Therefore he felt that
he was insulted by criticism.
he was insulted by criticism.
Weininger - 1946 - Mind and Death of a Genius
He tried to free himself by
suppressing of the sexual urge, by sublimation of it. Such
obsessional neurotic phenomena as appeared in him at this
time seem to have been furthered, at least to some extent, by
his abnormal sexual drive. Yet in spite of the fact that he
showed these signs for some time, we need not conclude that
he suffered from a neurosis as such. The decisive evidence to
show that it was not a neurosis is to be found in the fatal
symptoms of symbolism and mysticism, which appeared in
him at least as early as the spring of 1902 (see U. L. D. , p. 115)
and persisted until his death. These cannot be regarded as
anything but the first signs of schizophrenia. 4 The compulsory
neurotic phenomena he showed were the result of perversions,
which had been activated by his sadistic tendencies, as quite
often occurs in such cases.
Gerber, who followed Weininger's mental condition with
some care, thought that he was in more cheerful mood in the
* Ernst Spehr, Von Wesen der Neurose und ihren Erscheinungsformen (Leip-
zig, ! 938), P- 88-
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? Crossing the Border 135
summer of 1903 (Taschenbuch, p. 21), but that impression
must have been only an illusion. Weininger often spoke of his
criminal disposition, but in a more subdued way than formerly
--a change which led the observer to hope that his mental
crisis was passing. Yet he seems still to have been in a crisis
state, though controlling his moods with violent effort and
great mental struggle. Apparently he drew some comfort from
his work. Still it was not true that his crisis had ended. Quite
the contrary, as his later mental development was to prove.
Rappaport claimed (U. L. D. , p. xvii) that Weininger's suffer-
ing deepened shortly after Sex and Character was published.
The words used in the preface to the first edition of Vber die
letzten Dinge leave no doubt as to what Rappaport's estimate
of Otto's state of mind was. "When he had just completed his
first work, he said once to me: 'There are three possibilities for
me--the gallows, suicide, or a future so brilliant that I don't
dare to think of it! ' On the same day he entrusted to me his
last manuscript [probably an incomplete draft of Vber die
letzten Dinge] to publish in case he should not be able to do
so himself. From that day on his condition grew steadily
worse. "
His gloomy mood was also described by Lucka, who said,
"Weininger often made a sinister, uncomfortable impression
on me and others, but he might become quite cheerful again
later. " This description accords well with Lucka's statement
about Otto before Sex and Character was published--"He was
often quite lost in himself and hardly listened to our conversa-
tion. " And Ewald also gives us the same impression by saying,
"In intimate conversations he frequently hinted at terrible
trials by evil forces and mentioned that the idea of a violent
solution was not strange to him. "
Weininger's state of mind during the spring of 1903 was,
then, dark and serious, full of dread and doubt. He lived in
anticipation of a catastrophe. So deep was his skepticism, so
intense his search for what he believed to be truth, that he
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? 136 Crossing the Border
actually appeared to be languishing in despair. The tragic
strain may not have appeared on the surface, but his friends
suspected his condition.
The best expression of that state of mind is to be found in
parts of Sex and Character. He wrote, for instance (pp. 386--
87): "Since every man has some relation to . the idea of the
supreme good without really being part of it, there is no happy
man. Only women are happy. No man is happy; he is com-
mitted to liberty, while on earth he is always bound one way
or another. None but a completely passive creature, like the
<<. true woman, or a completely active being, like the Deity, can
be happy. Happiness is feeling of perfection, which no man
can ever enjoy, but there are women who fancy themselves
perfect. A man always has problems behind him and tasks
ahead of him. All problems have their roots in the past. The
future is the realm of the tasks. . . . Happiness for a man
would imply full and pure activity, complete freedom; but he
can never be free, and his guilt mounts as he moves away
from the idea of liberty. Life on earth is suffering for him, and
must be so, because human beings are passive in their percep-
tions. . . . Every man needs to make observations; even the
genius is nothing without that power, though he can fill his
observations with his own personality and has no need of com-
plete induction to be able to recognize the idea of a thing. "
Many quotations of this sort could be cited; they all go to
show that he was gravely unhappy. In any event his suicide
makes any other view impossible. Another passage in the book
(pp. 384-85) reads: "I can first recognize a sin when I am no
longer committing it. From the moment that I recognize it I
commit it no more. Therefore, I cannot understand life so
long as I am alive, and time is the great riddle which defies
me so long as I am living in it. . . . When I have conquered
time, then I shall be able to understand it; death alone can
teach me the meaning of life. There has not yet been a mo-
ment when I did not . . . crave not to exist; how then could
this desire become the object of observation, recognition?
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? Crossing the Border xyj
That which I perceive I am already beyond. I cannot under-
stand my sin because I am still sinful. Eternal life and mortal
life do not follow each other. They go side by side, and the
good is such because it is preexistent. "
A man who writes thus feels no happiness in life, nor does
he feel bound to life. A glance at other passages in Sex and
Character--especially those concerning women--yields the
same impression. Rightly we may agree with his good friend
Lucka, who wrote, "He who has put into practice the destruc-
tion of the strongest of all illusions, the faith in the eternal
feminine--which is a rightful need for great men--must re-
main cold in the colorful variety of life. "
Weininger's desperation was made worse by the reception
given his published work. The public reaction, generally in-
different or unfriendly, did not tend to cheer him up. He ap-
parently realized that he had caused some consternation. He
had fomented passions, and now he had to face them; for the
first time he was aware that his words might mean the same as
action. On August 3, 1903, he was writing to Gerber asking
him for an honest opinion of the book.
There is good reason to think that Weininger had written
the book at least partially in order to liberate his own mind.
This was the accusation leveled at him by P. J. Mobius in an
article, "Geschlecht und Unbescheidenheit" (Sex and Im-
modesty), reviewing the book. Otto's answer seemed to bear
out the charge. The book indeed reflected Otto's own mood,
which became worse after the book was published. He was
still able to maintain a superficial composure, but only with a
violent mental struggle. The mental effort increased when the
first sparse applause was drowned in a larger storm of enraged
protest.
The fate of the book worried the author, and Mobius's
sharp criticism angered him. The main points in the review,
which filled two whole pages, were these: "It is hard to give a
fair judgment of the book. Most people will drop it with dis-
like, and one must admit that they are right. Still there are
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? 138 Crossing the Border
many good things in it. . . . We find in Weininger a highly
gifted man who has read much and tried to think sharply,
who has much experience although he must be very young.
. . . But now we must turn to the less fortunate side of the
book. Most of his reflections on sexual phenomena are al-
ready to be found in the works of this reviewer; even the title
is plagiarized. . . . He is even more arrogant when he declares
that the opinion of this reviewer--that great talent in women
is a sign of degeneration--is false and that sexual transitional
forms are quite natural phenomena. This man, disguised as a
philosopher, has set himself to decide what is normal and
what is pathological. . . .
"The book has become so large because the author wanted
to rid himself of his ideas. We hear long lectures about genius,
logic, etc. Much of it is good (especially on compassion in
modern psychology), much is very strange. "
Weininger made an answer, of which Mobius says: "I re-
ceived from Weininger a long, rather formless letter written
from Syracuse, August 17. The author is very upset. I had
accused him of plagiarism, of hypocritical and criminal be-
havior, and of harming others. I had to prove what I had said
or make a public apology. He gave me three weeks, then he
would make public the malicious slander and force me to
bring a law suit against him. " In reply to this Mobius pub-
lished a pamphlet entitled, like the review, Geschlecht und
Unbescheidenheit (Sex and Immodesty). It was printed in
Leipzig in November, 1903.
Weininger, deeply wounded, had already answered his critic
in the August 22 issue of Zukunft. "I believe," he said, "that this
book has solved the psychological problem of sexual difference
and has given the final answer to the so-called problem of
woman's emancipation. " This statement justifies Mobius in
ascribing to Weininger a complete lack of modesty. Because
of the attack, which he considered to be mean, Weininger's
feeling of his own greatness mounted to dangerous heights.
His words in the Zukunft article show a pathologically height-
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? Crossing the Border 139
ened self-esteem and lack of self-criticism. His reactions seem
to have been based on the theory that everybody took an interest
in his book, which was far from the truth. True, Sex and Char-
acter did arouse public interest, but it did not immediately
bring the fame that Weininger expected. Only the members
of his small circle of friends and acquaintances were enraged
by the strong condemnation of the book. The world did not
pay much attention to his work or his personality while Wei-
ninger was still alive. Even when he killed himself, though the
dramatic character of his death drew more attention than
would have attended death from natural causes, public inter-
est was still small. His importance was, for instance, so slight
in Scandinavian public opinion that his death was not even
mentioned in the Scandinavian press. In the Norwegian papers
of that time not one word can be found about his work or his
death.
Only in Weininger's imaginary world had his work and his
person caused any sensation. He was, therefore, so much the
more wounded by Mobius's suggestion that he had imitated
Mobius's work. His reaction to this was also unreasonable.
Mobius writes on this point: "Weininger believed that I had
called him an imitator. How could I have done such a thing?
That would have been impolite, even insulting. No, I did no
such thing. My words should have been perfectly clear; Wei-
ninger's usual sagacity must have left him for a moment when
this unfortunate thought entered his mind. I said that I
thought people might consider him a plagiarist. That is the
reason for this malicious and arrogant attack. "
Weininger apparently wanted to forestall any claim that he
had imitated the work that Mobius had written concerning
the psychological feeblemindedness of woman in 1900.
Mobius maintained flatly that the title Weininger used was
an imitation. "Otto Weininger writes that he had already
chosen his title early in 1902. This must, of course, be the
case if he says so. But he adds that he had seen my Geschlecht
und Entarung (Sex and Degeneration) before his own book
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? 140 Crossing the Border
was published. On the cover of that book the words 'Sex and
--' are printed five times. When someone has looked at my
title and then chooses 'Sex and --he is at least committing
a breach of tact. "
A man of composed mind would have admitted that the
main idea in Sex and Character could be recognized in the
earlier work by Mobius, even though Weininger had worked
out the theory on a larger scale. But Otto was not willing to
( admit this debt. He maintained that he alone had solved the
psychological problem of sex difference.
Therefore he felt that
he was insulted by criticism. The reaction of a man of normal
mind would have accorded better with the real facts than did
Weininger's. Yet there is no reason to believe that the criti-
cism brought about any systematized ideas of persecution in
Weininger or created in him a paranoid attitude. In spite of
his twisted relation to reality, he did not develop any ideas of
persecution totally divorced from the real world. His self-
esteem did become greater after the attack by Mobius, but
probably not because of any paranoid tendency. He already
had the conviction that he was a great man. The criticism of
Mobius and others--which Weininger did consider base per-
secution--only caused him to feel greater.
Sex and Character did not bring him the comfort he antic-
ipated. A few passages in Taschenbuch reveal one side of his
mental state, his great pain. "If the flat-headed Schiller, in-
stead of writing that sentence that is a desert of beautiful-
sounding comfortable moralizing, 'Shared happiness is double
happiness, shared pain is half pain,' had written, 'A man can
share his happiness but never his pain,' he would have told
the truth" (p. 43). Obviously this means that Weininger felt
that he could never share his own pain with anyone. Again he
writes, "Your double is the complex of all your bad qualities.
All minor fears are only a part of this total fear, the fear of
your double" (p. 42). Here the mood of suffering is combined
with growing gloom, characteristic of his mental development
in this period. To add to this despair he had the knowledge
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? Crossing the Border 141
that the world was moving along just as it had before his book
was published, that no one was paying deep attention to his
revelations. There is no doubt that he became depressed, and
he thought his melancholy due to a sudden moral deficiency
in himself (U. L. D. , p. xvii). 8
In June, 1903, Weininger left his quarters in Vienna and
spent six weeks with his family at Brunn-bei-Modling. His
mood in this period was illustrated in two incidents. One was
his comment on praise of his book. "A man of letters in
Vienna, a brilliant intellectual, wrote him in most enthusias-
tic praise of the masterpiece. Otto only muttered to his father,
'I have written a book for the thousands of years to come,
and I am still not understood. ' " The other was also recorded
by his father. "Before Otto left for Italy that summer, he told
me that no woman could ever understand his work" (Der Fall,
P-9)-
These statements show that this self-esteem was still grow-
ing within him, as were discouragement and despair. "He
must have harbored the thought of suicide for a long time,"
says Lucka. "That is apparent in the fact that he wrote his last
will that summer" (Die Fackel, October 17,1903, pp. 15-16).
He was so dispirited that he wanted to get away from him-
self. And so he went to Italy. "He was very upset when he left
for Italy," says Ewald (p. 68). He had fled from the world
and its people; now he wanted to flee from life itself. But
there was something that still held him back, that still kept
him bound to life--his book and its recognition. Yet there
was no word from home, he gained no fame, and few voices
were lifted up to laud his work.
The letters he wrote show his frustrated hope for fame and
his sadness. He wrote to Gerber from Syracuse, August 10,
1903, "Please write to me very soon! " (Taschenbuch, p. 93. )
And yet his mind was open enough to allow him to start his
8 In a psychological-psychiatric light this conclusion may be taken as evidence
of a primary insufficiency of the psychic activity. See A. Storch, "Bewusstseins-
bahnen und Wirklichkeitsbereiche in der Schizophrenic," in Zeitschrift fur die
gesammte Neurologie und Psychiatric, LXXXII (1923), 336.
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? 142 Crossing the Border
letter by saying: "I absolutely want to hear whether you are
in very bad condition now. Your fear of destroying some feel-
ing of happiness or optimism in me is quite unfounded. " In
spite of his own desperate situation, he could still think of his
friend. He also wrote back: "Syracuse is the most peculiar
place in the world. Here I can only be born or die, never live.
The sight of Etna made me think of the impressive shameless-
ness of the crater. It reminds me of the behind of a monkey.
"I advise you to study Beethoven as much as possible. He is
the absolute opposite of Shakespeare and to be Shakespeare or
like Shakespeare is something every great man must and will
rise above--I see that more and more clearly. The world has
no center in Shakespeare. In Beethoven it has one" (U. L. D. ,
pp. xx-xxi).
In spite of his apparent interest in extrovert activity, Wei-
ninger could not get away from himself, and in Syracuse he was
absorbed in his own thoughts. Here he wrote some of the es-
says that were later gathered into Vber die letzten Dinge. A
reflection of his work is to be seen in a letter he wrote to
Gerber on August 22:
"Read Peer Gynt by all means, if not for my sake, then for
your own. It might teach you to develop something that is
only vaguely expressed in you now.
"Read Emperor and Galilean too. There are magnificent
passages here (but they cannot be compared to the other
work)!
"If Ibsen had kept the ambition he had in Peer Gynt, he
would have been greater than Goethe; I have seldom known
a work which made it so impossible for me not to share in all
the praise spent on it.
"By the way, it is only a weakness not to read in order not
to be influenced. One should become stronger by reading, not
the opposite" (Taschenbuch, pp. 94, 95).
His introversion is apparent in another letter to Gerber,
written on August 27: "I must once more call your attention
to what I wrote about Shakespeare and Beethoven, because
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? Crossing the Border 143
you are working with the problem of the will which Shake-
speare treated in Hamlet. The will is what gives time its direc-
tion. It means the separation of past from future. That is why
only in Hamlet does Shakespeare have a sense of the meaning
of life and conquer time" (Taschenbuch, p. 95).
Weininger also wanted to conquer time. In several letters to
Rappaport he wrote that "time shall be conquered. " When he
completed Vber die letzten Dinge he wrote to him from Casa-
micciola, Isola d'Ischia, "I am much worse than I thought I
was a few days ago; it is practically hopeless" (U. L. D. , p.
xxii). From Naples he inquired, "Is there not a similarity
between life on earth and the paroxysm of the epileptic? . . .
Are the mosquito (which, by the way, has a certain sadistic
beauty) and the flea and the bedbug also created by God? I
cannot and will not believe it. They are all symbols of some-
thing from which God turned away. God cannot live in such
things, because God is the good; God creates only himself and
nothing else" (U. L. D. , p. xxii).
"Suicide does not show courage," he comments, "but cow-
ardice, even though it is the smallest of all cowardice"
(U. L. D. , p. xxii). From Weininger's point of view this is
nothing but a hopeless confession. And in his last letter to
Rappaport (no date) he wrote, "Fear is the reverse of every
will. . . . But I believe fear is also related to indecency"
(U. L. D. ,p. xxiv).
These quotations give a good picture of Weininger during
his visit to Italy. They show that he was deeply depressed and
was thinking of suicide. The opinion of Weininger's father--
and he was right--was that an expert should have taken these
letters as a warning. Certain statements in the chapter "Apho-
ristisches" in Vber die letzten Dinge show preoccupation with
the thought of dying by his own hand: "Every decent man will
seek death when he knows that he is ultimately evil. Base
people are sent to death by a legal sentence. . . . All realiza-
tion is a release" (Taschenbuch, p. 66). No doubt he was
thinking of himself. And there is an obvious reference to him-
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? 144 Crossing the Border
self in the following passage from Taschenbuch (p. 64): "The
man who does not succeed in his suicide? He is the complete
criminal, because he wants to live in order to revenge himself.
Everything evil is revenge. " Weininger wanted to take his life
in November, 1902; when he did not succeed, he looked on
the attempt as desire to be able to revenge himself. If his in-
terpretation is right, as seems probable, it perfectly exemplifies
Weininger's gift of rationalizing, which in him, as so often in
others, is best expressed in moral behavior. 6
Weininger returned to Vienna in September, 1903, in the
deepest despair. His mood had become more and more mis-
erable. The desperate effort at self-control had apparently
taken all his energy. His gloomy state of mind seemed to in-
dicate that his spirit was broken (. U. L. D. , p. xxiii; Ewald, p.
68; Taschenbuch, p. 21).
He stayed with his parents five days. There is every reason
to believe that this was longer than he had at first planned.
In that last week he had a talk with Gerber. "I had no idea,"
says Gerber, "that he was thinking of suicide. When I saw
him for the last time he said, 'The one criticism that cannot
be made is that my book suffers from a lack of inspiration.
You did not help me with the proofreading of the first edition.
You have no examination now. Promise that you will be re-
sponsible for the second edition. ' On the same occasion he
also said, 'We shall not see each other again soon/ and gave
as reason that he had some work which he had to finish at
once" (Taschenbuch, pp. 21-22).
These statements give clear indication of his suicide plans.
Yet Gerber did not understand them as an expression of
Weininger's last will and testament; he admits that he had no
idea that Weininger intended to commit suicide. When they
parted, they did so "without being in any way solemn, just
cordial in the ordinary way" (Taschenbuch, p. 22).
"But the next evening," Gerber writes, "Weininger came to
see me at my home. I was not there. The following day I
8 B. Hart, The Psychology of Insanity (Cambridge, 1936), p. 67.
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? Crossing the Border 145
heard that Weininger had paced up and down my room in
great excitement and waited in vain for many hours. Late at
night he left. He had left word that I should not expect him
the next day, and I didn't. But he did return.
suppressing of the sexual urge, by sublimation of it. Such
obsessional neurotic phenomena as appeared in him at this
time seem to have been furthered, at least to some extent, by
his abnormal sexual drive. Yet in spite of the fact that he
showed these signs for some time, we need not conclude that
he suffered from a neurosis as such. The decisive evidence to
show that it was not a neurosis is to be found in the fatal
symptoms of symbolism and mysticism, which appeared in
him at least as early as the spring of 1902 (see U. L. D. , p. 115)
and persisted until his death. These cannot be regarded as
anything but the first signs of schizophrenia. 4 The compulsory
neurotic phenomena he showed were the result of perversions,
which had been activated by his sadistic tendencies, as quite
often occurs in such cases.
Gerber, who followed Weininger's mental condition with
some care, thought that he was in more cheerful mood in the
* Ernst Spehr, Von Wesen der Neurose und ihren Erscheinungsformen (Leip-
zig, ! 938), P- 88-
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? Crossing the Border 135
summer of 1903 (Taschenbuch, p. 21), but that impression
must have been only an illusion. Weininger often spoke of his
criminal disposition, but in a more subdued way than formerly
--a change which led the observer to hope that his mental
crisis was passing. Yet he seems still to have been in a crisis
state, though controlling his moods with violent effort and
great mental struggle. Apparently he drew some comfort from
his work. Still it was not true that his crisis had ended. Quite
the contrary, as his later mental development was to prove.
Rappaport claimed (U. L. D. , p. xvii) that Weininger's suffer-
ing deepened shortly after Sex and Character was published.
The words used in the preface to the first edition of Vber die
letzten Dinge leave no doubt as to what Rappaport's estimate
of Otto's state of mind was. "When he had just completed his
first work, he said once to me: 'There are three possibilities for
me--the gallows, suicide, or a future so brilliant that I don't
dare to think of it! ' On the same day he entrusted to me his
last manuscript [probably an incomplete draft of Vber die
letzten Dinge] to publish in case he should not be able to do
so himself. From that day on his condition grew steadily
worse. "
His gloomy mood was also described by Lucka, who said,
"Weininger often made a sinister, uncomfortable impression
on me and others, but he might become quite cheerful again
later. " This description accords well with Lucka's statement
about Otto before Sex and Character was published--"He was
often quite lost in himself and hardly listened to our conversa-
tion. " And Ewald also gives us the same impression by saying,
"In intimate conversations he frequently hinted at terrible
trials by evil forces and mentioned that the idea of a violent
solution was not strange to him. "
Weininger's state of mind during the spring of 1903 was,
then, dark and serious, full of dread and doubt. He lived in
anticipation of a catastrophe. So deep was his skepticism, so
intense his search for what he believed to be truth, that he
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? 136 Crossing the Border
actually appeared to be languishing in despair. The tragic
strain may not have appeared on the surface, but his friends
suspected his condition.
The best expression of that state of mind is to be found in
parts of Sex and Character. He wrote, for instance (pp. 386--
87): "Since every man has some relation to . the idea of the
supreme good without really being part of it, there is no happy
man. Only women are happy. No man is happy; he is com-
mitted to liberty, while on earth he is always bound one way
or another. None but a completely passive creature, like the
<<. true woman, or a completely active being, like the Deity, can
be happy. Happiness is feeling of perfection, which no man
can ever enjoy, but there are women who fancy themselves
perfect. A man always has problems behind him and tasks
ahead of him. All problems have their roots in the past. The
future is the realm of the tasks. . . . Happiness for a man
would imply full and pure activity, complete freedom; but he
can never be free, and his guilt mounts as he moves away
from the idea of liberty. Life on earth is suffering for him, and
must be so, because human beings are passive in their percep-
tions. . . . Every man needs to make observations; even the
genius is nothing without that power, though he can fill his
observations with his own personality and has no need of com-
plete induction to be able to recognize the idea of a thing. "
Many quotations of this sort could be cited; they all go to
show that he was gravely unhappy. In any event his suicide
makes any other view impossible. Another passage in the book
(pp. 384-85) reads: "I can first recognize a sin when I am no
longer committing it. From the moment that I recognize it I
commit it no more. Therefore, I cannot understand life so
long as I am alive, and time is the great riddle which defies
me so long as I am living in it. . . . When I have conquered
time, then I shall be able to understand it; death alone can
teach me the meaning of life. There has not yet been a mo-
ment when I did not . . . crave not to exist; how then could
this desire become the object of observation, recognition?
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? Crossing the Border xyj
That which I perceive I am already beyond. I cannot under-
stand my sin because I am still sinful. Eternal life and mortal
life do not follow each other. They go side by side, and the
good is such because it is preexistent. "
A man who writes thus feels no happiness in life, nor does
he feel bound to life. A glance at other passages in Sex and
Character--especially those concerning women--yields the
same impression. Rightly we may agree with his good friend
Lucka, who wrote, "He who has put into practice the destruc-
tion of the strongest of all illusions, the faith in the eternal
feminine--which is a rightful need for great men--must re-
main cold in the colorful variety of life. "
Weininger's desperation was made worse by the reception
given his published work. The public reaction, generally in-
different or unfriendly, did not tend to cheer him up. He ap-
parently realized that he had caused some consternation. He
had fomented passions, and now he had to face them; for the
first time he was aware that his words might mean the same as
action. On August 3, 1903, he was writing to Gerber asking
him for an honest opinion of the book.
There is good reason to think that Weininger had written
the book at least partially in order to liberate his own mind.
This was the accusation leveled at him by P. J. Mobius in an
article, "Geschlecht und Unbescheidenheit" (Sex and Im-
modesty), reviewing the book. Otto's answer seemed to bear
out the charge. The book indeed reflected Otto's own mood,
which became worse after the book was published. He was
still able to maintain a superficial composure, but only with a
violent mental struggle. The mental effort increased when the
first sparse applause was drowned in a larger storm of enraged
protest.
The fate of the book worried the author, and Mobius's
sharp criticism angered him. The main points in the review,
which filled two whole pages, were these: "It is hard to give a
fair judgment of the book. Most people will drop it with dis-
like, and one must admit that they are right. Still there are
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? 138 Crossing the Border
many good things in it. . . . We find in Weininger a highly
gifted man who has read much and tried to think sharply,
who has much experience although he must be very young.
. . . But now we must turn to the less fortunate side of the
book. Most of his reflections on sexual phenomena are al-
ready to be found in the works of this reviewer; even the title
is plagiarized. . . . He is even more arrogant when he declares
that the opinion of this reviewer--that great talent in women
is a sign of degeneration--is false and that sexual transitional
forms are quite natural phenomena. This man, disguised as a
philosopher, has set himself to decide what is normal and
what is pathological. . . .
"The book has become so large because the author wanted
to rid himself of his ideas. We hear long lectures about genius,
logic, etc. Much of it is good (especially on compassion in
modern psychology), much is very strange. "
Weininger made an answer, of which Mobius says: "I re-
ceived from Weininger a long, rather formless letter written
from Syracuse, August 17. The author is very upset. I had
accused him of plagiarism, of hypocritical and criminal be-
havior, and of harming others. I had to prove what I had said
or make a public apology. He gave me three weeks, then he
would make public the malicious slander and force me to
bring a law suit against him. " In reply to this Mobius pub-
lished a pamphlet entitled, like the review, Geschlecht und
Unbescheidenheit (Sex and Immodesty). It was printed in
Leipzig in November, 1903.
Weininger, deeply wounded, had already answered his critic
in the August 22 issue of Zukunft. "I believe," he said, "that this
book has solved the psychological problem of sexual difference
and has given the final answer to the so-called problem of
woman's emancipation. " This statement justifies Mobius in
ascribing to Weininger a complete lack of modesty. Because
of the attack, which he considered to be mean, Weininger's
feeling of his own greatness mounted to dangerous heights.
His words in the Zukunft article show a pathologically height-
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? Crossing the Border 139
ened self-esteem and lack of self-criticism. His reactions seem
to have been based on the theory that everybody took an interest
in his book, which was far from the truth. True, Sex and Char-
acter did arouse public interest, but it did not immediately
bring the fame that Weininger expected. Only the members
of his small circle of friends and acquaintances were enraged
by the strong condemnation of the book. The world did not
pay much attention to his work or his personality while Wei-
ninger was still alive. Even when he killed himself, though the
dramatic character of his death drew more attention than
would have attended death from natural causes, public inter-
est was still small. His importance was, for instance, so slight
in Scandinavian public opinion that his death was not even
mentioned in the Scandinavian press. In the Norwegian papers
of that time not one word can be found about his work or his
death.
Only in Weininger's imaginary world had his work and his
person caused any sensation. He was, therefore, so much the
more wounded by Mobius's suggestion that he had imitated
Mobius's work. His reaction to this was also unreasonable.
Mobius writes on this point: "Weininger believed that I had
called him an imitator. How could I have done such a thing?
That would have been impolite, even insulting. No, I did no
such thing. My words should have been perfectly clear; Wei-
ninger's usual sagacity must have left him for a moment when
this unfortunate thought entered his mind. I said that I
thought people might consider him a plagiarist. That is the
reason for this malicious and arrogant attack. "
Weininger apparently wanted to forestall any claim that he
had imitated the work that Mobius had written concerning
the psychological feeblemindedness of woman in 1900.
Mobius maintained flatly that the title Weininger used was
an imitation. "Otto Weininger writes that he had already
chosen his title early in 1902. This must, of course, be the
case if he says so. But he adds that he had seen my Geschlecht
und Entarung (Sex and Degeneration) before his own book
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? 140 Crossing the Border
was published. On the cover of that book the words 'Sex and
--' are printed five times. When someone has looked at my
title and then chooses 'Sex and --he is at least committing
a breach of tact. "
A man of composed mind would have admitted that the
main idea in Sex and Character could be recognized in the
earlier work by Mobius, even though Weininger had worked
out the theory on a larger scale. But Otto was not willing to
( admit this debt. He maintained that he alone had solved the
psychological problem of sex difference.
Therefore he felt that
he was insulted by criticism. The reaction of a man of normal
mind would have accorded better with the real facts than did
Weininger's. Yet there is no reason to believe that the criti-
cism brought about any systematized ideas of persecution in
Weininger or created in him a paranoid attitude. In spite of
his twisted relation to reality, he did not develop any ideas of
persecution totally divorced from the real world. His self-
esteem did become greater after the attack by Mobius, but
probably not because of any paranoid tendency. He already
had the conviction that he was a great man. The criticism of
Mobius and others--which Weininger did consider base per-
secution--only caused him to feel greater.
Sex and Character did not bring him the comfort he antic-
ipated. A few passages in Taschenbuch reveal one side of his
mental state, his great pain. "If the flat-headed Schiller, in-
stead of writing that sentence that is a desert of beautiful-
sounding comfortable moralizing, 'Shared happiness is double
happiness, shared pain is half pain,' had written, 'A man can
share his happiness but never his pain,' he would have told
the truth" (p. 43). Obviously this means that Weininger felt
that he could never share his own pain with anyone. Again he
writes, "Your double is the complex of all your bad qualities.
All minor fears are only a part of this total fear, the fear of
your double" (p. 42). Here the mood of suffering is combined
with growing gloom, characteristic of his mental development
in this period. To add to this despair he had the knowledge
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? Crossing the Border 141
that the world was moving along just as it had before his book
was published, that no one was paying deep attention to his
revelations. There is no doubt that he became depressed, and
he thought his melancholy due to a sudden moral deficiency
in himself (U. L. D. , p. xvii). 8
In June, 1903, Weininger left his quarters in Vienna and
spent six weeks with his family at Brunn-bei-Modling. His
mood in this period was illustrated in two incidents. One was
his comment on praise of his book. "A man of letters in
Vienna, a brilliant intellectual, wrote him in most enthusias-
tic praise of the masterpiece. Otto only muttered to his father,
'I have written a book for the thousands of years to come,
and I am still not understood. ' " The other was also recorded
by his father. "Before Otto left for Italy that summer, he told
me that no woman could ever understand his work" (Der Fall,
P-9)-
These statements show that this self-esteem was still grow-
ing within him, as were discouragement and despair. "He
must have harbored the thought of suicide for a long time,"
says Lucka. "That is apparent in the fact that he wrote his last
will that summer" (Die Fackel, October 17,1903, pp. 15-16).
He was so dispirited that he wanted to get away from him-
self. And so he went to Italy. "He was very upset when he left
for Italy," says Ewald (p. 68). He had fled from the world
and its people; now he wanted to flee from life itself. But
there was something that still held him back, that still kept
him bound to life--his book and its recognition. Yet there
was no word from home, he gained no fame, and few voices
were lifted up to laud his work.
The letters he wrote show his frustrated hope for fame and
his sadness. He wrote to Gerber from Syracuse, August 10,
1903, "Please write to me very soon! " (Taschenbuch, p. 93. )
And yet his mind was open enough to allow him to start his
8 In a psychological-psychiatric light this conclusion may be taken as evidence
of a primary insufficiency of the psychic activity. See A. Storch, "Bewusstseins-
bahnen und Wirklichkeitsbereiche in der Schizophrenic," in Zeitschrift fur die
gesammte Neurologie und Psychiatric, LXXXII (1923), 336.
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? 142 Crossing the Border
letter by saying: "I absolutely want to hear whether you are
in very bad condition now. Your fear of destroying some feel-
ing of happiness or optimism in me is quite unfounded. " In
spite of his own desperate situation, he could still think of his
friend. He also wrote back: "Syracuse is the most peculiar
place in the world. Here I can only be born or die, never live.
The sight of Etna made me think of the impressive shameless-
ness of the crater. It reminds me of the behind of a monkey.
"I advise you to study Beethoven as much as possible. He is
the absolute opposite of Shakespeare and to be Shakespeare or
like Shakespeare is something every great man must and will
rise above--I see that more and more clearly. The world has
no center in Shakespeare. In Beethoven it has one" (U. L. D. ,
pp. xx-xxi).
In spite of his apparent interest in extrovert activity, Wei-
ninger could not get away from himself, and in Syracuse he was
absorbed in his own thoughts. Here he wrote some of the es-
says that were later gathered into Vber die letzten Dinge. A
reflection of his work is to be seen in a letter he wrote to
Gerber on August 22:
"Read Peer Gynt by all means, if not for my sake, then for
your own. It might teach you to develop something that is
only vaguely expressed in you now.
"Read Emperor and Galilean too. There are magnificent
passages here (but they cannot be compared to the other
work)!
"If Ibsen had kept the ambition he had in Peer Gynt, he
would have been greater than Goethe; I have seldom known
a work which made it so impossible for me not to share in all
the praise spent on it.
"By the way, it is only a weakness not to read in order not
to be influenced. One should become stronger by reading, not
the opposite" (Taschenbuch, pp. 94, 95).
His introversion is apparent in another letter to Gerber,
written on August 27: "I must once more call your attention
to what I wrote about Shakespeare and Beethoven, because
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? Crossing the Border 143
you are working with the problem of the will which Shake-
speare treated in Hamlet. The will is what gives time its direc-
tion. It means the separation of past from future. That is why
only in Hamlet does Shakespeare have a sense of the meaning
of life and conquer time" (Taschenbuch, p. 95).
Weininger also wanted to conquer time. In several letters to
Rappaport he wrote that "time shall be conquered. " When he
completed Vber die letzten Dinge he wrote to him from Casa-
micciola, Isola d'Ischia, "I am much worse than I thought I
was a few days ago; it is practically hopeless" (U. L. D. , p.
xxii). From Naples he inquired, "Is there not a similarity
between life on earth and the paroxysm of the epileptic? . . .
Are the mosquito (which, by the way, has a certain sadistic
beauty) and the flea and the bedbug also created by God? I
cannot and will not believe it. They are all symbols of some-
thing from which God turned away. God cannot live in such
things, because God is the good; God creates only himself and
nothing else" (U. L. D. , p. xxii).
"Suicide does not show courage," he comments, "but cow-
ardice, even though it is the smallest of all cowardice"
(U. L. D. , p. xxii). From Weininger's point of view this is
nothing but a hopeless confession. And in his last letter to
Rappaport (no date) he wrote, "Fear is the reverse of every
will. . . . But I believe fear is also related to indecency"
(U. L. D. ,p. xxiv).
These quotations give a good picture of Weininger during
his visit to Italy. They show that he was deeply depressed and
was thinking of suicide. The opinion of Weininger's father--
and he was right--was that an expert should have taken these
letters as a warning. Certain statements in the chapter "Apho-
ristisches" in Vber die letzten Dinge show preoccupation with
the thought of dying by his own hand: "Every decent man will
seek death when he knows that he is ultimately evil. Base
people are sent to death by a legal sentence. . . . All realiza-
tion is a release" (Taschenbuch, p. 66). No doubt he was
thinking of himself. And there is an obvious reference to him-
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? 144 Crossing the Border
self in the following passage from Taschenbuch (p. 64): "The
man who does not succeed in his suicide? He is the complete
criminal, because he wants to live in order to revenge himself.
Everything evil is revenge. " Weininger wanted to take his life
in November, 1902; when he did not succeed, he looked on
the attempt as desire to be able to revenge himself. If his in-
terpretation is right, as seems probable, it perfectly exemplifies
Weininger's gift of rationalizing, which in him, as so often in
others, is best expressed in moral behavior. 6
Weininger returned to Vienna in September, 1903, in the
deepest despair. His mood had become more and more mis-
erable. The desperate effort at self-control had apparently
taken all his energy. His gloomy state of mind seemed to in-
dicate that his spirit was broken (. U. L. D. , p. xxiii; Ewald, p.
68; Taschenbuch, p. 21).
He stayed with his parents five days. There is every reason
to believe that this was longer than he had at first planned.
In that last week he had a talk with Gerber. "I had no idea,"
says Gerber, "that he was thinking of suicide. When I saw
him for the last time he said, 'The one criticism that cannot
be made is that my book suffers from a lack of inspiration.
You did not help me with the proofreading of the first edition.
You have no examination now. Promise that you will be re-
sponsible for the second edition. ' On the same occasion he
also said, 'We shall not see each other again soon/ and gave
as reason that he had some work which he had to finish at
once" (Taschenbuch, pp. 21-22).
These statements give clear indication of his suicide plans.
Yet Gerber did not understand them as an expression of
Weininger's last will and testament; he admits that he had no
idea that Weininger intended to commit suicide. When they
parted, they did so "without being in any way solemn, just
cordial in the ordinary way" (Taschenbuch, p. 22).
"But the next evening," Gerber writes, "Weininger came to
see me at my home. I was not there. The following day I
8 B. Hart, The Psychology of Insanity (Cambridge, 1936), p. 67.
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? Crossing the Border 145
heard that Weininger had paced up and down my room in
great excitement and waited in vain for many hours. Late at
night he left. He had left word that I should not expect him
the next day, and I didn't. But he did return.
