And to
the observant onlooker his behavior showed that his mood
was sinister.
the observant onlooker his behavior showed that his mood
was sinister.
Weininger - 1946 - Mind and Death of a Genius
Genius is also the highest and widest conscious-
ness; universality is its distinguishing mark.
Everything, therefore, means something to the genius, even
if only unconsciously. Impressions remain obstinately in his
memory, inextinguishable, although he mav not have taken
the smallest trouble to take note of the perceptions or experi-
ences when they occurred. When a woman, looking back over
her life, relives her experiences, no continuous, unbroken
stream flows through her mind; only a few scattered items
appear. According to Weininger, the female is concerned al-
together with one kind of recollections--those connected with
the sexual impulse and reproduction. Inasmuch as woman's
i psychical life is without continuity, there is in her no feeling
j of identity, no matter what the circumstances of life. The
( highest principle of the law of identity, which logic and ethics
offer is the proposition, A = A. When we are able to grasp
this proposition we do so through the phenomenon of mem-
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? Sex and Character 117
ory. We must remember the preceding moment in order to
connect it with the following; thus we are enabled to construct
the synthesis that is part of the law of identity and to recog-
nize that A is still A. Concerning the proposition A TM A one
may say that the formulation is the vanquisher of time.
Woman, therefore, is not able to think with logic.
By emphasizing memory as a logical and ethical phenom-
enon, Weininger arrives at a realization of the connection be-
tween logic and ethics, and he feels that he is touching on a
deeper connection between them. Truth, purity, fidelity, up-
rightness--these are the bases of the only conceivable ethics.
Wisdom is not to be listed with virtue among the duties and
tasks of mankind. Weininger quotes Goethe, "The highest
fortune of earth's children is always in their personality. "
Every human being is lonely in the world. To accept this
loneliness and respond to the law of the ego is morality. All
practical and realistic altruism can result only from theoretical
individualism. In order to regard another man as a personality,
one must himself have a personality. He who possesses an ego
can recognize the existence of an ego in his neighbor. And one
man honors another by that recognition and by refraining
from using the other as a means to an end.
It is because of his vision of the whole that the genius recog-
nizes the existence of the parts. The object of genius is uni-
versality. A man may be called a genius when he lives in con-
scious connection with the whole universe. A man of genius
must be conscious of his own ego. Therefore, it may be said
that genius itself is an inner imperative. It is a predominantly
moral phenomenon. Since the absolute female knows neither
logic nor the moral imperative, the inference is that she is 1
wanting in supersensual personality. The absolute female has 1
no ego and is therefore alogical and amoral. It is a man's per- 1
sonality that gives him value and makes him timeless. Other j
than belief in the changelessness of the thinking, acting ego
there is no reason for hope of immortality. Since the woman
does not possess that personality there is no reason to suppose
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? n8 Sex and Character
i that she will attain immortality. Therefore, the woman is
'- without soul, without morality, and without free will.
Woman to Weininger is only a sexual being. The two poles
of her character are represented by the mother and the pros-
titute. This argument is the foundation of a chapter in Wei-
ninger's book. These two types, he says, are direct opposites.
The absolute prostitute thinks only of the man; for her sexual
intercourse in itself is the end. The absolute mother thinks
only of the child; she would become a mother by any man.
Weininger says that the woman as mother--a type universally
admired--cannot actually lay claim to any ethical value; the
type is created by instinct. As an individual the mother means
nothing and has no sense of individuality. She exists only for
the preservation of the race and is the channel for the chain
of being that passes through her.
When a woman becomes a prostitute, she does so, accord-
ing to Weininger, because of an irresistible, inborn craving.
Unless there is an inclination to a certain course, it will not
be followed. Between the absolute mother and the absolute
prostitute there is a formal similarity. One accepts any pos-
sible man who can make her a mother, and once motherhood
is achieved she needs no more. Only on this basis is she mo-
nogamous. The other is ready to yield herself to any man who
stimulates her erotic desires; she has no further object. Woman
craves sexual union.
Even as a young girl a woman of the maternal type will be
motherly toward the man she loves, especially toward the man
who may afterward become the father of her child. In fact, in
a certain sense the man is her child. The mothers form the
enduring rootstock of the race. The permanence of the social
group gives the mother her courage and fearlessness, in con-
trast to the cowardice and the fear of the prostitute. The
mother is entirely devoted to serving the continuity of race;
the prostitute is completely outside it. The mother's purpose
is, according to Weininger, proved by evidence. For one
thing, the best of mothers has no real consideration for ani-
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? Sex and Character ng
mals whatever. For another, the mother's attitude is strikingly
exhibited in her care for food; she cannot bear to see food
wasted and takes delight in seeing her children eat and en-
couraging their appetites. The prostitute, on the contrary, is
lavish; after demanding quantities of food and drink, she will-
fully squanders those riches.
Every man has a certain resemblance to the prostitute, and
the leader who becomes "tribune of the people" has a strong
element of prostitution in his office. Examples are to be seen
in the great leaders--Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon.
Like the prostitute, an emperor does not reflect upon self; in-
stead he tries to escape from himself. Napoleon set out to
conquer the world in order to get away from his own personal-
ity. Between Cleopatra and Caesar there are several points of
resemblance.
Weininger makes a distinction in man between eroticism
and sexuality. Love is a phenomenon of projection. He who
loves does not feel the need of being with his beloved. The
only love that really exists is platonic love. The qualities la-
beled feminine modesty, pity, the eternal feminine, and the
like are only phenomena of projection created by man's long-
ing. If woman possesses them it is because she accepts the
evaluation imposed by man. Love in its core is, for that reason,
not ethical; man envelops himself in a lie and does not treat
woman according to her real nature. Yet, despite her desire
for sexual union, woman cannot rise to the real eroticism, even
though she may love the ethical qualities in man. Woman
demands from man what she herself lacks. Since this is true,
sexuality has no ethical importance. Woman as a sexual being
is only a means; man cannot treat her as a feeling, thinking,
self-determined being. The situation thus violates the severe
ethical law which Kant laid down and Weininger adopted,
that no human being should be used by another as the means
to an end.
In her relation to her environment (the universe) woman is
always passive. She is also suggestible, accepting and adopting
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? 120
Sex and Character
man's evaluations. Her receptivity is so great that she can even
deny what she is; in trying to make all the actions of the male
her own, she assumes a different nature, without realizing that
it is alien to her. In woman hysteria is ingrained, hysteria be-
ing, according to Weininger, an expression and a crisis in her
organic untruthfulness.
Weininger now arrives at the culminating formulation of
his problems, namely, the question of the importance of being
a man or a woman. His answer is that the relation between
man and woman is that of subject to object. Woman seeks her
consummation as the object. She is the plaything of husband
and child and is anxious to be no more than such a chattel.
Furthermore, this contrast between subject and object in the
theory of knowledge corresponds ontologically, Weininger be-
lieves, to the contrast between form and matter. He considers
woman significant as the material on which man acts. She is
matter, is nothing, and her importance lies in meaning noth-
/ ing. The abstract male is the image of God, the absolute some-
^ thing. The female (and the feminine element in the male) is
the symbol of nothing. Such is woman's place in the universe.
He adopts a like concept of the Jewish people. He believed
that even the most superior woman is immeasurably beneath
the most degraded man. This pattern is repeated in his con-
tention that Judaism at its best is immeasurably beneath even
degraded Christianity. In Judaism he sees a spiritual move-
ment, a psychic constitution, and he tries to prove its existence
by anti-Semitic arguments. He says that everyone who has
thought over the problem of woman and the problem of the
Jew must be astonished to discover the extent to which Juda-
ism is penetrated by femininity. As the soul is lacking in
woman, so is it lacking in the Jew. For this reason, Zionism is
without hope. The Jew, like the woman, has no ego. Both lack
greatness. Both live in the family and not as individuals. In
them sexuality is always present; woman and Jew are con-
cerned with mating. They also seek to make other humans
feel guilt. Ours is not only the most Jewish but also the most
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? Sex and Character
121
feminine of all eras. Modernity of the spirit is Jewish from
whatever viewpoint it is considered. Weininger asserts that
ours is the most anarchistic of all times; there is no sense of
state or of right; history has no meaning. The struggle in the
future will be between Judaism and Christianity, between
business and culture, between form and personality. These are
the two poles. There is no third alternative.
In his last chapter, "Woman and Mankind," Weininger
says that in coitus lies woman's greatest humiliation, in love
her supreme exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not
love, it is obvious that she wishes to be humiliated, not wor-
shiped. The ultimate opponent of the emancipation of woman
is woman. Coitus is immoral, not because asceticism is a moral
duty, but because in coitus the woman becomes solely an
object. For woman the central problem is that of making her
will like that of the man in spirit and thereby attaining his
spiritual freedom and creative ability. Since woman has no
craving for this liberation, she has no ability to achieve it. If
she is to exist honestly, she must grasp the problem of exist-
ence, the idea of guilt. Is she capable of reaching that end?
The answer depends upon woman's relation to the categorical
imperative. Will woman accept the moral idea, the idea of
mankind? Only if she does, says Weininger, will the road be
open to the emancipation of woman.
The book was issued and attracted some interest. Weininger
was at the time known in the literary world of Vienna, and the
book was reviewed in newspapers and in journals. For the
most part the reception was sharply critical. Of the philosophi-
cal periodicals only a few gave space to a consideration of the
work at all. Noteworthy among the reviews that appeared was
the article by Wilhelm Stekel in Die Wage, a periodical which
included material on psychology, and Wilhelm Freiherr von
Appel's enthusiastic article, "Ein grosses Buch von einem
grossen Menschen" (A Great Book by a Great Man) in Neue
Bahnen filr Kunst und offentliches Leben.
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? 122
Sex and Character
Gradually Sex and Character gained wider attention in Aus-
tria and Germany, then throughout Europe. It was translated
into Danish in 1905 and into English in 1906 (when it was
also published in the United States). In 1921 it was published
in Polish. In the United States, however, Weininger's books
and the literature about him are scarce. The Library of Con-
gress, for example, has only the German, Polish, and English
editions of Sex and Character, the second and sixth editions
of Vber die letzten Dinge, and Lucka's book about Otto
Weininger.
Some of the interest given to the book came because of its
outspoken anti-Semitic views, which attracted some readers
who were already anti-Semitic in feeling. It may be of interest
to note that as late as 1939 I heard in Norway a radio broad-
cast beamed from Nazi Germany, which used some of Wei-
ninger's attacks upon the Jews.
Even if Sex and Character was from the start violently at-
tacked in most quarters, it gained one advocate of greater im-
portance than Stekel or Appel. August Strindberg raised his
voice in approval, writing in a letter to his translator on July
21, 1903 (published in Die Fackel, October 17, 1903): "Dr.
Otto Weininger has sent me from Vienna a copy of Sex and
Character, an awe-inspiring book, which has probably solved
the most difficult of all problems. He quotes Glaubiger, but
he ought to know Faderen (The Father) and Froken Julie
(Miss Julie). Would you send him these? I spelled the words,
but he put them together. " '
And among the effects of Weininger after his death there
was a letter which reads:
Doctor,
To be able, at last, to see the solution of the problem of woman
is a great relief to me. Therefore please accept my reverence and my
thanks.
August STRrNDBERG
Stockholm
July 1,1903
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? Crossing the
Border
V%/eininger's masterpiece was published. Into it he
T had poured labor and thought, all the immense ef-
fort of which he was capable. After that November night of
1902 he apparently recovered and occupied himself intensively
with work on the book. So busy was he that it might seem
that he had abandoned all thought of suicide, at least tempo-
rarily. Yet a dark current was flowing through his life, and it is
apparent in his writing of this period. Sex and Character was
created, rapidly created, in a mood of self-destruction.
And to
the observant onlooker his behavior showed that his mood
was sinister. He became restless and silent; he avoided others,
brooded, and was preoccupied with his own concerns. Ewald,
who saw much of him at that time, says: "There was now a
restless roaming in the border regions of the soul; a silent
struggle was going on against the demoniac forces in his mind.
When we were together there was something new between
us which I could not understand" (p. 67).
In spite of this troubled mood, Otto managed to concen-
trate on his work, to occupy himself feverishly. His manual
labor was so rapid that it might seem to have stemmed from
the inexorable energy of a maniac. He worked inexhaustibly.
His sister says: "During nights, many nights, most nights, he
worked by the light of a small candle, and beside him was a
glass of milk which in the evening I brought to his bare room"
(Letter XV).
He was absorbed in his work and on March 10, 1903, wrote
in a letter to Gerber: "About Coitulogy: The more there is of
love and the less of mere sexual excitement, the more decent
the child will be. . . . I do not think that the sexes differ as
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? 124 Crossing the Border
to the degree of 'excitement'; that depends upon the craving
for love, which again produces similarity between the sexes. "
To this positive statement he adds, "With regard to 'mother-
prostitute' I am again in doubt. . . . "
After many weeks of labor, the book was completed in final
form (Taschenbuch, p. 21; Der Fall, p. 8). It was accepted by
Braumuller at the end of March, 1903, after a scientific pub-
lishing house had declined to print it (Taschenbuch, p. 21).
Weininger wrote to Gerber: "Vienna, March 30, 1903. In a
streetcar. Braumuller is printing my book! It will be finished
by the end of May. Will you go with me on Friday to see
Duse playing Hedda Gabler? If you can, I shall reserve two
tickets. I shall also be busy day and night for a month"
(Taschenbuch, p. 91).
Even if Weininger was for the most part living within his
own thoughts, he thus still found time for worldly activities.
On a post card (not published before) he wrote to his sister
under the date 12/2/1902: "I wish you would read Rosmers-
holm. I should like very much to meet that girl Meyer. Please
tell me when and where I can do so at the earliest opportu-
nity, when she comes to you. "
This suggestion that his sister read Rosmersholm, like his
interest in the theater months later, shows that his external
activity was still in apparent harmony with his inner life. The
other matter he mentioned on the post card, making the ac-
quaintance of Miss Meyer, is peculiar in that it is the only
written proof from his own hand that he ever wanted to meet
a girl. It appears that Miss Meyer had often asked to meet
him, and that later he actually did meet her. His sister reports,
"she [Miss Meyer] spent one hour with him, and she wrote
me, 'I have been with Jesus Christ' " (Letter XX).
This interest in Miss Meyer brings up the question of
Otto's relations with women. It is surprising that so far no sys-
tematic investigation has been made as to whether or not
Weininger was ever in love with any woman. The inference
from the evidence is that there was certainly no love between
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? Crossing the Border 125
him and Miss Meyer. On only one other occasion did Otto
mention a woman in his correspondence. That was in a letter
to Gerber on August 17, 1902. "Did you really think," he
asked, "it would interest me to know with whom Miss K.
played tennis? " (Taschenbuch, p. 8. ) This Miss K. has not
been identified, nor do we know what the relation was be-
tween her and Weininger. It would be possible to imagine
that he had been in love with Miss K. and that she had re-
buffed him. His leaving Vienna to travel in Norway and Italy
might possibly be explained as the result of frustrated love,
but, as has already been said in discussing the motives for his
journey to Norway, his psychological state is sufficient expla-
nation, and there is no evidence for the theory that he left
Vienna because he was spurned in love.
The theory that he was disappointed in love is supported by
Gjellerup in his translation of Sex and Character (note in the
chapter "The Nature of Woman and Her Relation to the
Universe," p. 473): "All that was base in his own nature he
projected into woman, and he hated it there because he did
not have the moral courage to hate it in himself. . . . What
it was that he projected--the large share of brutal sensuality
in his nature--is shown beyond any doubt in his terrible,
shapeless, negroid mouth. It is regrettable that the publisher
did not wish to use the portrait I supplied. With its great
contradiction between the lower and the upper parts of his
face, it would be an interesting frontispiece, but it would at
the same time introduce us to the book as a very--a com-
pletely--disclosing hieroglyph. "
These words may be taken to mean that Otto was so ugly
that, if he were in love, he could make no impression on the
woman he loved. But apart from Gerber (Taschenbuch, p. 6),
the unanimous opinion of those who knew him was that
Weininger was handsome rather than ugly, and this sort of
_ reasoning is obviously not acceptable.
It is surprising that the closest associates of. this man, who
practically crusaded against women, did not know of his ever
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? 126
Crossing the Border
having had relations with any woman. Swoboda writes:
"Weininger had no unfortunate experiences in the sense of
being morbid, disappointed, rejected in love. A hopeless inner
desire would have been as much of a hindrance to him as to
any great man. " Neither here nor elsewhere does Swoboda or
anyone else say whether Weininger actually had an affair with
some woman or tell of a great and decisive sexual incident at
any period of his life.
Probst, however, had very strong convictions about Wei-
ninger's sexual life. "The contents of his books and information
from his friends leads me," he said, "to believe that Wein-
inger was very erotic from childhood" (Der Fall, pp. 6, 12). 1
Weininger's sister denied that his personal experiences with
women had influenced his opinions on sex problems. His fa-
ther, interestingly enough, believed that Otto first had sexual
intercourse when he was in his twenties, but adds, "He had
sexual intercourse with very few women" (Der Fall, p. 6).
There is a strong argument against admitting this last state-
ment in evidence: a son does not usually tell his father about
his sexual experiences and feelings. Even when the relation-
ship between father and son is ideal, a man's sexual life always
has dark spots which are not clear to the man himself and
certainly not to others.
The lack of evidence about his relations with women does
not mean that Weininger never was in love with a woman.
The question arises: In order to explain his attitude toward
women, must we assume that he was rejected by a woman he
loved? If he had no deep-going relation with a woman, it is
hard to understand how from time to time he could have
shown such deep psychological knowledge of the relationship
between man and woman and such understanding of wom-
an's nature. To this question Weininger fortunately gave the
answer himself. "When Weininger's father asked him how he
1 Similarly, Ragnar Vogt in his review of Sex and Character for Tidskrift for
den Norske Legeforening, 1904, p. 457, said, "His personality was marked by
vivid idealistic longing and strong sexual impulses. "
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? Crossing the Border 127
could with so little experience pass such a devastating judg-
ment upon women, he answered that it is a great mistake to
believe that experience would yield true understanding" (Der
Fall, p. 6).
As he contended, it is not necessary to believe that Wei-
ninger necessarily had some sexual relationship with a woman n
before he could understand anything of woman's nature. Nor '
is frustrated love essential to the explanation of his hatred for
women. The conflicts in his own narcissistic nature offer reasons
enough to explain his attitude both toward women and toward
the world around him.
At the time of his conversation with Miss Meyer he was, in
spite of his intense activity, deeply preoccupied and miserable;
he was moving on the borderlines between life and death, be-
tween the existent and the unknown, while his close friends
hoped that his mental condition would improve. He was busy
while Sex and Character was being printed. On April 23 he
wrote to Gerber: "I am still kept terribly busy. I am swim-
ming in an ocean of first, second, and third proofs. I no longer
write with blood--only with red ink (A contrast to Nietz-
sche! )" (Taschenbuch, p. 92). He did indeed put forth al-
most incredible effort in the writing and the printing of his
book, and many of his nights were spent in reading proof. At
last the book was finished, and the labor was done. On May
29, 1903, he brought the first copy to Gerber. Sex and Char-
acter was published.
While work on the book was going on, within Weininger a
great mental change was taking place. His moral self-scrutiny
had gone so far in March and April, 1903, that he ended by
devoting himself formally to the practice of chastity. This de-
cision marked a new step in his development. Yet sexual ab-
stinence was in deepest harmony with his whole personality,
that personality in which sexual craving, producing feelings of j
guilt and sin, was in constant struggle with his ideas of purity \
and sanctity.
It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of this
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? 128
Crossing the Border
turn to asceticism in the understanding of Weininger's devel-
opment. His own words on the general subject of asceticism in
Sex and Character (p. 458) express views that harmonize with
his whole nature. "Asceticism," he wrote, "which actually is
an expression of the desire for indecency, is in itself indecent
because as a criterion for the judgment of sin it takes an ac-
companying phenomenon, an external result of an action in-
stead of the state of mind; it is heteronomous. Man should
strive for pleasure. He is entitled to try to make life on this
earth as bright and cheerful as possible. But he must never on
that account violate any moral law. By asceticism man tries to
compel morality by tearing his own flesh to pieces; he wants
morality for a reason, as a reward for all that he has sacrificed.
We must therefore disapprove of asceticism both as a prin-
ciple and as a psychological disposition, because it ties virtue
to something other than its result, makes it an effect of a
cause, and does not strive for it as an immediate goal in itself.
Asceticism is a dangerous seducer. Many are those who fall
victim to its disappointments, because lust is the most fre-
quent reason for leaving the path of right, and the mistake is
so easy to make that if one chooses pain instead of asceticism,
one is sure to remain on the side of right. Lust in itself is nei-
ther moral nor immoral. A man is lost only when the desire
for pleasure conquers the will to achieve merit. "
Weininger did not approve of asceticism as such. In his
own words when he said, "A man is lost only when the desire
for pleasure conquers the will to achieve merit," we may find
a reason for his own sexual asceticism. Deep personal experi-
ence lay behind those words; it is reasonable to suppose that
Weininger was compelled to practice sexual abstinence be-
cause his sexual urge was so strong that it would conquer his
will to achieve merit. In a psychological sense, the statement
means that he had at the same time a strong sexual urge and
great idealism. He longed for sexual life and sexual experience,
but tendencies of hostility and fear opposed his longing. This
antinomic process was typically expressed when Weininger in
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? Crossing the Border
his last days wrote down his "Letzte Aphorismen" (Last
Aphorisms). There he speaks of the criminal, and we may un-
derstand that the criminal is himself: "Thus the criminal also
creates woman as a thought (he wants intercourse), but she
does not exist for him. He never finds the woman he is looking
for because he creates only an idea of a woman. He can feel
sexual desire for the absolute prostitute (an old woman) and
he can love a Madonna (if he wants to become pure), but he
finds a Madonna only when he is good; at that moment he
also creates a Madonna" (U. L. D. , p. 180).
Weininger's poem beginning, "Sieh mich gebeugt" tells us
that because of his sexual desire he went to women of the
streets, even though he wept when he returned. He certainly
did not regret his desire for fear of venereal disease; his re-
morse came only from the curse of the moral law--that is, be-
cause of his own strongly moral attitude. Weininger believed
that the woman was debased and used only as a means in sexual
intercourse and that, therefore, sexual intercourse was immoral.
This belief obviously had something to do with his forswear-
ing sex relations.
Weininger's sexual urge could not compromise with his
idealistic tendencies. A deep conflict was created in him. On
the one side was his personality, with his moral ego (super-
ego), on the other his sexual drive, which he feared as harmful
and hostile. A continual struggle took place between these
two forces. Probably the reason for much of his moral rigor--
in a characterological sense--may be found in this biological
circumstance. An ascetic is usually defined as a man who feels
pleasure not in the satisfaction of his drives, but in disregard
of them. The warfare within Weininger's nature was bringing
him to the point of ascetic denial--in fact, to psychological
self-castration.
An argument might be advanced to oppose this view with a
contrary explanation. It might be held that Otto adopted a
sexually abstinent life with the violent energy characteristic of
his schizoid make-up, so that his self-denial became a question
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? 130 Crossing the Border
of will power. Given the personal energy he always demon-
strated, it is easy to picture his asceticism in this light. The
explanation is, however, not really satisfactory, for it only takes
us back to the more fundamental question: What was behind
his wish to become an ascetic?
There is no hint that he might have been forced into ab-
stinence by a venereal disease, and we know that he was in
the prime of life when in April, 1903, he decided to be sex-
ually abstinent.
ness; universality is its distinguishing mark.
Everything, therefore, means something to the genius, even
if only unconsciously. Impressions remain obstinately in his
memory, inextinguishable, although he mav not have taken
the smallest trouble to take note of the perceptions or experi-
ences when they occurred. When a woman, looking back over
her life, relives her experiences, no continuous, unbroken
stream flows through her mind; only a few scattered items
appear. According to Weininger, the female is concerned al-
together with one kind of recollections--those connected with
the sexual impulse and reproduction. Inasmuch as woman's
i psychical life is without continuity, there is in her no feeling
j of identity, no matter what the circumstances of life. The
( highest principle of the law of identity, which logic and ethics
offer is the proposition, A = A. When we are able to grasp
this proposition we do so through the phenomenon of mem-
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? Sex and Character 117
ory. We must remember the preceding moment in order to
connect it with the following; thus we are enabled to construct
the synthesis that is part of the law of identity and to recog-
nize that A is still A. Concerning the proposition A TM A one
may say that the formulation is the vanquisher of time.
Woman, therefore, is not able to think with logic.
By emphasizing memory as a logical and ethical phenom-
enon, Weininger arrives at a realization of the connection be-
tween logic and ethics, and he feels that he is touching on a
deeper connection between them. Truth, purity, fidelity, up-
rightness--these are the bases of the only conceivable ethics.
Wisdom is not to be listed with virtue among the duties and
tasks of mankind. Weininger quotes Goethe, "The highest
fortune of earth's children is always in their personality. "
Every human being is lonely in the world. To accept this
loneliness and respond to the law of the ego is morality. All
practical and realistic altruism can result only from theoretical
individualism. In order to regard another man as a personality,
one must himself have a personality. He who possesses an ego
can recognize the existence of an ego in his neighbor. And one
man honors another by that recognition and by refraining
from using the other as a means to an end.
It is because of his vision of the whole that the genius recog-
nizes the existence of the parts. The object of genius is uni-
versality. A man may be called a genius when he lives in con-
scious connection with the whole universe. A man of genius
must be conscious of his own ego. Therefore, it may be said
that genius itself is an inner imperative. It is a predominantly
moral phenomenon. Since the absolute female knows neither
logic nor the moral imperative, the inference is that she is 1
wanting in supersensual personality. The absolute female has 1
no ego and is therefore alogical and amoral. It is a man's per- 1
sonality that gives him value and makes him timeless. Other j
than belief in the changelessness of the thinking, acting ego
there is no reason for hope of immortality. Since the woman
does not possess that personality there is no reason to suppose
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? n8 Sex and Character
i that she will attain immortality. Therefore, the woman is
'- without soul, without morality, and without free will.
Woman to Weininger is only a sexual being. The two poles
of her character are represented by the mother and the pros-
titute. This argument is the foundation of a chapter in Wei-
ninger's book. These two types, he says, are direct opposites.
The absolute prostitute thinks only of the man; for her sexual
intercourse in itself is the end. The absolute mother thinks
only of the child; she would become a mother by any man.
Weininger says that the woman as mother--a type universally
admired--cannot actually lay claim to any ethical value; the
type is created by instinct. As an individual the mother means
nothing and has no sense of individuality. She exists only for
the preservation of the race and is the channel for the chain
of being that passes through her.
When a woman becomes a prostitute, she does so, accord-
ing to Weininger, because of an irresistible, inborn craving.
Unless there is an inclination to a certain course, it will not
be followed. Between the absolute mother and the absolute
prostitute there is a formal similarity. One accepts any pos-
sible man who can make her a mother, and once motherhood
is achieved she needs no more. Only on this basis is she mo-
nogamous. The other is ready to yield herself to any man who
stimulates her erotic desires; she has no further object. Woman
craves sexual union.
Even as a young girl a woman of the maternal type will be
motherly toward the man she loves, especially toward the man
who may afterward become the father of her child. In fact, in
a certain sense the man is her child. The mothers form the
enduring rootstock of the race. The permanence of the social
group gives the mother her courage and fearlessness, in con-
trast to the cowardice and the fear of the prostitute. The
mother is entirely devoted to serving the continuity of race;
the prostitute is completely outside it. The mother's purpose
is, according to Weininger, proved by evidence. For one
thing, the best of mothers has no real consideration for ani-
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? Sex and Character ng
mals whatever. For another, the mother's attitude is strikingly
exhibited in her care for food; she cannot bear to see food
wasted and takes delight in seeing her children eat and en-
couraging their appetites. The prostitute, on the contrary, is
lavish; after demanding quantities of food and drink, she will-
fully squanders those riches.
Every man has a certain resemblance to the prostitute, and
the leader who becomes "tribune of the people" has a strong
element of prostitution in his office. Examples are to be seen
in the great leaders--Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon.
Like the prostitute, an emperor does not reflect upon self; in-
stead he tries to escape from himself. Napoleon set out to
conquer the world in order to get away from his own personal-
ity. Between Cleopatra and Caesar there are several points of
resemblance.
Weininger makes a distinction in man between eroticism
and sexuality. Love is a phenomenon of projection. He who
loves does not feel the need of being with his beloved. The
only love that really exists is platonic love. The qualities la-
beled feminine modesty, pity, the eternal feminine, and the
like are only phenomena of projection created by man's long-
ing. If woman possesses them it is because she accepts the
evaluation imposed by man. Love in its core is, for that reason,
not ethical; man envelops himself in a lie and does not treat
woman according to her real nature. Yet, despite her desire
for sexual union, woman cannot rise to the real eroticism, even
though she may love the ethical qualities in man. Woman
demands from man what she herself lacks. Since this is true,
sexuality has no ethical importance. Woman as a sexual being
is only a means; man cannot treat her as a feeling, thinking,
self-determined being. The situation thus violates the severe
ethical law which Kant laid down and Weininger adopted,
that no human being should be used by another as the means
to an end.
In her relation to her environment (the universe) woman is
always passive. She is also suggestible, accepting and adopting
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? 120
Sex and Character
man's evaluations. Her receptivity is so great that she can even
deny what she is; in trying to make all the actions of the male
her own, she assumes a different nature, without realizing that
it is alien to her. In woman hysteria is ingrained, hysteria be-
ing, according to Weininger, an expression and a crisis in her
organic untruthfulness.
Weininger now arrives at the culminating formulation of
his problems, namely, the question of the importance of being
a man or a woman. His answer is that the relation between
man and woman is that of subject to object. Woman seeks her
consummation as the object. She is the plaything of husband
and child and is anxious to be no more than such a chattel.
Furthermore, this contrast between subject and object in the
theory of knowledge corresponds ontologically, Weininger be-
lieves, to the contrast between form and matter. He considers
woman significant as the material on which man acts. She is
matter, is nothing, and her importance lies in meaning noth-
/ ing. The abstract male is the image of God, the absolute some-
^ thing. The female (and the feminine element in the male) is
the symbol of nothing. Such is woman's place in the universe.
He adopts a like concept of the Jewish people. He believed
that even the most superior woman is immeasurably beneath
the most degraded man. This pattern is repeated in his con-
tention that Judaism at its best is immeasurably beneath even
degraded Christianity. In Judaism he sees a spiritual move-
ment, a psychic constitution, and he tries to prove its existence
by anti-Semitic arguments. He says that everyone who has
thought over the problem of woman and the problem of the
Jew must be astonished to discover the extent to which Juda-
ism is penetrated by femininity. As the soul is lacking in
woman, so is it lacking in the Jew. For this reason, Zionism is
without hope. The Jew, like the woman, has no ego. Both lack
greatness. Both live in the family and not as individuals. In
them sexuality is always present; woman and Jew are con-
cerned with mating. They also seek to make other humans
feel guilt. Ours is not only the most Jewish but also the most
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? Sex and Character
121
feminine of all eras. Modernity of the spirit is Jewish from
whatever viewpoint it is considered. Weininger asserts that
ours is the most anarchistic of all times; there is no sense of
state or of right; history has no meaning. The struggle in the
future will be between Judaism and Christianity, between
business and culture, between form and personality. These are
the two poles. There is no third alternative.
In his last chapter, "Woman and Mankind," Weininger
says that in coitus lies woman's greatest humiliation, in love
her supreme exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not
love, it is obvious that she wishes to be humiliated, not wor-
shiped. The ultimate opponent of the emancipation of woman
is woman. Coitus is immoral, not because asceticism is a moral
duty, but because in coitus the woman becomes solely an
object. For woman the central problem is that of making her
will like that of the man in spirit and thereby attaining his
spiritual freedom and creative ability. Since woman has no
craving for this liberation, she has no ability to achieve it. If
she is to exist honestly, she must grasp the problem of exist-
ence, the idea of guilt. Is she capable of reaching that end?
The answer depends upon woman's relation to the categorical
imperative. Will woman accept the moral idea, the idea of
mankind? Only if she does, says Weininger, will the road be
open to the emancipation of woman.
The book was issued and attracted some interest. Weininger
was at the time known in the literary world of Vienna, and the
book was reviewed in newspapers and in journals. For the
most part the reception was sharply critical. Of the philosophi-
cal periodicals only a few gave space to a consideration of the
work at all. Noteworthy among the reviews that appeared was
the article by Wilhelm Stekel in Die Wage, a periodical which
included material on psychology, and Wilhelm Freiherr von
Appel's enthusiastic article, "Ein grosses Buch von einem
grossen Menschen" (A Great Book by a Great Man) in Neue
Bahnen filr Kunst und offentliches Leben.
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? 122
Sex and Character
Gradually Sex and Character gained wider attention in Aus-
tria and Germany, then throughout Europe. It was translated
into Danish in 1905 and into English in 1906 (when it was
also published in the United States). In 1921 it was published
in Polish. In the United States, however, Weininger's books
and the literature about him are scarce. The Library of Con-
gress, for example, has only the German, Polish, and English
editions of Sex and Character, the second and sixth editions
of Vber die letzten Dinge, and Lucka's book about Otto
Weininger.
Some of the interest given to the book came because of its
outspoken anti-Semitic views, which attracted some readers
who were already anti-Semitic in feeling. It may be of interest
to note that as late as 1939 I heard in Norway a radio broad-
cast beamed from Nazi Germany, which used some of Wei-
ninger's attacks upon the Jews.
Even if Sex and Character was from the start violently at-
tacked in most quarters, it gained one advocate of greater im-
portance than Stekel or Appel. August Strindberg raised his
voice in approval, writing in a letter to his translator on July
21, 1903 (published in Die Fackel, October 17, 1903): "Dr.
Otto Weininger has sent me from Vienna a copy of Sex and
Character, an awe-inspiring book, which has probably solved
the most difficult of all problems. He quotes Glaubiger, but
he ought to know Faderen (The Father) and Froken Julie
(Miss Julie). Would you send him these? I spelled the words,
but he put them together. " '
And among the effects of Weininger after his death there
was a letter which reads:
Doctor,
To be able, at last, to see the solution of the problem of woman
is a great relief to me. Therefore please accept my reverence and my
thanks.
August STRrNDBERG
Stockholm
July 1,1903
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? Crossing the
Border
V%/eininger's masterpiece was published. Into it he
T had poured labor and thought, all the immense ef-
fort of which he was capable. After that November night of
1902 he apparently recovered and occupied himself intensively
with work on the book. So busy was he that it might seem
that he had abandoned all thought of suicide, at least tempo-
rarily. Yet a dark current was flowing through his life, and it is
apparent in his writing of this period. Sex and Character was
created, rapidly created, in a mood of self-destruction.
And to
the observant onlooker his behavior showed that his mood
was sinister. He became restless and silent; he avoided others,
brooded, and was preoccupied with his own concerns. Ewald,
who saw much of him at that time, says: "There was now a
restless roaming in the border regions of the soul; a silent
struggle was going on against the demoniac forces in his mind.
When we were together there was something new between
us which I could not understand" (p. 67).
In spite of this troubled mood, Otto managed to concen-
trate on his work, to occupy himself feverishly. His manual
labor was so rapid that it might seem to have stemmed from
the inexorable energy of a maniac. He worked inexhaustibly.
His sister says: "During nights, many nights, most nights, he
worked by the light of a small candle, and beside him was a
glass of milk which in the evening I brought to his bare room"
(Letter XV).
He was absorbed in his work and on March 10, 1903, wrote
in a letter to Gerber: "About Coitulogy: The more there is of
love and the less of mere sexual excitement, the more decent
the child will be. . . . I do not think that the sexes differ as
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? 124 Crossing the Border
to the degree of 'excitement'; that depends upon the craving
for love, which again produces similarity between the sexes. "
To this positive statement he adds, "With regard to 'mother-
prostitute' I am again in doubt. . . . "
After many weeks of labor, the book was completed in final
form (Taschenbuch, p. 21; Der Fall, p. 8). It was accepted by
Braumuller at the end of March, 1903, after a scientific pub-
lishing house had declined to print it (Taschenbuch, p. 21).
Weininger wrote to Gerber: "Vienna, March 30, 1903. In a
streetcar. Braumuller is printing my book! It will be finished
by the end of May. Will you go with me on Friday to see
Duse playing Hedda Gabler? If you can, I shall reserve two
tickets. I shall also be busy day and night for a month"
(Taschenbuch, p. 91).
Even if Weininger was for the most part living within his
own thoughts, he thus still found time for worldly activities.
On a post card (not published before) he wrote to his sister
under the date 12/2/1902: "I wish you would read Rosmers-
holm. I should like very much to meet that girl Meyer. Please
tell me when and where I can do so at the earliest opportu-
nity, when she comes to you. "
This suggestion that his sister read Rosmersholm, like his
interest in the theater months later, shows that his external
activity was still in apparent harmony with his inner life. The
other matter he mentioned on the post card, making the ac-
quaintance of Miss Meyer, is peculiar in that it is the only
written proof from his own hand that he ever wanted to meet
a girl. It appears that Miss Meyer had often asked to meet
him, and that later he actually did meet her. His sister reports,
"she [Miss Meyer] spent one hour with him, and she wrote
me, 'I have been with Jesus Christ' " (Letter XX).
This interest in Miss Meyer brings up the question of
Otto's relations with women. It is surprising that so far no sys-
tematic investigation has been made as to whether or not
Weininger was ever in love with any woman. The inference
from the evidence is that there was certainly no love between
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? Crossing the Border 125
him and Miss Meyer. On only one other occasion did Otto
mention a woman in his correspondence. That was in a letter
to Gerber on August 17, 1902. "Did you really think," he
asked, "it would interest me to know with whom Miss K.
played tennis? " (Taschenbuch, p. 8. ) This Miss K. has not
been identified, nor do we know what the relation was be-
tween her and Weininger. It would be possible to imagine
that he had been in love with Miss K. and that she had re-
buffed him. His leaving Vienna to travel in Norway and Italy
might possibly be explained as the result of frustrated love,
but, as has already been said in discussing the motives for his
journey to Norway, his psychological state is sufficient expla-
nation, and there is no evidence for the theory that he left
Vienna because he was spurned in love.
The theory that he was disappointed in love is supported by
Gjellerup in his translation of Sex and Character (note in the
chapter "The Nature of Woman and Her Relation to the
Universe," p. 473): "All that was base in his own nature he
projected into woman, and he hated it there because he did
not have the moral courage to hate it in himself. . . . What
it was that he projected--the large share of brutal sensuality
in his nature--is shown beyond any doubt in his terrible,
shapeless, negroid mouth. It is regrettable that the publisher
did not wish to use the portrait I supplied. With its great
contradiction between the lower and the upper parts of his
face, it would be an interesting frontispiece, but it would at
the same time introduce us to the book as a very--a com-
pletely--disclosing hieroglyph. "
These words may be taken to mean that Otto was so ugly
that, if he were in love, he could make no impression on the
woman he loved. But apart from Gerber (Taschenbuch, p. 6),
the unanimous opinion of those who knew him was that
Weininger was handsome rather than ugly, and this sort of
_ reasoning is obviously not acceptable.
It is surprising that the closest associates of. this man, who
practically crusaded against women, did not know of his ever
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? 126
Crossing the Border
having had relations with any woman. Swoboda writes:
"Weininger had no unfortunate experiences in the sense of
being morbid, disappointed, rejected in love. A hopeless inner
desire would have been as much of a hindrance to him as to
any great man. " Neither here nor elsewhere does Swoboda or
anyone else say whether Weininger actually had an affair with
some woman or tell of a great and decisive sexual incident at
any period of his life.
Probst, however, had very strong convictions about Wei-
ninger's sexual life. "The contents of his books and information
from his friends leads me," he said, "to believe that Wein-
inger was very erotic from childhood" (Der Fall, pp. 6, 12). 1
Weininger's sister denied that his personal experiences with
women had influenced his opinions on sex problems. His fa-
ther, interestingly enough, believed that Otto first had sexual
intercourse when he was in his twenties, but adds, "He had
sexual intercourse with very few women" (Der Fall, p. 6).
There is a strong argument against admitting this last state-
ment in evidence: a son does not usually tell his father about
his sexual experiences and feelings. Even when the relation-
ship between father and son is ideal, a man's sexual life always
has dark spots which are not clear to the man himself and
certainly not to others.
The lack of evidence about his relations with women does
not mean that Weininger never was in love with a woman.
The question arises: In order to explain his attitude toward
women, must we assume that he was rejected by a woman he
loved? If he had no deep-going relation with a woman, it is
hard to understand how from time to time he could have
shown such deep psychological knowledge of the relationship
between man and woman and such understanding of wom-
an's nature. To this question Weininger fortunately gave the
answer himself. "When Weininger's father asked him how he
1 Similarly, Ragnar Vogt in his review of Sex and Character for Tidskrift for
den Norske Legeforening, 1904, p. 457, said, "His personality was marked by
vivid idealistic longing and strong sexual impulses. "
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? Crossing the Border 127
could with so little experience pass such a devastating judg-
ment upon women, he answered that it is a great mistake to
believe that experience would yield true understanding" (Der
Fall, p. 6).
As he contended, it is not necessary to believe that Wei-
ninger necessarily had some sexual relationship with a woman n
before he could understand anything of woman's nature. Nor '
is frustrated love essential to the explanation of his hatred for
women. The conflicts in his own narcissistic nature offer reasons
enough to explain his attitude both toward women and toward
the world around him.
At the time of his conversation with Miss Meyer he was, in
spite of his intense activity, deeply preoccupied and miserable;
he was moving on the borderlines between life and death, be-
tween the existent and the unknown, while his close friends
hoped that his mental condition would improve. He was busy
while Sex and Character was being printed. On April 23 he
wrote to Gerber: "I am still kept terribly busy. I am swim-
ming in an ocean of first, second, and third proofs. I no longer
write with blood--only with red ink (A contrast to Nietz-
sche! )" (Taschenbuch, p. 92). He did indeed put forth al-
most incredible effort in the writing and the printing of his
book, and many of his nights were spent in reading proof. At
last the book was finished, and the labor was done. On May
29, 1903, he brought the first copy to Gerber. Sex and Char-
acter was published.
While work on the book was going on, within Weininger a
great mental change was taking place. His moral self-scrutiny
had gone so far in March and April, 1903, that he ended by
devoting himself formally to the practice of chastity. This de-
cision marked a new step in his development. Yet sexual ab-
stinence was in deepest harmony with his whole personality,
that personality in which sexual craving, producing feelings of j
guilt and sin, was in constant struggle with his ideas of purity \
and sanctity.
It would be hard to overemphasize the importance of this
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? 128
Crossing the Border
turn to asceticism in the understanding of Weininger's devel-
opment. His own words on the general subject of asceticism in
Sex and Character (p. 458) express views that harmonize with
his whole nature. "Asceticism," he wrote, "which actually is
an expression of the desire for indecency, is in itself indecent
because as a criterion for the judgment of sin it takes an ac-
companying phenomenon, an external result of an action in-
stead of the state of mind; it is heteronomous. Man should
strive for pleasure. He is entitled to try to make life on this
earth as bright and cheerful as possible. But he must never on
that account violate any moral law. By asceticism man tries to
compel morality by tearing his own flesh to pieces; he wants
morality for a reason, as a reward for all that he has sacrificed.
We must therefore disapprove of asceticism both as a prin-
ciple and as a psychological disposition, because it ties virtue
to something other than its result, makes it an effect of a
cause, and does not strive for it as an immediate goal in itself.
Asceticism is a dangerous seducer. Many are those who fall
victim to its disappointments, because lust is the most fre-
quent reason for leaving the path of right, and the mistake is
so easy to make that if one chooses pain instead of asceticism,
one is sure to remain on the side of right. Lust in itself is nei-
ther moral nor immoral. A man is lost only when the desire
for pleasure conquers the will to achieve merit. "
Weininger did not approve of asceticism as such. In his
own words when he said, "A man is lost only when the desire
for pleasure conquers the will to achieve merit," we may find
a reason for his own sexual asceticism. Deep personal experi-
ence lay behind those words; it is reasonable to suppose that
Weininger was compelled to practice sexual abstinence be-
cause his sexual urge was so strong that it would conquer his
will to achieve merit. In a psychological sense, the statement
means that he had at the same time a strong sexual urge and
great idealism. He longed for sexual life and sexual experience,
but tendencies of hostility and fear opposed his longing. This
antinomic process was typically expressed when Weininger in
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? Crossing the Border
his last days wrote down his "Letzte Aphorismen" (Last
Aphorisms). There he speaks of the criminal, and we may un-
derstand that the criminal is himself: "Thus the criminal also
creates woman as a thought (he wants intercourse), but she
does not exist for him. He never finds the woman he is looking
for because he creates only an idea of a woman. He can feel
sexual desire for the absolute prostitute (an old woman) and
he can love a Madonna (if he wants to become pure), but he
finds a Madonna only when he is good; at that moment he
also creates a Madonna" (U. L. D. , p. 180).
Weininger's poem beginning, "Sieh mich gebeugt" tells us
that because of his sexual desire he went to women of the
streets, even though he wept when he returned. He certainly
did not regret his desire for fear of venereal disease; his re-
morse came only from the curse of the moral law--that is, be-
cause of his own strongly moral attitude. Weininger believed
that the woman was debased and used only as a means in sexual
intercourse and that, therefore, sexual intercourse was immoral.
This belief obviously had something to do with his forswear-
ing sex relations.
Weininger's sexual urge could not compromise with his
idealistic tendencies. A deep conflict was created in him. On
the one side was his personality, with his moral ego (super-
ego), on the other his sexual drive, which he feared as harmful
and hostile. A continual struggle took place between these
two forces. Probably the reason for much of his moral rigor--
in a characterological sense--may be found in this biological
circumstance. An ascetic is usually defined as a man who feels
pleasure not in the satisfaction of his drives, but in disregard
of them. The warfare within Weininger's nature was bringing
him to the point of ascetic denial--in fact, to psychological
self-castration.
An argument might be advanced to oppose this view with a
contrary explanation. It might be held that Otto adopted a
sexually abstinent life with the violent energy characteristic of
his schizoid make-up, so that his self-denial became a question
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 08:38 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89038364857 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 130 Crossing the Border
of will power. Given the personal energy he always demon-
strated, it is easy to picture his asceticism in this light. The
explanation is, however, not really satisfactory, for it only takes
us back to the more fundamental question: What was behind
his wish to become an ascetic?
There is no hint that he might have been forced into ab-
stinence by a venereal disease, and we know that he was in
the prime of life when in April, 1903, he decided to be sex-
ually abstinent.
