Amongst
Christians
even the daughters stand a little further
?
?
Weininger - 1903 - Sex and Character
A man has in himself the possibility of being the absolute something or the absolute nothing, and therefore hisactionsaredirectedtowardstheoneortheother; woman does not sin, for she herself is the sin which is a possibility in man.
The abstract male is the image of God, the absolute some- thing; the female, and the female element in the male, is the symbol of nothing ; that is the significance of the woman in the universe, and in this way male and female complete and condition one another. Woman has a meaning and a function in the universe as the opposite of man ; and as the human male surpasses the animal male, so the human female surpasses the female of zoology. It is not that limited existence and limited negation (as in the animal kingdom) are at war in humanity ; what there stand in opposition are unlimited existence and unlimited negation. And so male and female make up humanity.
Themeaningofwomanistobemeaningless. Sherepre-
? 298 SEX AND CHARACTER
sents negation, the opposite pole from the Godhead, the otherpossibilityofhumanity. Andsonothingissodespic- able as a man become female, and such a person will be regarded as the supreme criminal even by himself. And so also is to be explained the deepest fear of man ; the fear of the woman, which is the fear of unconsciousness, the alluring abyss of annihilation.
An old woman manifests once for all what woman really is. The beauty of woman, as may be experimentally proved, is only created by love of a man ; a woman becomes more beautiful when a man loves her because she is passively responding to the will which is in her lover ; however deep this may sound, it is only a matter of everyday experience.
All the qualities of woman depend on her non-existence, on her want of character ; because she has no true, per- manent, but only a mortal life, in her character as the advocate of pairing she furthers the sexual part of life, and is fundamentally transformed by and susceptible to the man who has a physical influence over her.
Thus the three fundamental characters of woman with which this chapter has dealt come together in the con- ception of her as the non-existent. Her instability and untruthfulness are only negative deductions from the premiss of her non-existence. Her only positive character, the conception of her as the pairing agent, comes from it by a simple process of analysis. The nature of woman is no more than pairing, no more than super-individual sexuality.
If we turn to the table of the two kinds of life given earlier in this chapter, it will be apparent that every inclina- tion from the higher to the lower is a crime against oneself. Immorality is the will towards negation, the craving to change the formed into the formless, the wish for destruction. And from this comes the intimate relation between femaleness and crime. There is a close relation between the immoral and the non-moral. It is only when man accepts his own sexuality, denies the absolute in him,
? i
WOMANANDHERSIGNIFICANCE 299
turns to the lower, that he gives woman existence. The acceptance of the Phallus is immoral. It has always been thought of as hateful ; it has been the image of Satan, and Dante made it the central pillar of hell.
Thus comes about the domination of the male sexuaHty over the female. It is only when man is sexual that woman has existence and meaning.
Her existence is bound up with the Phallus, and so tliat is her supreme lord and welcome master.
Sex, in the form of man, is woman's fate ; the Don Juan is the only type of man who has complete power over her.
The curse, which was said to be heavy on woman, is the evil will of man : nothing is only a tool in the hand of the will for nothing. The early Fathers expressed it pathetically when they called woman the handmaid of the devil. For matter in itself is nothing, it can only obtain existence through form. The fall of " form " is the corruption that takes place when form endeavours to relapse into the form- less. When man became sexual he formed woman. That woman is at all has happened simply because man has accepted his sexuality. Woman is merely the result of this affirmation ; she is sexuality itself. Woman's existence is dependent on man ; when man, as man, in contradistinction to woman, is sexual, he is giving woman form, calling her intoexistence. Thereforewoman'soneobjectmustbeto
keep man sexual. She desires man as Phallus, and for this she is the advocate of pairing. She is incapable of making use of any creature except as a means to an end, the end being pairing ; and she has but one purpose, that of con- tinuing the guilt of man, for she would disappear the moment man had overcome his sexuality.
Man created woman, and will always create her afresh, as long as he is sexual. Just as he gives woman con- sciousness,sohegivesherexistence. Womanisthesinof man.
He tries to pay the debt by love. Here we have the explanation of what seemed like an obscure myth at the end of the previous chapter. Now we see what was hidden in
;
? 300 SEX AND CHARACTER
il : that woman is nothing before man's fall, nor without it thathedoesnotrobherofanythingshehadbefore. The crime man has committed in creating woman, and still commits in assenting to her purpose, he excuses to woman by his eroticism.
Whence otherwise would come the generosity of love, which can never be satisfied by giving ? How is it that love is so anxious to endow woman with a soul, and not any other creature ? Whence comes it that a child cannot love until love coincides with sexuality, the stage of puberty, with the repeated forming of woman, with the renewing of sin ? Woman is nothing but man's expression and projec- tion of his own sexuality. Every man creates himself a woman, in which he embodies himself and his own guilt.
But woman is not herself guilty ; she is made so by the guilt of others, and everything for which woman is blamed should be laid at man's door.
Love strives to cover guilt, instead of conquering it ; it elevateswomaninsteadofnullifyingher. The"something" folds the ** nothing" in its arms, and thinks thus to free the universe of negation and drown all objections ; whereas thenothingwouldonlydisappearif thesomethingputit away.
Since man's hatred for woman is not conscious hatred of his own sexuality, his love is his most intense effort to save woman as woman, instead of desiring to nullify her in himself. And the consciousness of guilt comes from the fact that the object of guilt is coveted instead of being annihilated.
Woman alone, then, is guilt ; and is so through man's fault. And if femaleness signifies pairing, it is only because all guilt endeavours to increase its circle. What woman, always unconsciously, accomplishes, she does because she cannot help it ; it is her reason for being, her whole nature. She is only a part of man, his other, ineradicable, his lower part. So matter appears to be as inexplicable a riddle as form ; woman as unending as man, negation as eternal as existence ; but this eternity is only the eternity of guilt.
? CHAPTER XIII JUDAISM
Itwouldnotbesurprisingif tomanyit shouldseemfrom the foregoing arguments that " men " have come out of them too well, and, as a collective body, have been placed onanexaggeratedlyloftypedestal. Theconclusionsdrawn from these arguments, however surprised every Philistine and young simpleton would be to learn that in himself he comprises the whole world, cannot be opposed and con- futed by cheap reasoning yet the treatment of the male
;
sex must not simply be considered too indulgent, or due to a direct tendency to omit all the repulsive and small side of manhood in order to favourably represent its best points.
The accusation would be unjustified. It does not enter the author's mind to idealise man in order more easily to lower the estimation of woman. So much narrowness and so much coarseness often thrive beneath the empirical representation of manhood that it is a question of the better possibilities lying in every man, neglected by him or per- ceivedeitherwithpainfulclearnessordullanimosity pos-
;
sibilities which as such in woman neither actually nor meditatively ever come to any account. And here the author cannot in any wise really rely on the dissimilarities between men, however little he may impugn their import- ance. It is, therefore, a question of establishing what woman is not, and truly in her there is infinitely much want- ing which is never quite missing even in the most mediocre and plebeian of men. That which is the positive attribute of the woman, in so far as a positive can be spoken of in re- gard to such a being, will constantly be found also in many
? SEX AND CHARACTER
men. There are, as has already often been demonstrated, men who have become women or have remained women; but there is no woman who has surpassed certain circum- scribed, not particularly elevated moral and intellectual limits. And, therefore, I must again assert that the woman of the highest standard is immeasurably beneath the man of lowest standard.
These objections may go even further and touch a pK)int where the ignoring of theory must assuredly become repre- hensible. Thereare,towit,nationsandraceswhosemen, though they can in no wise be regarded as intermediate forms of the sexes, are found to approach so slightly and so rarely to the ideal of manhood as set forth in my argu- ment, that the principles, indeed the entire foundation on which this work rests, would seem to be severely shaken by their existence. What shall we make, for example, out of the Chinese, with their feminine freedom from internal cravings and their incapacity for every effort ? One
might feel tempted to believe in the complete effeminacy of the whole race. It can at least be no mere whim of the entire nation that the Chinaman habitually wears a pigtail, and that the growth of his beard is of the very thinnest. But how does the matter stand with the negroes ? A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally so low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America
that their emancipation was an act of imprudence.
If, consequently, the principle of the intermediate forms of the sexes may perhaps enjoy a prospect of becoming of
importance to racial anthropology (since in some peoples
a greater share of womanishness would seem to be generally disseminated), it must yet be conceded that the foregoing deductions refer above all to Aryan men and Aryan women. In how far, in the other great races of mankind, uniformity with the standard of the Aryan race may reign, or what has prevented and hindered this ; to arrive more nearly at such knowledge would require in the first instance the most
302
intense research into racial characteristics.
? JUDAISM
303 The Jewish race, which has been chosen by me as a sub- ject of discussion, because, as will be shown, it presents the gravest and most formidable difficulties for my views, appears to possess a certain anthropological relationship with both negroes and Mongolians. The readily curling hair points to the negro ; admixture of Mongolian blood is suggested by the perfectly Chinese or Malay formation of face and skull which is so often to be met with amongst the Jews and which is associated with a yellowish com- plexion. Thisisnothingmorethantheresultofeveryday experience, and these remarks must not be otherwise understood ; the anthropological question of the origin of the Jewish race is apparently insoluble, and even such an interesting answer to it as that given by H. S. Chamber- lain has recently met with much opposition. The author
does not possess the knowledge necessary to treat of this ;
what will be here briefly, but as far as possible profoundly analysed, is the psychical peculiarity of the Jewish race.
This is an obligatory task imposed by psychological observation and analysis. It is undertaken independently of past history, the details of which must be uncertain. The Jewish race offers a problem of the deepest significance for the study of all races, and in itself it is intimately
bound up with many of the most troublesome problems of the day.
I must, however, make clear what I mean by Judaism ; I mean neither a race nor a people nor a recognised creed. I think of it as a tendency of the mind, as a psychological constitution which is a possibility for all mankind, but which has become actual in the most conspicuous fashion only amongst the Jews. Antisemitism itself will confirm my point of view.
The purest Aryans by descent and disposition are seldom Antisemites, although they are often unpleasantly moved by some of the peculiar Jewish traits ; they cannot in the least understand the Antisemite movement, and are, in conse- quence of their defence of the Jews, often called Philo- semites ; and yet these persons writing on the subject of
? SEX AND CHARACTER
the hatred of Jews, have been guilty of the most profound misunderstandingoftheJewishcharacter. Theaggressive Antisemites, on the other hand, nearly always display certain Jewish characters, sometimes apparent in their faces, al- though they may have no real admixture of Jewish blood. *
The explanation is simple. People love in others the qualities they would like to have but do not actually have in any great degree ; so also we hate in others only what we do not wish to be, and what notwithstanding we are partly. We hate only qualities to which we approximate, but which we realise first in other persons.
Thus the fact is explained that the bitterest Antisemites are to be found amongst the jews themselves. For only the quite Jewish Jews, like the completely Aryan Aryans, are not at all Antisemitically disposed ; among the remainder only the commoner natures are actively Antisemitic and pass sentence on others without having once sat in judg- ment on themselves in these matters ; and very few exercise their Antisemitism first on themselves. This one thing, however, remains none the less certain : whoever detests the Jewish disposition detests it first of all in himself ; that he should persecute it in others is merely his endeavour to separate himself in this way from Jewishness ; he strives to slj^ke it off and to localise it in his fellow-creatures, and so for a moment to dream himself free of it. Hatred, like love, is a projected phenomenon; that person alone is haled who reminds one unpleasantly of oneself.
The Antisemitism of the Jews bears testimony to the fact that no one who has had experience of them considers them loveable--not even the Jew himself ; the Antisemi- tism of the Aryans grants us an insight no less full of
* Zola was a typical case of a person absolutely without trace of the Jewish qualities, and, therefore, a philosemite. The greatest geniuses, on the other hand, have nearly always been antisemites (Tacitus, Pascal, Voltaire, Herder, Goethe, Kant, Jean Paul, Schopenhauer, Grillparzer, Wagner) ; this comes about from the fact as geniuses they have something of everything in their natures, and so can understand Judaism.
304
? '
JUDAISM
significance : it is that the Jew and the Jewish race must notbeconfounded. ThereareAryanswhoaremoreJewish than Jews, and real Jews who are more Aryan than certain Aryans. Ineednotenumeratethosenon-semiteswhohad much Jewishness in them, the lesser (like the well-known Frederick Nicolai of the eighteenth century) nor those of moderate greatness (here Frederick Schiller can scarcely beomitted),norwillI analysetheirJewishness. Aboveall Richard Wagner--the bitterest Antisemite--cannot be held free from an accretion of Jewishness even in his art, how- ever little one be misled by the feeling which sees in him the greatest artist enshrined in historical humanity ; and this, though indubitably his Siegfried is the most un-
Jewish type imaginable. As Wagner's aversion to grand opera and the stage really led to the strongest attraction, an attraction of which he was himself conscious, so his music, which, in the unique simplicity of its motifs, is the most powerful in the world, cannot be declared free from obtru- siveness, loudness, and lack of distinction ; from some con- sciousness of this Wagner tried to gain coherence by the extremeinstrumentationofhisworks. Itcannotbedenied (there can be no mistake about it) that Wagner's music produces the deepest impression not only on Jewish Anti- semites, who have never completely shaken off Jewishness, but also on Indo-Germanic Antisemites. From the music of " Parsifal," which to genuine Jews will ever remain as unapproachable as its poetry, from the Pilgrim's march and the procession to Rome in " Tannhau? ser," and assuredly frommanyanotherpart,theyturnaway. Doubtless,also, none but a German could make so clearly manifest the very essence of the German race as Wagner has succeeded indoinginthe"MeistersingersofNu? rnberg. " InWagner one thinks constantly of that side of his character which leans towards Feuerbach, instead of towards Schopenhauer. Here no narrow psychological depreciation of this great manisintended. Judaismwastohimthegreatesthelpin reaching a clearer understanding and assertion of the extremes within him in his struggle to reach " Siegfried" and
u
305
? 3o6 SEX AND CHARACTER
" Parsifal," and in giving to German nature the highest means of expression which has probably ever been found in thepagesofhistory. YetagreaterthanWagnerwasobliged to overcome the Jewishness within him before he found his special vocation ; and it is, as previously stated, perhaps its great significance in the world's history and the immense merit of Judaism that it and nothing else, leads the Aryan to a knowledge of himself and warns him against himself. For this the Aryan has to thank the Jew that, through him, he knows to guard against Judaism as a possibility within himself. This example will sufficiently illustrate what, in my estimation, is to be understood by Judaism.
I donotrefertoanationortoarace,toacreedortoa scripture. When I speak of the Jew I mean neither an individual nor the whole body, but mankind in general, in so far as it has a share in the platonic idea of Judaism. My purpose is to analyse this idea.
That these researches should be included in a work devoted to the characterology of the sexes may seem an undue extension of my subject. But some reflection will lead to the surprising result that Judaism is saturated with femininity, with precisely those qualities the essence of whichI haveshowntobeinthestrongestoppositiontothe male nature. It would not be difficult to make a case for the view that the Jew is more saturated with femininity than the Aryan, to such an extent that the most manly Jew is more feminine than the least manly Aryan.
This interpretation would be erroneous. It is most important to lay stress on the agreements and differences simply because so many points that become obvious in dissecting woman reappear in the Jew.
Let me begin with the analogies. It is notable that the Jews, even now when at least a relative security of tenure is possible, prefer moveable property, and, in spite of their acquisitiveness, have little real sense of personal property, especially in its most characteristic form, landed property. Property is indissolubly connected with the self, with individuality. It is in harmony with the foregoing that the
? !
307 jew is so readily disposed to communism. Communism must be distinguished clearly from socialism, the former being based on a community of goods, an absence of individual property, the latter meaning, in the first place a co-operation of individual with individual, of worker with worker, and a recognition of human individuality in every one. Socialism is Aryan (Owen, Carlyle, Ruskin, Fichte). Communism is Jewish (Marx). Modern social democracy has moved far apart from the earlier socialism, precisely because Jews have taken so large a share in developing it. In spite of the associative element in it, the Marxian doctrine does not lead in any way towards the State as a union of all the separate individual aims, as the higher unit combining the purposes of the lower units. Such a con-
ception is as foreign to the Jew as it is to the woman.
For these reasons Zionism must remain an impracticable
ideal, notwithstanding the fashion in which it has brought
togethersomeofthenoblestqualitiesoftheJews. Zionism
is the negation of Judaism, for the conception of Judaism
involvesaworld-widedistributionoftheJews. Citizenship
is an un-Jewish thing, and there has never been and never
JUDAISM
willbeatrueJewishState. TheStateinvolvestheaggrega- I
tion of individual aims, the formation of and obedience to self-imposed laws ; and the symbol of the State, if nothing more, is its head chosen by free election. The opposite conception is that of anarchy, with which present-day communism is closely allied. The ideal State has never been historically realised, but in every case there is at least a minimum of this higher unit, this conception of an ideal power which distinguishes the State from the mere collec- tion of human beings in barracks. Rousseau's much-
despised theory of the conscious co-operation of individuals to form a State deserves more attention than it now receives. Some ethical notion of free combination must always be included.
The true conception of the State is foreign to the Jew, because he, like the woman, is wanting in personality; his failure to grasp the idea of true society is due to his lack of
? SEX AND CHARACTER
a free intelligible ego. Like women, Jews tend to adhere together, but they do not associate as free independent individuals mutually respecting each other's individuality.
As there is no real dignity in women, so what is meant by the word " gentleman " does not exist amongst the Jews. The genuine Jew fails in this innate good breeding by which alone individuals honour their own individuality and respect that of others. There is no Jewish nobility, and this is the more surprising as Jewish pedigrees can be traced back for thousands of years.
The familiar Jewish arrogance has a similar explanation; it springs from want of true knowledge of himself and the consequent overpowering need he feels to enhance his own personality by depreciating that of his fellow-creatures. And so, although his descent is incomparably longer than that of the members of Aryan aristocracies, he has an inordinate love for titles. The Aryan respect for his ancestors is rooted in the conception that they were his ancestors ; it depends on his valuation of his own person- ality, and, in spite of the communistic strength and antiquity of the Jewish traditions, this individual sense of ancestry is lacking.
The faults of the Jewish race have often been attributed to the repression of that race by Aryans, and many Chris- tians are still disposed to blame themselves in this respect. But the self-reproach is not justified. Outward circum- stances do not mould a race in one direction, unless there is in the race the innate tendency to respond to the moulding forces ; the total result comes at least as much from the natural disposition as from the modifying circum- stances. We know now that the proof of the inheritance of acquired characters has broken down, and, in the human race still more than the lower forms of life, it is certain that individual and racial characters persist in spite of all adaptive moulding. When men change, it is from within, outwards, unless the change, as in the case of women, is a mere superficial imitation of real change, and is not rooted intheirnatures. Andhowcanwereconciletheideathat
3o8
? JUDAISM
the Jewish character is a modern modification with the history of the foundation of the race, given in the Old Testament without any disapprobation of how the patriarch Jacob deceived his dying father, cheated his brother Esau and over-reached his father-in-law, Laban ?
The defenders of the Jew have rightly acquitted him of any tendency to heinous crimes, and the legal statistics of different countries confirm this. The Jew is not really anti-moral. But, none the less, he does not represent the highest ethical type. He is rather non-moral, neither very good nor very bad, with nothing in him of either the angel or the devil. Notwithstanding the Book of Job and the story of Eden, it is plain that the conceptions of a Supreme Good and a Supreme Evil are not truly Jewish ; I have no wish to enter upon the lengthy and controversial topics of Biblical criticism, but at the least I shall be on sure ground when I say that these conceptions play the least significant part in modern Jewish life. Orthodox or un- orthodox, the modern Jew does not concern himself with God and the Devil, with Heaven and Hell. If he does not reach the heights of the Aryan, he is also less inclined to commit murder or other crimes of violence.
So also in the case of the woman ; it is easier for her defenders to point to the infrequency of her commission of serious crimes than to prove her intrinsic morality. The homology of Jew and woman becomes closer the further examinationgoes. Thereisnofemaledevil,andnofemale angel ; only love, with its blind aversion from actuality, sees in woman a heavenly nature, and only hate sees in her a prodigy of wickedness. Greatness is absent from the nature of the woman and the Jew, the greatness of morality, or the greatness of evil. In the Aryan man, the good and bad principles of Kant's religious philosophy are ever pre- sent, ever in strife. In the Jew and the woman, good and evil are not distinct from one another.
jews, then, do not live as free, self-governing individuals, choosing between virtue and vice in the Aryan fashion. They are a mere collection of similar individuals each cast
309
? 3IO SEX AND CHARACTER
in the same mould, the whole forming as it were a con- tinuousPlasmodium. TheAntisemitehasoftenthoughtof this as a defensive and aggressive union, and has formulated the conception of a Jewish " solidarity. " There is a deep confusion here. When some accusation is made against some unknown member of the Jewish race, all Jews secretly take the part of the accused, and wish, hope for, and seek to establish his innocence. But it must not be thought that they are mteresting themselves more in the fate of the
individual Jew than they would do in the case of an indi- vidual Christian. It is the menace to Judaism in general, the fear that the shameful shadow may do harm to Judaism as a whole, which is the origin of the apparent feeling of sympathy. Inthesameway,womenaredelightedwhena member of their sex is depreciated, and will themselves assist, until the proceeding seems to throw a disadvan- tageous light over the sex in general, so frightening men from marriage. The race or sex alone is defended, not the
individual.
It would be easy to understand why the family (in its
biological not its legal sense) plays a larger role amongst the Jews than amongst any other people ; the English, who in certain ways are akin to the Jews, coming next. The family, in this biological sense, is feminine and maternal in its origin, and has no relation to the State or to society. The fusion, the continuity of the members of the family, reaches its highest point amongst the Jews. In the Indo- Germanic races, especially in the case of the more gifted, but also in quite ordinary individuals, there is never com- plete harmony between father and son consciously, or
;
unconsciously, there is always in the mind of the son a cer- tain feeling of impatience against the man who, unasked, brought him into the world, gave him a name, and deter- mined his limitations in this earthly life. It is only amongst the Jews that the son feels deeply rooted in the family and IS fully at one with his father. It scarcely ever happens amongst Christians that father and son are really friends.
Amongst Christians even the daughters stand a little further
? JUDAISM 311
apart from the family circle than happens with Jewesses, and more frequently take up some calling which isolates them and gives them independent interests.
We reach at this point a fact in relation to the argument of the last chapter. I showed there that the essential element in the pairing instinct was an indistinct sense of individuality and of the limits between individuals. Men who are match-makers have always a Jewish element in them. TheJewisalwaysmoreabsorbedbysexualmatters than the Aryan, although he is notably less potent sexually andlessliabletobeenmeshedinagreatpassion. TheJews are habitual match-makers, and in no race does it so often happen that marriages are arranged by men. This kind of activity is certainly peculiarly necessary in their case, for, as I have alread)- stated, there is no people amongst which marriages for love are so rare. The organic disposition of the Jews towards match-making is associated with their racial failure to comprehend asceticism. It is interesting to note that the Jewish Rabbis have always been addicted to speculations as to the begetting of children and have a rich tradition on the subject, a natural result in the case of the people who invented the phrase as to the duty of *' multi- plying and replenishing the earth. "
The pairing instinct is the great remover of the limits between individuals; and the Jew, par excellence, is the breaker down ot such limits. He is at the opposite pole from aristocrats, with whom the preservation of the limits between individuals is the leading idea. The Jew is an inborn communist. The Jew's careless manners in society and his want of social tact turn on this quality, for the reserves of social intercourse are simply barriers to protect individuality.
I desire at this point again to lay stress on the fact, although it should be self-evident, that, in spite of my low estimate of the Jew, nothing could be further from my intention than to lend the faintest support to any practical or theoretical persecution of Jews. I am dealing with Judaism, in the platonic sense, as an idea. There is no
? SEX AND CHARACTER
312
more an absolute Jew than an absolute Christian. I am not speaking against the individual, whom, indeed, if that had been so, I should have wounded grossly and unnecessarily.
Watchwords, such as " Buy only from Christians," have inrealityaJewishtaint; theyhaveameaningonlyforthose who regard the race and not the individual, and what is to be compared with them is the Jewish use of the word " Goy," which is now almost obsolete. I have no wish to boycott the Jew, or by any such immoral means to attempt to solve theJewishquestion. NorwillZionismsolvethatquestion; as H. S. Chamberlain has pointed out, since the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, Judaism has ceased to be national, and has become a spreading parasite, straggling all over the earth and finding true root nowhere. Before Zionism is possible, the Jew must first conquer Judaism.
To defeat Judaism, the Jew must first understand himself and war against himself. So far, the Jew has reached no further than to make and enjoy jokes against his own pecu- liarities. Unconsciously he respects the Aryan more than himself. Only steady resolution, united to the highest self- respect,canfreetheJewfromJewishness. Thisresolution, be it ever so strong, ever so honourable, can only be under- stood and carried out by the individual, not by the group. Therefore the Jewish question can only be solved indi- vidually ; every single Jew must try to solve it in his proper person.
There is no other solution to the question and can be no other ; Zionism will never succeed in answering it.
The Jew, indeed, who has overcome, the Jew who has become a Christian, has the fullest right to be regarded by the Aryan in his individual capacity, and no longer be con- demned as belonging to a race above which his moral efforts have raised him. He may rest assured that no one will dispute his well-founded claim. The Aryan of good social standing always feels the need to respect the Jew ; his Antisemitism being no joy, no amusement to him. Therefore he is displeased when Jews make revelations about Jews, and he who does so may expect as few thanks
? / JUDAISM 313
from that quarter as from over-sensitive Judaism itself. Above all, the Aryan desires that the Jew should justify Antisemitism by being baptized. But the danger of this outward acknowledgment of his inward struggles need not trouble the Jew who wishes for liberty within him. He will long to reach the holy baptism of the Spirit, of which that of the body is but the outward symbol.
To reach so important and useful a result as what Jewishness and Judaism really are, would be to solve one of the most difficult problems Judaism is a much
;
deeper riddle than the many Antisemites believe, and in very truth a certain darkness will always enshroud it. Even the parallel with woman will soon fail us, though now and then it may help us further.
In Christians pride and humility, in Jews haughtiness and cringing, are ever at strife ; in the former self-con- sciousness and contrition, in the latter arrogance and bigotry. In the total lack of humility of the Jew lies his failure to grasp the idea of grace. From his slavish dis- position springs his heteronomous code of ethics, the " Decalogue," the most immoral book of laws in the uni- verse, which enjoins on obedient followers, submission to the powerful will of an exterior influence, with the reward ofearthlywell-beingandtheconquestoftheworld. His relations with Jehovah, the abstract Deity, whom he slavishly fears, whose name he never dares to pronounce, characterise the Jew ; he, like the woman, requires the rule of an exterior authority. According to the definition of Scho- penhauer, the word ' God ' indicates a man who made the world. This certainly is a true likeness of the God of
the Jew. Of the divine in man, of " the God who in my bosom dwells," the true Jew knows nothing ; for what Christ and Plato, Eckhard and Paul, Goethe and Kant, the priests of the Vedas, Fechner, and every Aryan have meant bydivine,forwhatthesaying,"I amwithyoualwayseven to the end of the world "--for the meaning of all these the Jewremainswithoutunderstanding. FortheGodinman is the human soul, and the absolute Jew is devoid of a soul.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
314
It is inevitable, then, that we should find no trace of
belief in immortality in the Old Testament. Those who have no soul can have no craving for immortality, and so it is with the woman and the Jew ; " Anima naturaliter Christiana," said Tertullian.
The absence from the Jew of true mysticism--Cham- berlain has remarked on this--has a similar origin. They have nothing but the grossest superstition and the system of divinatorymagicknownasthe"Kabbala. " Jewishmono- theism has no relation to a true belief in God ; it is not a religion of reason, but a belief of old women founded on fear.
Why is it that the Jewish slave of Jehovah should become so readily a materialist or a freethinker ? It is merely the alternative phase to slavery ; arrogance about what is not understood is the other side of the slavish intelligence. When it is fully recognised that Judaism is to be regarded rather as an idea in which other races have a share, than as the absolute property of a particular race, then the Judaic element in modern materialistic science will be better understood. Wagner has given expression to Judaism in music ; there remains to say something about Judaism in modern science.
Judaism in science, in the widest interpretation of it, is theendeavourtoremovealltranscendentalism. TheAryan feels that the effort to grasp everything, and to refer every- thing to some system of deductions, really robs things of their true meaning ; for him, what cannot be discovered is what gives the world its significance. The Jew has no fear of these hidden and secret elements, for he has no con- sciousness of their presence. He tries to take a view of the world as flat and commonplace as possible, and to refuse to see all the secret and spiritual meanings of things. His view is non-philosophical rather an anti-philosophical.
Because fear of God in the Jew has no relation with real religion, the Jew is of all persons the least perturbed by mechanical, materialistic theories of the world ; he is readily beguiled by Darwinism and the ridiculous notion that
men are derived from monkeys ; and now he is disposed to accept the view that the soul of man is an evolution that has taken place within the human race ; formerly, he was a mad devotee of Bu? chner, now he is ready to follow Ostwald.
It is due to a real disposition that the jews should be so prominent in the study of chemistry ; they cling naturally to matter, and expect to find the solution of everything in itsproperties. AndyetonewhowasthegreatestGerman investigator of all times, Kepler himself, wrote the following hexameter on chemistry :
" O curas Chymicorum
!
O quantum in pulvere inane !
The present turn of medical science is largely due to the influence of the Jews, who in such numbers have embraced the medical profession. From the earliest times, until the dominance of the Jews, medicine was closely allied with religion. But now they would make it a matter of drugs, a mere administration of chemicals. But it can never be that theorganicwillbeexplainedbytheinorganic. Fechnerand Preyer were right when they said that death came from life,notlifefromdeath. Weseethistakingplacedailyin individuals (in human beings, for instance, old age pre- pares for death by a calcification of the tissues). And as yet no one has seen the organic arise from the inorganic. From the time of Schwammerdam to that of Pasteur it has become more and more certain that living things never arise from what is not alive. Surely this ontogenetic obser- vation should be applied to phylogeny, and we should be equally certain that, in the past, the dead arose from the living. The chemical interpretation of organisms sets these onalevelwiththeirowndeadashes. Weshouldreturn from this Judaistic science to the nobler conceptions of Copernicus and Galileo, Kepler and Euler, Newton and Linnaeus,LamarckandFaraday,SprengelandCuvier. The freethinkers of to-day, soulless and not believing in the soul, are incapable of filling the places of these great men and of reverently realising the presence of intrinsic secrets in nature.
"
? JUDAISM
315
? 3i6 SEX AND CHARACTER
It is this want of depth which explains the absence of truly great Jews ; like women, they are without any trace of genius. The philosopher Spinoza, about whose purely Jewish descent there can be no doubt, is incomparably the greatest Jew of the last nine hundred yea'-s, much greater than the poet Heine (who, indeed, was almost destitute of any quality of true greatness) or than that original, if shallow painter, Israels. The extraordinary fashion in which Spinoza has been over-estimated is less due to his intrinsic merit than to the fortuitous circumstance that he was the only thinker to whom Goethe gave his attention.
For Spinoza himself there was no deep problem in nature (and in this he showed his Jewish character), as, otherwise, he would not have elaborated his mathematical method, a method according to which the explanation of thingswastobefoundinthemselves. Thissystemformed a refuge into which Spinoza could escape from himself, and it is not unnatural that it should have been attractive to Goethe, who was the most introspective of men, as it might have seemed to offer to him tranquillity and rest.
Spinoza showed his Jewishness and the limits that always confine the Jewish spirit in a still plainer fashion ; I am not thinking of his failure to comprehend the State or of his adhesion to the Hobbesian doctrine of universal warfare as the primitive condition of mankind. The matter goes deeper. I have in mind his complete rejection of free-will --the Jew is always a slave and a determinist--and his view that individuals were mere accidents into which the universalsubstancehadfallen. TheJewisneverabelieverin monads. And so there is no wider philosophical gulf than that between Spinoza and his much more eminent con- temporary, Leibnitz, the protagonist of the monad theory, or its still greater creator, Bruno, whose superficial likeness with Spinoza has been exaggerated in the most grotesque fashion.
Just as Jews and women are without extreme good and extreme evil, so they never show either genius or the deptti of stupidity of which mankind is capable. The specitic
? JUDAISM 317
kind of intelligence for which Jews and women alike are notorious is due simply to the alertness of an exaggerated egotism ; it is due, moreover, to the boundless capacity shown by both for pursuing any object with equal zeal, because they have no intrinsic standard of value--nothing in their own souls by which to judge of the worthiness of any particular object. And so they have unhampered natural instincts, such as are not present to help the Aryan man when his transcendental standard fails him.
I may now touch upon the likeness of the English to the Jews, a topic discussed at length by Wagner. It cannot be doubted that of the Germanic races the English are in closest relationship with the Jews. Their orthodoxy and their devotion to the Sabbath afford a direct indication. The religion of the Englishman is always tinged with hypo- crisy, and his asceticism is largely prudery. The English, like women, have been most unproductive in religion and in music ; there may be irreligious poets, although not great artists, but there is no irreligious musician. So, also, the English have produced no great architects or philoso- phers. Berkeley, like Swift and Sterne, were Irish ; Carlyle, Hamilton, and Burns were Scotch. Shakespeare and Shelley, the two greatest Englishmen, stand far from the pinnacle of humanity ; they do not reach so far as Angelo and Beethoven. If we consider English philosophers we shall see that there has been a great degeneration since the Middle Ages. It began with William of Ockham and Duns Scotus ; it proceeded through Roger Bacon and his name- sake, the Chancellor ; through Hobbes, who, mentally, was so near akin to Spinoza ; through the superficial Locke to
Hartley, Priestley, Bentham, the two Mills, Lewes, Huxley, andSpencer. Thesearethegreatestnamesinthehistory of English philosophy, for Adam Smith and David Hume were Scotchmen. It must always be remembered against England, that from her there came the soulless psychology. The Englishman has impressed himself on the German as a rigorous empiricist and as a practical politician, but these two sides exhaust his importance in philosophy. There
? 3i8 SEX AND CHARACTER
has never yet been a true philosopher who made empiricism his basis, and no Englishman has got beyond empiricism without external help.
None the less, the Englishman must not be confused with the Jew. There is more of the transcendental element in 'him, and his mind is directed rather from the transcendental to the practical, than from the practical towards the trans- cendental. Otherwisehewouldnotbesoreadilydisposed to humour, unlike the Jew, who is ready to be witty only at
his own expense or on sexual things.
I am well aware how difficult are the problems of laughter
and humour--just as difficult as any problems that are peculiar to man and not shared by him with the beasts ; so difficult that neither Schopenhauer nor Jean Paul himself wereabletoelucidatethem. Humourhasmanyaspects
; in some men it seems to be an expression of pity for them-
selves or for others, but this element is not sufficient to distinguish it.
The essence of humour appears to me to consist in a laying of stress on empirical things, in order that their unrealitymaybecomemoreobvious. Everythingthatis realised is laughable, and in this way humour seems to be the antithesis of eroticism. The latter welds men and the world together, and unites them in a great purpose ; the former loses the bonds of synthesis and shows the world as a silly affair. The two stand somewhat in the relation of polarised and unpolarised light.
When the great erotic wishes to pass from the limited to the illimited, humour pounces down on him, pushes him in front of the stage, and laughs at him from the wings. The humourist has not the craving to transcend space ; he is content with small things ; his dominion is neither the sea nor the mountains, but the fiat level plain. He shuns the idyllic, and plunges deeply into the commonplace, only, however, to show its unreality. He turns from the immanence of things and will not hear the transcendental evenspokenof. Witseeksoutcontradictionsinthesphereof experience ; humour goes deeper and shows that experience
? JUDAISM
319 is a blind and closed system ; both compromise the pheno- menal world by showing that everything is possible in it. Tragedy, on the other hand, shows what must for all eternity be impossible in the phenomenal world ; and thus tragedy and comedy alike, each in their own way, are
negations of the empiric.
The Jew who does not set out, like the humourist, from
the transcendental, and does not move towards it, like the erotic, has no interest in depreciating what is called the actual world, and that never becomes for him the para- phernalia of a juggler or the nightmare of a mad-house. Humour, because it recognises the transcendental, if only by the mode of resolutely concealing it, is essentially tolerant ; satire, on the other hand, is essentially intolerant, and is congruous with the disposition of the Jew and the woman. Jews and women are devoid of humour, but addicted to mockery. In Rome there was even a woman (Sulpicia) who wrote satires. Satire, because of its intoler- ance, is impossible to men in society. The humourist, who knows how to keep the trifles and littlenesses of phenomena from troubhng himself or others, is a welcome guest. Humour, like love, moves away obstacles from our path ; it makes possible a way of regarchng the world. The Jew, therefore, is least addicted to society, and the Englishman most adapted for it.
The comparison of the Jew with the Englishman fades out much more quickly than that with the woman. Both comparisons first arose in the heat of the conflict as to the worth and the nature of Jew^s. I may again refer to Wagner, who not only interested himself deeply in the problem of Judaism, but rediscovered the Jew in the Englishman, and threw the shadow of Ahasuerus over his Kundry, probably the most perfect representation of woman in art.
The fact that no woman in the w^orld represents the idea of thewifesocompletelyastheJewess(andnotonlyinthe eyes of Jews) still further supports the comparison between Jews and women. In the case of the Aryans, the metaphy- sical qualities of the male are part of his sexual attraction
? SEX AND CHARACTER
for the woman, and so, in a fashion, she puts on an appear- anceofthese. TheJew,ontheotherhand,hasnotrans- cendental quality, and in the shaping and moulding of the wife leaves the natural tendencies of the female nature a more unhampered sphere ; and the Jewish woman, accord- ingly, plays the part required of her, as house-mother or odalisque, as Cybele or Cyprian, in the fullest way.
The congruity between Jews and women further reveals itself in the extreme adaptability of the Jews, in their great talent for journalism, the "mobility" of their minds, their lack of deeply-rooted and original ideas, in fact the mode in which, like women, because they are nothing in them- selves, they can become everything. The Jew is an indivi- dual, not an individuality ; he is in constant close relation with the lower life, and has no share in the higher metaphy- sical life.
At this point the comparison between the Jew and the woman breaks down ; the being-nothing and becoming-all- things differs in the two. The woman is material which passively assumes any form impressed upon it. In the Jew there is a definite aggressiveness ; it is not because of the great impression that others make on him that he is recep- tive ; he is no more subject to suggestion than the Aryan man, but he adapts himself to every circumstance and every race, becoming, like the parasite, a new creature in every different host, although remaining essentially the same. He assimilates himself to everything, and assi- milates everything ; he is not dominated by others, but submits himself to them. The Jew is gifted, the woman is not gifted, and the giftedness of the Jew reveals itself in many forms of activity, as, for instance, in jurisprudence ; but these activities are always relative and never seated in the creative freedom of the will.
The Jew is as persistent as the woman, but his persistence is not that of the individual but of the race. He is not unconditioned like the Aryan, but his limitations differ from those of the woman.
320
The true peculiarity of the Jew reveals itself best in his
? I
I
,
\
!
JUDAISM
321 essentially irreligious nature. I cannot here enter on a dis- cussion as to the idea of religion ; but it is enough to say that it is associated essentially with an acceptance of the higher and eternal in man as different in kind, and in no sense to be derived from the phenomenal life. The Jew is eminently the unbeliever. Faith is that act of man by
which he enters into relation with being, and religious faith is directed towards absolute, eternal being, the " life ever- lasting"ofthereligiousphrase. TheJewisreallynothing, because he believes in nothing.
Belief is everything. It does not matter if a man does not believe in God ; let him believe in atheism. But the Jew believes nothing; he does not believe his own belief; hedoubtsastohisowndoubt. Heisneverabsorbedby hisownjoy,orengrossedbyhisownsorrow. Henever takes himself in earnest, and so never takes any one else in earnest He is content to be a Jew, and accepts any disad- vantages that come from the fact.
We have now reached the fundamental difference between theJewandthewoman. Neitherbelieveinthemselves; but the woman believes in others, in her husband, her lover, or her children, or in love itself ; she has a centre of gravity, althoughitisoutsideherownbeing. TheJewbelievesin nothing, within him or without him. His want of desire for permanent landed property and his attachment to movable goods are more than symbolical.
The woman believes in the man, in the man outside her, or in the man from whom she takes her inspiration, and in this fashion can take herself in earnest. The Jew takes nothing seriously; he is frivolous, and jests about anything, about the Christian's Christianity, the Jew's baptism. He is neither a true realist nor a true empiricist. Here I must state certain limitations to my agreement with Chamber- lain's conclusions. The Jew is not really a convinced empiricist in the fashion of the English philosophers. The empiricist believes in the possibility of reaching a complete system of knowledge on an empirical basis ; he hopes for
theperfectionofscience. TheJewdoesnotreallybelievein
? 32 2 SEX AND CHARACTER
knowledge, nor is he a sceptic, for he doubts his own scepti- cism. Ontheotherhand,abroodingcarehoversoverthe non-metaphysical system of Avenarius, and even in Ernst Mach's adherence to relativity there are signs of a deeply reverent attitude. The empiricists must not be accused of Judaism because they are shallow.
The Jew is the impious man in the widest sense. Piety is not something near things nor outside things ; it is the groundworkofeverything. TheJewhasbeenincorrectly called vulgar, simply because he does not concern himself with metaphysics. All true culture that comes from within, all that a man believes to be true and that so is true for him, depend on reverence. Reverence is not limited to the mystic or the religious man ; all science and all scepticism, everything that a man truly believes, have reverence as the fundamental quality. Naturally it displays itself in dif- ferent ways, in high seriousness and sanctity, in earnestness and enthusiasm. The Jew is never either enthusiastic or indif- ferent, he is neither ecstatic nor cold. He reaches neither the heights nor the depths. His restraint becomes meagreness, hiscopiousnessbecomesbombast. Shouldheventureinto the boundless realms of inspired thought, he seldom
reachesbeyondpathos. Andalthoughhecannotembrace the whole world, he is for ever covetous of it.
Discrimination and generalisation, strength and love, science and poetry, every real and deep emotion of the human heart, have reverence as their essential basis. It is not necessary that faith, as in men of genius, should be in relation only to metaphysical entity ; it can extend also to the empirical world and appear fully there, and yet none the less be faith in oneself, in worth, in truth, in the absolute, in God.
As the comprehensive view of religion and piety that I havegivenmayleadtomisconstruction,I proposetoeluci- date it further. True piety is not merely the possession of piety,butalsothestruggletopossessit; itisfoundequally in the convinced believer in God (Handel or Fechner), and alsointhedoubtingseeker(LenauandDu? rer); itneednot
? !
j
I
JUDAISM
be made obvious to the world (as in the case of Bach), it maydisplayitselfonlyinareverentattitude(Mozart). Nor is piety necessarily connected with the appearance of a Founder ; the ancient Greeks were the most reverent people that have lived, and hence their culture was highest; but their religion had no personal Founder.
Religion is the creation of the all ; and all that humanity can be is only through religion. So far from the Jew being religious, as has been assumed, he is profoundly irreligious
Were there need to elaborate my verdict on the Jews I might point out that the Jews, alone of peoples, do not try to make converts to their faith, and that when converts are made they serve as objects of puzzled ridicule to them. Need I refer to the meaningless formality and the repetitions of Jewish prayer ?
The abstract male is the image of God, the absolute some- thing; the female, and the female element in the male, is the symbol of nothing ; that is the significance of the woman in the universe, and in this way male and female complete and condition one another. Woman has a meaning and a function in the universe as the opposite of man ; and as the human male surpasses the animal male, so the human female surpasses the female of zoology. It is not that limited existence and limited negation (as in the animal kingdom) are at war in humanity ; what there stand in opposition are unlimited existence and unlimited negation. And so male and female make up humanity.
Themeaningofwomanistobemeaningless. Sherepre-
? 298 SEX AND CHARACTER
sents negation, the opposite pole from the Godhead, the otherpossibilityofhumanity. Andsonothingissodespic- able as a man become female, and such a person will be regarded as the supreme criminal even by himself. And so also is to be explained the deepest fear of man ; the fear of the woman, which is the fear of unconsciousness, the alluring abyss of annihilation.
An old woman manifests once for all what woman really is. The beauty of woman, as may be experimentally proved, is only created by love of a man ; a woman becomes more beautiful when a man loves her because she is passively responding to the will which is in her lover ; however deep this may sound, it is only a matter of everyday experience.
All the qualities of woman depend on her non-existence, on her want of character ; because she has no true, per- manent, but only a mortal life, in her character as the advocate of pairing she furthers the sexual part of life, and is fundamentally transformed by and susceptible to the man who has a physical influence over her.
Thus the three fundamental characters of woman with which this chapter has dealt come together in the con- ception of her as the non-existent. Her instability and untruthfulness are only negative deductions from the premiss of her non-existence. Her only positive character, the conception of her as the pairing agent, comes from it by a simple process of analysis. The nature of woman is no more than pairing, no more than super-individual sexuality.
If we turn to the table of the two kinds of life given earlier in this chapter, it will be apparent that every inclina- tion from the higher to the lower is a crime against oneself. Immorality is the will towards negation, the craving to change the formed into the formless, the wish for destruction. And from this comes the intimate relation between femaleness and crime. There is a close relation between the immoral and the non-moral. It is only when man accepts his own sexuality, denies the absolute in him,
? i
WOMANANDHERSIGNIFICANCE 299
turns to the lower, that he gives woman existence. The acceptance of the Phallus is immoral. It has always been thought of as hateful ; it has been the image of Satan, and Dante made it the central pillar of hell.
Thus comes about the domination of the male sexuaHty over the female. It is only when man is sexual that woman has existence and meaning.
Her existence is bound up with the Phallus, and so tliat is her supreme lord and welcome master.
Sex, in the form of man, is woman's fate ; the Don Juan is the only type of man who has complete power over her.
The curse, which was said to be heavy on woman, is the evil will of man : nothing is only a tool in the hand of the will for nothing. The early Fathers expressed it pathetically when they called woman the handmaid of the devil. For matter in itself is nothing, it can only obtain existence through form. The fall of " form " is the corruption that takes place when form endeavours to relapse into the form- less. When man became sexual he formed woman. That woman is at all has happened simply because man has accepted his sexuality. Woman is merely the result of this affirmation ; she is sexuality itself. Woman's existence is dependent on man ; when man, as man, in contradistinction to woman, is sexual, he is giving woman form, calling her intoexistence. Thereforewoman'soneobjectmustbeto
keep man sexual. She desires man as Phallus, and for this she is the advocate of pairing. She is incapable of making use of any creature except as a means to an end, the end being pairing ; and she has but one purpose, that of con- tinuing the guilt of man, for she would disappear the moment man had overcome his sexuality.
Man created woman, and will always create her afresh, as long as he is sexual. Just as he gives woman con- sciousness,sohegivesherexistence. Womanisthesinof man.
He tries to pay the debt by love. Here we have the explanation of what seemed like an obscure myth at the end of the previous chapter. Now we see what was hidden in
;
? 300 SEX AND CHARACTER
il : that woman is nothing before man's fall, nor without it thathedoesnotrobherofanythingshehadbefore. The crime man has committed in creating woman, and still commits in assenting to her purpose, he excuses to woman by his eroticism.
Whence otherwise would come the generosity of love, which can never be satisfied by giving ? How is it that love is so anxious to endow woman with a soul, and not any other creature ? Whence comes it that a child cannot love until love coincides with sexuality, the stage of puberty, with the repeated forming of woman, with the renewing of sin ? Woman is nothing but man's expression and projec- tion of his own sexuality. Every man creates himself a woman, in which he embodies himself and his own guilt.
But woman is not herself guilty ; she is made so by the guilt of others, and everything for which woman is blamed should be laid at man's door.
Love strives to cover guilt, instead of conquering it ; it elevateswomaninsteadofnullifyingher. The"something" folds the ** nothing" in its arms, and thinks thus to free the universe of negation and drown all objections ; whereas thenothingwouldonlydisappearif thesomethingputit away.
Since man's hatred for woman is not conscious hatred of his own sexuality, his love is his most intense effort to save woman as woman, instead of desiring to nullify her in himself. And the consciousness of guilt comes from the fact that the object of guilt is coveted instead of being annihilated.
Woman alone, then, is guilt ; and is so through man's fault. And if femaleness signifies pairing, it is only because all guilt endeavours to increase its circle. What woman, always unconsciously, accomplishes, she does because she cannot help it ; it is her reason for being, her whole nature. She is only a part of man, his other, ineradicable, his lower part. So matter appears to be as inexplicable a riddle as form ; woman as unending as man, negation as eternal as existence ; but this eternity is only the eternity of guilt.
? CHAPTER XIII JUDAISM
Itwouldnotbesurprisingif tomanyit shouldseemfrom the foregoing arguments that " men " have come out of them too well, and, as a collective body, have been placed onanexaggeratedlyloftypedestal. Theconclusionsdrawn from these arguments, however surprised every Philistine and young simpleton would be to learn that in himself he comprises the whole world, cannot be opposed and con- futed by cheap reasoning yet the treatment of the male
;
sex must not simply be considered too indulgent, or due to a direct tendency to omit all the repulsive and small side of manhood in order to favourably represent its best points.
The accusation would be unjustified. It does not enter the author's mind to idealise man in order more easily to lower the estimation of woman. So much narrowness and so much coarseness often thrive beneath the empirical representation of manhood that it is a question of the better possibilities lying in every man, neglected by him or per- ceivedeitherwithpainfulclearnessordullanimosity pos-
;
sibilities which as such in woman neither actually nor meditatively ever come to any account. And here the author cannot in any wise really rely on the dissimilarities between men, however little he may impugn their import- ance. It is, therefore, a question of establishing what woman is not, and truly in her there is infinitely much want- ing which is never quite missing even in the most mediocre and plebeian of men. That which is the positive attribute of the woman, in so far as a positive can be spoken of in re- gard to such a being, will constantly be found also in many
? SEX AND CHARACTER
men. There are, as has already often been demonstrated, men who have become women or have remained women; but there is no woman who has surpassed certain circum- scribed, not particularly elevated moral and intellectual limits. And, therefore, I must again assert that the woman of the highest standard is immeasurably beneath the man of lowest standard.
These objections may go even further and touch a pK)int where the ignoring of theory must assuredly become repre- hensible. Thereare,towit,nationsandraceswhosemen, though they can in no wise be regarded as intermediate forms of the sexes, are found to approach so slightly and so rarely to the ideal of manhood as set forth in my argu- ment, that the principles, indeed the entire foundation on which this work rests, would seem to be severely shaken by their existence. What shall we make, for example, out of the Chinese, with their feminine freedom from internal cravings and their incapacity for every effort ? One
might feel tempted to believe in the complete effeminacy of the whole race. It can at least be no mere whim of the entire nation that the Chinaman habitually wears a pigtail, and that the growth of his beard is of the very thinnest. But how does the matter stand with the negroes ? A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally so low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America
that their emancipation was an act of imprudence.
If, consequently, the principle of the intermediate forms of the sexes may perhaps enjoy a prospect of becoming of
importance to racial anthropology (since in some peoples
a greater share of womanishness would seem to be generally disseminated), it must yet be conceded that the foregoing deductions refer above all to Aryan men and Aryan women. In how far, in the other great races of mankind, uniformity with the standard of the Aryan race may reign, or what has prevented and hindered this ; to arrive more nearly at such knowledge would require in the first instance the most
302
intense research into racial characteristics.
? JUDAISM
303 The Jewish race, which has been chosen by me as a sub- ject of discussion, because, as will be shown, it presents the gravest and most formidable difficulties for my views, appears to possess a certain anthropological relationship with both negroes and Mongolians. The readily curling hair points to the negro ; admixture of Mongolian blood is suggested by the perfectly Chinese or Malay formation of face and skull which is so often to be met with amongst the Jews and which is associated with a yellowish com- plexion. Thisisnothingmorethantheresultofeveryday experience, and these remarks must not be otherwise understood ; the anthropological question of the origin of the Jewish race is apparently insoluble, and even such an interesting answer to it as that given by H. S. Chamber- lain has recently met with much opposition. The author
does not possess the knowledge necessary to treat of this ;
what will be here briefly, but as far as possible profoundly analysed, is the psychical peculiarity of the Jewish race.
This is an obligatory task imposed by psychological observation and analysis. It is undertaken independently of past history, the details of which must be uncertain. The Jewish race offers a problem of the deepest significance for the study of all races, and in itself it is intimately
bound up with many of the most troublesome problems of the day.
I must, however, make clear what I mean by Judaism ; I mean neither a race nor a people nor a recognised creed. I think of it as a tendency of the mind, as a psychological constitution which is a possibility for all mankind, but which has become actual in the most conspicuous fashion only amongst the Jews. Antisemitism itself will confirm my point of view.
The purest Aryans by descent and disposition are seldom Antisemites, although they are often unpleasantly moved by some of the peculiar Jewish traits ; they cannot in the least understand the Antisemite movement, and are, in conse- quence of their defence of the Jews, often called Philo- semites ; and yet these persons writing on the subject of
? SEX AND CHARACTER
the hatred of Jews, have been guilty of the most profound misunderstandingoftheJewishcharacter. Theaggressive Antisemites, on the other hand, nearly always display certain Jewish characters, sometimes apparent in their faces, al- though they may have no real admixture of Jewish blood. *
The explanation is simple. People love in others the qualities they would like to have but do not actually have in any great degree ; so also we hate in others only what we do not wish to be, and what notwithstanding we are partly. We hate only qualities to which we approximate, but which we realise first in other persons.
Thus the fact is explained that the bitterest Antisemites are to be found amongst the jews themselves. For only the quite Jewish Jews, like the completely Aryan Aryans, are not at all Antisemitically disposed ; among the remainder only the commoner natures are actively Antisemitic and pass sentence on others without having once sat in judg- ment on themselves in these matters ; and very few exercise their Antisemitism first on themselves. This one thing, however, remains none the less certain : whoever detests the Jewish disposition detests it first of all in himself ; that he should persecute it in others is merely his endeavour to separate himself in this way from Jewishness ; he strives to slj^ke it off and to localise it in his fellow-creatures, and so for a moment to dream himself free of it. Hatred, like love, is a projected phenomenon; that person alone is haled who reminds one unpleasantly of oneself.
The Antisemitism of the Jews bears testimony to the fact that no one who has had experience of them considers them loveable--not even the Jew himself ; the Antisemi- tism of the Aryans grants us an insight no less full of
* Zola was a typical case of a person absolutely without trace of the Jewish qualities, and, therefore, a philosemite. The greatest geniuses, on the other hand, have nearly always been antisemites (Tacitus, Pascal, Voltaire, Herder, Goethe, Kant, Jean Paul, Schopenhauer, Grillparzer, Wagner) ; this comes about from the fact as geniuses they have something of everything in their natures, and so can understand Judaism.
304
? '
JUDAISM
significance : it is that the Jew and the Jewish race must notbeconfounded. ThereareAryanswhoaremoreJewish than Jews, and real Jews who are more Aryan than certain Aryans. Ineednotenumeratethosenon-semiteswhohad much Jewishness in them, the lesser (like the well-known Frederick Nicolai of the eighteenth century) nor those of moderate greatness (here Frederick Schiller can scarcely beomitted),norwillI analysetheirJewishness. Aboveall Richard Wagner--the bitterest Antisemite--cannot be held free from an accretion of Jewishness even in his art, how- ever little one be misled by the feeling which sees in him the greatest artist enshrined in historical humanity ; and this, though indubitably his Siegfried is the most un-
Jewish type imaginable. As Wagner's aversion to grand opera and the stage really led to the strongest attraction, an attraction of which he was himself conscious, so his music, which, in the unique simplicity of its motifs, is the most powerful in the world, cannot be declared free from obtru- siveness, loudness, and lack of distinction ; from some con- sciousness of this Wagner tried to gain coherence by the extremeinstrumentationofhisworks. Itcannotbedenied (there can be no mistake about it) that Wagner's music produces the deepest impression not only on Jewish Anti- semites, who have never completely shaken off Jewishness, but also on Indo-Germanic Antisemites. From the music of " Parsifal," which to genuine Jews will ever remain as unapproachable as its poetry, from the Pilgrim's march and the procession to Rome in " Tannhau? ser," and assuredly frommanyanotherpart,theyturnaway. Doubtless,also, none but a German could make so clearly manifest the very essence of the German race as Wagner has succeeded indoinginthe"MeistersingersofNu? rnberg. " InWagner one thinks constantly of that side of his character which leans towards Feuerbach, instead of towards Schopenhauer. Here no narrow psychological depreciation of this great manisintended. Judaismwastohimthegreatesthelpin reaching a clearer understanding and assertion of the extremes within him in his struggle to reach " Siegfried" and
u
305
? 3o6 SEX AND CHARACTER
" Parsifal," and in giving to German nature the highest means of expression which has probably ever been found in thepagesofhistory. YetagreaterthanWagnerwasobliged to overcome the Jewishness within him before he found his special vocation ; and it is, as previously stated, perhaps its great significance in the world's history and the immense merit of Judaism that it and nothing else, leads the Aryan to a knowledge of himself and warns him against himself. For this the Aryan has to thank the Jew that, through him, he knows to guard against Judaism as a possibility within himself. This example will sufficiently illustrate what, in my estimation, is to be understood by Judaism.
I donotrefertoanationortoarace,toacreedortoa scripture. When I speak of the Jew I mean neither an individual nor the whole body, but mankind in general, in so far as it has a share in the platonic idea of Judaism. My purpose is to analyse this idea.
That these researches should be included in a work devoted to the characterology of the sexes may seem an undue extension of my subject. But some reflection will lead to the surprising result that Judaism is saturated with femininity, with precisely those qualities the essence of whichI haveshowntobeinthestrongestoppositiontothe male nature. It would not be difficult to make a case for the view that the Jew is more saturated with femininity than the Aryan, to such an extent that the most manly Jew is more feminine than the least manly Aryan.
This interpretation would be erroneous. It is most important to lay stress on the agreements and differences simply because so many points that become obvious in dissecting woman reappear in the Jew.
Let me begin with the analogies. It is notable that the Jews, even now when at least a relative security of tenure is possible, prefer moveable property, and, in spite of their acquisitiveness, have little real sense of personal property, especially in its most characteristic form, landed property. Property is indissolubly connected with the self, with individuality. It is in harmony with the foregoing that the
? !
307 jew is so readily disposed to communism. Communism must be distinguished clearly from socialism, the former being based on a community of goods, an absence of individual property, the latter meaning, in the first place a co-operation of individual with individual, of worker with worker, and a recognition of human individuality in every one. Socialism is Aryan (Owen, Carlyle, Ruskin, Fichte). Communism is Jewish (Marx). Modern social democracy has moved far apart from the earlier socialism, precisely because Jews have taken so large a share in developing it. In spite of the associative element in it, the Marxian doctrine does not lead in any way towards the State as a union of all the separate individual aims, as the higher unit combining the purposes of the lower units. Such a con-
ception is as foreign to the Jew as it is to the woman.
For these reasons Zionism must remain an impracticable
ideal, notwithstanding the fashion in which it has brought
togethersomeofthenoblestqualitiesoftheJews. Zionism
is the negation of Judaism, for the conception of Judaism
involvesaworld-widedistributionoftheJews. Citizenship
is an un-Jewish thing, and there has never been and never
JUDAISM
willbeatrueJewishState. TheStateinvolvestheaggrega- I
tion of individual aims, the formation of and obedience to self-imposed laws ; and the symbol of the State, if nothing more, is its head chosen by free election. The opposite conception is that of anarchy, with which present-day communism is closely allied. The ideal State has never been historically realised, but in every case there is at least a minimum of this higher unit, this conception of an ideal power which distinguishes the State from the mere collec- tion of human beings in barracks. Rousseau's much-
despised theory of the conscious co-operation of individuals to form a State deserves more attention than it now receives. Some ethical notion of free combination must always be included.
The true conception of the State is foreign to the Jew, because he, like the woman, is wanting in personality; his failure to grasp the idea of true society is due to his lack of
? SEX AND CHARACTER
a free intelligible ego. Like women, Jews tend to adhere together, but they do not associate as free independent individuals mutually respecting each other's individuality.
As there is no real dignity in women, so what is meant by the word " gentleman " does not exist amongst the Jews. The genuine Jew fails in this innate good breeding by which alone individuals honour their own individuality and respect that of others. There is no Jewish nobility, and this is the more surprising as Jewish pedigrees can be traced back for thousands of years.
The familiar Jewish arrogance has a similar explanation; it springs from want of true knowledge of himself and the consequent overpowering need he feels to enhance his own personality by depreciating that of his fellow-creatures. And so, although his descent is incomparably longer than that of the members of Aryan aristocracies, he has an inordinate love for titles. The Aryan respect for his ancestors is rooted in the conception that they were his ancestors ; it depends on his valuation of his own person- ality, and, in spite of the communistic strength and antiquity of the Jewish traditions, this individual sense of ancestry is lacking.
The faults of the Jewish race have often been attributed to the repression of that race by Aryans, and many Chris- tians are still disposed to blame themselves in this respect. But the self-reproach is not justified. Outward circum- stances do not mould a race in one direction, unless there is in the race the innate tendency to respond to the moulding forces ; the total result comes at least as much from the natural disposition as from the modifying circum- stances. We know now that the proof of the inheritance of acquired characters has broken down, and, in the human race still more than the lower forms of life, it is certain that individual and racial characters persist in spite of all adaptive moulding. When men change, it is from within, outwards, unless the change, as in the case of women, is a mere superficial imitation of real change, and is not rooted intheirnatures. Andhowcanwereconciletheideathat
3o8
? JUDAISM
the Jewish character is a modern modification with the history of the foundation of the race, given in the Old Testament without any disapprobation of how the patriarch Jacob deceived his dying father, cheated his brother Esau and over-reached his father-in-law, Laban ?
The defenders of the Jew have rightly acquitted him of any tendency to heinous crimes, and the legal statistics of different countries confirm this. The Jew is not really anti-moral. But, none the less, he does not represent the highest ethical type. He is rather non-moral, neither very good nor very bad, with nothing in him of either the angel or the devil. Notwithstanding the Book of Job and the story of Eden, it is plain that the conceptions of a Supreme Good and a Supreme Evil are not truly Jewish ; I have no wish to enter upon the lengthy and controversial topics of Biblical criticism, but at the least I shall be on sure ground when I say that these conceptions play the least significant part in modern Jewish life. Orthodox or un- orthodox, the modern Jew does not concern himself with God and the Devil, with Heaven and Hell. If he does not reach the heights of the Aryan, he is also less inclined to commit murder or other crimes of violence.
So also in the case of the woman ; it is easier for her defenders to point to the infrequency of her commission of serious crimes than to prove her intrinsic morality. The homology of Jew and woman becomes closer the further examinationgoes. Thereisnofemaledevil,andnofemale angel ; only love, with its blind aversion from actuality, sees in woman a heavenly nature, and only hate sees in her a prodigy of wickedness. Greatness is absent from the nature of the woman and the Jew, the greatness of morality, or the greatness of evil. In the Aryan man, the good and bad principles of Kant's religious philosophy are ever pre- sent, ever in strife. In the Jew and the woman, good and evil are not distinct from one another.
jews, then, do not live as free, self-governing individuals, choosing between virtue and vice in the Aryan fashion. They are a mere collection of similar individuals each cast
309
? 3IO SEX AND CHARACTER
in the same mould, the whole forming as it were a con- tinuousPlasmodium. TheAntisemitehasoftenthoughtof this as a defensive and aggressive union, and has formulated the conception of a Jewish " solidarity. " There is a deep confusion here. When some accusation is made against some unknown member of the Jewish race, all Jews secretly take the part of the accused, and wish, hope for, and seek to establish his innocence. But it must not be thought that they are mteresting themselves more in the fate of the
individual Jew than they would do in the case of an indi- vidual Christian. It is the menace to Judaism in general, the fear that the shameful shadow may do harm to Judaism as a whole, which is the origin of the apparent feeling of sympathy. Inthesameway,womenaredelightedwhena member of their sex is depreciated, and will themselves assist, until the proceeding seems to throw a disadvan- tageous light over the sex in general, so frightening men from marriage. The race or sex alone is defended, not the
individual.
It would be easy to understand why the family (in its
biological not its legal sense) plays a larger role amongst the Jews than amongst any other people ; the English, who in certain ways are akin to the Jews, coming next. The family, in this biological sense, is feminine and maternal in its origin, and has no relation to the State or to society. The fusion, the continuity of the members of the family, reaches its highest point amongst the Jews. In the Indo- Germanic races, especially in the case of the more gifted, but also in quite ordinary individuals, there is never com- plete harmony between father and son consciously, or
;
unconsciously, there is always in the mind of the son a cer- tain feeling of impatience against the man who, unasked, brought him into the world, gave him a name, and deter- mined his limitations in this earthly life. It is only amongst the Jews that the son feels deeply rooted in the family and IS fully at one with his father. It scarcely ever happens amongst Christians that father and son are really friends.
Amongst Christians even the daughters stand a little further
? JUDAISM 311
apart from the family circle than happens with Jewesses, and more frequently take up some calling which isolates them and gives them independent interests.
We reach at this point a fact in relation to the argument of the last chapter. I showed there that the essential element in the pairing instinct was an indistinct sense of individuality and of the limits between individuals. Men who are match-makers have always a Jewish element in them. TheJewisalwaysmoreabsorbedbysexualmatters than the Aryan, although he is notably less potent sexually andlessliabletobeenmeshedinagreatpassion. TheJews are habitual match-makers, and in no race does it so often happen that marriages are arranged by men. This kind of activity is certainly peculiarly necessary in their case, for, as I have alread)- stated, there is no people amongst which marriages for love are so rare. The organic disposition of the Jews towards match-making is associated with their racial failure to comprehend asceticism. It is interesting to note that the Jewish Rabbis have always been addicted to speculations as to the begetting of children and have a rich tradition on the subject, a natural result in the case of the people who invented the phrase as to the duty of *' multi- plying and replenishing the earth. "
The pairing instinct is the great remover of the limits between individuals; and the Jew, par excellence, is the breaker down ot such limits. He is at the opposite pole from aristocrats, with whom the preservation of the limits between individuals is the leading idea. The Jew is an inborn communist. The Jew's careless manners in society and his want of social tact turn on this quality, for the reserves of social intercourse are simply barriers to protect individuality.
I desire at this point again to lay stress on the fact, although it should be self-evident, that, in spite of my low estimate of the Jew, nothing could be further from my intention than to lend the faintest support to any practical or theoretical persecution of Jews. I am dealing with Judaism, in the platonic sense, as an idea. There is no
? SEX AND CHARACTER
312
more an absolute Jew than an absolute Christian. I am not speaking against the individual, whom, indeed, if that had been so, I should have wounded grossly and unnecessarily.
Watchwords, such as " Buy only from Christians," have inrealityaJewishtaint; theyhaveameaningonlyforthose who regard the race and not the individual, and what is to be compared with them is the Jewish use of the word " Goy," which is now almost obsolete. I have no wish to boycott the Jew, or by any such immoral means to attempt to solve theJewishquestion. NorwillZionismsolvethatquestion; as H. S. Chamberlain has pointed out, since the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem, Judaism has ceased to be national, and has become a spreading parasite, straggling all over the earth and finding true root nowhere. Before Zionism is possible, the Jew must first conquer Judaism.
To defeat Judaism, the Jew must first understand himself and war against himself. So far, the Jew has reached no further than to make and enjoy jokes against his own pecu- liarities. Unconsciously he respects the Aryan more than himself. Only steady resolution, united to the highest self- respect,canfreetheJewfromJewishness. Thisresolution, be it ever so strong, ever so honourable, can only be under- stood and carried out by the individual, not by the group. Therefore the Jewish question can only be solved indi- vidually ; every single Jew must try to solve it in his proper person.
There is no other solution to the question and can be no other ; Zionism will never succeed in answering it.
The Jew, indeed, who has overcome, the Jew who has become a Christian, has the fullest right to be regarded by the Aryan in his individual capacity, and no longer be con- demned as belonging to a race above which his moral efforts have raised him. He may rest assured that no one will dispute his well-founded claim. The Aryan of good social standing always feels the need to respect the Jew ; his Antisemitism being no joy, no amusement to him. Therefore he is displeased when Jews make revelations about Jews, and he who does so may expect as few thanks
? / JUDAISM 313
from that quarter as from over-sensitive Judaism itself. Above all, the Aryan desires that the Jew should justify Antisemitism by being baptized. But the danger of this outward acknowledgment of his inward struggles need not trouble the Jew who wishes for liberty within him. He will long to reach the holy baptism of the Spirit, of which that of the body is but the outward symbol.
To reach so important and useful a result as what Jewishness and Judaism really are, would be to solve one of the most difficult problems Judaism is a much
;
deeper riddle than the many Antisemites believe, and in very truth a certain darkness will always enshroud it. Even the parallel with woman will soon fail us, though now and then it may help us further.
In Christians pride and humility, in Jews haughtiness and cringing, are ever at strife ; in the former self-con- sciousness and contrition, in the latter arrogance and bigotry. In the total lack of humility of the Jew lies his failure to grasp the idea of grace. From his slavish dis- position springs his heteronomous code of ethics, the " Decalogue," the most immoral book of laws in the uni- verse, which enjoins on obedient followers, submission to the powerful will of an exterior influence, with the reward ofearthlywell-beingandtheconquestoftheworld. His relations with Jehovah, the abstract Deity, whom he slavishly fears, whose name he never dares to pronounce, characterise the Jew ; he, like the woman, requires the rule of an exterior authority. According to the definition of Scho- penhauer, the word ' God ' indicates a man who made the world. This certainly is a true likeness of the God of
the Jew. Of the divine in man, of " the God who in my bosom dwells," the true Jew knows nothing ; for what Christ and Plato, Eckhard and Paul, Goethe and Kant, the priests of the Vedas, Fechner, and every Aryan have meant bydivine,forwhatthesaying,"I amwithyoualwayseven to the end of the world "--for the meaning of all these the Jewremainswithoutunderstanding. FortheGodinman is the human soul, and the absolute Jew is devoid of a soul.
? SEX AND CHARACTER
314
It is inevitable, then, that we should find no trace of
belief in immortality in the Old Testament. Those who have no soul can have no craving for immortality, and so it is with the woman and the Jew ; " Anima naturaliter Christiana," said Tertullian.
The absence from the Jew of true mysticism--Cham- berlain has remarked on this--has a similar origin. They have nothing but the grossest superstition and the system of divinatorymagicknownasthe"Kabbala. " Jewishmono- theism has no relation to a true belief in God ; it is not a religion of reason, but a belief of old women founded on fear.
Why is it that the Jewish slave of Jehovah should become so readily a materialist or a freethinker ? It is merely the alternative phase to slavery ; arrogance about what is not understood is the other side of the slavish intelligence. When it is fully recognised that Judaism is to be regarded rather as an idea in which other races have a share, than as the absolute property of a particular race, then the Judaic element in modern materialistic science will be better understood. Wagner has given expression to Judaism in music ; there remains to say something about Judaism in modern science.
Judaism in science, in the widest interpretation of it, is theendeavourtoremovealltranscendentalism. TheAryan feels that the effort to grasp everything, and to refer every- thing to some system of deductions, really robs things of their true meaning ; for him, what cannot be discovered is what gives the world its significance. The Jew has no fear of these hidden and secret elements, for he has no con- sciousness of their presence. He tries to take a view of the world as flat and commonplace as possible, and to refuse to see all the secret and spiritual meanings of things. His view is non-philosophical rather an anti-philosophical.
Because fear of God in the Jew has no relation with real religion, the Jew is of all persons the least perturbed by mechanical, materialistic theories of the world ; he is readily beguiled by Darwinism and the ridiculous notion that
men are derived from monkeys ; and now he is disposed to accept the view that the soul of man is an evolution that has taken place within the human race ; formerly, he was a mad devotee of Bu? chner, now he is ready to follow Ostwald.
It is due to a real disposition that the jews should be so prominent in the study of chemistry ; they cling naturally to matter, and expect to find the solution of everything in itsproperties. AndyetonewhowasthegreatestGerman investigator of all times, Kepler himself, wrote the following hexameter on chemistry :
" O curas Chymicorum
!
O quantum in pulvere inane !
The present turn of medical science is largely due to the influence of the Jews, who in such numbers have embraced the medical profession. From the earliest times, until the dominance of the Jews, medicine was closely allied with religion. But now they would make it a matter of drugs, a mere administration of chemicals. But it can never be that theorganicwillbeexplainedbytheinorganic. Fechnerand Preyer were right when they said that death came from life,notlifefromdeath. Weseethistakingplacedailyin individuals (in human beings, for instance, old age pre- pares for death by a calcification of the tissues). And as yet no one has seen the organic arise from the inorganic. From the time of Schwammerdam to that of Pasteur it has become more and more certain that living things never arise from what is not alive. Surely this ontogenetic obser- vation should be applied to phylogeny, and we should be equally certain that, in the past, the dead arose from the living. The chemical interpretation of organisms sets these onalevelwiththeirowndeadashes. Weshouldreturn from this Judaistic science to the nobler conceptions of Copernicus and Galileo, Kepler and Euler, Newton and Linnaeus,LamarckandFaraday,SprengelandCuvier. The freethinkers of to-day, soulless and not believing in the soul, are incapable of filling the places of these great men and of reverently realising the presence of intrinsic secrets in nature.
"
? JUDAISM
315
? 3i6 SEX AND CHARACTER
It is this want of depth which explains the absence of truly great Jews ; like women, they are without any trace of genius. The philosopher Spinoza, about whose purely Jewish descent there can be no doubt, is incomparably the greatest Jew of the last nine hundred yea'-s, much greater than the poet Heine (who, indeed, was almost destitute of any quality of true greatness) or than that original, if shallow painter, Israels. The extraordinary fashion in which Spinoza has been over-estimated is less due to his intrinsic merit than to the fortuitous circumstance that he was the only thinker to whom Goethe gave his attention.
For Spinoza himself there was no deep problem in nature (and in this he showed his Jewish character), as, otherwise, he would not have elaborated his mathematical method, a method according to which the explanation of thingswastobefoundinthemselves. Thissystemformed a refuge into which Spinoza could escape from himself, and it is not unnatural that it should have been attractive to Goethe, who was the most introspective of men, as it might have seemed to offer to him tranquillity and rest.
Spinoza showed his Jewishness and the limits that always confine the Jewish spirit in a still plainer fashion ; I am not thinking of his failure to comprehend the State or of his adhesion to the Hobbesian doctrine of universal warfare as the primitive condition of mankind. The matter goes deeper. I have in mind his complete rejection of free-will --the Jew is always a slave and a determinist--and his view that individuals were mere accidents into which the universalsubstancehadfallen. TheJewisneverabelieverin monads. And so there is no wider philosophical gulf than that between Spinoza and his much more eminent con- temporary, Leibnitz, the protagonist of the monad theory, or its still greater creator, Bruno, whose superficial likeness with Spinoza has been exaggerated in the most grotesque fashion.
Just as Jews and women are without extreme good and extreme evil, so they never show either genius or the deptti of stupidity of which mankind is capable. The specitic
? JUDAISM 317
kind of intelligence for which Jews and women alike are notorious is due simply to the alertness of an exaggerated egotism ; it is due, moreover, to the boundless capacity shown by both for pursuing any object with equal zeal, because they have no intrinsic standard of value--nothing in their own souls by which to judge of the worthiness of any particular object. And so they have unhampered natural instincts, such as are not present to help the Aryan man when his transcendental standard fails him.
I may now touch upon the likeness of the English to the Jews, a topic discussed at length by Wagner. It cannot be doubted that of the Germanic races the English are in closest relationship with the Jews. Their orthodoxy and their devotion to the Sabbath afford a direct indication. The religion of the Englishman is always tinged with hypo- crisy, and his asceticism is largely prudery. The English, like women, have been most unproductive in religion and in music ; there may be irreligious poets, although not great artists, but there is no irreligious musician. So, also, the English have produced no great architects or philoso- phers. Berkeley, like Swift and Sterne, were Irish ; Carlyle, Hamilton, and Burns were Scotch. Shakespeare and Shelley, the two greatest Englishmen, stand far from the pinnacle of humanity ; they do not reach so far as Angelo and Beethoven. If we consider English philosophers we shall see that there has been a great degeneration since the Middle Ages. It began with William of Ockham and Duns Scotus ; it proceeded through Roger Bacon and his name- sake, the Chancellor ; through Hobbes, who, mentally, was so near akin to Spinoza ; through the superficial Locke to
Hartley, Priestley, Bentham, the two Mills, Lewes, Huxley, andSpencer. Thesearethegreatestnamesinthehistory of English philosophy, for Adam Smith and David Hume were Scotchmen. It must always be remembered against England, that from her there came the soulless psychology. The Englishman has impressed himself on the German as a rigorous empiricist and as a practical politician, but these two sides exhaust his importance in philosophy. There
? 3i8 SEX AND CHARACTER
has never yet been a true philosopher who made empiricism his basis, and no Englishman has got beyond empiricism without external help.
None the less, the Englishman must not be confused with the Jew. There is more of the transcendental element in 'him, and his mind is directed rather from the transcendental to the practical, than from the practical towards the trans- cendental. Otherwisehewouldnotbesoreadilydisposed to humour, unlike the Jew, who is ready to be witty only at
his own expense or on sexual things.
I am well aware how difficult are the problems of laughter
and humour--just as difficult as any problems that are peculiar to man and not shared by him with the beasts ; so difficult that neither Schopenhauer nor Jean Paul himself wereabletoelucidatethem. Humourhasmanyaspects
; in some men it seems to be an expression of pity for them-
selves or for others, but this element is not sufficient to distinguish it.
The essence of humour appears to me to consist in a laying of stress on empirical things, in order that their unrealitymaybecomemoreobvious. Everythingthatis realised is laughable, and in this way humour seems to be the antithesis of eroticism. The latter welds men and the world together, and unites them in a great purpose ; the former loses the bonds of synthesis and shows the world as a silly affair. The two stand somewhat in the relation of polarised and unpolarised light.
When the great erotic wishes to pass from the limited to the illimited, humour pounces down on him, pushes him in front of the stage, and laughs at him from the wings. The humourist has not the craving to transcend space ; he is content with small things ; his dominion is neither the sea nor the mountains, but the fiat level plain. He shuns the idyllic, and plunges deeply into the commonplace, only, however, to show its unreality. He turns from the immanence of things and will not hear the transcendental evenspokenof. Witseeksoutcontradictionsinthesphereof experience ; humour goes deeper and shows that experience
? JUDAISM
319 is a blind and closed system ; both compromise the pheno- menal world by showing that everything is possible in it. Tragedy, on the other hand, shows what must for all eternity be impossible in the phenomenal world ; and thus tragedy and comedy alike, each in their own way, are
negations of the empiric.
The Jew who does not set out, like the humourist, from
the transcendental, and does not move towards it, like the erotic, has no interest in depreciating what is called the actual world, and that never becomes for him the para- phernalia of a juggler or the nightmare of a mad-house. Humour, because it recognises the transcendental, if only by the mode of resolutely concealing it, is essentially tolerant ; satire, on the other hand, is essentially intolerant, and is congruous with the disposition of the Jew and the woman. Jews and women are devoid of humour, but addicted to mockery. In Rome there was even a woman (Sulpicia) who wrote satires. Satire, because of its intoler- ance, is impossible to men in society. The humourist, who knows how to keep the trifles and littlenesses of phenomena from troubhng himself or others, is a welcome guest. Humour, like love, moves away obstacles from our path ; it makes possible a way of regarchng the world. The Jew, therefore, is least addicted to society, and the Englishman most adapted for it.
The comparison of the Jew with the Englishman fades out much more quickly than that with the woman. Both comparisons first arose in the heat of the conflict as to the worth and the nature of Jew^s. I may again refer to Wagner, who not only interested himself deeply in the problem of Judaism, but rediscovered the Jew in the Englishman, and threw the shadow of Ahasuerus over his Kundry, probably the most perfect representation of woman in art.
The fact that no woman in the w^orld represents the idea of thewifesocompletelyastheJewess(andnotonlyinthe eyes of Jews) still further supports the comparison between Jews and women. In the case of the Aryans, the metaphy- sical qualities of the male are part of his sexual attraction
? SEX AND CHARACTER
for the woman, and so, in a fashion, she puts on an appear- anceofthese. TheJew,ontheotherhand,hasnotrans- cendental quality, and in the shaping and moulding of the wife leaves the natural tendencies of the female nature a more unhampered sphere ; and the Jewish woman, accord- ingly, plays the part required of her, as house-mother or odalisque, as Cybele or Cyprian, in the fullest way.
The congruity between Jews and women further reveals itself in the extreme adaptability of the Jews, in their great talent for journalism, the "mobility" of their minds, their lack of deeply-rooted and original ideas, in fact the mode in which, like women, because they are nothing in them- selves, they can become everything. The Jew is an indivi- dual, not an individuality ; he is in constant close relation with the lower life, and has no share in the higher metaphy- sical life.
At this point the comparison between the Jew and the woman breaks down ; the being-nothing and becoming-all- things differs in the two. The woman is material which passively assumes any form impressed upon it. In the Jew there is a definite aggressiveness ; it is not because of the great impression that others make on him that he is recep- tive ; he is no more subject to suggestion than the Aryan man, but he adapts himself to every circumstance and every race, becoming, like the parasite, a new creature in every different host, although remaining essentially the same. He assimilates himself to everything, and assi- milates everything ; he is not dominated by others, but submits himself to them. The Jew is gifted, the woman is not gifted, and the giftedness of the Jew reveals itself in many forms of activity, as, for instance, in jurisprudence ; but these activities are always relative and never seated in the creative freedom of the will.
The Jew is as persistent as the woman, but his persistence is not that of the individual but of the race. He is not unconditioned like the Aryan, but his limitations differ from those of the woman.
320
The true peculiarity of the Jew reveals itself best in his
? I
I
,
\
!
JUDAISM
321 essentially irreligious nature. I cannot here enter on a dis- cussion as to the idea of religion ; but it is enough to say that it is associated essentially with an acceptance of the higher and eternal in man as different in kind, and in no sense to be derived from the phenomenal life. The Jew is eminently the unbeliever. Faith is that act of man by
which he enters into relation with being, and religious faith is directed towards absolute, eternal being, the " life ever- lasting"ofthereligiousphrase. TheJewisreallynothing, because he believes in nothing.
Belief is everything. It does not matter if a man does not believe in God ; let him believe in atheism. But the Jew believes nothing; he does not believe his own belief; hedoubtsastohisowndoubt. Heisneverabsorbedby hisownjoy,orengrossedbyhisownsorrow. Henever takes himself in earnest, and so never takes any one else in earnest He is content to be a Jew, and accepts any disad- vantages that come from the fact.
We have now reached the fundamental difference between theJewandthewoman. Neitherbelieveinthemselves; but the woman believes in others, in her husband, her lover, or her children, or in love itself ; she has a centre of gravity, althoughitisoutsideherownbeing. TheJewbelievesin nothing, within him or without him. His want of desire for permanent landed property and his attachment to movable goods are more than symbolical.
The woman believes in the man, in the man outside her, or in the man from whom she takes her inspiration, and in this fashion can take herself in earnest. The Jew takes nothing seriously; he is frivolous, and jests about anything, about the Christian's Christianity, the Jew's baptism. He is neither a true realist nor a true empiricist. Here I must state certain limitations to my agreement with Chamber- lain's conclusions. The Jew is not really a convinced empiricist in the fashion of the English philosophers. The empiricist believes in the possibility of reaching a complete system of knowledge on an empirical basis ; he hopes for
theperfectionofscience. TheJewdoesnotreallybelievein
? 32 2 SEX AND CHARACTER
knowledge, nor is he a sceptic, for he doubts his own scepti- cism. Ontheotherhand,abroodingcarehoversoverthe non-metaphysical system of Avenarius, and even in Ernst Mach's adherence to relativity there are signs of a deeply reverent attitude. The empiricists must not be accused of Judaism because they are shallow.
The Jew is the impious man in the widest sense. Piety is not something near things nor outside things ; it is the groundworkofeverything. TheJewhasbeenincorrectly called vulgar, simply because he does not concern himself with metaphysics. All true culture that comes from within, all that a man believes to be true and that so is true for him, depend on reverence. Reverence is not limited to the mystic or the religious man ; all science and all scepticism, everything that a man truly believes, have reverence as the fundamental quality. Naturally it displays itself in dif- ferent ways, in high seriousness and sanctity, in earnestness and enthusiasm. The Jew is never either enthusiastic or indif- ferent, he is neither ecstatic nor cold. He reaches neither the heights nor the depths. His restraint becomes meagreness, hiscopiousnessbecomesbombast. Shouldheventureinto the boundless realms of inspired thought, he seldom
reachesbeyondpathos. Andalthoughhecannotembrace the whole world, he is for ever covetous of it.
Discrimination and generalisation, strength and love, science and poetry, every real and deep emotion of the human heart, have reverence as their essential basis. It is not necessary that faith, as in men of genius, should be in relation only to metaphysical entity ; it can extend also to the empirical world and appear fully there, and yet none the less be faith in oneself, in worth, in truth, in the absolute, in God.
As the comprehensive view of religion and piety that I havegivenmayleadtomisconstruction,I proposetoeluci- date it further. True piety is not merely the possession of piety,butalsothestruggletopossessit; itisfoundequally in the convinced believer in God (Handel or Fechner), and alsointhedoubtingseeker(LenauandDu? rer); itneednot
? !
j
I
JUDAISM
be made obvious to the world (as in the case of Bach), it maydisplayitselfonlyinareverentattitude(Mozart). Nor is piety necessarily connected with the appearance of a Founder ; the ancient Greeks were the most reverent people that have lived, and hence their culture was highest; but their religion had no personal Founder.
Religion is the creation of the all ; and all that humanity can be is only through religion. So far from the Jew being religious, as has been assumed, he is profoundly irreligious
Were there need to elaborate my verdict on the Jews I might point out that the Jews, alone of peoples, do not try to make converts to their faith, and that when converts are made they serve as objects of puzzled ridicule to them. Need I refer to the meaningless formality and the repetitions of Jewish prayer ?
