicz.
The common acceptance of pleasure and pain as the fundamental sensations, even with Wundt's addition of the sensations of tension and relaxation, of rest and stimulation, makes the division of psychical phenomena into sensations and perceptions too narrow for due treatment of the vague preliminary stages to which I have referred. I shall go back therefore to the widest classification of psychical phenomena that I know of, that of Avenarius into " elements " and "characters. " Theword"character"inthisconnection, of course, has nothing to do with the subject of charac- terology.
Avenarius added to the difficulty of applying his theories by his use of a practically new terminology (which is cer- tainly most striking and indispensable for some of the new viewsheexpounded). Butwhatstandsmostinthewayof accepting some of his conclusions is his desire to derive his psychology from the physiology of the brain, a physiology which he evolved himself out of his inner consciousness with only a slight general acquaintance with actual biological facts. The psychological, or second part of his " Critique of Pure Experience," was really the source from which he derived the first or physiological part, with the result that the latter appears to its readers as an account of some dis- covery in Atlantis. Because of these difficulties I shall give here a short account of the system of Avenarius, as I find it useful for my thesis.
An " Element " in the sense of Avenarius represents what
? MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS
95
thV usual psychology terms a perception^ or the content of a perception, what Schopenhauer called a presentation, what in England is called an " impression " or " idea," the " thing," " fact," or "object" of ordinary language; and the word is used independently of the presence or absence of a special sense-organ stimulation--a most important and novel addition. In the sense of Avenarius, and for our purpose, it is a matter of indifference to the terminology how far what is called " analysis " takes place, the whole tree may be taken as the " element," or each single leaf, or each hair, or (where most people would stop), the colours, sizes, weights, temperatures, resistances, and so forth. Still, the analysis may go yet further, and the colour of the leaf may be taken as merely the resultant of its quality, intensity, luminosity,andsoforth,thesebeingtheelements. Orwe may go still further and take modern ultimate conceptions reaching units incapable of sub-division.
In the sense of Avenarius, then, elements are such ideas as "green," "blue," "cold," "warm," "soft," "hard," "sweet," "bitter," and their "character" is the particular kind of quality with which they appear, not merely their pleasantness or unpleasantness, but also such modes of presentation as "surprising," "expected," "novel," "in- different," "recognised," "known," "actual," "doubtful," categories which Avenarius first recognised as being psycho- logical. For instance, what I guess, believe, or know is an " element " ; the fact that I guess it, not believe it or know it, is the " character " in which it presents itself psycho- logically (not logically).
Now there is a stage in mental activity in which this sub-division of psychical phenomena cannot be made, which is too early for it. All " elements " at their first appearance are merged with the floating background, the whole being vaguely tinged by " character. " To follow my meaning, think of what takes place, when for the first time at a distance one sees something in the landscape, such as a shrub or a heap of wood, at the moment when one does not yet know what " it " is.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
96
At this moment " element " and " character " are abso-
lutely indistinguishable (they are always inseparable as Petzoldt ingeniously pointed out), so improving the original statement of Avenarius.
InadensecrowdI perceive,forinstance,afacewhich
attracts me across the swaying mass by its expression. I
have no idea what the face is like, and should be quite
unable to describe it or give an idea of it ; but it has
appealed to me in the most disturbing manner, and I find
myself asking with keen curiosity, " Where have 1 seen that
" face before ?
(^ man may see the head of a woman for a moment, and this may make a very strong impression on him, and yet he may be unable to say exactly what he has seen, or, for instance, be able to remember the colour of her hair. The retina must be exposed to the object sufficiently long, if only a fraction of a second, for a photographic impression to be made. \
If one looks at any object from a considerable distance
one has at first only the vaguest impression of its outlines ;
and as one comes nearer and sees the details more clearly, lively sensations, at first lost in the general mass, are received. Think, for instance, of the first general impres- sion of, say, the sphenoid bone disarticulated from a skull, or of many pictures seen a little too closely or a little too far away. I myself have a remembrance of having had strong impressions from sonatas of Beethoven before I knewanythingofthemusicalnotes. AvenariusandPetz- oldt have overlooked the fact that the coming into con- sciousness of the elements is accompanied by a kind of
secretion of characterisation.
Some of the simple experiments of physiological psy-
chology illustrate the point to which I have been referring. If one stays in a dark room until the eye has adapted itself to the absence of light, and then for a second subjects oneself to a ray of coloured light, a sensation of illumina- tion will be received, although it is impossible to recognise the quality of the illumination ; something has been
? MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS
97
perceived, but what the something is cannot be apprehended unless the stimulation lasts a definite time. .
yn the same way every scientific discovery, every tech- nical invention, every artistic creation passes through a preliminaryphaseofindistinctness. Theprocessissimilar to the series of impressions that would be got as a statue wasgraduallyunwrappedfromaseriesofswathings. The same kind of sequence occurs, although, perhaps, in a very brief space of time, when one is trying to recall a piece of music. Every thought is preceded by a kind of half- thought, a condition in which vague geometrical figures, shifting masks, a swaying and indistinct background hover in the mind. The beginning and the end of the whole process, which I may term " clarification," are what take place when a short-sighted person proceeds to look through properly adapted lenses^
Just as this process occurs in the life of the individual (and he, indeed, may die long before it is complete), so it occurs in history. \Definite scientific conceptions are pre- ceded by anticipations. The process of clarification is spread over many generations. There were ancient and modern vague anticipations of the theory of Darwin and Lamarck, anticipations which we are now apt to overvalue. Mayer and Helmholz had their predecessors, and Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps two of the most many-sided intellects known to us, anticipated in a vague way many of theconclusionsofmodernscience. Thewholehistoryof thought is a continuous " clarification," a more and more accuratedescriptionorrealisationofdetails. Theenormous number of stages between light and darkness, the minute gradations of detail that follow each other in the develop- mentofthoughtcanberealisedbestif onefollowshistori- cally some complicated modern piece of knowledge, such as, for instance, the theory of elliptical functions^
The process of clarification may be reversed, and the act of forgetting is such a reversal. This may take a consider- able time, and is usually noticed only by accident at some pointorotherofitscourse. Theprocessissimilartothe
G
? SEX AND CHARACTER
gradual obliteration of well-made roads, for the maintenance of which no provision has been made. The faint anticipa- tions of a thought are very like the faint recollections of it, and the latter gradually become blurred as in the case of a neglected road over the boundaries of which animals stray, slowly obliterating it. In this connection a practical rule for memorising, discovered and applied by a friend of mine, is interesting. It generally happens that if one wants to learn, say, a piece of music, or a section from the history of philosophy, one has to go over parts of it again and again. The problem was, how long should the intervals be between these successive attempts to commit to memory ? The answer was that they should not be so long as to make it possible to take a fresh interest in the subject again, to be interested and curious about it. If the interval has produced that state of mind, then the process of clarification must begin fromthebeginningagain. Theratherpopularphysiological theory of Sigismund Exner as to the formation of "paths" in the nervous system may perhaps be taken as a physical parallel of the process of clarification. According to the theory, the ne'-ves, or rather the fibrils, make paths easy for the stimulations to travel along, if these stimulations last sufficiently long or are repeated sufficiently often. So also inthecaseofforgetting; whathappensisthatthesepaths or processes of the nerve-cells atrophy from disuse. Ave- narius would have explained the above processes by his theory of the articulation of the fibres of the brain, but his physical doctrine was rather too crude and too simple for applicationtopsycho-physics. Nonethelesshisconception of articulation or jointing is both convenient and appropriate in its application to the process of clarification, and I shall employ it in that connection.
The process of clarification must be traced thoroughly in order to realise its importance, but for the moment, it is important to consider only the initial stage. The distinction of Avenarius between " element " and " character," which later on will become evident in a process of clarification, is not applicable to the very earliest moments of the process.
98
? MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS
99 It is necessary to coin a name for those minds to which the duahty of element and character becomes appreciable at no stage of the process. I propose for psychical data at this earliest stage of their existence the word Henid (from the
Greek h, because in them it is impossible to distinguish perception and sensation as two analytically separable factors, and because, therefore, there is no trace of duality in them).
Naturally the "henid" is an abstract conception and may notoccurintheabsoluteform. Howoftenpsychicaldata in human beings actually stand at this absolute extreme of undifferentiation is uncertain and unimportant ; but the theory does not need to concern itself with the possibility of such an extreme. A common example from what has happened to all of us may serve to illustrate what a henid is. I may have a definite wish to say something particular, and then something distracts me, and the '* it " I wanted to
sayorthmkhasgone. Lateron,bysomeprocessofasso- ciation, the " it " IS quite suddenly reproduced, and I know at once that it was what was on my tongue, but, so to speak, in a more perfect stage of development.
I fear lest some one may expect me to describe exactly whatI meanby"henid. " Thewishcancomeonlyfroma misconception. The very idea of a henid forbids its de- scription ; it is merely a something. Later on identification will come with the complete articulation of the contents of the henid ; but the henid is not the whole of this detailed content, but is distinguished from it by a lower grade of consciousness, by an absence of, so to speak, relief, by a blending of the die and the impression, by the absence of a central point in the field of vision.
And so one cannot describe particular henids ; one can only be conscious of their existence.
None the less henids are things as vital as elements and characters. Each henid is an individual and can be dis- tinguished from other henids. Later on I shall show that probably the mental data of early childhood (certainly of the first fourteen months) are all henids, although perhaps not in the absolute sense. Throughout childhood these
? 100 SEX AND CHARACTER
data do not reach far from the henid stage ; in adults there is always a certain process of development going on. Probably the perceptions of some plants and animals are henids. \[n the case of mankind the development from the henid to the completely differentiated perception and idea is always possible, although such an ideal condition may seldom be attained) ^Whilst expression in words is im- possible in the case of the absolute henid, as words imply articulated thoughts, there are also in the highest stages of the intellect possible to man some things still unclarified and, therefore, unspeakable^
The theory of henids will help in the old quarrel between the spheres of perception and sensation, and will replace by a developmental conception the ideas of element and charater which Avenarius and Petzoldt deduced from the process of clarification. It is only when the elements become distinct that they can be distinguished from the characters. Man is disposed to humours and sentimentali- ties only so long as the contours of his ideas are vague
;
when he sees things in the light instead of the dark his process of thinking will become different.
Now what is the relation between the investigation I have been making and the psychology of the sexes ? What is the distinction between the male and the female (and to reach this has been the object of my digression) in the process of clarification ?
Here is my answer :
The male has the same psychical data as the female, but in a more articulated form ; where she thinks more or less in henids, he thinks in more or less clear and detailed pre- sentations in which the elements are distinct from the tones of feeling, s^ith the woman, thinking and feeling are identical, formantheyareinopposition. Thewomanhasmanyof her mental experiences as henids, whilst in man these have passed through a process of clarification. Woman is senti- mental, and knows emotion but not mental excitement^
The greater articulation of the mental data in man is reflected in the more marked character of his body and
? MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS loi
face, as compared with the roundness and vagueness of the woman. In the same connection it is to be remembered that, notwithstanding the popular behef, the senses of the male are much more acute than those of the woman. The only exception is the sense of touch, an exception of great interest to which I shall refer later. It has been established, moreover, that the sensibility to pain is much more acute in man, and we have now learned to distinguish between that and the tactile sensations.
A weaker sensibility is likely to retard the passage of mental data through the process of clarification, although we cannot quite take it for granted that it must be so.
Perhaps a more trustworthy proof of the less degree of articulation in the mental data of the woman may be drawn from consideration of the greater decision in the judgments madebymen,althoughindeedit maybethecasethatthis distinction rests on a deeper basis. It is certainly the case that whilst we are still near the henid stage we know much more certainly what a thing is not than what it is. What Mach has called instinctive experience depends on henids. While we are near the henid stage we think round about a subject, correct ourselves at each new attempt, and say that that was not yet the right word. Naturally that condition impliesuncertaintyandindecisioninjudgment. Judgment comes towards the end of the process of clarification ; the act of judgment is in itself a departure from the henid stage.
/The most decisive proof for the correctness of the view that attributes henids to woman and differentiated thoughts to man, and that sees in this a fundamental sexual distinction, lies in the fact that wherever a new judgment is to be made, (not merely something already settled to be put into pro- verbial form) it is always the case that the female expects from man the clarification of her data, the interpretation of her henids. It is almost a tertiary sexual character of the male, and certainly it acts on the female as such, that she expects from him the interpretation and illumination of her thoughts. Itisfromthisreasonthatsomanygirlssaythat they could only marry, or, at least, only love a man who was
? I02 SEX AND CHARACTER
cleverer than themselves ; that they would be repelled by a man who said that all they thought was right, and did not knowbetterthantheydid. Inshort,thewomanmakesita criterion of manliness that the man should be superior to herself mentally, that she should be influenced and domi- nated by the man ; and this in itself is enough to ridicule all ideas of sexual equalityX
SThe male lives consciously, the female lives unconsciously. This is certainly the necessary conclusion for the extreme cases. The woman receives her consciousness from the man ; the function to bring into consciousness what was outside it is a sexual function of the typical man with regard to the typical woman, and is a necessary part of his ideal completeness^
And now we are brought up against the problem of talent ; the whole modern woman question appears to be resolving itself into a dispute as to whether men or women are more highly gifted. As the question is generally pro- pounded there is no attempt to distinguish between the puretypesofsex; theconclusionswithregardtothesethat I have been able to set forth have an important bearing on the answer to the question.
? CHAPTER IV
TALENT AND GENIUS
There has been so much written about the nature of genius that, to avoid misunderstanding, it will be better to make a few general remarks before going into the subject.
And the first thing to do is to settle the question of talent. Genius and talent are nearly always connected in the popular idea, as if the first were a higher, or the highest, gradeofthelatter,andasif amanofveryhighandvaried talents might be a sort of intermediate between the two. This view is entirely erroneous. Even if there were different degrees or grades of genius, they would have absolutely nothing to do with so-called " talent. " A talent, for instance the mathematical talent, may be possessed by some one in a very high degree from birth ; and he will be able to master the most difficult problems of that science with ease ; but for this he will require no genius, which is the same as originality, individuality, and a condition of general productiveness.
On the other hand, there are men of great genius who have shown no special talent in any marked degree ; for instance, men like Novalis or Jean Paul. Genius is dis- tinctly not the superlative of talent ; there is a world-wide difference between the two ; they are of absolutely unlike nature ; they can neither be measured by one another or compared to each other.
vfalent is hereditary ; it may be the common possession
of a whole family {e. g. , the Bach family) genius is not ;
transmitted ; it is never diffused, but is strictly individual/ Many ill-balanced people, and in particular women,
? 104 SEX AND CHARACTER
regard genius and talent as identical. Women, indeed, have not the faculty of appreciating genius, although this is not the common view. Any extravagance that distin- guishes a man from other men appeals equally to their sexual ambition ; they confuse the dramatist with the actor, and make no distinction between the virtuoso and the artist. For them the talented man is the man of genius, and Nietzscheisthetypeofwhattheyconsidergenius. What has been called the French type of thought, which so strongly appeals to them, has nothing to do with the highest possibilities of the mind. {Great men take them- selves and the world too seriously to become what is called merely intellectual. Men who are merely intellectual are insincere ; they are people who have never really been deeply engrossed by things and who do not feel an over- poweringdesireforproduction. Allthattheycareaboutis that their work should glitter and sparkle like a well-cut stone, not that it should illuminate anything. They are more occupied with what will be said of what they think than by the thoughts themselvesN There are men who are
willing to marry a woman they do not care about merely because she is admired by other men. Such a relation exists between many men and their thoughts. I cannot help thinking of one particular living author, a blaring,' outrageous person, who fancies that he is roaring when he is only snarling. Unfortunately, Nietzsche (however superior he is to the man I have in mind) seems to have devoted himself chiefly to what he thought would shock the public. He is at his best when he is most unmindful of effect. His was the vanity of the mirror, saying to what it reflects, " See how faithfully I show you your image. "
In youth when a man is not yet certain of himself he may try to secure his own position by jostling others. ^Great men, hcwevef, ;ire painfully ni^j'-^'T-si'/c only from f^xes^^y. ) They are not like a girl who is most pleased about a new dress because she knows that it will annoy her frier^ds.
Genius ! genius ! how much mental disturbance and dis- comfort, hatred and envy, jealousy and pettiness, has it not
\
{
? TALENT AND GENIUS
aroused in the majority of men, and how much counterfeit and tinsel has the desire for it not occasioned ?
I turn gladly from the imitations of genius to the thing itself and its true embodiment. But where can I begin ? All the qualities that go to make genius are in so intimate connection that to begin with any one of them seems to lead to premature conclusions.
All discussions on the nature of genius are either biologi- cal-clinical, and serve only to show the absurd presumption of present knowledge of this kind in its hope to solve a problem so difficult ; or they descend from the heights of a metaphysical system for the sole purpose of including genius in their purview. If the road that I am about to take does not lead to every goal at once, it is only because that is the nature of roads.
Consider how much deeper a great poet can reach into the nature of man than an average person. Think of the extraordinary number of characters depicted by Shakespeare or Euripides, or the marvellous assortment of human beings that fill the pages of Zola. After the Penthesilea, Heinrich von Kleist created Ka? tchen von Heilbronn, and Michael Angelo embodied from his imagination the Delphic Sibyls and the Leda. CThere have been few men so little devoted to art as Kant and Schelling, and yet these have written most profoundly and truly about ity In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him ; in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself. One must be like the mind one tries to grasp. It takes a
thief to know a thief, and only an innocent man can under- standanotherinnocentman. Theposeuronlyunderstands other poseurs, and sees nothing but pose in the actions of others ; whilst the simple-minded fails to understand the most flagrant pose. ^To understand a man is really to be that man)
It would seem to follow that a man can best understand himself--aconclusionplainlyabsurd. Noonecanunder-
105
? io6 SEX AND CHARACTER
stand himself, for to do that he would have to get outside himself ; the subject of the knowing and willing activity would have to become its own object. To grasp the universe it would be necessary to get a standpoint outside the universe, and the possibility of such a standpoint is incompatible with the idea of a universe. He who could understandhimselfcouldunderstandtheworld. I donot make the statement merely as an explanation : it contains an important truth, to the significance of which I shall recur. For the present I am content to assert that no one can understand his deepest, most intimate nature. This happens in actual practice ; when one wishes to understand in a general way, it is always from other persons, never from oneself, that one gets one's materials. The other person chosen must be similar in some respect, however different as a whole ; and, making use of this similarity, he canrecognise,represent,comprehend. Sofarasoneunder- stands a man, one is that man.
^he man of genius takes his place in the above argument as he who understands incomparably more other beings than the average man. Goethe is said to have said of him- self that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself, and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully. The genius, therefore, is a more complicated, more richly endowed, more varied man ; and a man is the closer to being a genius the more men Jie has in hi'^ personalitv, and the more really and strongly he has these others within himy
If comprehension of those about him only flickers in him like a poor candle, then he is unable, like the great poet, to kindle a mighty flame in his heroes, to give distinction and character to his creations. The ideal of an artistic genius is to live in all men, to lose himself in all men, to reveal himself in multitudes ; and so also the aim of the philosopher is to discover all others in himself, to fuse them into a unit which is his own unit.
This protean character of genius is no more simultaneous than the bi-sexuality of which I have spoken. Even the
? TALENT AND GENIUS 107
greatest genius cannot understand the nature of all men at the same time, on one and the same day. The compre- hensive and manifold rudiments which a man possesses in his mind can develop only slowly and by degrees with the gradual unfolding of his whole life. It appears almost as if therewereadefiniteperiodicityinhisdevelopment. These periods, v^'hen they recur, however, are not exactly alike they are not mere repetitions, but are intensifications of their predecessors, on a higher plane. No two moments in the life of an individual are exactly alike ; there is between the later and the earlier periods only the similarity of the higher and lower parts of a spiral ascent. Thus it has frequently happened that famous men have con- ceived a piece of work in their early youth, laid it aside during manhood, and resumed and completed it in old age. Periods exist in every man, but in different degrees and with varying "amplitude. " Just as the genius is the man who contains in himself the greatest number of others in the most active way, so the amplitude of a man's periods will be the greater the wider his mental relations may be.
Qllustrious men have often been told, by their teachers, in their youth " that they were always in one extreme or another. " As if they could be anything else ! These transitions in the case of unusual men often assume the character of a crisis. Goethe once spoke of the " recurrence of puberty" in an artist. The idea is obviously to be associated with the matter under discussion/^
It results from their periodicity that, in men of genius, sterile years precede productive years, these again to be followed by sterility, the barren periods being marked by psychological self-depreciation, by the feeling that they are less than other men ; times in which the remembrance of the creative periods is a torment, and when they envy those who go about undisturbed by such penalties. Just as his moments of ecstasy are more poignant, so are the periods of depression of a man of genius more intense than thoseofothermen. Everygreatmanhassuchperiods,of longer or shorter duration, times in which he loses self-
;
? io8 SEX AND CHARACTER
confidence, in which he thinks of suicide ; times in which, indeed, he may be sowing the seeds of a future harvest, but which are devoid of the stimulus to production ; times which call forth the blind criticisms " How such a genius is degenerating! " "How he has played himself out! " " How he repeats himself ! " and so forth.
It is just the same with other characteristics of the man of genius. Not only the material, but also the spirit, of his work is subject to periodic change. At one time he is in- clined to a philosophical and scientific view ; at another time the artistic influence is strongest ; at one time his intervals are altogether in the direction of history and the growth of civilisation ; later on it is " nature " (compare Nietzsche's "Studies in Infinity" with his "Zarathustra ")
;
at another time he is a mystic, at yet another simplicity itself ! (Bjo? rnson and Maurice Maeterlinck are good modern examples. ) In fact, the " amplitude " of the periods of famous men is so great, the different revelations of their nature so various, so many different individuals appear in them, that the periodicity of their mental life may be taken almost as diagnostic. I must make a remark sufiiciently obvious from all this, as to the existence of almost incredibly great changes in the personal appearance of men of genius from time to time. Comparison of the portraits at different times of Goethe, Beethoven, Kant, or Schopenhauer are enough to establish this. The number of different aspects that the face of a man has assumed may be taken almost as
a physiognomical measure of his talent. *
People with an unchanging expression are low in the
intellectual scale. Physiognomists, therefore, must not be surprised that men of genius, in whose faces a new side of their minds is continually being revealed, are difficult to classify, and that their individualities leave little permanent mark on their features.
* I cannot help using the word " talent " from time to time, when I really mean genius ; but I wish it to be remembered that I am convinced of the existence of a fundamental distinction between " talent," or " giftedness," and " genius. "
? TALENT AND GENIUS
It is possible that my introductory description of genius will be repudiated indignantly, because it would imply that a Shakespeare has the vulgarity of his Falstaff, the rascality of his lago, the boorishness of his Caliban, and because it identifies great men with all the low and contemptible thingsthattheyhavedescribed. Asamatteroffact,men of genius do conform to my description, and as their biographies show, are liable to the strangest passions and the most repulsive instincts. And yet the objection is invalid, as the fuller exposition of the thesis will reveal. Only the most superficial survey of the argument could support it, whilst the exactly opposite conclusion is a much more likely inference. Zola, who has so faithfully de- scribed the impulse to commit murder, did not himself
commit a murder, because there were so many other characters in him. The actual murderer is in the grasp of his own disposition : the author describing the murder is swayed by a whole kingdom of impulses. Zola would know the desire for murder much better than the actual murderer would know it, he would recognise it in himself, if it really came to the surface in him, and he would be prepared for it. In such ways the criminal instincts in great men are intellectualised and turned to artistic purposes as in the case of Zola, or to philosophic purposes as with
Kant, but not to actual crime.
The presence of a multitude of possibilities in great men
has important consequences connected with the theory of henids that I elaborated in the last chapter. A man under- stands what he already has within himself much more quickly than what is foreign to him (were it otherwise there would be no intercourse possible : as it is we do not realise how often we fail to understand one another). To the genius, who understands so much more than the average man, much more will be apparent.
The schemer will readily recognise his fellow ; an im- passioned player easily reads the same power in another person ; whilst those with no special powers will observe nothing. Art discerns itself best, as Wagner said. In the
109
;
? no SEX AND CHARACTER
case of complex personalities the matter stands thus : one of these can understand other men better than they can understand themselves, because within himself he has nol only the character he is grasping, but also its opposite. Duality is necessary for observation and comprehension ;/ii we-inquire from psychology what is the most necessary condition for becoming conscious of a thing, for grasping it, we shall find the answer in " contrast. " If everything were a uniform grey we should have />^c )de^ of colour absolute unison of sound would soon j^ /Ue^p in all mankind ; duality, the power which can differentiate, is the originofthealertconsciousness. Thusithappensthatno one can understand himself were he to think of nothing else all his life, but he can understand another to whom he is partly alike, and from whom he is also partly quite different. Such a distribution of qualities is the condition most favourable for understanding. In short, to under- stand a man means to have equal parts of himself and of his opposite in one.
^hat things must be present in pairs of contrasts if we are to be conscious of one member of the pair is shown by thefactsofcolour-vision. Colour-blindnessalwaysextends tothecomplementarycolours. Thosewhoareredblind are also green blind ; those who are blind to blue have no consciousness of yellow. This law holds good for all mentalphenomena; itisafundamentalconditionofcon- sciousness. Themosthigh-spiritedpeopleunderstandand experience depression much more than those who are of level disposition. Any one with so keen a sense of delicacy and subtilty as Shakespeare must also be capable of ex- treme grossness^
The more types and their contrasts a man unites in his own mind the less will escape him, since observation follows comprehension, and the more he will see and understand what other men feel, think, and wish. There has never beenageniuswhowasnotagreatdiscernerofmen. The great man sees through the simpler man often at a glance, and would be able to characterise him completely.
? TALENT AND GENIUS iii
Most men have this, that, or the other faculty or sense disproportionatelydeveloped. Onemanknowsallthebirds and tells their different voices most accurately. Another has a love for plants and is devoted to botany from his
One man pores lovingly into the many layered rocks of the earth, and has only the vaguest appreciation of
to aaiother the attraction of cold, star-sown space is supreme. One man is repelled by the mountains and seeks the restless sea ; another, like Nietzsche, gets no help from the tossing waters and hungers for the peace of the hills. Every man, however simple he may be, has some side of nature with which he is in special sympathy and for which his faculties are specially alert. And so the ideal genius, who has all men within him, has also all their preferences and all their dislikes. There is in him not only the universality of men, but of all nature. He is the man to whom all things tell their secrets, to whom most happens, and whom least escapes. He understands most things, and those most deeply, because he has the greatest number of thingstocontrastandcomparethemwith. Thegeniusis he who is conscious of most, and of that most acutely. And so without doubt his sensations must be most acute ; but this must not be understood as implying, say, in the artist
the keenest power of vision, in the composer the most acute hearing ; the measure of genius is not to be taken from the acuteness of the sense organ but from that of the perceiving brain.
The consciousness of the genius is, then, the furthest removed from the henid stage. It has the greatest, most limpid clearness and distinctness. In this way genius declares itself to be a kind of higher masculinity, and thus the female cannot be possessed of genius. The conclusion of this chapter and the last is simply that the life of the male is a more highly conscious life than that of the female, and genius is identical with the highest and widest con- sciousness. This extremely comprehensive consciousness of the highest types of mankind is due to the enormous
childhood.
the skies ;
number of contrasting elements in their natures.
;
? 112 SEX AND CHARACTER
Universalityisthedistinguishingmarkofgenius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathe- matics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. Thegeniusisamanwhoknowseverythingwith- out having learned it.
It stands to reason that this infinite knowledge does not include theories and systems which have b^pn formulated by science from facts, neither the history of the Spanish war of succession nor experiments in dia-magnetism.
The artist does not acquire his knowledge of the colours reflected on water by cloudy or sunny skies, by a course of optics, any more than it requires a deep study of character- ologytojudgeothermen. Butthemoregiftedamanis, the more he has studied on his own account, and the more subjects he has made his own.
The theory of special genius, according to which for instance, it is supposed that a musical " genius " should be a fool at other subjects, confuses genius with talent. A musician, if truly great, is just as well able to be universal in his knowledge as a philosopher or a poet. Such an one was Beethoven. On the other hand, a musician may be as limited in the sphere of his activity as any average man of science. Such an one was Johann Strauss, who, in spite of his beautiful melodies, cannot be regarded as a genius if only because of the absence of construc- tive faculty in him. To come back to the main point there are many kinds of talent, but only one kind of genius, and that is able to choose any kind of talent and master it. There is something in genius common to all those who
possess it ; however much difference there may seem to be between the great philosopher, painter, musician, poet, or religiousteacher. Theparticulartalentthroughthemedium of which the spirit of a man develops is of less importance than has generally been thought. The limits of the different arts can easily be passed, and much besides native inborngiftshavetobetakenintoaccount. Thehistoryof one art should be studied along with the history of other arts, and in that way many obscure events might be ex-
? genius.
TALENT AND GENIUS
113
plained. It is outside my present purpose, however, to go into the question of what determines a genius to become, say^ a mystic, or, say, a great delineator.
From genius itself, the common quality of all the different manifestations of genius, woman is debarred. I will discuss later as to whether such things are possible as pure scientific or technical genius as well as artistic and philosophical
There is good reason for a greater exactness in the useoftheword. Butthatmaycome,andhoweverclearly we may yet be able to describe it woman will have to be excluded from it. I am glad that the course of my inquiry has been such as to make it impossible for me to be charged with having framed such a definition of genius as necessarily to exclude woman from it.
I may now sura up the conclusions of this chapter. Whilst woman has no consciousness of genius, except as manifested in one particular person, who imposes his personality on her, man has a deep capacity for realising it,
a capacity which Carlyle, in his still little understood book I on " Hero-Worship," has described so fully and perma- nently. In"Hero-Worship,"moreover,theideaisdefinitelyI insisted on that genius is linked with manhood, that it representsanidealmasculinityinthehighestform. Woman has no direct consciousness of it ; she borrows a kind of imperfect consciousness from man. Woman, in short, has ^ an unconscious life, man a conscious life, and the genius
,
the most conscious life.
x/
j
? ^CHAPTER V TALENT AND MEMORY
The following observation bears on my henid theory :
I made a note, half mechanically, of a page in a botanical work from which later on I was going to make an extract. Somethingwasinmymindinhenidform. WhatI thought, how I thought it, what was then knocking at the door of my consciousness, I could not remember a minute afterwards, in spite of the hardest effort. I take this case as a typical
example of the henid.
The more deeply impressed, the more detailed a complex
perception may he the more easily does it reproduce itself. Clearness of the consciousness is the preliminary condition for remembering, and the memory of the mental stimulation is proportional to the intensity of the consciousness. " I shall not forget that " ; " I shall remember that all my life "
;
"Thatwillneverescapemymemoryagain. " Suchphrases men use when things have made a deep impression on them, of moments in which they have gained wisdom or have become richer by an important experience. As the power of being reproduced is directly proportionate to the organisation of a mental impression, it is clear that there can be no recollection of an absolute henid.
As the mental endowment of a man varies with the organisation of his accumulated experiences, the better endowed he is, the more readily will he be able to remember his whole past, everything that he has ever thought or heard, seen or done, perceived or felt, the more completely in fact will he be able to reproduce his whole life. Universal remembrance of all its experiences, therefore, is the surest,
? TALENT AND MEMORY 115
most general, and most easily proved mark of a genius. If a common theory, especially popular with the philosophers of the coffee-house, be true, that productive men (because they are alway scovering new ground) have no memory, it is often because they are productive only from being on new ground.
The great extent and acuteness of the memory of men of genius, which I propose to lay down dogmatically as a necessary inference from my theory, without attempting to proveit further,isnotincompatiblewiththeirrapidlossof the facts impressed on them in school, the tables of Greek verbs, and so forth. Their memory is of what they have experienced, not of what they have learned. Of all that was acquired for examination purposes only so much will be retained as was in harmony with the natural talent of thepupil.