They indulged in
stereotyped
and unrewarding
gaiety.
gaiety.
Weininger - 1946 - Mind and Death of a Genius
The City by
the River
If ever duality existed, it was in the city of Vienna. On the
surface gaiety, in the depths despair. On the surface a strug-
gle for life, in the depths a struggle against death. Before the
glittering background of "wine, women, and song" revelry
for which Vienna was famous, a nagging, ceaseless warfare
for existence went on. Every situation, whether in daily life
or in art, science, or philosophy, came to be a testing of reality.
Such testing was taking place throughout Europe in the late
nineteenth century: in Paris, in London, in Berlin, and, last
but not least, in Vienna.
This dualism showed, too, in the physical aspects of Vienna.
Vienna late in the nineteenth century was a changing city, not
only in its spiritual life, but in its very physical appearance.
Its medieval look was vanishing. The Ringstrasse was modern,
luxurious, and aristocratic. On it stood the opera house in its
French Renaissance elegance, while the new museums and the
other new buildings near by--the Burg theater, the Parlia-
ment buildings, the Rathaus--clustered about on the Rathaus-
park. All were splendid, and in going through the parks, the
Rathauspark, the Heldenplatz, the Volksgarten, the Marie-
Theresien-Platz, one could look about and wonder if Vienna
were not indeed a worthy rival of Paris.
As Paris had the Seine, so Vienna had the Danube. The
city was mostly on the right bank, but only one arm of the
river passed through Vienna. Across the Danube Canal and
between the canal and the mainstream lay the commercial
quarter, inhabited by many Jews. The Danube was one of the
links between Vienna and the surrounding world. The Danube,
blue as at times it might be, gave the city force as well as
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? City by the River 27
beauty. The Viennese loved it. The blue Danube belonged to
Vienna just as much as the buildings rooted in the earth of
the city.
In that city stood the buildings of the University, in pleasant
Renaissance style. The University itself was founded in 1365,
the oldest German foundation. For its scientific standing it
was Vienna's pride.
Not far from the University was the Votivkirche, which was
built in memory of Francis Joseph's escape from an attempted
assassination. This was the church about which Weininger
and a friend were walking on the night when Weininger for
the first time revealed his belief in his double, his inner thoughts
about himself. The Votivkirche thus became symbolically for
Weininger what it earlier had been for Francis Joseph.
The changes in the physical aspects of Vienna were to no
small extent due to the influence and commands of the em-
peror. The Stadtpark was an attractive place with many statues
of those who through their lives had given glory to Vienna. Here
were likenesses of the painter Rudolf von Alt; of Field Marshal
Radetzky, who quelled the Italian revolution in 1848; of Franz
Schubert and Johann Strauss; of Bruckner, the Empress Eliza-
beth, and Haydn.
And as Vienna changed physically, so also changed the
people. The ironical, frivolous and easygoing old Viennese was
yielding to a new type of man who was interested in politics
as far as that was possible. The different people within the
Austrian empire, Germans, Poles, Magyars, and Czechs, were
antagonistic to each other, fighting for their national rights
and all demanding a part in the government and the right to
vote. The political problem was European in nature, unlike
conditions in the United States. Vienna, like other capitals in
Europe, was a center of population as well as a center of gov-
ernment, though it did not have the marked local independ-
ence enjoyed by some other large cities.
Two factors complicated political conditions in the Austrian
capital. One was the fact that there was no universal right of
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? 28 City by the Rivet
suffrage. The other was the predominance of German in-
fluence.
The electors were divided into three classes: first, those who
paid a municipal tax of at least 200 florins a year; next those
who paid between 30 and 200 florins; and finally those who
paid more than 5 and less than 30 florins. The professional
classes fell into the last group, and thus because they were
unable to pay the high municipal tax, many who supposedly
had some insight into political affairs were eliminated from
the vote. By this system about 70 percent of the adults more
than 25 years of age (which was the voting age) were ex-
cluded from the vote. This meant that out of a population of
about a million and a half there were only about sixty thou-
sand electors. Each class had the right to elect one third of
the members of the council of Vienna. Of the total number
of electors 7^ percent made up the first class, while 24 percent
belonged to the second and 68? percent to the third. Under
these circumstances, the wealthy, conservative, anti-Semitic
groups held power. The result was that the anti-Semites had a
two-thirds majority in the city council about 1895. For some
time the anti-Semitic group had been gaining influence, partly
because of the municipal tax, partly because of the lack of
interest shown by the liberal party in progressive labor legis-
lation. The liberals had made themselves vulnerable to attack
by the extremists among the German population because
they had taken a conciliatory attitude toward the non-German
population of the Austrian empire. Thus, the anti-Semites in
Austria and in Germany were already trying to preserve what
they believed were national feelings and German institutions.
This, however, was only part of their true intention. In
reality, the Germans kept nationalism alive in Austria, prepar-
ing the way for chauvinism and all the thousands of misfor-
tunes which later were to befall Austria. As Nietzsche once
said: "The Germans are responsible for everything that exists
today, the sickliness and stupidity that oppose culture, the
neurosis, called nationalism, from which Europe suffers; they
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? City by the River 29
have robbed Europe itself of its meaning and its intelligence.
They have led it into a blind alley. "
A blind alley. There the Austrians of Vienna had arrived,
with their social and political hardships around 1895.
These hardships were promoted by the economic condi-
tions which prevailed in Vienna. The dreadful economic panic
about 1870 was felt by all classes, but particularly by those who
were most important in the industrial development of Vienna.
It should be kept in mind that a large part of the population
was occupied with the production of artistic fancy goods, such
as jewelry, leather, objets d'art, millinery. This industry was
jeopardized not only by the economic situation in Vienna, but
also by the tremendous competitive industry which was being
developed in Germany. The position of Vienna as a business
center was diminishing. The pressure of competition resulted
in dissatisfaction among the various classes, particularly in
members of the artisan class, who demanded legislation that
would improve their own condition by excluding the Jews
as a commercial group. A hatred was bred that was later to
be epitomized in the life of one chaotic man, Hitler, who be-
cause of his frustrations (developed partially in Vienna) turned
his hostility against Jews, excluding them from mankind.
This antagonism prevailing in Vienna made itself felt
among all sorts of people in all walks of life; it burdened
their discussions about politics, art, culture, and science. It
was reflected also in the various newspapers of Vienna. Among
the dailies was the New Freie Presse (New Free Press), which
was one of the best-edited newspapers on the Continent and,
like the Times of London and the Frankfurter Zeitung, an
authority on world affairs. About 1870 men such as Benedict,
Etienne, and Friedlander, started to bring contributions to the
newspaper, which thereby gained the highly literary tone and
broad views that later distinguished the Neue Freie Presse.
In addition to the large number of weeklies and monthlies
published in Vienna, there were a number of witty and clever
cartoon-papers, such as Kikiriki (Cock-a-doodle-do), Figaro,
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? jo City by the River
the Pikante Blatter (Piquant Journal), and the Humoristische
Blatter (Humorous Journal). And besides these there were
many artistic, technical, and scientific journals, all expressing
more or less their own desires and feelings.
The Viennese stuck to his newspaper, and kept a copy near
him in the shop. Since the greater part of the people did not
live in residential sections but in apartments located over
their shops, they were able to continue in the shop all the
everyday concerns that they could not finish upstairs. Their
homes were in the midst of their business. Here they lived and
created, busy with their own undertakings privately and in-
dividually. It is not surprising that department stores were
unknown in Vienna.
This individuality of the Viennese was also reflected in his
spirit of gaiety. Driving in the Prater in his open carriage, go-
ing to concerts in the Volksgarten, and attending the opera or
the theater, all were done in a matter-of-fact way. Such things
belonged to him, and he took them. It was in this atmosphere
that one might meet the typical Viennese, Johann Strauss, and
it was also in this atmosphere that one could see the old medi-
cal doctors who had had the great luck to study medicine in
Vienna. That was a time when Vienna had great men in the
medical world. There was Hebra, the dermatologist; there was
Theodore Billroth, the surgeon; there was Rokitansky, the
anatomist and pathologist; there was the diagnostician Joseph
Skoda.
In that life one saw the foreign students, Americans not
least among them, grouped around the Viennese doctors. It
was amusing to see how, after listening to the lectures, they
would celebrate with a supper in a little restaurant and then
go to the Wiener-Burger or to the Burg theater to enjoy
themselves, or would gather in the Weinkeller to drink toasts
and sing. After long hours walking about the streets of Vienna
at night and in the early morning, they would go to their at-
tic rooms and fall asleep with a last thought that this was
youth, this was life, this was Vienna.
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? City by the River 31
Yet there was more than the gay and carefree side of Vienna.
There were students of means, but there were also poor stu-
dents who sometimes went hungry and sometimes had no fuel
in their poorly furnished rooms. There were also the middle
and lower classes who found it hard to feed and clothe them-
selves. These contrasted with many others who had all the
privileges and who were more concerned about their clothing
than about their fellow citizens.
To be sure the upper-class Viennese man was urbane. Per-
haps he did not mean to do harm, but, he may have thought,
what was the use of being a hero when days were short and
pleasure their only good? This man with his courteous man-
ners, with his kindness, with his ability to listen to people and
to talk nicely, felt a sting of despair in his heart when he
thought of the days to come.
This was the world of Arthur Schnitzler. His characters
were kind but sophisticated. His was the world of despair and
weariness and an unceasing search for pleasure. Schnitzler him-
self belonged to the bourgeoisie. His father, a professor of
medicine at the University, fostered his son's talents. Schnitzler
was undecided in his youth whether to be a physician, a mu-
sician, or a writer. Finally, after a medical career, he decided
to devote his life to literature. He took a somewhat material-
istic stand about life, in contrast to his contemporary, the poet
Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. While the poet described and inter^
preted the environment, the Wiener Wald, the Stephans-
kirche, the Schonbrunn Palace, and the Burggarten, Schnitzler
interpreted the people themselves. Hoffmannsthal's world was
that of the creations of Vienna, which led him to be infatuated
with the souls of the people, to speak of their mutual destiny,
their past, and their future. He was the creator of beauty,
of spirit, and of form. He therefore spoke in his poetry and
in his dramas about men's dreams and their imaginings, crystal-
lizing them into a kind of symbolism, a symbolism which Rich-
ard Strauss tried to express in the music for the operas on which
he and Hoffmannsthal collaborated, Der Rosenkavalier and
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? 32 City by the River
Elektra. Most interesting were Hoffmannsthal's friendly rela-
tions with Jakob Wassermann, a poor Jewish fellow in con-
trast to the prosperous poet. But the contrasts do not end with
their relative wealth. Wassermann's world was the world of
Dostoyevsky, while Hoffmannsthal, with his eloquent spirit and
womanlike manners, was immersed in the world of French sym-
bolism. Wassermann and his fellow Viennese authors spoke
well, but Hoffmannsthal had such a variety of expression, such
a choice of words, such a charming intuition, that, compared
with his eloquence, the others seemed to stammer.
Hoffmannsthal proclaimed the soul of Vienna, the very same
soul which Schnitzler tried to find in the people. But Schnitzler
was frustrated in his hopes. He felt that people were too hedo-
nistic, too lazy, too rational to strive for things of the spirit.
It was in this search for the soul of Vienna that he created his
heroes, his aristocrats, and the women around them. Such a
hero was the man who could recite, play the piano, be ap-
plauded by his friends, and then think about what to do next
to please the world. This man, a gentleman of taste, played
at making love to a girl in a conquering way, neither promis-
ing marriage nor excluding hope of it. He might break the
heart of the girl, he might ruin her life. In spite of this, he
always felt free to walk to new pastures and start over again.
The world of Schnitzler was therefore a sad world, filled
with people shaken and ruined, not because they were bas-
ically malicious, but because they were too much filled with
themselves. Schnitzler's heroes did not know how to make
sacrifices, how to be useful in the struggle of life, where give-
and-take is the principle. This was not only because such be-
havior was fashionable and smart, but because it was in the
air, it was something which had to be done. No wonder that
this atmosphere gave the people a feeling of despair! This was
not the wine-sweet, nostalgic city; this was the city of weariness
and Weltschmerz.
In this same city with its mood of Weltschmerz, Sigmund
Freud started his work, first as an apprentice in medicine, later
as an investigator into the human mind; the cradle of psycho-
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? City by the River 33
analysis was there. The city, the people, their blasted hopes,
the depressing influence of Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's
philosophy, all gave impetus to a reorientation of thinking in
general and of medical thinking in particular. At a time when
Fechner's, Weber's, and William Wundt's experimental psy-
chology gripped the minds of scholars within the medical and
psychological world, Freud made a complete turn about and
took their eyes from an academic experimental psychology to
the human psyche itself. His was the study of the mind: its
action and reaction, its drives, wishes, and hopes. This was in
strong contrast to the experimental psychologists, who were
interested in investigating common sensations and discover-
ing how an individual responded physiologically to ten or
fifteen drops of caffein, or how he reacted to a galvanic current.
Freud's searching eye without doubt had looked beneath
the surface gaiety of Viennese life and had seen the despair of
men and women searching for happiness; he had seen their
search for satisfaction of their emotional needs. He felt that
they had found nothing. He himself had been bewildered. As
a medical student, he had busied himself with studies in
neuroanatomy and then, dissatisfied with what Vienna had to
offer him in medicine, he had gone to Paris to study under the
great master of contemporary medicine, Charcot. It was in
Paris in the school of Charcot that Freud was inspired to
penetrate into the minds of humans. His earlier interest in
the anatomy of the nervous system was superseded when he
became acquainted with the studies of this French master
concerning the disturbances of hysteria. He learned hypnosis,
and upon his return to Vienna he established himself as a
physician and employed his knowledge of hypnosis as one
means to penetrate into the unconscious mind of the sick
person. His experience with hypnosis and his Studies of Hys-
teria (written with Breuer), which appeared in 1893 and was
the basis for his later viewpoint, prepared the way for a revo-
lutionary new approach to the study and treatment of the
diseased mind.
First, there were the problems of repression, of which he
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? 34 City by the River
had seen all too much in Vienna. His assertion that repression
of the sexual drive is one of the reasons for human unhappi-
ness caused a turmoil, not only in Viennese medical circles, but
also among the intellectuals. Nobody knew then, of course,
that Freud's ideas were later to permeate the whole culture
--philosophy, sociology, and religion. It was he who for the
first time proclaimed that humans largely live in a mental
underworld, where drives, hopes, and wishes move, obscure to
the conscious mind but still in reality the actual forces which
lead men into action.
What was true of Vienna was equally true of the other cities
of the Western world. Men and women everywhere were seek-
ing and searching, but without really knowing the object of
their quest.
They indulged in stereotyped and unrewarding
gaiety. They listened to sweet or noisy music. They talked, and
whether their words were heavy with meaning or mere prattle,
the conversations were futile. All such activities were only more
or less disguised forms of a more or less sublimated sexual drive
--or, at the worst, of sexual repression and distortion. Few men
dared to look beneath the surface, and among those few Freud
was outstanding. He had not only the moral courage to chal-
lenge conventional beliefs but also the intellectual courage to
think realistically and to draw logical conclusions from experi-
ence and empirical science.
, His revelations touched a match to the powder keg of Vien-
nese society. To the existing unrest a new unrest was added.
No wonder anti-Semitic sentiment was increased. Its growing
violence was shown throughout Freud's life.
Let us for a moment look at the Jews in Vienna. Although
the new constitution adopted in 1867 had officially abolished
religious disabilities, the Jew was still persona non grata to
his Viennese fellow citizens. The "Noble Window-Breakers,"
a society of aristocratic anti-Semites who took their name from
the manner in which they expressed their political opinions,
were overlooked by the authorities, and such social antagonism
became an ever-increasing menace to the social security of a
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? City by the River 35
great many people. Of two million people, about two hundred
thousand were Jews, a good many of them being physicians
and lawyers. The anti-Semites claimed that all the intellectual
and theatrical fields were dominated by Jews. However, they
never asked why this was the case; if they had, they would
have found that the upper-class population of Vienna would
have little or nothing to do with artistic or intellectual life.
The original upper middle class, small in numbers, had been
financially destroyed, and their influence was gone. The lower
middle class, with the Jews and the court, gave Vienna its
color.
The keen competition between Jewish and non-Jewish citb
zens, along with other social conflicts, kept unrest and disorder
alive. The church and tradition kept their conventional hold
on the mind of the people. Education was training in obedi-
ence. The duty and the virtue of the child was to sit quietly
on a chair and be silent. All wishes and desires of the child
had to be suppressed. This suppression in reality also dom-
inated the life of the adult. Darwin's biological viewpoint was
rejected: man was not descended from animals; man was
created in the image of God. Drives, emotions, wishes, and
hopes were driven under. The impact of Schopenhauer's phi-
losophy on this society created more pessimism, while Nietz-
sche's influence, bewildering and chaotic, led to more uncer-
tainty than ever.
In view of the strong grip conventional ideas had upon
their minds, one would have thought Europeans by and large
would have been obedient to the existing social order, and yet
this was far from the case. Dating back to the great revolu-
tion of 1848, unrest continually resurged and broke out again
and again in wars between the European countries.
In this society, which was being torn apart by stresses and
strains, only the natural sciences exercised vital force in creat-
ing a new viewpoint. In the wake of the natural sciences fol-
lowed a trend within philosophy, positivism, which came
to the fore mainly because of the enormous advances made by
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? ^6 City by the River
scientific research since the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury. When scientific research expanded human knowledge,
its results made themselves felt at the universities, leading to
more stress on the practical rather than on the theoretical re-
sults of scientific investigation. Purely theoretical knowledge
was not enough. It was thought that if a true concept of the
world was ever to be attained, it could be reached only on the
basis of empiric knowledge.
' In this choir of philosophical voices, one could hear above
all others the loud voice of Nietzsche. This contradictory man,
in his yearning for new ideals, thought he had found the truth
about mankind, a truth brought forth in his own anguish and
terror, in his own despair and hopelessness. Nietzsche set the
philosophical and moral tone of the end of the past century--
a tone colored with Wagner's bombastic romanticism. By
many, as by the Nazis in later days, his philosophy was inter-
preted as permitting brutal force, while in reality he was
speaking of man's inner spiritual striving, the conquest within
by the force of virtue. Nietzsche became defiant of the exist-
ing morality in the same way that Ibsen became a rebel against
society. Both hoped to discover new glory for mankind. Po-? -.
litical revolutions were, according to Ibsen, small things. The
significant thing would be a revolution within the spirit of the
human being.
A new moral evaluation crept through the thought of the
philosophers, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and many others,
who claimed that the action of man should be dependent
upon his whole personality with all its emotional and intel-
lectual content and, therefore, that all ideals, even the sacred
one, would have to be abandoned if the personality were to
survive. This could mean no less than that the act and the ego
would have to be one and that the act and ego would together
win or die.
The whole fight, then, was a fight to save one's own indi-
viduality, one's own personality, one's own existence. It is only
in this light that we can understand many of the prodigies and
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? City by the River 37
philosophers who flourished in the last decades of the nine-
teenth century, all of them reflecting the moods of the people.
In short, Schopenhauer's philosophy, intermingled with Nietz-
sche's Lebensphilosophie and criss-crossed with concepts
derived from the various fields in science, created contradic-
tions. But these very contradictions were in reality only a re-
flection of what was going on in the minds of the people.
Discussions about the nature of truth were going on, and the
disputes could mean only uncertainty and doubt.
Was this uncertainty new? No, it stemmed from the days
when the human being first noticed that he had two contra-
dictory currents within himself: the romantic and the realistic;
the mystical and the empirical; the idealistic and the positivis-
tic. Of this warfare within himself man has been more or less
conscious, keeping alive the conflict, which has never lessened.
But these very oppositions have always produced doubt about
the nature of existence, a doubt which persisted even after
the impact of science had made itself felt.
Such was also the case with the people of Vienna. This un-
certainty about life in general meant tiredness, it meant de-
. spondency and weariness, even though behind a glittering
front.
Bad as this uncertainty might appear, however, it had its
own virtue. It was not static and did not mean--had never
meant--a perfect condition, a fait accompli, a feeling that all
was accomplished and done. Instead, uncertainty meant that
something had to be torn down and something else created. It
caused men to search for new ideals, a search stemming from
the eternal roots of ignorance of man's destiny and future.
Hence, the spasmodic despair, the relentless doubt; the twi-
light mood emerged as men strove to correlate their own exist-
ence with reality.
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? Student and
Senilis
On july 14, 1898, Otto Weininger was graduated from
the secondary schools, and in that same year he matricu-
lated for the winter term at the University of Vienna, entering
the Department of Philosophy. He attended lectures on all
sorts of subjects, for it seems that he had not yet definitely
chosen any special branch of knowledge. His energy was enor-
mous. In addition to psychology and philosophy, he studied
literature, physics, and mathematics. He wanted to know every-
thing. But in the autumn of 1900 he lost interest in mathe-
matics and physics, and after he had written a cursory essay,
"The Problem of Talent," he started to study biology and
medicine. His interest was so great that, although he had not
cared for laboratory work in physics, he even dissected a hu-
man brain. At that time he began collecting material for his
psychobiological thesis, which was later to become the first
part of Sex and Character. It would seem just to say that he
was much more interested in this outside work than he was in
the courses at the University which might have prepared him
for a profession and provided him the means of making a
living.
From the start Otto Weininger attracted wide attention
because of his intensive studies and other activities. "There
was not at this time," writes Gerber, "a single event of any
importance in Vienna that escaped his interest. Throughout
the years he followed the intellectual and cultural life of the
capital. In Vienna there was not one book, not one concert,
not one theatrical performance, of which he did not form an
opinion. There was not one happening within his sphere of
influence about which he did not make up his mind" (Taschen-
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? Student and Genius 39
buch, p. 9). He lived in the center of excessive activity, not
jubilantly, but observing, not as an enjoying youth, but as a
searching and doubting man. He looked at everything with
keen eyes from every angle and tried to penetrate each so
that he could do what he most wanted to: understand. With
such an attitude, he had to be active, but being so, he appar-
ently could not remain merely part of an audience and enjoy
the spectacle as an audience could. His restless nature gave him
little time to enjoy things and to savor life.
Such a penetrating attitude was strengthened to no small
extent by his interest in psychology, which he studied in his
customary manner--through introspection. His enthusiasm for
psychology expressed itself by his journey to attend the Con-
ference of Psychology (rv* Congres International de Psy-
chologic) at Paris in 1900. It was here, in the city where
Charcot twenty-five years earlier had become famous, that
Otto attracted public attention to himself for the first time.
A youngster of twenty, he spoke confidently of his own views
to the learned gathering.
Otto Weininger's part in the discussion (which is printed
in the proceedings of the meeting, published in Paris in 1901,
pp. 642-43) was based on a paper given by Dr. Paul M. }. Joire
entitled "New, Especially Experimental, Methods in the
Study of Psychology. " It is noteworthy that Otto even at this
stage of his development expressed his idea of using intro-
spection as a research method in psychology. He opened his
remarks with the statement, "I should like only to say a few
words about the scant value which Dr. Joire gives to intro-
spection. " Then, after brief remarks on experimental psy-
chology, he asks, "Will introspection become superfluous? "
He finished with the following words: "To reach the goal
of psychology we need an introspection so refined that we
hardly can visualize it today--an introspection to establish a
coordination as continuous as possible, the absolute parallelism
between the phenomena we call psychic and all the neurocere-
bral accompaniment. In other words, I can only repeat my
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? 40 Student and Genius
belief that introspection should go hand in hand with progress
in the physiology of the nervous system. "
It would be wrong to think that such a view was new. The
idea had been in the air for a long, long time, and it had
cone to the fore particularly since Freud started his new
approach to exploring the mind, psychoanalysis. To Otto
Weininger introspection into the personality came to mean
something more, and gradually became so much that it finally
was for him an end in itself, no matter what his activity was.
The tendency was also strengthened by his belief that he
was himself to become a genius. He made little reference in
his speech to what others might think on the same subject.
Indeed, "he was conscious of being a genius," as Gerber wrote
later (Taschenbuch, p. 11). This same thought is found in
Sex and Character in the discussion of the early development
of the genius: "To every great man there comes a moment
when he has the absolute certainty that he has an ego of spe-
cial importance. " No doubt he was thinking of himself when
he wrote these words. Belief in himself was also demonstrated
by the study he devoted to the works and biographies of out-
standing men in order to find some basic elements that he
might have in common with them (Taschenbuch, p. 11).
Above all, introspection as he discussed it at the Conference
he applied to himself. To this end, he even used to look at his
face in the minor, particularly when he had an inspiration, to see
if his feelings and thoughts had left any impression on his face.
He repeatedly stated that "the more important the man be-
came, the more impressive his features became" (Taschenbuch,
pp. 10-11), a statement which undoubtedly was borne out
when he looked at his own countenance in the minor. One
would be justified in saying that introspection became for him
one of the ways by which to squeeze the utmost from himself
and from his own life.
Thus, there is good reason to believe that even at an early
age Weininger thought he possessed the power to become a
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? LETTER WRITTEN BY FREUD, MARCH 14, 1938
This letter was written at the time of Hitler's triumphal march into
Vienna. Note on the envelope (on reverse of this page) the post-
mark "Der Fuhrer in Wten. "
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? Student and Genius 43
great man, and it was his conviction that he would in time
present new visions to the world.
I With this feeling of superiority and in a rather excited mood
he returned to Vienna from Paris. About a month later some-
thing happened to him which in itself might have been of no
great importance but, happening at a time when it was bound
to make the greatest impression on his sensitive mind, actually
came to mean much to him. In fact it became the cornerstone
of his work. One evening in October, 1900, he met his friend
Swoboda, who had just had a talk with Freud about the prob-
lems of bisexuality. During this discussion Freud had told
Swoboda that the dualism present in man could be explained
by the bisexual disposition of each human and that this was
possible because of the nature of human anatomy. Swoboda
was excited about the whole idea and repeated it to Weininger
that same evening. 1
To learn of this happening is startling, especially since Ot-
to's good friend Lucka and his sister knew nothing of this
connection with Freud. I therefore wrote to Freud himself,
who gave me the following answer: "His principal thesis he
also got from me indirectly, and in a quite inaccurate way"
(Letter IV). 2
How did Weininger get in touch with Freud? Freud has
1 The details of this conversation can be found in Die gemeinniitzige Forschung
und der eigennutzige Forscher, a book by Swoboda, published in 1906. "In
October, 1900 . . .
the River
If ever duality existed, it was in the city of Vienna. On the
surface gaiety, in the depths despair. On the surface a strug-
gle for life, in the depths a struggle against death. Before the
glittering background of "wine, women, and song" revelry
for which Vienna was famous, a nagging, ceaseless warfare
for existence went on. Every situation, whether in daily life
or in art, science, or philosophy, came to be a testing of reality.
Such testing was taking place throughout Europe in the late
nineteenth century: in Paris, in London, in Berlin, and, last
but not least, in Vienna.
This dualism showed, too, in the physical aspects of Vienna.
Vienna late in the nineteenth century was a changing city, not
only in its spiritual life, but in its very physical appearance.
Its medieval look was vanishing. The Ringstrasse was modern,
luxurious, and aristocratic. On it stood the opera house in its
French Renaissance elegance, while the new museums and the
other new buildings near by--the Burg theater, the Parlia-
ment buildings, the Rathaus--clustered about on the Rathaus-
park. All were splendid, and in going through the parks, the
Rathauspark, the Heldenplatz, the Volksgarten, the Marie-
Theresien-Platz, one could look about and wonder if Vienna
were not indeed a worthy rival of Paris.
As Paris had the Seine, so Vienna had the Danube. The
city was mostly on the right bank, but only one arm of the
river passed through Vienna. Across the Danube Canal and
between the canal and the mainstream lay the commercial
quarter, inhabited by many Jews. The Danube was one of the
links between Vienna and the surrounding world. The Danube,
blue as at times it might be, gave the city force as well as
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? City by the River 27
beauty. The Viennese loved it. The blue Danube belonged to
Vienna just as much as the buildings rooted in the earth of
the city.
In that city stood the buildings of the University, in pleasant
Renaissance style. The University itself was founded in 1365,
the oldest German foundation. For its scientific standing it
was Vienna's pride.
Not far from the University was the Votivkirche, which was
built in memory of Francis Joseph's escape from an attempted
assassination. This was the church about which Weininger
and a friend were walking on the night when Weininger for
the first time revealed his belief in his double, his inner thoughts
about himself. The Votivkirche thus became symbolically for
Weininger what it earlier had been for Francis Joseph.
The changes in the physical aspects of Vienna were to no
small extent due to the influence and commands of the em-
peror. The Stadtpark was an attractive place with many statues
of those who through their lives had given glory to Vienna. Here
were likenesses of the painter Rudolf von Alt; of Field Marshal
Radetzky, who quelled the Italian revolution in 1848; of Franz
Schubert and Johann Strauss; of Bruckner, the Empress Eliza-
beth, and Haydn.
And as Vienna changed physically, so also changed the
people. The ironical, frivolous and easygoing old Viennese was
yielding to a new type of man who was interested in politics
as far as that was possible. The different people within the
Austrian empire, Germans, Poles, Magyars, and Czechs, were
antagonistic to each other, fighting for their national rights
and all demanding a part in the government and the right to
vote. The political problem was European in nature, unlike
conditions in the United States. Vienna, like other capitals in
Europe, was a center of population as well as a center of gov-
ernment, though it did not have the marked local independ-
ence enjoyed by some other large cities.
Two factors complicated political conditions in the Austrian
capital. One was the fact that there was no universal right of
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? 28 City by the Rivet
suffrage. The other was the predominance of German in-
fluence.
The electors were divided into three classes: first, those who
paid a municipal tax of at least 200 florins a year; next those
who paid between 30 and 200 florins; and finally those who
paid more than 5 and less than 30 florins. The professional
classes fell into the last group, and thus because they were
unable to pay the high municipal tax, many who supposedly
had some insight into political affairs were eliminated from
the vote. By this system about 70 percent of the adults more
than 25 years of age (which was the voting age) were ex-
cluded from the vote. This meant that out of a population of
about a million and a half there were only about sixty thou-
sand electors. Each class had the right to elect one third of
the members of the council of Vienna. Of the total number
of electors 7^ percent made up the first class, while 24 percent
belonged to the second and 68? percent to the third. Under
these circumstances, the wealthy, conservative, anti-Semitic
groups held power. The result was that the anti-Semites had a
two-thirds majority in the city council about 1895. For some
time the anti-Semitic group had been gaining influence, partly
because of the municipal tax, partly because of the lack of
interest shown by the liberal party in progressive labor legis-
lation. The liberals had made themselves vulnerable to attack
by the extremists among the German population because
they had taken a conciliatory attitude toward the non-German
population of the Austrian empire. Thus, the anti-Semites in
Austria and in Germany were already trying to preserve what
they believed were national feelings and German institutions.
This, however, was only part of their true intention. In
reality, the Germans kept nationalism alive in Austria, prepar-
ing the way for chauvinism and all the thousands of misfor-
tunes which later were to befall Austria. As Nietzsche once
said: "The Germans are responsible for everything that exists
today, the sickliness and stupidity that oppose culture, the
neurosis, called nationalism, from which Europe suffers; they
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? City by the River 29
have robbed Europe itself of its meaning and its intelligence.
They have led it into a blind alley. "
A blind alley. There the Austrians of Vienna had arrived,
with their social and political hardships around 1895.
These hardships were promoted by the economic condi-
tions which prevailed in Vienna. The dreadful economic panic
about 1870 was felt by all classes, but particularly by those who
were most important in the industrial development of Vienna.
It should be kept in mind that a large part of the population
was occupied with the production of artistic fancy goods, such
as jewelry, leather, objets d'art, millinery. This industry was
jeopardized not only by the economic situation in Vienna, but
also by the tremendous competitive industry which was being
developed in Germany. The position of Vienna as a business
center was diminishing. The pressure of competition resulted
in dissatisfaction among the various classes, particularly in
members of the artisan class, who demanded legislation that
would improve their own condition by excluding the Jews
as a commercial group. A hatred was bred that was later to
be epitomized in the life of one chaotic man, Hitler, who be-
cause of his frustrations (developed partially in Vienna) turned
his hostility against Jews, excluding them from mankind.
This antagonism prevailing in Vienna made itself felt
among all sorts of people in all walks of life; it burdened
their discussions about politics, art, culture, and science. It
was reflected also in the various newspapers of Vienna. Among
the dailies was the New Freie Presse (New Free Press), which
was one of the best-edited newspapers on the Continent and,
like the Times of London and the Frankfurter Zeitung, an
authority on world affairs. About 1870 men such as Benedict,
Etienne, and Friedlander, started to bring contributions to the
newspaper, which thereby gained the highly literary tone and
broad views that later distinguished the Neue Freie Presse.
In addition to the large number of weeklies and monthlies
published in Vienna, there were a number of witty and clever
cartoon-papers, such as Kikiriki (Cock-a-doodle-do), Figaro,
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? jo City by the River
the Pikante Blatter (Piquant Journal), and the Humoristische
Blatter (Humorous Journal). And besides these there were
many artistic, technical, and scientific journals, all expressing
more or less their own desires and feelings.
The Viennese stuck to his newspaper, and kept a copy near
him in the shop. Since the greater part of the people did not
live in residential sections but in apartments located over
their shops, they were able to continue in the shop all the
everyday concerns that they could not finish upstairs. Their
homes were in the midst of their business. Here they lived and
created, busy with their own undertakings privately and in-
dividually. It is not surprising that department stores were
unknown in Vienna.
This individuality of the Viennese was also reflected in his
spirit of gaiety. Driving in the Prater in his open carriage, go-
ing to concerts in the Volksgarten, and attending the opera or
the theater, all were done in a matter-of-fact way. Such things
belonged to him, and he took them. It was in this atmosphere
that one might meet the typical Viennese, Johann Strauss, and
it was also in this atmosphere that one could see the old medi-
cal doctors who had had the great luck to study medicine in
Vienna. That was a time when Vienna had great men in the
medical world. There was Hebra, the dermatologist; there was
Theodore Billroth, the surgeon; there was Rokitansky, the
anatomist and pathologist; there was the diagnostician Joseph
Skoda.
In that life one saw the foreign students, Americans not
least among them, grouped around the Viennese doctors. It
was amusing to see how, after listening to the lectures, they
would celebrate with a supper in a little restaurant and then
go to the Wiener-Burger or to the Burg theater to enjoy
themselves, or would gather in the Weinkeller to drink toasts
and sing. After long hours walking about the streets of Vienna
at night and in the early morning, they would go to their at-
tic rooms and fall asleep with a last thought that this was
youth, this was life, this was Vienna.
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? City by the River 31
Yet there was more than the gay and carefree side of Vienna.
There were students of means, but there were also poor stu-
dents who sometimes went hungry and sometimes had no fuel
in their poorly furnished rooms. There were also the middle
and lower classes who found it hard to feed and clothe them-
selves. These contrasted with many others who had all the
privileges and who were more concerned about their clothing
than about their fellow citizens.
To be sure the upper-class Viennese man was urbane. Per-
haps he did not mean to do harm, but, he may have thought,
what was the use of being a hero when days were short and
pleasure their only good? This man with his courteous man-
ners, with his kindness, with his ability to listen to people and
to talk nicely, felt a sting of despair in his heart when he
thought of the days to come.
This was the world of Arthur Schnitzler. His characters
were kind but sophisticated. His was the world of despair and
weariness and an unceasing search for pleasure. Schnitzler him-
self belonged to the bourgeoisie. His father, a professor of
medicine at the University, fostered his son's talents. Schnitzler
was undecided in his youth whether to be a physician, a mu-
sician, or a writer. Finally, after a medical career, he decided
to devote his life to literature. He took a somewhat material-
istic stand about life, in contrast to his contemporary, the poet
Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. While the poet described and inter^
preted the environment, the Wiener Wald, the Stephans-
kirche, the Schonbrunn Palace, and the Burggarten, Schnitzler
interpreted the people themselves. Hoffmannsthal's world was
that of the creations of Vienna, which led him to be infatuated
with the souls of the people, to speak of their mutual destiny,
their past, and their future. He was the creator of beauty,
of spirit, and of form. He therefore spoke in his poetry and
in his dramas about men's dreams and their imaginings, crystal-
lizing them into a kind of symbolism, a symbolism which Rich-
ard Strauss tried to express in the music for the operas on which
he and Hoffmannsthal collaborated, Der Rosenkavalier and
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? 32 City by the River
Elektra. Most interesting were Hoffmannsthal's friendly rela-
tions with Jakob Wassermann, a poor Jewish fellow in con-
trast to the prosperous poet. But the contrasts do not end with
their relative wealth. Wassermann's world was the world of
Dostoyevsky, while Hoffmannsthal, with his eloquent spirit and
womanlike manners, was immersed in the world of French sym-
bolism. Wassermann and his fellow Viennese authors spoke
well, but Hoffmannsthal had such a variety of expression, such
a choice of words, such a charming intuition, that, compared
with his eloquence, the others seemed to stammer.
Hoffmannsthal proclaimed the soul of Vienna, the very same
soul which Schnitzler tried to find in the people. But Schnitzler
was frustrated in his hopes. He felt that people were too hedo-
nistic, too lazy, too rational to strive for things of the spirit.
It was in this search for the soul of Vienna that he created his
heroes, his aristocrats, and the women around them. Such a
hero was the man who could recite, play the piano, be ap-
plauded by his friends, and then think about what to do next
to please the world. This man, a gentleman of taste, played
at making love to a girl in a conquering way, neither promis-
ing marriage nor excluding hope of it. He might break the
heart of the girl, he might ruin her life. In spite of this, he
always felt free to walk to new pastures and start over again.
The world of Schnitzler was therefore a sad world, filled
with people shaken and ruined, not because they were bas-
ically malicious, but because they were too much filled with
themselves. Schnitzler's heroes did not know how to make
sacrifices, how to be useful in the struggle of life, where give-
and-take is the principle. This was not only because such be-
havior was fashionable and smart, but because it was in the
air, it was something which had to be done. No wonder that
this atmosphere gave the people a feeling of despair! This was
not the wine-sweet, nostalgic city; this was the city of weariness
and Weltschmerz.
In this same city with its mood of Weltschmerz, Sigmund
Freud started his work, first as an apprentice in medicine, later
as an investigator into the human mind; the cradle of psycho-
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? City by the River 33
analysis was there. The city, the people, their blasted hopes,
the depressing influence of Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's
philosophy, all gave impetus to a reorientation of thinking in
general and of medical thinking in particular. At a time when
Fechner's, Weber's, and William Wundt's experimental psy-
chology gripped the minds of scholars within the medical and
psychological world, Freud made a complete turn about and
took their eyes from an academic experimental psychology to
the human psyche itself. His was the study of the mind: its
action and reaction, its drives, wishes, and hopes. This was in
strong contrast to the experimental psychologists, who were
interested in investigating common sensations and discover-
ing how an individual responded physiologically to ten or
fifteen drops of caffein, or how he reacted to a galvanic current.
Freud's searching eye without doubt had looked beneath
the surface gaiety of Viennese life and had seen the despair of
men and women searching for happiness; he had seen their
search for satisfaction of their emotional needs. He felt that
they had found nothing. He himself had been bewildered. As
a medical student, he had busied himself with studies in
neuroanatomy and then, dissatisfied with what Vienna had to
offer him in medicine, he had gone to Paris to study under the
great master of contemporary medicine, Charcot. It was in
Paris in the school of Charcot that Freud was inspired to
penetrate into the minds of humans. His earlier interest in
the anatomy of the nervous system was superseded when he
became acquainted with the studies of this French master
concerning the disturbances of hysteria. He learned hypnosis,
and upon his return to Vienna he established himself as a
physician and employed his knowledge of hypnosis as one
means to penetrate into the unconscious mind of the sick
person. His experience with hypnosis and his Studies of Hys-
teria (written with Breuer), which appeared in 1893 and was
the basis for his later viewpoint, prepared the way for a revo-
lutionary new approach to the study and treatment of the
diseased mind.
First, there were the problems of repression, of which he
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? 34 City by the River
had seen all too much in Vienna. His assertion that repression
of the sexual drive is one of the reasons for human unhappi-
ness caused a turmoil, not only in Viennese medical circles, but
also among the intellectuals. Nobody knew then, of course,
that Freud's ideas were later to permeate the whole culture
--philosophy, sociology, and religion. It was he who for the
first time proclaimed that humans largely live in a mental
underworld, where drives, hopes, and wishes move, obscure to
the conscious mind but still in reality the actual forces which
lead men into action.
What was true of Vienna was equally true of the other cities
of the Western world. Men and women everywhere were seek-
ing and searching, but without really knowing the object of
their quest.
They indulged in stereotyped and unrewarding
gaiety. They listened to sweet or noisy music. They talked, and
whether their words were heavy with meaning or mere prattle,
the conversations were futile. All such activities were only more
or less disguised forms of a more or less sublimated sexual drive
--or, at the worst, of sexual repression and distortion. Few men
dared to look beneath the surface, and among those few Freud
was outstanding. He had not only the moral courage to chal-
lenge conventional beliefs but also the intellectual courage to
think realistically and to draw logical conclusions from experi-
ence and empirical science.
, His revelations touched a match to the powder keg of Vien-
nese society. To the existing unrest a new unrest was added.
No wonder anti-Semitic sentiment was increased. Its growing
violence was shown throughout Freud's life.
Let us for a moment look at the Jews in Vienna. Although
the new constitution adopted in 1867 had officially abolished
religious disabilities, the Jew was still persona non grata to
his Viennese fellow citizens. The "Noble Window-Breakers,"
a society of aristocratic anti-Semites who took their name from
the manner in which they expressed their political opinions,
were overlooked by the authorities, and such social antagonism
became an ever-increasing menace to the social security of a
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? City by the River 35
great many people. Of two million people, about two hundred
thousand were Jews, a good many of them being physicians
and lawyers. The anti-Semites claimed that all the intellectual
and theatrical fields were dominated by Jews. However, they
never asked why this was the case; if they had, they would
have found that the upper-class population of Vienna would
have little or nothing to do with artistic or intellectual life.
The original upper middle class, small in numbers, had been
financially destroyed, and their influence was gone. The lower
middle class, with the Jews and the court, gave Vienna its
color.
The keen competition between Jewish and non-Jewish citb
zens, along with other social conflicts, kept unrest and disorder
alive. The church and tradition kept their conventional hold
on the mind of the people. Education was training in obedi-
ence. The duty and the virtue of the child was to sit quietly
on a chair and be silent. All wishes and desires of the child
had to be suppressed. This suppression in reality also dom-
inated the life of the adult. Darwin's biological viewpoint was
rejected: man was not descended from animals; man was
created in the image of God. Drives, emotions, wishes, and
hopes were driven under. The impact of Schopenhauer's phi-
losophy on this society created more pessimism, while Nietz-
sche's influence, bewildering and chaotic, led to more uncer-
tainty than ever.
In view of the strong grip conventional ideas had upon
their minds, one would have thought Europeans by and large
would have been obedient to the existing social order, and yet
this was far from the case. Dating back to the great revolu-
tion of 1848, unrest continually resurged and broke out again
and again in wars between the European countries.
In this society, which was being torn apart by stresses and
strains, only the natural sciences exercised vital force in creat-
ing a new viewpoint. In the wake of the natural sciences fol-
lowed a trend within philosophy, positivism, which came
to the fore mainly because of the enormous advances made by
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? ^6 City by the River
scientific research since the beginning of the nineteenth cen-
tury. When scientific research expanded human knowledge,
its results made themselves felt at the universities, leading to
more stress on the practical rather than on the theoretical re-
sults of scientific investigation. Purely theoretical knowledge
was not enough. It was thought that if a true concept of the
world was ever to be attained, it could be reached only on the
basis of empiric knowledge.
' In this choir of philosophical voices, one could hear above
all others the loud voice of Nietzsche. This contradictory man,
in his yearning for new ideals, thought he had found the truth
about mankind, a truth brought forth in his own anguish and
terror, in his own despair and hopelessness. Nietzsche set the
philosophical and moral tone of the end of the past century--
a tone colored with Wagner's bombastic romanticism. By
many, as by the Nazis in later days, his philosophy was inter-
preted as permitting brutal force, while in reality he was
speaking of man's inner spiritual striving, the conquest within
by the force of virtue. Nietzsche became defiant of the exist-
ing morality in the same way that Ibsen became a rebel against
society. Both hoped to discover new glory for mankind. Po-? -.
litical revolutions were, according to Ibsen, small things. The
significant thing would be a revolution within the spirit of the
human being.
A new moral evaluation crept through the thought of the
philosophers, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and many others,
who claimed that the action of man should be dependent
upon his whole personality with all its emotional and intel-
lectual content and, therefore, that all ideals, even the sacred
one, would have to be abandoned if the personality were to
survive. This could mean no less than that the act and the ego
would have to be one and that the act and ego would together
win or die.
The whole fight, then, was a fight to save one's own indi-
viduality, one's own personality, one's own existence. It is only
in this light that we can understand many of the prodigies and
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? City by the River 37
philosophers who flourished in the last decades of the nine-
teenth century, all of them reflecting the moods of the people.
In short, Schopenhauer's philosophy, intermingled with Nietz-
sche's Lebensphilosophie and criss-crossed with concepts
derived from the various fields in science, created contradic-
tions. But these very contradictions were in reality only a re-
flection of what was going on in the minds of the people.
Discussions about the nature of truth were going on, and the
disputes could mean only uncertainty and doubt.
Was this uncertainty new? No, it stemmed from the days
when the human being first noticed that he had two contra-
dictory currents within himself: the romantic and the realistic;
the mystical and the empirical; the idealistic and the positivis-
tic. Of this warfare within himself man has been more or less
conscious, keeping alive the conflict, which has never lessened.
But these very oppositions have always produced doubt about
the nature of existence, a doubt which persisted even after
the impact of science had made itself felt.
Such was also the case with the people of Vienna. This un-
certainty about life in general meant tiredness, it meant de-
. spondency and weariness, even though behind a glittering
front.
Bad as this uncertainty might appear, however, it had its
own virtue. It was not static and did not mean--had never
meant--a perfect condition, a fait accompli, a feeling that all
was accomplished and done. Instead, uncertainty meant that
something had to be torn down and something else created. It
caused men to search for new ideals, a search stemming from
the eternal roots of ignorance of man's destiny and future.
Hence, the spasmodic despair, the relentless doubt; the twi-
light mood emerged as men strove to correlate their own exist-
ence with reality.
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? Student and
Senilis
On july 14, 1898, Otto Weininger was graduated from
the secondary schools, and in that same year he matricu-
lated for the winter term at the University of Vienna, entering
the Department of Philosophy. He attended lectures on all
sorts of subjects, for it seems that he had not yet definitely
chosen any special branch of knowledge. His energy was enor-
mous. In addition to psychology and philosophy, he studied
literature, physics, and mathematics. He wanted to know every-
thing. But in the autumn of 1900 he lost interest in mathe-
matics and physics, and after he had written a cursory essay,
"The Problem of Talent," he started to study biology and
medicine. His interest was so great that, although he had not
cared for laboratory work in physics, he even dissected a hu-
man brain. At that time he began collecting material for his
psychobiological thesis, which was later to become the first
part of Sex and Character. It would seem just to say that he
was much more interested in this outside work than he was in
the courses at the University which might have prepared him
for a profession and provided him the means of making a
living.
From the start Otto Weininger attracted wide attention
because of his intensive studies and other activities. "There
was not at this time," writes Gerber, "a single event of any
importance in Vienna that escaped his interest. Throughout
the years he followed the intellectual and cultural life of the
capital. In Vienna there was not one book, not one concert,
not one theatrical performance, of which he did not form an
opinion. There was not one happening within his sphere of
influence about which he did not make up his mind" (Taschen-
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? Student and Genius 39
buch, p. 9). He lived in the center of excessive activity, not
jubilantly, but observing, not as an enjoying youth, but as a
searching and doubting man. He looked at everything with
keen eyes from every angle and tried to penetrate each so
that he could do what he most wanted to: understand. With
such an attitude, he had to be active, but being so, he appar-
ently could not remain merely part of an audience and enjoy
the spectacle as an audience could. His restless nature gave him
little time to enjoy things and to savor life.
Such a penetrating attitude was strengthened to no small
extent by his interest in psychology, which he studied in his
customary manner--through introspection. His enthusiasm for
psychology expressed itself by his journey to attend the Con-
ference of Psychology (rv* Congres International de Psy-
chologic) at Paris in 1900. It was here, in the city where
Charcot twenty-five years earlier had become famous, that
Otto attracted public attention to himself for the first time.
A youngster of twenty, he spoke confidently of his own views
to the learned gathering.
Otto Weininger's part in the discussion (which is printed
in the proceedings of the meeting, published in Paris in 1901,
pp. 642-43) was based on a paper given by Dr. Paul M. }. Joire
entitled "New, Especially Experimental, Methods in the
Study of Psychology. " It is noteworthy that Otto even at this
stage of his development expressed his idea of using intro-
spection as a research method in psychology. He opened his
remarks with the statement, "I should like only to say a few
words about the scant value which Dr. Joire gives to intro-
spection. " Then, after brief remarks on experimental psy-
chology, he asks, "Will introspection become superfluous? "
He finished with the following words: "To reach the goal
of psychology we need an introspection so refined that we
hardly can visualize it today--an introspection to establish a
coordination as continuous as possible, the absolute parallelism
between the phenomena we call psychic and all the neurocere-
bral accompaniment. In other words, I can only repeat my
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? 40 Student and Genius
belief that introspection should go hand in hand with progress
in the physiology of the nervous system. "
It would be wrong to think that such a view was new. The
idea had been in the air for a long, long time, and it had
cone to the fore particularly since Freud started his new
approach to exploring the mind, psychoanalysis. To Otto
Weininger introspection into the personality came to mean
something more, and gradually became so much that it finally
was for him an end in itself, no matter what his activity was.
The tendency was also strengthened by his belief that he
was himself to become a genius. He made little reference in
his speech to what others might think on the same subject.
Indeed, "he was conscious of being a genius," as Gerber wrote
later (Taschenbuch, p. 11). This same thought is found in
Sex and Character in the discussion of the early development
of the genius: "To every great man there comes a moment
when he has the absolute certainty that he has an ego of spe-
cial importance. " No doubt he was thinking of himself when
he wrote these words. Belief in himself was also demonstrated
by the study he devoted to the works and biographies of out-
standing men in order to find some basic elements that he
might have in common with them (Taschenbuch, p. 11).
Above all, introspection as he discussed it at the Conference
he applied to himself. To this end, he even used to look at his
face in the minor, particularly when he had an inspiration, to see
if his feelings and thoughts had left any impression on his face.
He repeatedly stated that "the more important the man be-
came, the more impressive his features became" (Taschenbuch,
pp. 10-11), a statement which undoubtedly was borne out
when he looked at his own countenance in the minor. One
would be justified in saying that introspection became for him
one of the ways by which to squeeze the utmost from himself
and from his own life.
Thus, there is good reason to believe that even at an early
age Weininger thought he possessed the power to become a
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? LETTER WRITTEN BY FREUD, MARCH 14, 1938
This letter was written at the time of Hitler's triumphal march into
Vienna. Note on the envelope (on reverse of this page) the post-
mark "Der Fuhrer in Wten. "
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? ? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 08:38 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89038364857 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? Student and Genius 43
great man, and it was his conviction that he would in time
present new visions to the world.
I With this feeling of superiority and in a rather excited mood
he returned to Vienna from Paris. About a month later some-
thing happened to him which in itself might have been of no
great importance but, happening at a time when it was bound
to make the greatest impression on his sensitive mind, actually
came to mean much to him. In fact it became the cornerstone
of his work. One evening in October, 1900, he met his friend
Swoboda, who had just had a talk with Freud about the prob-
lems of bisexuality. During this discussion Freud had told
Swoboda that the dualism present in man could be explained
by the bisexual disposition of each human and that this was
possible because of the nature of human anatomy. Swoboda
was excited about the whole idea and repeated it to Weininger
that same evening. 1
To learn of this happening is startling, especially since Ot-
to's good friend Lucka and his sister knew nothing of this
connection with Freud. I therefore wrote to Freud himself,
who gave me the following answer: "His principal thesis he
also got from me indirectly, and in a quite inaccurate way"
(Letter IV). 2
How did Weininger get in touch with Freud? Freud has
1 The details of this conversation can be found in Die gemeinniitzige Forschung
und der eigennutzige Forscher, a book by Swoboda, published in 1906. "In
October, 1900 . . .
