No More Learning

Thereare " men " who go out walking with the sole object of display- ing their faces like the faces of women, hoping that they will be admired, after which they return contentedly home. The ancient " Narcissus " was a prototype of such persons. These people are naturally fastidious about the dressing of their hair, their apparel, shoes, and linen ; they are con- cerned as to their personal appearance at all times, and about the minutest details of their toilet. They are con- scious of every glance thrown on them by other men, and because of the female element in them, they are coquettish in gait and demeanour. Viragoes, on the other hand, fre- quently are careless about their toilet, and even about the personal care of their bodies; they take less time in dressing thanmanywomanishmen. Thedandyismofmenonthe one hand, and much of what is called the emancipation of women, are due to the increase in the numbers of these epicene creatures, and not merely to a passing fashion.
? SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM
57 ^Indeed, if one inquires why anything becomes the fashion
it will be found that there is a true cause for iy
The more femaleness a woman possesses the less will she understand a man, and the sexual characters of a man will have the greater influence on her. This is more than a mere application of the law of sexual attraction, as I have already stated it. So also the more manly a man is the less will he understand women, but the more readily be in- fluenced by them as women. Those men who claim to understand women are themselves very nearly women. Womanish men often know how to treat women much better than manly men. Manly men, except in most rare cases, learn how to deal with women only after long expe-
rience, and even then most imperfectly.
Although I have been touching here in a most superficial
way on what are no more than tertiary sexual characters, I wish to point out an application of my conclusions to peda- gogy. I am convinced that the more these views are understood the more certainly will they lead to an indi- vidual treatment in education. At the present time shoe- makers, who make shoes to measure, deal more rationally with individuals than our teachers and schoolmasters in their application of moral principles. ^At present the sexually intermediate forms of individuals (especially on the female side) are treated exactly as if they were good examples of the ideal male or female types. There is wanted an " orthopaedic" treatment of the soul instead of the torture caused by the appUcation of ready-made con- ventional shapes. The present system stamps out much that is original, uproots much that is truly natural, and distorts much into artificial and unnatural forms. y
From time immemorial there have been only two systems ofeducation; oneforthosewhocomeintotheworlddesig- nated by one set of characters as males, and another for thosewhoaresimilarlyassumedtobefemales. Almostat once the "boys" and the "girls" are dressed differently, learn to play different games, go through different courses of instruction, the girls being put to stitching and so forth.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
The intermediate individuals are placed at a great disad- vantage. And yet the instincts natural to their condition reveal themselves quickly enough, often even before puberty. There are boys who like to play with dolls, who learn to knit and sew with their sisters, and who are pleased to be given girls' names. There are girls who delight in the noisier sports of their brothers, and who make chums and playmates of them. After puberty, there is a still stronger
displayoftheinnatedifferences. Manlikewomenweartheir hair short, affect manly dress, study, drink, smoke, are fond of mountaineering, or devote themselves passionately to sport. Womanish men grow their hair long, wear corsets, are experts in the toilet devices of women, and show the greatest readiness to become friendly and intimate w'th them, preferring their society to that of men.
Later on, the different laws and customs to which the so<< called sexes are subjected press them as by a vice into distinctive moulds. The proposals which should follow from my conclusions will encounter more passive resist- ance, I fear, in the case of girls than in that of boys. I must here contradict, in the most positive fashion, a dogma that is authoritatively and widely maintained at the present time, the idea that all women are alike, that no individuals exist amongst women. It is true that amongst those indi- viduals whose constitutions lie nearer the female side than the male side, the differences and possibilities are not so great as amongst those on the male side ; the greater varia- bility of males is true not only for the human race but for the living world, and is related to the principles established by Darwin. None the less, there are plenty of differences amongst women. The psychological origin of this common error depends chiefly on a fact that I explained in chap, iii. ,
the fact that every man in his life becomes intimate only with a group of women defined by his own constitution, and so naturally he finds them much alike. /For the same reason, and in the same way, one may often hear a woman say that all men are alike. And the narrow uniform view about men, displayed by most of the leaders of the
58
? SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM
59
women's rights movement depends on precisely the same cause. /
It is clear that the principle of the existence of innu- merable individual proportions of the male and female principles is a basis of the study of character which must be applied in any rational scheme of pedagogy.
The science of character must be associated with some form of psychology that takes into account some theory of the real existence of mental phenomena in the same fashion thatanatomyisrelatedtophysiology. Andsoitisnecessary, quite apart from theoretical reasons, to attempt to pursue a psychology of individual differences. This attempt will be readily enough followed by those who believe in the paral- lelism between mind and matter, for they will see in psycho- logy no more than the physiology of the central nervous system, and Vv^ill readily admit that the science of character must be a sister of morphology. As a matter of fact there is great hope that in future characterology and mor- phology will each greatly help the other. The principle of sexually intermediate forms, and still more the parallelism between characterology and morphology in the widest application, make us look forward to the time when phy- siognomy will take its honourable place amongst the sciences, a place which so many have attempted to gain for it but as yet unsuccessfully.
The problem of physiognomy is the problem of the rela- tion between the static mental forces and the static bodily forces, just as the problem of physiological psychology deals with the dynamic aspect of the same relations. It is a great error in method, and in fact, to treat the study of physiognomy, because of its difficulty, as impracticable. And yet this is the attitude of contemporary scientific circles, unconsciously perhaps rather than consciously, but occasionally becoming obvious, as for instance in the case of the attempt of von Mo? bius to pursue the work of Gall with regard to the physiognomy of those with a natural aptitude for mathematics. ^If it be possible, and many have shown that it is possible, to judge correctly
? 6o SEX AND CHARACTER
much of the character of an individual merely from the examination of his external appearance, without the aid of cross-examination or guessing, it cannot be impossible to reduce such modes of observation to an exact method^) There is little more required than an exact study of the expression of the characteristic emotions and the tracking (to use a rough analogy) of the routes of the cabled passing to the speech centres.
None the less it will be long before official science ceases to regard the study of physiognomy as illegitimate. Although people will still believe in the parallelism of mind and body, they will continue to treat the physiognomist as as much of a charlatan as until quite recently the hypnotist was thought to be. ^None the less, all mankind at least
/unconsciously, and intelligent persons consciously, will continue to be physiognomists, people will continue to judge character from the nose, although they will not admit the existence of a science of physiognomy J and the portraits of celebrated men and of murderers will continue to interest every one.
I am inclined to believe that the assumption of a univer- sally acquired correspondence between mind and body may be a hitherto neglected fundamental function of our mind. It is certainly the case that every one believes in physiog- nomy and actually practises it. The principle of the exist- ence of a definite relation between mind and body must be accepted as an illuminating axiom for psychological research, and it will be for religion and metaphysics to work out the details of a relationship which must be accepted as existing.
Whether or no the science of character can be linked with morphology, it will be valuable not only to these sciences buttophysiognomyif wecanpenetratealittledeeperinto the confusion that now reigns in order to find if wrong methods have not been responsible for it. I hope that the attempt I am about to make will lead some little way into the labyrinth, and will prove to be of general application.
;
? SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM 6i
Some men are fond of dogs and detest cats ; others are devoted to cats and dislike dogs. Inquiring minds have delighted to ask in such cases, Why are cats attractive to one person, dogs to another ? Why ?
1 do not think that this is the most fruitful way of stating the problem. I believe it to be more important to ask in what other respects lovers of dogs and of cats differ from one another. The habit, where one difference has been detected, of seeking for the associated differences, will prove extremely useful not only to pure morphology and to the science of character,'(but ultimately to physiognomy, the meeting-point of the two science^ Aristotle pointed out long ago that many characteristics of animals do not vary independently of each other. Later on Cuvier, in par- ticular, but also Geoffrey St. Hilaire and Darwin made a special study of these " correlations. " Occasionally the association of the characters is easy to understand on obvious utilitarian principles ; where for instance the ali- mentary canal is adapted to the digestion of flesh, the jaws andbodymustbeadaptedforthecaptureoftheprey. But association such as that between ruminant stomachs and the presence of cloven hoofs and of horns in the male, or of immunity to certain poisons with particular colouring of
the hair, or among domestic pigeons of short bills with small feet, of long bills with large feet, or in cats of deafness with white fur and blue eyes--such are extremely difficult to refer to a single purpose.
I do not in the least mean to assert that science must be content with no more than the mere discovery of correla- tions. Such a position would be little better than that of a person who was satisfied by finding out that the placing of a penny in the slot of a particular automatic machine alwayswasfollowedbythereleaseofaboxofmatches. It would be making resignation the leading principle of meta- physics. Weshallgetagooddealfurtherbysuchcorrela- tions, as, for instance, that of long hair and normal ovaries but these are within the sphere of physiology, not of morphology. Probably the goal of an ideal morphology
? SEX AND CHARACTER
could be reached best not by deductions from an attempted synthesis of observations on all the animals that creep on the land or swim in the sea (in the fashion of collectors of postage stamps), but by a complete study of a few organisms. Cuvier by a kind of guess-work used to re- construct an entire animal from a single bone : full knowledge would enable us to do this in a complete, definite,qualitativeandquantitativefashion. Whensucha knowledge has been attained, each single character will at once define and limit for us the possibilities of the other
characters. Suchatrueandlogicalextensionoftheprin- ciple of correlation in morphology is really an application of the theory of functions to the living world. It would not exclude the study of causation, but limit it to its proper sphere. No doubt the "causes" of the correlations of organisms must be sought for in the idioplasm.
The possibility of applying the principle of correlated variation to psychology depends on differential psychology, the study of psychological variation. I believe, moreover, that a combination of study of the anatomical "habit," and the mental characteristics will lead to a statical psycho- physics, a true science of physiognomy. The rule of investigation in all the three sciences will have to be that the question is posed as follows ; given that two organisms are known to differ in one respect, in what other respects are they different ? This will be the golden rule of dis-
covery, and, following it, we shall no longer lose ourselves hopelessly in the dark maze that surrounds the answer to the question " Why ? " As soon as we are informed as to one difference, we must diligently seek out the others, and the mere putting of the question in this form will directly bring about many discoveries.
The conscious pursuit of this rule of investigation will be particularly valuable in dealing with problems of the mind. Mental actions are not co-existent in the sense of physical characters, and it has been only by accidental and fortunate chances, when the phenomena have presented themselves in rapid succession in an individual, that discoveries of
62
? SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM
correlation in mental phenomena have been noticed. The correlated mental phenomena may be very different in kind, and it is only when we know what we are after and deliberately seek for them that we shall be able to transcend the special difficulties of the kind of material we are investi- gating, and so secure for psychology what is comparatively simple in anatomy.
63
;
? CHAPTER VI
EMANCIPATED WOMEN
As an immediate application of the attempt to establish the principle of intermediate sexual forms by means of a differential psychology, we must now come to the question which it is the special object of this book to answer, theoretically and practically, I mean the woman question, theoretically so far as it is not a matter of ethnology and national economics, and practically in so far as it is not merely a matter of law and domestic economy, that is to say, of social science in the widest sense. The answer which this chapter is about to give must not be considered as final or as exhaustive. It is rather a necessary pre- liminary investigation, and does not go beyond deductions from the principles that I have established. It will deal with the exploration of individual cases and will not
attempt to found on these any laws of general significance. The practical indications that it will give are not moral maxims that could or would guide the future ; they are no more than technical rules abstracted from past cases. The idea of male and female types will not be discussed here that is reserved for the second part of my book. This preliminary investigation will deal with only those charac- tero-logical conclusions from the principle of sexually intermediate forms that are of significance in the woman question.
The geneial direction of the investigation is easy to understand from what has already been stated. A woman's demand for emancipation and her qualification for it are in directproportiontotheamountofmalenessinher. The
? EMANCIPATED WOMEN 65
idea of emancipation, however, is many-sided, and its indefiniteness is increased by its association with many practical customs which have nothing to do with the theory ofemancipation. Bythetermemancipationofawoman, I imply neither her mastery at home nor her subjection of her husband, I have not in mind the courage which enables her to go freely by night or by day unaccompanied in public places, or the disregard of social rules which prohibit bachelor women from receiving visits from men, or discussing or listening to discussions of sexual matters. I exclude from my view the desire for economic indepen- dence, the becoming fit for positions in technical schools, universities and conservatoires or teachers' institutes. And there may be many other similar movements associated withthewordemancipationwhichI donotintendtodeal with. /Emancipation, as I mean to discuss it, is not the wish for an outward equality with man, but what is of real importance in the woman question, the deep-seated craving to acquire man's character, to attain his mental and moral freedom, to reach his real interests and his creative power/
I maintain that the real female element has neither the desirenorthecapacityforemancipationinthissense. All those who are striving for this real emancipation, all women who are truly famous and are of conspicuous mental ability, to the first glance of an expert reveal some of the ana- tomical characters of the male, some external bodily resem- blance to a man. Those so-called "women" who have been held up to admiration in the past and present, by the advocates of woman's rights, as examples of what women can do, have almost invariably been what I have described
as sexually intermediate forms. The very first of the his- torical examples, Sappho herself, has been handed down to us as an example of the sexual invert, and from her name has been derived the accepted terms for perverted sexual relationsbetweenwomen. Thecontentsofthesecondand third chapter thus at once become important with regard to the woman question. The characterological materia) at our disposal with regard to celebrated and emancipated
? 66 SEX AND CHARACTER
women is too vague to serve as the foundation of any satis^ factory theory. What is wanted is some principle which would enable us to determine at what point between male and female such individuals were placed. My law of sexual affinity is such a principle. Its application to the facts of homo-sexuality showed that the woman who attracts and is attractedbyotherwomenisherselfhalfmale. Interpreting the historical evidence at our disposal in the light of this principle, we find that the degree of emancipation and the proportion of maleness in the composition of a woman are practically identical. Sappho was only the forerunner of a long line of famous women who were either homo-sexually or bisexually inclined. Classical scholars have defended Sappho warmly against the implication that there was anything more than mere friendship in her relations with her own sex, as if the accusation were necessarily degrading. In the second part of my book, however, I shall show reasons in favour of the possibility that homo-sexuality is a higher form than hetero-sexuality. For the present, it is enough to say that homo-sexuality in a woman is the out- come of her masculinity and presupposes a higher degree of development. CatherineII. ofRussia,andQueenChristina of Sweden, the highly gifted although deaf, dumb and blind, Laura Bridgman, George Sand, and a very large number of highlygiftedwomenandgirlsconcerningwhom1 myself have been able to collect information, were partly bisexual, partly homo-sexual.
I shall now turn to other indications in the case of the large number of emancipated women regarding whom there is no evidence as to homo-sexuality, and I shall show that my attribution of maleness is no caprice, no egotistical wish of a man to associate all the higher manifestations of intelli- gence with the male sex. Just as homo-sexual or bisexual women reveal their maleness by their preference either for women or for womanish men, so hetero-sexual women dis- play maleness in their choice of a male partner who is not preponderatinglymale. ThemostfamousofGeorgeSand's many affairs were those with de Musset, the most effeminat<<
? EMANCIPATED WOMEN
and sentimental poet, and with Chopin, who might be described almost as the only female musician, so effeminate are his compositions. * Vittoria Colonna is less known because of her own poetic compositions than because of the infatuation for her shown by Michael Angelo, whose earlier friendships had been with youths. The authoress, Daniel Stern, was the mistress of Franz Liszt, whose life and compositions were extremely effeminate, and who had a dubious friendship with Wagner, the interpretation of which was made plain by his later devotion to King LudwigILofBavaria. MadamedeStaal,whoseworkon Germany is probably the greatest book ever produced by a woman, is supposed to have been intimate with August Wilhelm Schlegel, who was a homo-sexualist, and who had been tutor to her children. At certain periods of his life, the face of the husband of Clara Schumann might have been taken as that of a woman, and a good deal of his music, although certainly not all, was effeminate.
When there is no evidence as to the sexual relations of famous women, we can still obtain important conclusions from the details of their personal appearance. Such data support my general proposition.
George Eliot had a broad, massive forehead ; her move- ments, like her expression, were quick and decided, and lacked all womanly grace. The face of Lavinia Fontana was intellectual and decided, very rarely charming ; whilst thatofRachelRuyschwasalmostwhollymasculine. The biography of that original poetess, Annette von Droste- Hu? lshoff, speaks of her wiry, unwomanly frame, and of her face as being masculine, and recalling that of Dante. The authoress and mathematician, Sonia Kowalevska, like Sappho,hadanabnormallyscantygrowthofhair,still less than is the fashion amongst the poetesses and female
* Chopin's portraits shovp his effeminacy plainly. erimee describes George Sand as being as thin as a nail. At the first meeting of the two, the lady behaved like a man, and the man like a girl. He blushed when she looked at him and began to pay him compliments in her bass voice.
e-j
;;
? 68 SEX AND CHARACTER
studentsofthepresentday. Itwouldbeaseriousomission to forget Rosa Bonheur, the very distinguished painter and it would be difficult to point to a single female trait in her appearance or character. The notorious Madame Blavatsky is extremely masculine in her appearance.
I might refer to many other emancipated women at present well known to the public, consideration of whom has provided me with much material for the support of my proposition that the true female element, the abstract "woman,"hasnothingtodowithemancipation. Thereis some historical justification for the saying "the longer the hair the smaller the brain," but the reservations made in chap. ii. must be taken into account.
(jt is only the male element in emancipated women that craves for emancipation^
There is, then, a stronger reason than has generally been supposed for the familiar assumption of male pseudonyms by women writers. Their choice is a mode of giving ex- pression to the inherent maleness they feel ; and this is still more marked in the case of those who, like George Sand, have a preference for male attire and masculine pur- suits. The motive for choosing a man's name springs from the feeling that it corresponds with their own character much more than from any desire for increased notice from the public. As a matter of fact, up to the present, partly owing to interest in the sex question, women's writings have aroused more interest, ceteris paribus, than those of men and, owing to the issues involved, have always received a fuller consideration and, if there were any justification, a
greater meed of praise than has been accorded to a man's work of equal merit. At the present time especially many women have attained celebrity by work which, if it had been produced by a man, would have passed almost un- noticed. Let us pause and examine this more closely.
If we attempt to apply a standard taken from the names of men who are of acknowledged value in philosophy, science, literature and art, to the long list of women who have achieved some kind of fame, there will at once be a miserable
? EMANCIPATED WOMEN
collapse. Judged in this way, it is difficult to grant any real degree of merit to women like Angelica Kaufmann or Madame Lebrun, Fernan Caballero or Hroswitha von Gapku? ersheim, Mary Somerville or George Egerton, Eliza- beth Barrett Browning or Sophie Germain, Anna Maria Schurmann or Sybilla Merian. I will not speak of names (such as that of Droste-Hu? lshoff) formerly so over-rated in the annals of feminism, nor will I refer to the measure of fame claimed for or by living women. It is enough to
make the general statement that there is not a single woman in the history of thought, not even the most manlike, who can be truthfully compared with men of fifth or sixth-rate genius, for instance with Riickert as a poet. Van Dyck as a painter,orScheirmacherasaphilosopher. Ifweeliminate hysterical visionaries,* such as the Sybils, the Priestesses of Delphi, Bourignon, Kettenberg, Jeanna de la Mothe Guyon, Joanna Southcote, Beate Sturmin, St. Teresa, there
still remain cases like that of Marie Bashkirtseff. So far as I can remember from her portrait, she at least seemed to be qui^e womanly in face and figure, although her forehead was rather masculine. But to any one who studies her pictures in the Salle des Etrangers in the Luxemburg Gallery in Paris, and compares them with those of her adored master, Bastien Lepage, it is plain that she simply had assimilated the style of the latter, as in Goethe's " Elec-
tive Affinities " Ottilie acquired the handwriting of Eduard. There remain the interesting and not infrequent cases where the talent of a clever family seems to reach its maxi- mum in a female member of the family. But it is only talent that is transmitted in this way, not genius. Mar-
garethe van Eyck and Sabina von Steinbach form the best illustrations of the kind of artists who, according to Ernst Guhl, in author with a great admiration for women-workers, " have been undoubtedly influenced in their choice of an
* Hysteria is the principal cause of much of the intellectual activity of many of the women above mentioned. But the usual view, that these cases are pathological, is too limited an interpreta- tion, us I shall show in the second part of this work.
69
? SEX AND CHARACTER
artistic calling by their fathers, mothers, or brothers. In other words, they found their incentive in their own families. There are two or three hundred of such cases on record, and probably many hundreds more could be added without exhausting the numbers of similar instances. " In order to give due weight to these statistics it may be mentioned that Guhl had just been speaking of " roughly, a thousand names of women artists known to us. "
This concludes my historical review of the emancipated women. It has justified the assertion that real desire for emancipation and real fitness for it are the outcome of a woman's maleness.
"NThe vast majority of women have never paid special attention to art or to science, and regard such occupations merelyashigherbranchesofmanuallabour,orif theypro- fess a certain devotion to such subjects, it is chiefly as a mode of attracting a particular person or group of persons of the opposite sex. ) Apart from these, a close investigation shows that women really interested in intellectual matters are sexually intermediate forms.
If it be the case that the desire for freedom and equality with man occurs only in masculine women, the inductive conclusion follows that the female principle is not conscious of a necessity for emancipation ; and the argument becomes stronger if we remember that it is based on an examination of the accounts of individual cases and not on psychical investigation of an " abstract woman. "
If we now look at the question of emancipation from the point of view of hygiene (not morality) there is no doubt as to the harm in it. The undesirability of emancipation lies in the excitement and agitation involved. It induces women who have no real original capacity but undoubted imitative powers to attempt to study or write, from various motives, such as vanity or the desire to attract admirers. Whilst it cannot be denied that there are a good many women with a real craving for emancipation and for higher education, these set the fashion and are followed by a host of others who get up a ridiculous agitation to convince themselves of
70
? EMANCIPATED WOMEN
71 therealityoftheirviews. Andmanyotherwiseestimable and worthy wives use the cry to assert themselves against their husbands, whilst daughters take it as a method of rebelling against maternal authority. The practical outcome of the whole matter would be as follows ; it being remem- bered that the issues are too mutable for the establishment of uniform rules or laws. Let there be the freest scope given to, and the fewest hindrances put in the way of all women with masculine dispositions who feel a psychical necessity to devote themselves to masculine occupations and are physically fit to undertake them. But the idea of mak- ing an emancipation party, of aiming at a social revolution, must be abandoned. Away with the whole ** woman's movement," with its unnaturalness and artificiality and its
fundamental errors.
It is most important to have done with the senseless cry
for " full equality," for even the malest woman is scarcely more than 50 per cent, male, and it is only to that male part of her that she owes her special capacity or whatever importance she may eventually gam. It is absurd to make comparisons between the few really intellectual women and one's average experience of men, and to deduce, as has been done, even the superiority of the female sex. As Darwin pointed out, the proper comparison is between the most highly developed individuals of two stocks. " If two lists," Darwin wrote in the " Descent of Man," " were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music--comprising composition and performance, history, science, and philosophy, with half a dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison. " Moreover, if these lists were carefully examined it would be seen that the women's list would prove the soundness of my theory of the maleness of their genius, and the comparison would be still less pleasing to the champions of woman's rights>>
It is frequently urged that it is necessary to create a public feeling in favour of the full and unchecked mental development of women. Such an argument overlooks
SEX AND CHARACTER
72
the fact that " emancipation," the " woman question," " women's rights movements," are no new things in history, but have always been with us, although with varying prominence at different times in history. It also largely exaggerates the difficulties men place in the way of the mental development of women, especially at the present time. * Furthermoreitneglectsthefactthatatthepresent time it is not the true woman who clamours for eman- cipation, but only the masculine type of woman, who misconstrues her own character and the motives that actuate her when she formulates her demands in the name of woman.
<s^s has been the case with every other movement in history, so also it has been with the contemporary woman's movement. Itsorigmatorswereconvmcedthatitwasbeing put forward for the first time, and that such a thing had neverbeenthoughtofbefore.
Theymaintainedthatwomen had hitherto been held in bondage and enveloped in dark- ness by man, and that it was high time for her to assert her- self and claim her natural rights. /
But the prototype of this movement, as of other move- ments, occurred in the earliest times. Ancient history and mediaeval times alike give us instances of women who, in social relations and intellectual matters, fought for such emancipation, and of male and female apologists of the female sex. It is totally erroneous to suggest that hitherto women have had no opportunity for the undisturbed development of their mental powers.
Jacob Burckhardt, speaking of the Renaissance, says " The greatest possible praise which could be given to the Italian women-celebrities of the time was to say that they were like men in brains and disposition ! " The virile deeds of women recorded in the epics, especially those of Boiardo and Ariosto, show the ideal of the time. To call
* There have been many celebrities amongst men who received practically no education--for instance, Robert Burns and Wolfram vonEschenbach buttherearenosimilarcasesamongstwomento
;
compare with them-
:
? EMANCIPATED WOMEN
ipliment, but it originally meant an honour.
Women were first allowed on the stage in the sixteenth
century, and actresses date from that time. " At that period it was admitted that women were just as capable as men of embodying the highest possible artistic ideals. " It was the period when panegyrics on the female sex were rife ; Sir Thomas More claimed for it full equality with the male sex, and Agrippa von Nettesheim goes so far as to represent women as superior to men ! And yet this was all lost for the fair sex, and the whole question sank into the oblivion from which the nineteenth century recalled it.
Is it not very remarkable that the agitation for the eman- cipation of women seems to repeat itself at certain intervals in the world's history, and lasts for a definite period ?
yt has been noticed that in the tenth, fifteenth, and six- teenth, and now again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the agitation for the emancipation of women has been more marked, and the woman's movement more vigorous than in the intervening periods. It would be premature to found a hypothesis on the data at our dis- posal, but the possibility of a vastly important periodicity must be borne in mind, of regularly recurring periods in which it may be that there is an excess of production of hermaphrodite and sexually intermediate forms. Such a state of affairs is not unknown in the animal kingdom.
According to my interpretation, such a period would be one of minimum " gonochorism," cleavage of the sexes and it would be marked, on the one hand, by an increased production of male women, and on the other, by a similar increase in female men. There is strong evidence in favour of such a periodicity ; if it occurs it may be associated with the "secessionist taste," which idealised tall, lanky women with fiat chests and narrow hips. ^ The enormous recent increase in a kind of dandified homo-sexuality may be due to the increasing effeminacy of the age, and the peculiarities of the Pre-Raphaelite movement may have a similar explanation.
73 >a woman a "virago " nowadays would be a doubtful com-
;
? ? SEX AND CHARACTER
74
The existence of such periods in organic Hfe, comparable
with stages in individual life, but extending over several generations, would, if proved, throw much light on many obscure points in human history, concerning which the so-called " historical solutions," and especially the economic- materialistic views now in vogue have proved so futile. The history of the world from the biological standpoint has still to be written ; it lies in the future. Here 1 can do little more than indicate the direction which future work should take.
Were it proved that at certain periods fewer herma- phrodite beings were produced, and at certain other periods more, it would appear that the rising and falling, the periodic occurrence and disappearance of the woman movement in an unfailing rhythm of ebb and flow, was one of the ex- pressions of the preponderance of masculine and feminine women with the concomitant greater or lesser desire for emancipation.
Obviously I do not take into account in relation to the woman question the large number of womanly women, the wives of the prolific artisan class whom economic pressure forces to factory or field labour. The connection between industrial progress and the woman question is much less close than is usually realised, especially by the Social
Democratic Group. The relation between the mental energy required for intellectual and for industrial pursuits is even less. . ^France, for instance, although it can boast three of the most famous women, has never had a successful woman's movement, and yet in no other European country are there so many really businesslike, capable womei'^^ The struggle for the material necessities of life has nothing to do with the struggle for intellectual development, and a sharp distinction mast be made between the two.
The pro-pects of the movement for intellectual advance onthepartofwomenarenotverypromising; butstillless promising is another view, sometimes discussed in the same connection, the view that^he human race is moving towards a complete sexual differentiation, a definite sexual dimorphism. N
? EMANCIPATED WOMEN
75 The latter view seems to me fundamentally untenable, because in the higher groups of the animal kingdom there is no evidence for the increase of sexual dimorphism. Worms and rotifers, many birds and the mandrills amongst the apes, have more advanced sexual dimorphism than man. On the view that such an increased sexual dimorphism were to be expected, the necessity for emancipation would gradually disappear as mankind became separated into the completely male and the completely female. On the other hand, the view that there will be periodical resurrections of the woman's movement would reduce the whole affair to ridiculous impotence, making it only an ephemeral phase in
the history of mankind.
A complete obliteration will be the fate of any emancipa-
tion movement which attempts to place the whole sex in a new relation to society, and to see in man its perpetual oppressor. A corps of Amazons might be formed, but as time went on the material for the corps would cease to occur. The history of the woman movement during the Renaissance and its complete disappearance contains a lessonfortheadvocatesofwomen'srights. Realintellectual freedomcannotbeattainedbyanagitatedmass; itmustbe fought for by the individual. Who is the enemy ? What are the retarding influences ?
The greatest, the one enemy of the emancipation of women is woman herself. It is left to the second part of my work to prove this.
? SECOND OR PRINCIPAL PART THE SEXUAL TYPES
? CHAPTER I MAN AND WOMAN
" All that a man does is physiognomical of him. " Carlyle,
A FREE field for the investigation of the actual contrasts between the sexes is gained when we recognise that male and female, man and woman, must be considered only as types, and that the existing individuals, upon whose quali- ties there has been so much controversy, are mixtures of the types in different proportions. {Sexually intermediate forms, which are the only actually existing individualsy^were dealt with in a more or less schematic fashion in the first part of thisbook. Considerationofthegeneralbiologicalapplica- tion of my theory was entered upon there ; but now I have to make mankind the special subject of my investigation, and to show the defects of the results gained by the method of introspective analysis, as these results must be qualified by the universal existence of sexually intermediate condi- tions. In plants and animals the presence of hermaphro- ditism is an undisputed fact ; but in them it appears more to be the juxtaposition of the male and female genital
glands in the same individual than an actual fusion of the two sexes, more the co-existence of the two extremes than a quite neutral condition. In the case of human beings, however, it appears to be psychologically true that an indi- vidual, at least at one and the same moment, is always either man or woman. This is in harmony with the fact that each individual, whether superficially regarded as male or female, at once can recognise his sexual complement in.
? 8o SEX AND CHARACTER
anotherindividual"woman"or"man. "* Thisuni-sexuaHty is demonstrated by the fact, the theoretical value of which can hardly be over-estimated, that, in the relations of two homo-sexual men one always plays the physical and psy- chical roll of the man, and in cases of prolonged inter- course retains his male first-name, or takes one, whilst the other, who plays the part of the woman, either assumes a woman's name or calls himself by it, or--and this is suffi- ciently characteristic--receives it from the former.
In the same way, in the sexual relations of two women, one always plays the male and the other the female part, a fact of deepest significance. Here we encounter, in a most unexpected fashion, the fundamental relationship between the male and female elements. In spite of all sexually intermediate conditions, human beings are always oneoftwothings,eithermaleorfemale. Thereisadeep truth underlying the old empirical sexual duality, and this must not be neglected, even although in concrete cases there is not a necessary harmony in the anatomical and morphological conditions. To realise this is to make a great step forward and to advance towards most important
results. In this way we reach a conception of a real " being. " The task of the rest of this book is to set forth the significance of this " existence. " As, however, this existence is bound up with the most difficult side of characterology, it will be well, before setting out on our adventurous task, to attempt some preliminary orientation.
The obstacles in the way of characterological investiga- tionareverygreat,if onlyonaccountofthecomplexityof the material. Often and often it happens that when the path through the jungle appears to have been cleared, it is lost again in impenetrable thickets, and it seems impossible
* I once heard a bi-sexual man exclaim, when he saw a bi-sexual actress with a slight tendency to a beard, a deep sonorous voice, and very little hair on her head, " There is a fine woman. " " Woman " means something different for every man or for every poet, and yet it is always the same, the sexual complement of their own constitution.
? MAN AND WOMAN 8i
to recover it. But the greatest difficulty is that when the systematic method of setting out the complex material has been proceeded with and seems about to lead to good results, then at once objections of the most serious kind ariseandalmostforbidtheattempttomaketypes. With regard to the differences between the sexes, for instance, the most useful theory that has been put forward is the existence of a kind of polarity, two extremes separated by amultitudeofintermediateconditions. Thecharacterolo- gical differences appear to follow this rule in a fashion not dissimilar to the suggestion of the Pythagorean, Alcmaeon of Kroton, and recalling the recent chemical resurrection of Schelling's " Natur-philosophie. "
But even if we are able to determine the exact point occupied by an individual on the line between two ex- tremes, and multiply this determination by discovering it for a great many characters, would this complex system of co-ordmate lines really give us a conception of the indivi- dual ? Would it not be a relapse to the dogmatic scepticism of Mach and Hume, were we to expect that an analysis could be a full description of the human individual ? And in a fashion it would be a sort of Weismannistic doc- trine of particulate determinants, a mosaic psychology.
/rhis brings us in a new way directly against the old, over- ripeproblem. Isthereinamanasingleandsimpleexist- ence, and, if so, in what relation does that stand to the ^' complex psychical phenomena ? Has man, indeed, a soul ?
It is easy to understand why there has never been a science of character. The object of such a science, the character itself, is problematical. The problem of all metaphysics and theories of knowledge, the fundamental problem of psychology, is also the problem of characterology. At the least, characterology will have to take into account the the'^ry of knowledge itself with regard to its postulates, claims, and objects, and will have to attempt to obtain infor- mation as to all the differences in the nature of men. /
This unlimited science of character will be something more than the " psychology of individual differences," the
F
? 82 SEX AND CHARACTER
renewed insistence upon which as a goal of science we owe to L. William Stern ; it will be more than a sort of polity of the motor and sensory reactions of the individual, and in so far will not sink so low as the usual " results " of the modern experimental psychologists, which, indeed, are little more than statistics of physical experiments. It will hope to retain some kind of contact with the actuahties of the soul which the modern school of psychology seems to have forgotten, and will not have to fear that it will have to offer to ardent students of psychology no more than profound studies of words of one syllable, or of the results on the mindofsmalldosesofcaffein. Itisalamentabletestimony to the insufficiency of modern psychology that distinguished men of science, who have not been content with the study of perception and association, have yet had to hand over to poetry the explanation of such fundamental facts as heroism and self-sacrifice.
{No science will become shallow so quickly as psychology if it deserts philosophy. Its separation from philosophy is the true cause of its impotency. Psychology will have to discover that the doctrine of sensations is practically useless to it. The empirical psychologists of to-day, in their search for the development of character, begin with investigation of touch and the common sensations. But the analysis of sensations is simply a part of the physiology of sense, and any attempt to bring it into relation with the real problems of psychology must fail! \
It is a misfortune of the scientific psychology of the day that it has been influenced so deeply by two physicists, Fechner and von Helmholtz, with the result that it has failed to recognise that only the external and not the internal world can be reconstructed from sensations.
The two most intelligent of the empirical psychologists of recent times, William James and R. Avenarius, have felt almost instinctively that psychology cannot really rest upon sensa- tions of the skin and muscles, although, indeed, all modern psychologydoesdependuponstudyofsensations. Dilthey did not lay enough stress on his argument that existing
? MAN AND WOMAN
83 psychology does nothing towards problems that are eminently psychological, such as murder, friendship, lone- liness, and so forth. If anything is to be gained in the future there must be a demand for a really psychological psychology, and its first battle-cry must be : " Away with
the study of sensations. "
In attempting the broad and deep characterology that I
have indicated, I must set out with a conception of character itself as a unit existence. As in the fifth chapter of Part I. , I tried to show that behind the fleeting physiological changes there is a permanent morphological form, so in charac- terology we must seek the permanent, existing something through the fleeting changes.
\The character, however, is not something seated behind the thoughts and feelings of the individual, but something revealing itself in every thought and feeling. " All that a man does is physiognomical of him. " Just as every cell bears within it the characters of the whole individual, so every psychical manifestation of a man involves not merely a few little characteristic traits, but his whole being, of which at one moment one quality, at another moment another quality, comes into prominence. ^
Just as no sensation is ever isolated, but is set in a com- plete field of sensation, the world of the Ego, of which now one part and now the other, stands out more plainly, so the whole man is manifest in every moment of the psychical life, although, now one side, now the other, is more visible. This existence, manifest in every moment of the psychical life, is the object of characterology. By accepting this, there will be completed for the first time a real psychology, existing psychology, in manifest contradiction of the mean- ing of the word, having concerned itself almost entirely with the motley world, the changing field of sensations, and over-
looked the ruling force of the Ego. The new psychology would be a doctrine of the whole, and would become fresh and fertile inasmuch as it would combine the complexity of the subject and of the object, two spheres which can be separated only in abstraction. Many disputed points of
? SEX AND CHARACTER
psychology (perhaps the most important) would be settled by an application of such characterology, as that would explain why so many different views have been held on the same subject. The same psychical process appears from time to time in different aspects, merely because it takes tone and colouring from the individual character. And so it well may be that the doctrine of differential psychology may receive its completion in the domain-of general psychology.
vThe confusion of characterology with the doctrine of the soul has been a great misfortune, but because this has occurred in actual history, is no reason why it should con- tinue. The absolute sceptic differs only in a word from the absolute dogmatist. The man who dogmatically accepts the position of absolute phenomenalism, believing it to relieve him of all the burden of proof that the mere entering on another standpoint would itself entail, will be ready to dismiss without proof the existence which characterology posits, and which has nothing to do with a metaphysical " essence. "/
84
Characterology has to defend itself against two great enemies. The one assumes that character is something ultimate, and as little the subject-matter of science as is the art of a painter. The other looks on the sensations as the only realities, on sensation as the ground-work of the world of the Ego, and denies the existence of cha- racter. What is left for characterology, the science of character ?
On the one hand, there are those who cry, " Deindividuo nulla scientia," and " Individuum est ineffa- bile " ; on the other hand, there are those sworn to science, who maintain that science has nothing to do with character.
In such a cross-fire, characterology has to take its place, and it may well be feared that it may share the fate of its sisters and remain a trivial subject like physiognomy or a diviner's art like graphology.
? CHAPTER II
MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY " Woman does not betray her secret. "
Kant.
" From a woman you can learn nothing of women. " Nietzsche.
(iPy psychology, as a whole, we generally understand the psychology of the psychologists, and these are exclusively men ! Never since human history began have we heard of a female psychology ! ,) None the less the psychology of woman constitutes a chapter as important with regard to general psychology as that of the child. And inasmuch as the psychology of man has always been written with un- conscious but definite reference to man, general psychology has become simply the psychology of men, and the problem of the psychology of the sexes will be raised as soon as the existence of a separate psychology of women has been realised. Kant said that in anthropology the peculiarities of the female were more a study for the philosopher than those of the male, and it may be that the psychology of the sexes will disappear in a psychology of the female.
None the less the psychology of women will have to be written by men. It is easy to suggest that such an attempt is foredoomed to failure, inasmuch as the conclusions must be drawn from an alien sex and cannot be verified by intro- spection. Granted the possibility that woman could describe herself with sufficient exactness, it by no means follows that she would be interested in the sides of her
--
? 86 SEX AND CHARACTER
character that would interest us. Moreover, even if she could and would explore herself fully, it is doubtful if she could bring herself to talk about herself. I shall show that | these three improbabilities spring from the same source in the nature of woman.
This investigation, therefore, lays itself open to the charge that no one who is not female can be in a posi- tion to make accurate statements about women. In the meantime the objection must stand, although, later, I shall have more to say of it. I will say only this much--up to now, and is this only a consequence of man's suppression ? we have no account from a pregnant woman of her sensa- tions and feelings, neither in poetry nor in memoirs, nor even in a gynaecological treatise. This cannot be on account of excessive modesty, for, as Schopenhauer rightly pointed out, there is nothing so far removed from a pregnant
womanasshameastohercondition. Besides,therewould still remain to them the possibility of, after the birth, con- fessing from memory the psychical life during the time ; if a sense of shame had prevented them from such communi- cation during the time, it would be gone afterwards, and the varied interests of such a disclosure ought to have induced some one to break silence. But this has not been
done. Just as we have always been indebted to men for really trustworthy expositions of the psychical side of women, so also it is to men that we owe descriptions of the sensations of pregnant women. What is the meaning of this ?
Although in recent times we have had revelations of the psychical life of half-women and three-quarter women, it is practically only about the male side of them that they have written. 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.