Needless to say, he was
thinking
of
himself.
himself.
Weininger - 1946 - Mind and Death of a Genius
This untiring, passionate, and
romantic search for an anchor in the metaphysical and
speculative world resulted from the struggle between his self-
reproach and his biological drives, a conflict that led to con-
scientious scruples and a sense of guilt and, naturally, furthered
his feeling of mental dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
The vicious circle of his doubts and contemplations had
early turned his thinking to brooding. The change had probably
occurred as early as 1900. His emotional life can never have
been particularly happy. As Rappaport says, "He was never
good-natured in the ordinary sense, that is, tolerant of those
qualities which help one to enjoy life without actually hurting
others; this lack was probably connected with the fact that he
never felt genial" (Der Fall, p. 11).
Yet the condition was not static. How lack of happiness was
wearing on him is apparent when we compare "Schauder"
(quoted on page 21) with an earlier poem. This earlier poem,
written in 1899, may give foundation to the theory that he was
not conscious of his own lack. It was written in shorthand on
the back of an admission card for a meeting of the Society for
Social Science on March 10, 1899. It has been more or less
completely deciphered with professional help. It is of all the
more interest because if has never been published before:
DER FALTER
Wiegt das Kopfchen zwischenzeitig bange (? ) --
lachen die Augen glitzem in Tranen
Und die Stimme wie (? ) sonst Klang (? )
zittert und bebt vor Sehnen.
Madel, Madel, sei klug und gescheit,
lass den Falter fliegen!
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? Empty Scene 63
Schau! Die Welt ist so gross, so weit
wirst ja noch andere kriegen.
Andere Falter, die so schbne (? )
und galantes (? ) gesponnen--
denn mag auch die Welt noch nach Jahr (? ) tausend Tone (? )
Falter flattern zur Sonnen!
Madel, Madel, sei wieder froh,
lach wieder lustig (? ) undheiter!
Troste dich: Alle Falter sind so!
Sie flattern davon. Was weiter?
THE BUTTERFLY
The small head rocks; half-laughter wells,
Timid, in eyes where tears are thronging.
The voice that was sweet with the sound of bells
Trembles and shakes with longing.
Learn, little maid, learn wisdom's way:
Loose to the winds the winged creature.
Broad the world stretches, colored, gay
With butterflies flying, for you to capture.
Ever, forever, will they emerge
From their dark cocoons with courtly bearing.
While the world lasts, while eons surge,
They will come forth, in sunlight faring.
Laugh, little maid, with the joy of flame.
Be strong and glad as the running of water.
Take comfort: Butterflies stay the same--
They flutter away. What matter?
There is a light mood in this poem, with perhaps some
undercurrents ("Trembles and shakes with longing"). More
than anything else it is questioning and wondering, definitely
not in the same vein of unhappiness and despair that marks
"Schauder. " The card on which the earlier poem was jotted
down is also in itself evidence that he was at that time in-
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? 64 Empty Scene
terested in the Society and was seemingly engaged in worldly
activities. Apparently he was not in 1899 suffering from the
dark mood shown when he wrote "Schauder" in 1900. The
change may have come first as a general mood of unhappiness.
After 1899--in any case, by the summer of 1900--conscious
introspection was growing in his world, which was painfully
full of contrasts and was a good breeding ground for unhappi-
ness.
No doubt this unhappiness and dissatisfaction within a mind
in conflict left its mark on his thinking. Swoboda stated of this
period in his life: "In his thinking Weininger frequently
followed his psychic interests" (Swoboda, p. 27). If we re-
member this description, we may more readily understand why
he clung to his views even when his keen mind must have told
him that he was wrong. In order to disentangle the conflict
which resulted in gloom and unhappiness, he constructed
theories, theoretical truths, or fantasies to satisfy his emotional
needs.
The furious struggle in Weininger between his sexual tend-
encies and moral self-criticism had to be neutralized. But
to neutralize it successfully he had to cling to opinions which
might soothe the conflict in him even though they seemed
untenable and unnecessary to the normal men around him.
This neutralizing process was an effort to bring happiness into
his life; the method he tried to use was self-contemplation. In
other words, he used introspection as a means of getting rid of
the ideas which oppressed him. Thus, Rappaport writes that:
"Otto Weininger through introspection tried to chase away
the haunting ghosts in his mind. By concentrating his whole
conscious ego on that one point, he tried to expel the antimoral
impulses" (U. L. D. , p. xvii).
Otto Weininger certainly had reason to feel unhappy, since
he had within him uncomfortable desires and wants which
were undoubtedly related to strong sexual drives. These desires
seem to have been more frequent than one might think, in view
of his steady fight against them.
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? Empty Scene 65
One may even assume, indeed, that the desires were already
at that time somewhat obsessional in character and that, inter-
mingled with them, he felt inclinations to lie and to be cruel.
Rappaport says also that Otto Weininger felt in himself
tendencies to murder (U. L. D. , p. xiv).
A peculiar development then took place. While from the
start he considered introspection a means of psychological
research, it not only was for him a research method, but also
acquired in him a personal moral value, inasmuch as he tried to
employ it to rid himself of emotions that made him feel
wicked and oppressed.
The deeper he went in his self-analysis, the more he felt his
"antimoral" impulses protruding. Gradually he grew to hate
himself. The first hint of such a development he showed in his
essay about Henrik Ibsen. He wrote: "Self-hatred is the best
foundation for self-examination. All self-examination is a
phenomenon typical of the self-hater. They are the least
pathetic and the most shameful of all people who despair when
dominated by any kind of pathos. An ordinary conversation- is
impossible for them, since they always and eternally suffer be-
cause of their whole ego, and this suffering they have to deny if
they become pathetic" (U. L. D. , p. 34).
There is no doubt that this type of introspection was self-
experienced. This very fine reflection of himself shows that he
was suffering even though his difficulty was not outwardly
apparent. He felt that he must not allow his emotions and his
passions to reveal themselves--a fact he confirms when he goes
on with his picture of the "self-hater": "For those who hate
themselves it is much harder to endure loneliness than it is for
those who love themselves; still, their efforts to seek the com-
pany of others will always be unsuccessful because they suffer
from the most terrible fate that can befall a good man: never
really to love another person. Their minds and spirits can never
be free, can never communicate with the minds of others whom
they might love and who might love them, so strong always is
the ego within them" (U. L. D. , p. 34).
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? 66 Empty Scene
Otto Weininger is speaking from hard personal experience.
He is so engulfed in his own struggle, so tied up in his own
personality make-up, that his personality can never mingle with
that of another. These reflections were expressed some months
later in a letter to Gerber (August 15, 1902): "The feeling of
not being able to love anybody, I am, unfortunately, very
familiar with" (Taschenbuch, p. 70). When we compare this
statement with what we have just quoted from his essay on
Ibsen, we see that he is kept shut in by his own feelings and
passions, in whatever form they may take. '
This feeling of being shut in reveals itself clearly in the next
few words: "They [the self-haters] are like a house with shutters
forever closed. The sun may perhaps heat the house, too, and
shine on it, but this house will never open; apparently angry,
hard, sullen, and bitter, it refuses the sunlight as if afraid of
happiness. What does it look like inside the house? A wild
desperate activity, a slow terrifying realization in the dark, an
eternal clearing-out of things. Do not ask how it looks inside
the house" (U. L. D. ,p. 34).
The house of which he speaks is himself. On the surface he
refuses to communicate with others, while in the depths he
wants their companionship. But if they try to intrude upon
him, he does not want them. In the depths of his soul it is
dark, but within the darkness an incessant, despairing activity
goes on.
When he talks of "a slow, terrifying realization' in the dark,"
the words reveal his closed-up, isolated world, without mirth,
without happiness. The document which Otto wrote under the
title "Verdamnis" (Condemnation) proves satisfactorily that
the passage in the essay on Ibsen was meant as a description of
Weininger himself. "Verdamnis," which is reproduced on the
last page of the Appendix, was sent to me by Rosa Weininger
and has never before been published. In its description of
morbid unhappiness and its sense of doom, it bears a curious
likeness to the poem by Emily Bronte beginning
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? ^/'/ua^ b&&st v+^&C/^
GLA<C? 4c4. <k. **f >> ? ~*~--~
J. ty--< (f**-*
FACSIMILE OF LAST PAGE OF "VERDAMNIS,"
SHOWING WEININGER'S SIGNATURE
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? 68 Empty Scene
I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;
I never caused a thought of gloom,
A smile of joy, since I was born. *
The atmosphere is the same, an air charged with ill fate and
abandonment.
If we analyze Weininger's unhappiness, we discover that it
was essentially a lack of happiness, a void rather than a state of
active unhappiness.
As he probed into his own feelings, he not only became
aware of his lack but also eventually grew conscious that he
suffered from a total inability to feel happy. "He was," Lucka
says (p. 5), "very conscious of this missing quality. " An
aphorism he wrote later--probably in the summer of 1903 dur-
ing his visit to Italy--sheds light upon his feelings:
"Love creates beauty 1
"Faith creates existence I but all create life. "
"Hope creates happiness J
From the summer of 1901, when he first became conscious
of this flaw within himself, until the summer of 1903 he
developed the concept that happiness was instrumental in
creating life. Since he was undoubtedly thinking of himself, we
may conclude that through two years of rigid self-analysis he
discovered that happiness was for him as well as for others an
important part of living, one of the three cornerstones which he
believed to be the foundation of life.
After Weininger had become conscious of his lack, which he
tried to overcome by neutralizing it, he set himself to oppose
the inclinations and conflicts that caused this condition. The
result was in general an immense tension in his mind and in all
his activities; at the same time this sad, joyless, and dreary
despondency created an interior tension of secondary degree.
Therefore he was living in a double tension.
* The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte, edited by C. W. Hatfield (New
York, 1941), p. 36.
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? Empty Scene 69
After he had become a doctor philosophiae in the summer of
1902, he accepted from his father money to travel--money
which he had proudly declined during his studies. He could
now undertake the journey he had been longing to take for a
long time. Yet his travels apparently were not accidentally
motivated; they did not materialize only because he now had
the financial means at hand. At that time he probably came
to feel that he could not tolerate borders or barriers. He felt
that his horizon was limitless. He preferred the whole wide
world as his scene of action, and he took it, not in spite of his
loneliness but because of it.
His loneliness was qualitative in nature. It was ingrained in
him and became morbid. Typical of his feelings were the words
he wrote in "Letzte Aphorismen": "Illness and loneliness are
related. The slightest illness makes man feel more lonely than
before" (U. L. D. , p. 175).
Needless to say, he was thinking of
himself. And the words he wrote in the summer of 1903, when
he was traveling in Italy, probably voiced feelings that he had
known with equal strength in 1902. He wrote to Gerber:
"There is something wrong with you. . . . I think you are too
much of a gambler. You want too much to be given to you by
providence. You have put too much at stake, and you hope for
too much from the love of women. One needs loneliness more
than escape into the company of others. It is necessary that you
think more of yourself, courageously, always and everywhere"
(Taschenbuch, p. 96).
When we look at his desire for loneliness from the wider
viewpoint as the expression of a way of life, we may see that it
was for him a principle of spiritual activity. The longing for
loneliness dominated Weininger, was for him a vital problem.
He came to believe that loneliness was a means of creating
principles of life though such a doctrine would be repugnant
to normal human beings. Finally the need for solitude grew so
strong in him that it took on a moral color.
It is to be noted that for Weininger the general problem of
loneliness had not only a psychological aspect but also a
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? yo Empty Scene
characterological aspect; it was cultural as well, and even a
philosophical, metaphysical, and religious phenomenon. It
reached into all corners of human mental activities. Just as an
ordinary man may frequently achieve his fulfillment and be-
come truly a man only in the company of others, so an individ-
ual turned toward isolation may become truly himself only in
loneliness. The desire and need for solitude may, and often
does, make the man what he is. To the intellectual loneliness
may be a matter of spiritual life or death. To Weininger it was;
because of his craving for solitude he arrived at the way of life
essential to him and created the permanent mold for his
individuality. Loneliness became for him in the end a "human
right. "
His travels may be seen in a symbolic light; for instance, as a
manifestation of his sexual desires. A quotation from Sex and
Character is of special interest in this regard. He says in the
chapter "Erotics and Aesthetics," after pointing out that Kant
must have had little knowledge of love or sexual desire, "Kant
was so little sexual that he did not even feel the need to travel. "
Even if we consider sexual desire as a possible reason for
his travels,5 we may still look on them as an expression of yearn-
ing to be in a world without barriers. There was in this journey,
as in every other journey, an indefinite longing. Weininger
himself says, "Every journey is caused by an undefined longing,
a metaphysical motive" (U. L. D. , p. 98). For him, then, all
travel resulted from some inexplicable urge, and he was not at
all able to search out the source of his desire. Through his first
travels he acquired an external universality just as he was at the
point of reaching an internal universality.
His journey showed not only his lack of happiness and
introversion, but also an ability to keep his mind open--at least
to a certain degree. Above all, his movement across the world
was clearly related to his strong desire for some sort of balance
and expression.
5 Cf. Hans Bliiher, Die deutsche Vandervogelbewegung ah erotisches Phenome-
non (Jena, 1916-17).
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? Empty Scene 71
He went first to Germany, and then up to Norway, to
Christiania (Oslo), where he studied Norwegian further in
order to read Hamsun in the original language. 6
Through letters and postcards that he sent his friend Gerber
and his sister Rosa we can follow his experiences and his state
of mind. From a little place in southern Germany he wrote a
few lines (July 25, 1902): "Things are not going at all well
with me inwardly. I hope that you, at least, are not doing so
badly" (Taschenbuch, p. 70). From Munich he wrote (July
29): "It is a bit better with me now; at least I pretend it is. . . .
Our parting has thrown a shadow over my path. And you? The
thing for you is: Control your passions, sans phrase. Fate deter-
mines many things, no matter how we struggle" (Taschenbuch,
pp. 70-71).
To his sister he wrote on July 30 a postcard, which has not
been previously published: "Munich. Tuesday night--good.
Now I should not be sloppy! Munich holds nothing for you.
It is boring in the long run. People in general seem just as unin-
teresting here as elsewhere. Novels have already been written
about liquor, but not yet about beer. The girls are generally
quite pretty here--even more so than in Vienna. Have seen
Propylaen today. The poem Gerber wrote is the only beautiful
thing about it. Otto. "
In Nuremberg, as in Munich, he drank beer. From Nurem-
berg he wrote to Gerber his statement about leading "two or
three other lives of which you know nothing. " He went on to
say: "I am in a bad state now, worse than ever before. Not only
unproductive, not only full of confused ideas limping along.
That is only a small part of it; there is far more. Perhaps one
day I shall be able to tell you. "
From Nuremberg he went to Bayreuth. On August 8 he
wrote: "If you had stood outside Wagner's house and read
what he wrote, you would have thought of yourself. [Gerber
was at this time just about to take a decisive examination. ]
Don't think that I do not fully understand your sufferings. It
6 Spire, Quelques juifs, p. 187.
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? j2 Empty Scene
is because I do understand them that I cannot write about
them. . . . To tell the truth, there is something lacking in you
which keeps you from the heights; if you possessed it, then that
fact alone would keep you from thinking so much of your
future, because in the lack lies your unhappiness. There are
people whose lives, in their external and internal conditions,
turn out to be as miserable as yours, but they are still not so
unhappy. What you lack is the religious, or philosophical, or
metaphysical. There is in you a terrible, passionate longing;
you don't know its object and still your demand is insistent.
You are longing for your home, and you do not know that your
home is only in yourself. . . . I write nothing about Bayreuth
and Parsifal. Later on you will understand why. Tomorrow I
am going to Dresden.
"Much to be seen, but I have not much time and I do not
feel like writing about it, therefore no long letter" (Taschen-
buch, pp. 73-74).
On August 10 he sent his sister a post card with a picture of
Wagner and his house. On it he wrote, "Here you see a sacred
place. "
From Bayreuth his route led to Dresden, where he visited
an art exhibition. It was here that the thought first came to him
that he was born to be a musician and had a special musical
imagination. His letter goes on: "I have discovered one who
really knows women, Palma Vecchio. I don't know whether
you have seen his pictures. I am interested in what you think
of Raphael's Madonna" (Taschenbuch, p. 77).
He left Dresden, going north through Germany and on to
Sassnitz. On the train en route to Sassnitz he wrote in short-
hand (August 15, 1902): "That the woman as a rule is
avaricious, mendacious, coquettish, that she springs into action
as soon as she seems to go down in someone's respect, that she
[ will leave alone anyone who courts her naively and admires her
openly--in short that she has all of the prostitute in her--is not
so startling to me as you seem to think. And by this I am less
provoked than by the observation I made shortly before I left
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? Empty Scene 73
that in all these qualities she does not suffer and does not
control herself, that she does not hold herself in check. You
have far too good an opinion of me. I realize that over and over
again. Perhaps the confession I make to you now is also accom-
panied by my accursed vanity. The feeling of not being able to
return love I unfortunately understand. I cannot believe that
of you. I hope that you will understand this first shorthand
note" (Taschenbuch, pp. 78-79).
His journey went on. From a little summer resort by the
Baltic Sea he spoke of the time he still had left to spend abroad.
"In eight days I'll be back in Vienna, where I must stay until
late September, in the house with the thirty-three ugly, un-
married Jewesses" (Taschenbuch, p. 80).
Once more he returned to his mental state: "Your sympathy
for me in my afflictions has been a great comfort to me. The
weather stays bad, inside and out. Since I left--it is four weeks
ago tomorrow--I have not had one good day.
"Did you really think that I should care to know with whom
Miss K. is playing tennis? Am I such a woman? . . . Women
are either motherly hyenas or childish, soi-disant kittens. One
half of them are ugly. . . . Aren't you ashamed of yourself
that you are attracted by that aspect of woman? Nature has
tried to incorporate shamelessness in her" (Taschenbuch,
pp. 80-81).
And the letter continued: "My father sent me 100 Marks at
Bayreuth, and I have returned them. It is unpleasant enough
for me that I shall have to accept his support from time to time
when I return. . . . My journey seems to me to be con-
tradictory. Only in the geographic sense is it straight. But after
Parsifal one should go on a pilgrimage to a far-off land, to the
end of the world, and then be forgotten somewhere. . . . My
journey has also made me realize that I am no philosopher.
Really not! But am I anything else? I doubt it very much. "
These two letters illustrate the darkness of his mood. Partic-
ularly the words, "The weather stays bad inside and out" re-
veal how far he was journeying in despair,
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? 74 Empty Scene
From Sassnitz he went to Copenhagen, and there he wrote
that his father had once more sent him a sum of 100 Marks,
which enabled him to go to Christiania (Oslo). From Fred-
rikshavn he wrote to Gerber (August 21): "I have not been
seasick. But I had not expected it otherwise. I can think of
nothing that hurts your dignity so mortally as being seasick. It
is typical that every woman on board was seasick" (Taschen-
buch, p. 85).
Finally he reached Christiania. On Friday, August 22, he re-
corded: "I arrived here this morning at 5:48. I am looking
forward to everything. Tomorrow I am going to the National
Theater to see Peer Gynt. Today I shall hear Don Juan for the
second time on my trip. The first time was in Munich. " The
next day he wrote: "I should like to go to Bergen on the
Norwegian west coast, where the glaciers and the fjords are,
from there by sea to Hamburg, and then via Magdeburg and
Prague to Vienna.
romantic search for an anchor in the metaphysical and
speculative world resulted from the struggle between his self-
reproach and his biological drives, a conflict that led to con-
scientious scruples and a sense of guilt and, naturally, furthered
his feeling of mental dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
The vicious circle of his doubts and contemplations had
early turned his thinking to brooding. The change had probably
occurred as early as 1900. His emotional life can never have
been particularly happy. As Rappaport says, "He was never
good-natured in the ordinary sense, that is, tolerant of those
qualities which help one to enjoy life without actually hurting
others; this lack was probably connected with the fact that he
never felt genial" (Der Fall, p. 11).
Yet the condition was not static. How lack of happiness was
wearing on him is apparent when we compare "Schauder"
(quoted on page 21) with an earlier poem. This earlier poem,
written in 1899, may give foundation to the theory that he was
not conscious of his own lack. It was written in shorthand on
the back of an admission card for a meeting of the Society for
Social Science on March 10, 1899. It has been more or less
completely deciphered with professional help. It is of all the
more interest because if has never been published before:
DER FALTER
Wiegt das Kopfchen zwischenzeitig bange (? ) --
lachen die Augen glitzem in Tranen
Und die Stimme wie (? ) sonst Klang (? )
zittert und bebt vor Sehnen.
Madel, Madel, sei klug und gescheit,
lass den Falter fliegen!
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? Empty Scene 63
Schau! Die Welt ist so gross, so weit
wirst ja noch andere kriegen.
Andere Falter, die so schbne (? )
und galantes (? ) gesponnen--
denn mag auch die Welt noch nach Jahr (? ) tausend Tone (? )
Falter flattern zur Sonnen!
Madel, Madel, sei wieder froh,
lach wieder lustig (? ) undheiter!
Troste dich: Alle Falter sind so!
Sie flattern davon. Was weiter?
THE BUTTERFLY
The small head rocks; half-laughter wells,
Timid, in eyes where tears are thronging.
The voice that was sweet with the sound of bells
Trembles and shakes with longing.
Learn, little maid, learn wisdom's way:
Loose to the winds the winged creature.
Broad the world stretches, colored, gay
With butterflies flying, for you to capture.
Ever, forever, will they emerge
From their dark cocoons with courtly bearing.
While the world lasts, while eons surge,
They will come forth, in sunlight faring.
Laugh, little maid, with the joy of flame.
Be strong and glad as the running of water.
Take comfort: Butterflies stay the same--
They flutter away. What matter?
There is a light mood in this poem, with perhaps some
undercurrents ("Trembles and shakes with longing"). More
than anything else it is questioning and wondering, definitely
not in the same vein of unhappiness and despair that marks
"Schauder. " The card on which the earlier poem was jotted
down is also in itself evidence that he was at that time in-
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? 64 Empty Scene
terested in the Society and was seemingly engaged in worldly
activities. Apparently he was not in 1899 suffering from the
dark mood shown when he wrote "Schauder" in 1900. The
change may have come first as a general mood of unhappiness.
After 1899--in any case, by the summer of 1900--conscious
introspection was growing in his world, which was painfully
full of contrasts and was a good breeding ground for unhappi-
ness.
No doubt this unhappiness and dissatisfaction within a mind
in conflict left its mark on his thinking. Swoboda stated of this
period in his life: "In his thinking Weininger frequently
followed his psychic interests" (Swoboda, p. 27). If we re-
member this description, we may more readily understand why
he clung to his views even when his keen mind must have told
him that he was wrong. In order to disentangle the conflict
which resulted in gloom and unhappiness, he constructed
theories, theoretical truths, or fantasies to satisfy his emotional
needs.
The furious struggle in Weininger between his sexual tend-
encies and moral self-criticism had to be neutralized. But
to neutralize it successfully he had to cling to opinions which
might soothe the conflict in him even though they seemed
untenable and unnecessary to the normal men around him.
This neutralizing process was an effort to bring happiness into
his life; the method he tried to use was self-contemplation. In
other words, he used introspection as a means of getting rid of
the ideas which oppressed him. Thus, Rappaport writes that:
"Otto Weininger through introspection tried to chase away
the haunting ghosts in his mind. By concentrating his whole
conscious ego on that one point, he tried to expel the antimoral
impulses" (U. L. D. , p. xvii).
Otto Weininger certainly had reason to feel unhappy, since
he had within him uncomfortable desires and wants which
were undoubtedly related to strong sexual drives. These desires
seem to have been more frequent than one might think, in view
of his steady fight against them.
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One may even assume, indeed, that the desires were already
at that time somewhat obsessional in character and that, inter-
mingled with them, he felt inclinations to lie and to be cruel.
Rappaport says also that Otto Weininger felt in himself
tendencies to murder (U. L. D. , p. xiv).
A peculiar development then took place. While from the
start he considered introspection a means of psychological
research, it not only was for him a research method, but also
acquired in him a personal moral value, inasmuch as he tried to
employ it to rid himself of emotions that made him feel
wicked and oppressed.
The deeper he went in his self-analysis, the more he felt his
"antimoral" impulses protruding. Gradually he grew to hate
himself. The first hint of such a development he showed in his
essay about Henrik Ibsen. He wrote: "Self-hatred is the best
foundation for self-examination. All self-examination is a
phenomenon typical of the self-hater. They are the least
pathetic and the most shameful of all people who despair when
dominated by any kind of pathos. An ordinary conversation- is
impossible for them, since they always and eternally suffer be-
cause of their whole ego, and this suffering they have to deny if
they become pathetic" (U. L. D. , p. 34).
There is no doubt that this type of introspection was self-
experienced. This very fine reflection of himself shows that he
was suffering even though his difficulty was not outwardly
apparent. He felt that he must not allow his emotions and his
passions to reveal themselves--a fact he confirms when he goes
on with his picture of the "self-hater": "For those who hate
themselves it is much harder to endure loneliness than it is for
those who love themselves; still, their efforts to seek the com-
pany of others will always be unsuccessful because they suffer
from the most terrible fate that can befall a good man: never
really to love another person. Their minds and spirits can never
be free, can never communicate with the minds of others whom
they might love and who might love them, so strong always is
the ego within them" (U. L. D. , p. 34).
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? 66 Empty Scene
Otto Weininger is speaking from hard personal experience.
He is so engulfed in his own struggle, so tied up in his own
personality make-up, that his personality can never mingle with
that of another. These reflections were expressed some months
later in a letter to Gerber (August 15, 1902): "The feeling of
not being able to love anybody, I am, unfortunately, very
familiar with" (Taschenbuch, p. 70). When we compare this
statement with what we have just quoted from his essay on
Ibsen, we see that he is kept shut in by his own feelings and
passions, in whatever form they may take. '
This feeling of being shut in reveals itself clearly in the next
few words: "They [the self-haters] are like a house with shutters
forever closed. The sun may perhaps heat the house, too, and
shine on it, but this house will never open; apparently angry,
hard, sullen, and bitter, it refuses the sunlight as if afraid of
happiness. What does it look like inside the house? A wild
desperate activity, a slow terrifying realization in the dark, an
eternal clearing-out of things. Do not ask how it looks inside
the house" (U. L. D. ,p. 34).
The house of which he speaks is himself. On the surface he
refuses to communicate with others, while in the depths he
wants their companionship. But if they try to intrude upon
him, he does not want them. In the depths of his soul it is
dark, but within the darkness an incessant, despairing activity
goes on.
When he talks of "a slow, terrifying realization' in the dark,"
the words reveal his closed-up, isolated world, without mirth,
without happiness. The document which Otto wrote under the
title "Verdamnis" (Condemnation) proves satisfactorily that
the passage in the essay on Ibsen was meant as a description of
Weininger himself. "Verdamnis," which is reproduced on the
last page of the Appendix, was sent to me by Rosa Weininger
and has never before been published. In its description of
morbid unhappiness and its sense of doom, it bears a curious
likeness to the poem by Emily Bronte beginning
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? ^/'/ua^ b&&st v+^&C/^
GLA<C? 4c4. <k. **f >> ? ~*~--~
J. ty--< (f**-*
FACSIMILE OF LAST PAGE OF "VERDAMNIS,"
SHOWING WEININGER'S SIGNATURE
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? 68 Empty Scene
I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;
I never caused a thought of gloom,
A smile of joy, since I was born. *
The atmosphere is the same, an air charged with ill fate and
abandonment.
If we analyze Weininger's unhappiness, we discover that it
was essentially a lack of happiness, a void rather than a state of
active unhappiness.
As he probed into his own feelings, he not only became
aware of his lack but also eventually grew conscious that he
suffered from a total inability to feel happy. "He was," Lucka
says (p. 5), "very conscious of this missing quality. " An
aphorism he wrote later--probably in the summer of 1903 dur-
ing his visit to Italy--sheds light upon his feelings:
"Love creates beauty 1
"Faith creates existence I but all create life. "
"Hope creates happiness J
From the summer of 1901, when he first became conscious
of this flaw within himself, until the summer of 1903 he
developed the concept that happiness was instrumental in
creating life. Since he was undoubtedly thinking of himself, we
may conclude that through two years of rigid self-analysis he
discovered that happiness was for him as well as for others an
important part of living, one of the three cornerstones which he
believed to be the foundation of life.
After Weininger had become conscious of his lack, which he
tried to overcome by neutralizing it, he set himself to oppose
the inclinations and conflicts that caused this condition. The
result was in general an immense tension in his mind and in all
his activities; at the same time this sad, joyless, and dreary
despondency created an interior tension of secondary degree.
Therefore he was living in a double tension.
* The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte, edited by C. W. Hatfield (New
York, 1941), p. 36.
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? Empty Scene 69
After he had become a doctor philosophiae in the summer of
1902, he accepted from his father money to travel--money
which he had proudly declined during his studies. He could
now undertake the journey he had been longing to take for a
long time. Yet his travels apparently were not accidentally
motivated; they did not materialize only because he now had
the financial means at hand. At that time he probably came
to feel that he could not tolerate borders or barriers. He felt
that his horizon was limitless. He preferred the whole wide
world as his scene of action, and he took it, not in spite of his
loneliness but because of it.
His loneliness was qualitative in nature. It was ingrained in
him and became morbid. Typical of his feelings were the words
he wrote in "Letzte Aphorismen": "Illness and loneliness are
related. The slightest illness makes man feel more lonely than
before" (U. L. D. , p. 175).
Needless to say, he was thinking of
himself. And the words he wrote in the summer of 1903, when
he was traveling in Italy, probably voiced feelings that he had
known with equal strength in 1902. He wrote to Gerber:
"There is something wrong with you. . . . I think you are too
much of a gambler. You want too much to be given to you by
providence. You have put too much at stake, and you hope for
too much from the love of women. One needs loneliness more
than escape into the company of others. It is necessary that you
think more of yourself, courageously, always and everywhere"
(Taschenbuch, p. 96).
When we look at his desire for loneliness from the wider
viewpoint as the expression of a way of life, we may see that it
was for him a principle of spiritual activity. The longing for
loneliness dominated Weininger, was for him a vital problem.
He came to believe that loneliness was a means of creating
principles of life though such a doctrine would be repugnant
to normal human beings. Finally the need for solitude grew so
strong in him that it took on a moral color.
It is to be noted that for Weininger the general problem of
loneliness had not only a psychological aspect but also a
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? yo Empty Scene
characterological aspect; it was cultural as well, and even a
philosophical, metaphysical, and religious phenomenon. It
reached into all corners of human mental activities. Just as an
ordinary man may frequently achieve his fulfillment and be-
come truly a man only in the company of others, so an individ-
ual turned toward isolation may become truly himself only in
loneliness. The desire and need for solitude may, and often
does, make the man what he is. To the intellectual loneliness
may be a matter of spiritual life or death. To Weininger it was;
because of his craving for solitude he arrived at the way of life
essential to him and created the permanent mold for his
individuality. Loneliness became for him in the end a "human
right. "
His travels may be seen in a symbolic light; for instance, as a
manifestation of his sexual desires. A quotation from Sex and
Character is of special interest in this regard. He says in the
chapter "Erotics and Aesthetics," after pointing out that Kant
must have had little knowledge of love or sexual desire, "Kant
was so little sexual that he did not even feel the need to travel. "
Even if we consider sexual desire as a possible reason for
his travels,5 we may still look on them as an expression of yearn-
ing to be in a world without barriers. There was in this journey,
as in every other journey, an indefinite longing. Weininger
himself says, "Every journey is caused by an undefined longing,
a metaphysical motive" (U. L. D. , p. 98). For him, then, all
travel resulted from some inexplicable urge, and he was not at
all able to search out the source of his desire. Through his first
travels he acquired an external universality just as he was at the
point of reaching an internal universality.
His journey showed not only his lack of happiness and
introversion, but also an ability to keep his mind open--at least
to a certain degree. Above all, his movement across the world
was clearly related to his strong desire for some sort of balance
and expression.
5 Cf. Hans Bliiher, Die deutsche Vandervogelbewegung ah erotisches Phenome-
non (Jena, 1916-17).
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? Empty Scene 71
He went first to Germany, and then up to Norway, to
Christiania (Oslo), where he studied Norwegian further in
order to read Hamsun in the original language. 6
Through letters and postcards that he sent his friend Gerber
and his sister Rosa we can follow his experiences and his state
of mind. From a little place in southern Germany he wrote a
few lines (July 25, 1902): "Things are not going at all well
with me inwardly. I hope that you, at least, are not doing so
badly" (Taschenbuch, p. 70). From Munich he wrote (July
29): "It is a bit better with me now; at least I pretend it is. . . .
Our parting has thrown a shadow over my path. And you? The
thing for you is: Control your passions, sans phrase. Fate deter-
mines many things, no matter how we struggle" (Taschenbuch,
pp. 70-71).
To his sister he wrote on July 30 a postcard, which has not
been previously published: "Munich. Tuesday night--good.
Now I should not be sloppy! Munich holds nothing for you.
It is boring in the long run. People in general seem just as unin-
teresting here as elsewhere. Novels have already been written
about liquor, but not yet about beer. The girls are generally
quite pretty here--even more so than in Vienna. Have seen
Propylaen today. The poem Gerber wrote is the only beautiful
thing about it. Otto. "
In Nuremberg, as in Munich, he drank beer. From Nurem-
berg he wrote to Gerber his statement about leading "two or
three other lives of which you know nothing. " He went on to
say: "I am in a bad state now, worse than ever before. Not only
unproductive, not only full of confused ideas limping along.
That is only a small part of it; there is far more. Perhaps one
day I shall be able to tell you. "
From Nuremberg he went to Bayreuth. On August 8 he
wrote: "If you had stood outside Wagner's house and read
what he wrote, you would have thought of yourself. [Gerber
was at this time just about to take a decisive examination. ]
Don't think that I do not fully understand your sufferings. It
6 Spire, Quelques juifs, p. 187.
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? j2 Empty Scene
is because I do understand them that I cannot write about
them. . . . To tell the truth, there is something lacking in you
which keeps you from the heights; if you possessed it, then that
fact alone would keep you from thinking so much of your
future, because in the lack lies your unhappiness. There are
people whose lives, in their external and internal conditions,
turn out to be as miserable as yours, but they are still not so
unhappy. What you lack is the religious, or philosophical, or
metaphysical. There is in you a terrible, passionate longing;
you don't know its object and still your demand is insistent.
You are longing for your home, and you do not know that your
home is only in yourself. . . . I write nothing about Bayreuth
and Parsifal. Later on you will understand why. Tomorrow I
am going to Dresden.
"Much to be seen, but I have not much time and I do not
feel like writing about it, therefore no long letter" (Taschen-
buch, pp. 73-74).
On August 10 he sent his sister a post card with a picture of
Wagner and his house. On it he wrote, "Here you see a sacred
place. "
From Bayreuth his route led to Dresden, where he visited
an art exhibition. It was here that the thought first came to him
that he was born to be a musician and had a special musical
imagination. His letter goes on: "I have discovered one who
really knows women, Palma Vecchio. I don't know whether
you have seen his pictures. I am interested in what you think
of Raphael's Madonna" (Taschenbuch, p. 77).
He left Dresden, going north through Germany and on to
Sassnitz. On the train en route to Sassnitz he wrote in short-
hand (August 15, 1902): "That the woman as a rule is
avaricious, mendacious, coquettish, that she springs into action
as soon as she seems to go down in someone's respect, that she
[ will leave alone anyone who courts her naively and admires her
openly--in short that she has all of the prostitute in her--is not
so startling to me as you seem to think. And by this I am less
provoked than by the observation I made shortly before I left
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? Empty Scene 73
that in all these qualities she does not suffer and does not
control herself, that she does not hold herself in check. You
have far too good an opinion of me. I realize that over and over
again. Perhaps the confession I make to you now is also accom-
panied by my accursed vanity. The feeling of not being able to
return love I unfortunately understand. I cannot believe that
of you. I hope that you will understand this first shorthand
note" (Taschenbuch, pp. 78-79).
His journey went on. From a little summer resort by the
Baltic Sea he spoke of the time he still had left to spend abroad.
"In eight days I'll be back in Vienna, where I must stay until
late September, in the house with the thirty-three ugly, un-
married Jewesses" (Taschenbuch, p. 80).
Once more he returned to his mental state: "Your sympathy
for me in my afflictions has been a great comfort to me. The
weather stays bad, inside and out. Since I left--it is four weeks
ago tomorrow--I have not had one good day.
"Did you really think that I should care to know with whom
Miss K. is playing tennis? Am I such a woman? . . . Women
are either motherly hyenas or childish, soi-disant kittens. One
half of them are ugly. . . . Aren't you ashamed of yourself
that you are attracted by that aspect of woman? Nature has
tried to incorporate shamelessness in her" (Taschenbuch,
pp. 80-81).
And the letter continued: "My father sent me 100 Marks at
Bayreuth, and I have returned them. It is unpleasant enough
for me that I shall have to accept his support from time to time
when I return. . . . My journey seems to me to be con-
tradictory. Only in the geographic sense is it straight. But after
Parsifal one should go on a pilgrimage to a far-off land, to the
end of the world, and then be forgotten somewhere. . . . My
journey has also made me realize that I am no philosopher.
Really not! But am I anything else? I doubt it very much. "
These two letters illustrate the darkness of his mood. Partic-
ularly the words, "The weather stays bad inside and out" re-
veal how far he was journeying in despair,
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? 74 Empty Scene
From Sassnitz he went to Copenhagen, and there he wrote
that his father had once more sent him a sum of 100 Marks,
which enabled him to go to Christiania (Oslo). From Fred-
rikshavn he wrote to Gerber (August 21): "I have not been
seasick. But I had not expected it otherwise. I can think of
nothing that hurts your dignity so mortally as being seasick. It
is typical that every woman on board was seasick" (Taschen-
buch, p. 85).
Finally he reached Christiania. On Friday, August 22, he re-
corded: "I arrived here this morning at 5:48. I am looking
forward to everything. Tomorrow I am going to the National
Theater to see Peer Gynt. Today I shall hear Don Juan for the
second time on my trip. The first time was in Munich. " The
next day he wrote: "I should like to go to Bergen on the
Norwegian west coast, where the glaciers and the fjords are,
from there by sea to Hamburg, and then via Magdeburg and
Prague to Vienna.
