Internet Archiveopen access

Sex and character

university of

Connecticut

libraries

hbl, stx

HO 21.W413 1906b I Sex and character / '

3 T153 DD4ölbM7 fi

to

V.-0 O

cr

SEX ^ CHARACTER

PLEASE NOTE

It has been necessary to replace some of the original pages in this book with photocopy reproductions because of damage or mistreatment by a previous user.

Replacement of damaged materials is both expensive and time-consuming. Please handle this volume with care so that information will not be lost to future readers.

Thank you for helping to preserve the University's research collections.

SEX &• CHARACTER

SEX

AND

CHARACTER

By Otto Weininger

Authorised Translation FROM THE Sixth German Edition

A. L. BURT COMPANY, Publishers New York Chicago

rUBLISBED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH C. P. rUTNAlt't lOMt rRINTED IN V. S. A.

Made in the United States of America

NOTE TO THE SIXTH GERMAN EDITION (By the German Publisher)

There are few instances in the history of literature in which a work so mature in its scientific purpose and so original in its philosophic aspect as " Sex and Character " has been produced by a student who was at the time of its completion less than thirty years of age. " Sex and Character " was at once accepted by scientific authorities, who had direct knowledge of its sub- ject matter, as a book that demanded respectful consideration, whether or not its conclusions might be accepted. It may at once be admitted that the book is by no means in harmony with contemporary thought. If the conclusions of Weininger should be accepted, discu^^sions concerning the emancipation of women, the relation of women to culture, and the results of sexuality would be deprived of their foundation. In this treatise, we have presented, with all the penetrating acumen of the trained logician, a characterisation of sexual types, " M " (the ideal man), and " W " (the ideal woman). The psychological phe- nomena are traced back to a final source and the author under- takes to present what he believes to be a definitive solution altogether alien to the field of inquiry wherein the answer has hitherto been sought.

In the science of characterology, here formuliited for the first time, we have a strenuous scientific achievement of the first importance. All former psychologies have been the psy- chology of the male, written by men, and more or less consciously applicable only to man as distinguished from humanity. " Woman does not betray her secret," said Kant, and this has been true till now. But now she has revealed it — ^by the voice of a man. The things women say about them- selves have been suggested by men ; they repeat the discoveries, more or less real, which men have made about them. By a

VI PUBLISHER'S NOTE

highly original method of analysis, a man has succeeded for the first time in giving scientific and abstract utterance to that which only some few great artists have suggested by concrete images hitherto. Weininger, working out an original system of characterology (psychological typology) rich in prospective possibilities, undertook the construction of a universal psy- chology of woman which penetrates to the nethermost depths, and is based not only on a vast systematic mastery of scientific knowledge, but on what can only be described as an appalling comprehension of the feminine soul in its most secret recesses. This newly created method embraces the whole domain of human consciousness ; research must be carried out on the lines laid down by Nature — in three stages, and from three distinct points of view : the biologico-physiological, the psychologically descriptive, and the philosophically appreciative. I will not dwell here on the equipment essential for such a task, the neces- sary combination of a comprehensive knowledge of natural history with a minute and exhaustive mastery of psychological and philosophical science — a combination destined, perhaps, to prove unique.

The general characterisation of the ideal woman, " W," is followed by the construction of individual types, which are finally resolved into two elemental figures (Platonic concep- tions to some extent), the Courtesan and the Mother. These are differentiated by their pre-occupation with the sexual act (the main, and ir^the ultimate sense, sole interest of " W"), in the first case, as an end in itself, in the second as the process which results in the possession of a child. The abnormal type, the hysterical woman, leads up to a psychological (not physio- logical) theory of hysteria, which is acutely and convincingly defined as " the organic mendacity of woman."

Weininger himself attached the highest importance to the ethico-philosophical chapters that conclude his work, in which he passes from the special problem of sexuality to the problems of individual talent, genius, aesthetics, memory, the ego, the Jewish race, and many others, nsing finally to the ultimate logical and moral principles of judgment. From his most universal standpoint he succeeds in estimating woman as a part of humanity, and, above all, subjectively. Here he deliberately

PUBLISHER'S NOTE vü

comes into sharp conflict with the fashionable tendencies towards an unscientific monism and its accompanying phe- nomena, pan-sexuality and the ethics of species, and charac- terises very aptly the customary superficialities of the many non-philosophical modern apostles, of whom Wilhelm Bölsche and Ellen Key are perhaps the most representative types. Weininger, in defiance of all reigning fashions, represents a consolidated dualism, closely related to the eternal systems of Plato, of Christianity, and of Kant, which finds an original issue in a bitterly tragic conception of the universe. Richard Wagner gives artistic expression in his Parsifal to the con- ception Weininger sets forth scientifically. It is, in fact, the old doctrine of the divine life and of redemption to which the whole book, with its array of detail, is consecrated. In Kundry, Weininger recognises the most profound conception of woman in all literature. In her redemption by the spotless Parsifal, the young philosopher sees the way of mankind marked out; he contrasts with this the programme of the modern feminist movement, with its superficialities and its lies ; and so, in conclusion, the book returns to the problem, which, in spite of all its wealth of thought, remains its governing idea : the problem of the sexes and the possibility of a moral relation between them — a moral relation fundamentally different from what is commonly understood by the term, of course. In this volume is revealed the mind of one who was, it may be believed, a conscientious student, and to whom life brought only unhap- piness and tragedy. No thoughtful man can lay down the book without being impressed by the earnestness and the honesty of the author's investigations.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

This book is an attempt to place the relations of Sex in a new and decisive light. It is an attempt not to collect the greatest possible number of distinguishing characters, or to arrange into a system all the results of scientific measur- ing and experiment, but to refer to a single principle the whole contrast between man and woman. In this respect the book differs from all other works on the same subject. It does not linger over this or that detail, but presses on to its ultimate goal ; it does not heap investigation on investi- gation, but combmes the psychical differences between the sexes into a system ; it deals not with women, but with woman. It sets out, mdeed, from the most common and obvious facts, but intends to reach a smgle, concrete prin- ciple. This is not " inductive metaphysics " ; it is a gradual approach to the heart of psychology.

The investigation is not of details, but of principles ; it does not despise the laboratory, although the help of the laboratory, with regard to the deeper problems, is limited as compared with the results of introspective analysis. An artist who wishes to represent the female form can construct a type without actually giving formal proof by a series of measurements. The artist does not despise experimental results ; on the contrary, he regards it as a duty to gain experience ; but for him the collection of experimental knowledge is merely a starting-point for self-exploration, and in art self-exploration is exploration of the world.

The psychology used in this exposition is purely philo- sophical, although its characteristic method, justified by the subject, is to set out from the most trivial details of ex- perience. The task of the philosopher differs from that of

X AUTHOR'S PREFACE

the artist in one important respect. The one deals in sym- bols, the other in ideas. Art and philosophy stand to one another as expression and meaning. The artist has breathed in the world to breathe it out again ; the philosopher has the world outside him and he has to absorb it.

There is always something pretentious in theory ; and the real meaning — which in a work of art is Nature herself and in a philosophical system is a much condensed generalisa- tion, a thesis going to the root of the matter and proving itself — appears to strike against us harshly, almostoffensively. Where my exposition is anti-feminine, and that is nearly everywhere, men themselves will receive it with little hearti- ness or conviction ; their sexual egoism makes them prefer to see woman as they would like to have her, as they would like her to be.

I need not say that I am prepared for the answer women will have to the judgment I have passed on their sex. My investigation, indeed, turns against man in the end, and although in a deeper sense than the advocates of women's rights could anticipate, assigns to man the heaviest and most real blame. But this will help me little and is of such a nature that it cannot in the smallest way rehabilitate me in the minds of women.

The analysis, however, goes further than the assignment of blame ; it rises beyond simple and superficial phenomena to heights from which there opens not only a view into the nature of woman and its meaning in the universe, but also the relation to mankind and to the ultimate and most lofty problems. A definite relation to the problem of Culture is attained, and we reach the part to be played by woman in the sphere of ideal aims. There, also, where the problems of Culture and of Mankind coincide, I try not merely to explain but to assign values, for, indeed, in that region explanation and valuation are identical.

To such a wide outlook my investigation was as it were driven, not deliberately steered, from the outset. The inade- quacy of all empirical psychological philosophy follows directly from empirical psychology itself. The respect for

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xi

empirical knowledge will not be injured, but rather will the meaning of such knowledge be deepened, if man recognises in phenomena, and it is from phenomena that he sets out, any elements assuring him that there is something behind phenomena, if he espies the signs that prove the existence of something higher than phenomena, something that supports phenomena. We may be assured of such a first principle, although no living man can reach it. Towards such a principle this book presses and will not flag.

(Within the narrow limits to which as yet the problem of woman and of woman's rights has been confined, there has been no place for the venture to reach so high a goal. None the less the problem is bound intimately with the deepest riddles of existence. It can be solved, practically or theoretically, morally or metaphysically, only in relation to an interpretation of the cosmos.

Comprehension of the universe, or what passes for such, stands in no opposition to knowledge of details ; on the other hand all special knowledge acquires a deeper meaning because of it. Comprehension of the universe is self- creative ; it cannot arise, although the empirical knowledge of every age expects it, as a synthesis of however great a sum of empirical knowledge.

In this book there lie only the germs of a world-scheme, and these are allied most closely with the conceptions of Plato, Kant and Christianity. I have been compelled for the most part to fashion for myself the scientific, psycho- logical, philosophical, logical, ethical groundwork. I think that at the least I have laid the foundations of many things into which I could not go fully. I call special attention to the defects of this part of my work because I attach more importance to appreciation of what I have tried to say about the deepest and most general problems than to the interest which will certainly be aroused by my special investigation of the problem of woman.

The philosophical reader may take it amiss to find a treatment of the loftiest and ultimate problems coinciding with the investigation of a special problem of no great

xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE

dignity ; I share with him this distaste. I may say, how- ever, that I have treated throughout the contrast between the sexes as the starting-point rather than the goal of my research. The investigation has yielded a harvest rich in its bearing on the fundamental problems of logic and their relations to the axioms of thought, on the theory of aesthetics, of love, and of the beautiful and the good, and on problems such as individuality and morality and their relations, on the phenomena of genius, the craving for immortality and Hebraism. Naturally these comprehensive interrelations aid the special problem, for, as it is considered from so many points of view, its scope enlarges. And if in this wider sense it be proved that culture can give only the smallest hope for the nature of woman, if the final results are a depreciation, even a negation of womanhood, there will be no attempt in this to destroy what exists, to humble what has a value of its own. Horror of my own deed would overtake me were I here only destructive and had I left only a clean sheet. Perhaps the affirmations in my book are less articulate, but he that has ears to hear will hear them.

The treatise falls into two parts, the first biological- psychological, the second logical-philosophical. It may be objected that I should have done better to make two books, the one treating of purely physical science, the other intro- spective. It was necessary to be done with biology before turnmg to psychology. The second part treats of certain psychical problems in a fashion totally different from the method of any contemporary naturalist, and for that reason I think that the removal of the first part of the book would have been at some risk to many readers. Moreover, the first part of the book challenges an attention and criticism from natural science possible in a few places only in the second part, which is chiefly introspective. Because the second part starts from a conception of the universe that is anti-positivistic, many will think it unscientific (although there is given a strong proof against Positivism). For the present I must be content with the conviction that I have rendered its due to Biology, and that I have established

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xiii

an enduring position for non-biological, non-physiological psychology.

'My investigation may be objected to as in certain points not being supported by enough proof, but I see little force in such an objection. For in these matters what can " proof " mean ? I am not dealing with mathematics or with the theory of cognition (except with the latter in two cases) ; I am dealing with empirical knowledge, and in that one can do no more than point to what exists ; in this region proof means no more than the agreement of new experience with old experience, and it is much the same whether the new phenomena have been produced experi- mentally by men, or have come straight from the creative hand of nature. Of such latter proofs my book contains many.

Finally, I should like to say that my book, if I may be allowed to judge it, is for the most part not of a quality to be understood and absorbed at the first glance. I point out this myself, to guide and protect the reader.

The less I found myself able in both parts of the book (and especially in the second) to confirm what now passes for knowledge, the more anxious I have been to point out coincidences where I found myself in agreement with what has already been known and said.

I have to thank Professor Dr. Laurenz Müllner for the great assistance he has given me, and Professor Dr. Friedrich Jodl for the kindly interest he has taken in my work from the beginning. I am specially indebted to the kind friends who have helped me with correction of the proofs.

CONTENTS

Author's Preface to the First German Edition . . ix

FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART SEXUAL COMPLEXITY

Introduction

On the development of general conceptions — Male and female — Contradictions — Transitional forms — Anatomy and natural endowment — Uncertainty of anatomy

CHAPTER I

Males and Females 5

Embryonic neutral condition — Rudiments in the adult — Degrees of " gonochorism " — Principle of intermediate forms — Male and female — Need for typical conceptions — Resum6 — Early anticipations

CHAPTER II

Male and Female Plasmas XI

Position of sexuality — Steenstrup's view adopted — Sexual characters — Internal secretions — Idioplasm — Arrhenoplasm — Thely plasm — Variations — Proofs from the effects of cas- tration— Transplantation and transfusion — Organotherapy — Individual differences between eells — Origin of intermediate sexual conditions — Brain — Excess of male births — Determi- nation of sex — Comparative pathology

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER III

Pofe

The Laws of Sexual Attractiom ... . . «6

Sexual preference — Probability of these being controlled by a law — First formula — First interpretation —Proofs — Hetero- stylism — Interpretation of heterostylism — Animal kingdom — Further laws — Second formula — Chemotaxis — Resemblances and differences — Goethe, " elective affinities — Marriage and free love — Effects on progeny

CHAPTER IV

Homo-sexuality and Pederasty 45

Homo-sexuals as intermediate forms — Inborn or acquired, healthy or diseased ? — A special instance of the law of attrac- tion— All men have the rudiments of homo-sexuality — Friend- ship and sexuality — Animals — Failure of medical treatment — Homo-sexuality, punishment and ethics — Distinction between homo-sexuality and pederasty

CHAPTER V

The Science of Character and the Science of Form . 53

Principle of sexually intermediate forms as fundamental prin- ciple ol the psychology rf>f individuals — Simultaneity or periodicity ? — Methods of psychological investigation — EJcamples — Individualised education — Conventionalising— Parallelism between morphology and characterology — Phy- siognomy and the principles of psycho-physics — Method of the doctrine of variation — A new way of stating the prob- lem— Deductive morphology — Correlation — Outlook

CHAPTER VI

Emancipated Women ... 64

The woman question— Claim for emancipation and maleness^ Emancipation and homo-sexuality — Sexual preferences of emancipated women — Physiognomy of emancipated women — Other celebrated womeo — Femaleness and emancipation —

CONTENTS xvii

Pagt

Practical rules — Genius essentially male — Movements of women in historical times — Periodicity — Biology and the conception of history — Outlook of the woman movement — Its fundamental error

SECOND OR PRINCIPAL PART

THE SEXUAL TYPES

CHAPTER I

Man and Woman

79

Bisexuality and unisexuality — Man or woman, male or female — Fundamental difficulty in characterology — Experiment, analysis of sensation and psychology — Dilthey — Conception of empirical character — What is and what is not the object of psychology — Character and individuality — Problem of characterology and the problem of the sexes

CHAPTER II

Male and Female Sexuality 85

The problem of a female psychology — Man as the interpreter of female psychology — Differences in the sexual impulse — The absorbing and liberating factors — Intensity and activity — Sexual irritability of women — Larger field of the sexual life in woman — Local diff'erences in the perception of sexuality — Local and periodical cessation of male sexuality — Differ- ences in the degrees of consciousness of sexuality

CHAPTER III

Male and Female Consciousness 93

Sensation and feeling — Avenarius' division into " element " and '• character." These inseparable at the earliest stage — Process of " clarification " — Presentiments — Grades of under- standing— Forgetting — Paths and organisation — Conception of " henids " — The henid as the simplest, psychical datum — Sexual differences in the organisation of the contents of

b

xviii CONTENTS

the mind— Sensibility— Certainty of judgment — Developed consciousness as a male character

CHAPTER IV

Talent and Genius

Genius and talent— Genius and giftedness — Methods — Com- prehension of many men — What is meant by comprehending men — Great complexity of genius — Periods in psychic hfe — No disparagement of famous men — Understanding and notic- ing— Universal consciousness of genius — Greatest distance from the henid stage — A higher grade of maleness — Genius always universal — The female devoid of genius or of hero- worship — Giftedness and sex

CHAPTER V

Talent and Memory

Organisation and the power of reproducing thoughts — Memory of experiences a sign of genius — Remarks and conclusions — Remembrance and apperception — Capacity for comparison and acquisition — Reasons for the masculinity of music, drawing and painting — Degrees of genius — Relation of genius to ordinary men — Autobiography — Fixed ideas — Remem- brance of personal creations — Continuous and discontinu- ance memory — Continuity and piety — Past and present — Past and future — Desire for immortality — Existing psycho- logical explanations — True origin — Inner development of man until death — Ontogenetic psychology or theoretical biography— Woman lacking in the desire for immortality — Further extension of relation of memory to genius — Memory and time — Postulate of timelessness — Value as a timeless quality — First law of the theory of value — Proofs — Individua- tion and duration constituents of value — Desire for immor- tality a special case — Desire for immortality in genius con- nected with timelessness, by his universal memory and the duration of his creations — Genius and history — Genius and nations — Genius and language — Men of action and men of science, not to be called men of genius — Philosophers, founders of reUgion and artists have genius

Pmft

CONTENTS xix

Page

CHAPTER VI

Memory, Logic and Ethics . 14a

Psychology and " psychologismus " — Value of memory — Theory of memory — Doctrines of practice and of association — Confusion with recognition —Memory peculiar to man — Moral significance — Lies — Transition to logic— Memory and the principle of identity — Memory and the syllogism — Woman non-logical and non-ethical — Intellectual and moral knowledge — The intelligible ego

CHAPTER VII

Logic, Ethics and the Ego 153

Critics of the conception of the Ego — Hume: Lichtenberg, Mach — The ego of Mach and biology — Individuation and individuaUty — Logic and ethics as witnesses for the exist- ence of the ego — Logic — Laws of identity and of contraries — Their use and significance — Logical axioms as the laws of essence — Kant and Fichte — Freedom of thought and freedom of the will — Ethics — Relation to logic — The psychology of the Kantian ethics — Kant and Nietzsche

CHAPTER VIII

The •' I " Problem and Genius 165

Characterology and the belief in the *' I " — Awakening of the ego — Jean Paul, Novalis, Schelling — The awakening of the ego and the view of the world — Self -consciousness and arro- gance— The view of the genius to be more highly valued than that of other men — Final statements as to the idea of genius — The personality of the genius as the perfectly- con- scious microcosm — The naturally- synthetic activity of genius — Significant and symbolical — Definition of the genius in relation to ordinary men — Universality as freedom — Morality or immoraUty of genius ? — Duties towards self and others — What duty to another is — Criticism of moral sympathy and social ethics — Understanding of other men as the one require-

XX CONTENTS

ment of morality and knowledge — I and thou — Individualism and universalism — Morality only in monads — The man of greatest genius as the most moral man — Why man is faop voXiTiKov — Consciousness and morality — The great criminaf — Genius as duty and submission — Genius and crime — Genius and insanity — Man as his own creator

CHAPTER IX

Male and Female Psychology i86^

SouUessness of woman — History of this knowledge — Woman devoid of genius — No masculine women in the true sense — The unconnectedness of woman's nature due to her want of an ego — Revision of the henid-theory — Female " thought " — Idea and object — Freedom of the object — Idea and judg- ment— Nature of judgment — Woman and truth as a criterion of thought — Woman and logic — Woman non-moral, not immoral — Woman and soUtude — Womanly sympathy and modesty — The ego of women — Female vanity — Lack of true self-appreciation — Memory for compliments — Introspection and repentance — Justice and jealousy — Name and individu- aUty — Radical difference between male and female mental life — Psychology with and without soul — Is psychology a science ? — Soul and psychology — Problem of the influence of the psychical sexual characters of the male or the female

CHAPTER X

Motherhood and Prostitution «14

Special characterology of woman — Mother and prostitute — Relation of two types to the child — Woman polygamous — Analogies between motherhood and sexuality — Motherhood and the race — Maternal love ethically indifferent — The pros- titute careless of the race — The prostitute, the criminal and the conqueror — Emperor and prostitute — Motive of the pros- titute— Coitus an end in itself — Coquetry — The sensations of the woman in coitus in relation to the rest of her life — The prostitute as the enemy — The friend of life and its enemy — No prostitution amongst animals — Its origin a mystery

CONTENTS xxi

Fage

CHAPTER XI

Erotics and iEsxHETics 236

Women, and the hatred of women — Erotics and sexuality — Platonic love — The idea of love — Beauty of women — Relation to sexual impulse — Love and beauty — Difference between aesthetics, logic and ethics — Modes of love — Projection phe- nomena— Beauty and morality — Nature and ethics — Natural and artistic beauty — Sexual love as guilt — Hate, love and morality — Creation of the devil — Love and sympathy — Love and shyness — Love and vanity — Love of woman as a means to an end — Relation between the child and love, the child and sexuahty — Love and murder — Madonna-worship — Madonna, a male idea, without basis in womanhood — Woman sexual, not erotic — Sense of beauty in women — How man acts on woman — The fate of the woman — Why man loves woman

CHAPTER XII

The Nature of Woman and Her Significance in the

Universe 252

Meaning of womanhood — Instinct for pairing or matchmaking — Man, and matchmaking — High valuation of coitus — Indi- vidual sexual impulse, a special case — Womanhood as pairing or universal sexuality — Organic falseness of woman — Hysteria — Difference between man and beast, woman and man — The higher and lower life — Birth and death — Freedom and happiness — Happiness and man — Happiness and woman — Woman and the problem of existence — Non-existence of woman — Male and female friendship — Pairing identical with womanhood — Why women must be regarded as human — Gantrast between subject — Object, matter, form, man, woman — Meaning of henids — Formation of woman by man — Significance of woman in the universe — Man as something, woman as nothing — Psychological problem of the fear of woman — Womanhood and crime — Creation of woman by man's crime — Woman as his own sexuality accepted by man — Woman as the guilt of man — What man's love of woman is. in its deepest significance

xxü CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIII ^'^

Judaism 301

Differences amongst men — Intermediate forms and racial anthropology — Comparison of Judaism and femaleness — Jud.dsm as an idea — Antisemitism — Rictiard Wagner — Similarities between Jews and women — Judaism in science — The Jew not a monad — The Jew and the Englishman — Natureof humour — Humour and satire — The Jewess — Deepest significance of Judaism — Want of faith — The Jew not non- mystical, yet impious — Want of earnestness, and pride — The Jew as opposed to the hero — Judaism and Christianity — Origin of Christianity — Problem of the founders of religion — Christ as the conqueror of the Judaism in Himself — The founders of religions as the greatest of men — Conquest of inherent Judaism necessary for all founders of reUgion — Judaism and the present time — Judaism, femaleness, culture and humanity

CHAP I ER XIV

Woman and Mankind 331

The idea of humanity, and woman as the match-maker — Goethe-worship — Womanising of man — Virginity and purity — Male origin of these ideas - Failure of woman to understand the erotic — Woman's relation to sexuality — Coitus and love — Woman as the enemy of her own emancipation — Asceticism immoral — Sexual impulse as a want of respect — Problem of the Jew — Problem of the woman — Problem of slavery — Moral relation to women — Man as the opponent of emancipation — Ethical postulates — Two possibilities — The problem of women as the problem of humanity — Subjection of women — Persistence or disappearance of the human race — True ground of the immorality of the sexual impulse — Earthly paternity — Inclusion of women in the conception of humanity — The mother and the education of the human race — Last questions

Index • 350

FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART SEXUAL COMPLEXITY

INTRODUCTION

All thought begins with conceptions to a certain extent generalised, and thence is developed in two directions. On the one hand, generalisations become wider and wider, binding together by common properties a larger and larger number of phenomena, and so embracing a wider field of the world of facts. On the other hand, thought approaches more closely the meeting-point of all conceptions, the individual, the concrete complex unit towards which w^e approach only by thinking in an ever-narrowing circle, and by continually being able to add new specific and differen- tiating attributes to the general idea, " thing," or " some- thing." It was known that fishes formed a class of the animal kingdom distinct from mammals, birds, or inverte- brates, long before it was recognised on the one hand that fishes might be bony or cartilaginous, or on the other that fishes, birds and mammals composed a group differing from the invertebrates by many common characters.

The self-assertion of the mind over the world of facts in all its complexity of innumerable resemblances and differences has been compared with the rule of the struggle for existence among living beings. Our conceptions stand between us and reality. It is only step by step that we can control them. As in the case of a madman, we may first have to throw a net over the whole body so that some limit may be set to his struggles ; and only after the whole has been thus secured, is it possible to attend to the proper restraint of each limb.

Two general conceptions have come down to us from primitive mankind, and from the earliest times have held our mental processes in their leash. Many a time these

A

2 SEX AND CHARACTER

conceptions have undergone trivial corrections ; they have been sent to the workshop and patched in head and limbs ; they have been lopped and added to, expanded here, con- tracted there, as when new needs pierce through and through an old law of suffrage, bursting bond after bond. None the less, in spite of all amendment and alteration, we have still to reckon with the primitive conceptions, male and female.

It is true that among those we call women are some who are meagre, narrow-hipped, angular, muscular, energetic, highly mentalised ; there are " women " with short hair and deep voices, just as there are " men " who are beardless and gossiping. We know, in fact, that there are unwomanly women, man-like women, and unmanly, womanish, woman- like men. \We assign sex to human beings from their birth on one character only, and so come to add contradictory ideas to our conceptions. Such a course is illogical/

In private conversation or in society, in scientific or general meetings, we have all taken part in frothy discus- sions on " Man and Woman," or on the " Emancipation of Women." There is a pitiful monotony in the fashion according to which, on such occasions, " men " and "women" have been treated as if, like red and white balls, they were alike in all respects save colour. In no case has the discussion been confined to an individual case, and as every one had different individuals in their mind, a real agreement was impossible. As people meant different things by the same words, there was a complete disharmony be- tween language and ideas. Is it really the case that all women and men are marked off sharply from each other, the women, on the one hand, alike in all points, the men on the other ? It is certainly the case that all previous treat- ment of the sexual differences, perhaps unconsciously, has implied this view. And yet nowhere else in nature is there such a yawning discontinuity. There are transitional forms between the metals and non-metals, between chemical com- binations and mixtures, between animals and plants, between phanerogams and cryptogams, and between mammals and

INTRODUCTION 3

birds. It is only in obedience to the most general, practical demand for a superficial view that we classify, make sharp divisions, pick out a single tune from the continuous melody of nature. But the old conceptions of the mind, like the customs of primitive commerce, become foolish in a new age. From the analogies I have given, the improbability may henceforward be taken for granted of finding in nature a sharp cleavage between all that is masculine on the one side and all that is feminine on the other ; or that a living being is so simple in this respect that it can be put wholly on one side or the other of the line. Matters are not so clear.

In the controversy as to the woman question, appeal has been made to the arbitration of anatomy, in the hope that by that aid a line could be drawn between those characters of males or females that are unalterable because inborn, and those that are acquired. (It was a strange adventure to attempt to decide the differences between the natural endowment of men and women on anatomical results ; to suppose that if all other investigation failed to establish the difference, the matter could be settled by a few more grains of brain-weight on the one side.) ^However, the answer of the anatomists is clear enough, whether it refer to the brain or to any other portion of the body ; absolute sexual distinctions between all men on the one side and all women on the other do not exist) Although the skeleton of the hand of most men is different from that of most women, yet the sex cannot be determined with certainty either from the skeleton or from an isolated part with its muscles, tendons, skin, blood and nerves. The same is true of the chest, sacrum or skull. And what are we to say of the pelvis, that part of the skeleton in which, if anywhere, striking sexual differences exist ? It is almost universally believed that in the one case the pelvis is adapted for the act of parturition, in the other case is not so adapted. And yet the character of the pelvis cannot be taken as an absolute criterion of sex. There are to be found, and the wayfarer knows this as well as the anatomist, many women with narrow male-like pelves,

4 SEX AND CHARACTER

and many men with the broad pelves of women. Are we then to make nothing of sexual differences ? That would ; imply, almost, that we could not distinguish between men and women.

From what quarter are we to seek help in our problem ? The old doctrine is insufficient, and yet we cannot make shift without it. If the received ideas do not suffice, it must be our task to seek out new and better guides.

CHAPTER I

"MALES" AND "FEMALES"

In the widest treatment of most living things, a blunt separa- tion of them into males or females no longer suffices for the known facts. The limitations of these conceptions have been felt more or less by many writers. The first purpose of this work is to make this point clear.

I agree with other authors who, in a recent treatment of the facts connected with this subject, have taken as a start- ing-point what has been established by embryology regard- ing the existence in human beings, plants, and animals of an embryonic stage neutral as regards sex.

In the case of a human embryo of less than five weeks, for instance, the sex to which it would afterwards beiong cannot be recognised. In the fifth week of fcetal life pro- cesses begin which, by the end of the fifth month of preg- nancy, have turned the genital rudiments, at first alike m the sexes, into one sex and have determined the sex of the whole organism. The details of these processes need not be described more fully here. It can be shown that how- ever distinctly unisexual an adult plant, animal or human being may be, there is always a certain persistence of the bisexual character, <never a complete disappearance of the characters of the andeveloped sex) Sexual differentiation, in fact, is never complete. All the peculiarities of the male sex may be present in the female in some form, however weakly developed ; and so also the sexual characteristics of the woman persist in the man, although perhaps they are not so completely rudimentary. The characters of the other sex occur in the one sex in a vestigial form. Thus, in the

6 SEX AND CHARACTER

case of human beings, in which our interest is greatest, to take an example, it will be found that the most womanly woman has a growth of colourless hair, known as "lanugo" in the position of the male beard ; and in the most manly man there are developed under the skin of the breast masses of glandular tissue connected with the nipples. ^This con- dition of things has been minutely investij^ated in the true genital organs and ducts, the region called the " urino-geni- tal tract," and in each sex there has been found a complete but rudimentary set of parallels to the organs of the other sex./

These embryological conclusions can be brought into relation with another set of facts. Haeckel has used the word " gonochorism " for the separation ol the sexes, and in different classes and groups of creatures different degrees of gonochorism may be noted. Different kmds of animals and plants may be distinguished by the extent to which the characters of one sex are rudimentary in the other. The most extreme case of sexual differentiation, the sharpest gonochorism, occurs in sexual dimorphism, that is to say, in that condition of affairs in which (as for instance in some water-fleas) the males and females of the same species differ as much or even more from each other as the members of different species, or genera. There is not so sharply marked gonochorism amongst vertebrates as in the case of Crustacea or insects. Amongst the former there does not exist a distinction betwee i m des and females so complete as to reach sexual dimorphis n. A condition much more frequent amongst them is the occurrence of forms inter- mediate in regard to sex, what is called abnormal hermaph- roditism ; whilst in certain fishes hermaphroditism is the normal condition.

I must point out here that it must not be assumed that there exist only extreme males with scanty remnants of the female condition, extreme females with traces of the male, hermaphrodite or transitional forms, and wide gaps between these conditions. I am dealing specially with human beings, but what I have to say of them might be applied, with more

I "MALES" AND "FEMALES" 7

or less modification, to nearly all creatures in which sexual reproduction takes place.

Amongst human beings the state of the case is as follows : There exist all sorts of intermediate conditions between male and female — sexual transitional forms. In physical inquiries an " ideal gas " is assumed, that is to say, a gas, the be- haviour of which follows the law of Boyle-Guy-Lussac exactly, although, in fact, no such gas exists, and laws are deduced from this so that the deviations from the ideal laws may be established in the case of actually existing gases. In the same fashion we may suppose the existence of an ideal man, M, and of an ideal woman, W, as sexual types, although these types do not actually exist. Such types not only can be constructed, but must be constructed. As in art so in science, the real purpose is to reach the type, the Platonic Idea. The science of physics investigates the behaviour of bodies that are absolutely rigid or absolutely elastic, in the full knowledge that neither the one nor the other actually exists. The intermediate conditions actually existing between the two absolute states of matter serve merely as a starting-point for investigation of the *' types" and in the practical application of the theory are treated as mixtures and exhaustively analysed. So also there exist only the intermediate stages between absolute males and females, the absolute conditions never presenting them- selves.

Let it be noted clearly that I am discussing the existence not merely of embryonic sexual neutrality, but of a per- manent bisexual condition. Nor am I taking into con- sideration merely those intermediate sexual conditions, those bodily or psychical hermaphrodites upon which, up to the present, attention has been concentrated. In ^'another respect my conception is new. Until now, in deal- ing with sexual intermediates, only hermaphrodites were considered ; as if, to use a physical analogy, there were in between the two extremes a single group of intermediate forms, and not an intervening tract equally beset with stages in different degrees of transition.

8 SEX AND CHARACTER

The fact is that males and females are like two sub- stances combined in different proportions, but with either element never wholly missing. We find, so to speak, never either a man or a woman, but only the male con- dition and the female condition. Any individual, " A " or " B," is never to be designated merely as a man or a woman, but by a formula showing that it is a composite of male and female characters in different proportions, for instance, as follows :

la'W Xß'M

always remembering that each of the factors a, a, ß, ß' must be greater than o and less than unity.

Further proofs of the validity of this conception are numerous, and I have already given, in the preface, a few of the most general. We may recall the existence of " men " with female pelves and female breasts, with narrow waists, overgrowth of the hair of the head ; or of " women " with small hips and flat breasts, with deep bass voices and beards (the presence of hair on the chin is more common than is supposed, as women naturally are at pains to remove it ; I am not speaking of the special growth that often appears on the faces of women who have reached middle age). All such peculiarities, many of them coin- ciding in the same individuals, are well known to doctors and anatomists, although their general significance has not been understood.

One of the most striking proofs of the view that I have been unfolding is presented by the great range of numerical variation to be found where sexual characters have been measured either by the same or by different anthropological or anatomical workers. The figures obtained by measuring female characters do not begin where those got from males leave off, but the two sets overlap. The more obvious this uncertainty in the theory of sexual intermediate forms may be, the more is it to be deplored in the interests of true science. Anatomists and anthropologists of the ordinary

« MALES " AND " FEMALES " 9

:ype have by no means striven against the scientific repre- sentation of the sexual types, but as for the most part they regarded measurements as the best indications, they were overwhelmed with the number of exceptions, and thus, so far, measurement has brought only vague and indefinite results.

The course of statistical science, which marks off our in- dustrial age from earlier times, although perhaps on account of its distant relation to mathematics it has been regarded as specially scientific, has in reality hindered the progress of knowledge. It has dealt with averages, not with types. It has not been recognised that in pure, as opposed to applied, science it is the type that must be studied. And so those who are concerned with the type must turn their backs on the methods and conclusions of current morphology and physiology. The real measurements and investigations of details have yet to be made. Those that now exist are inapplicable to true science.

Knowledge must be obtained of male and female by means of a right construction of the ideal man and the ideal woman, using the word ideal in the sense of typical, excluding judg- ment as to value. When these types have been recognised and built up we shall be in a position to consider individual cases, and their analysis as mixtures in different proportions will be neither difficult not fruitless.

I shall now give a summary of the contents of this chap- ter. Living beings cannot be described bluntly as of one sex or the other. The real world from the point of view of sex may be regarded as swaying between two points, no actual individual being at either point, but somewhere be- tween the two. The task of science is to define the position of any individual between these two points. The absolute conditions at the two extremes are not metaphysical abstrac- tions above or outside the world of experience, but their construction is necessary as a philosophical and practical mode of describing the actual world.

A presentiment of this bisexuality of life (derived from the actual absence of complete sexual differentiation) is very old.

10 SEX AND CHARACTER

Traces of it may be found in Chinese myths, but it became active in Greek thought. We may recall the mythical per- sonification of bisexuality in the Hermaphroditos, the narrative of Aristophanes in the Platonic dialogue, or in later times the suggestion of a Gnostic sect (Theophites) that primitive man was a " man-woman."

CHAPTER II

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS

The first thing expected of a book like this, the avowed object of which is a complete revision of facts hitherto accepted, is that it should expound a new and satisfactory account of the anatomical and physiological characters of the sexual types. Quite apart from the abstract question as to whether the complete survey of a subject so enormous is not beyond the powers of one individual, I must at once disclaim any intention of making the attempt. I do not pretend to have made sufficient independent investigations in a field so wide, nor do I think such a review necessary for the purpose of this book. Nor is it necessary to give a compilation of the results set out by other authors, for Havelock Ellis has already done this very well. Were I to attempt to reach the sexual types by means of the probable inferences drawn from his collected results, my work would be a mere hypothesis and science might have been spared a new book. The arguments in this chapter, therefore, will be of a rather formal and general nature ; they will relate to biological principles, but to a certain extent will lay stress on the need for a closer investigation of certain definite points, work which must be left to the future, but which may be rendered more easy by my indications.

Those who know little of Biology may scan this section hastily, and yet run little risk of failing to understand what follows.

The doctrine of the existence of different degrees of masculinity and femininity may be treated, in the first place, on purely anatomical lines. Not only the anatomical form,

12 SEX AND CHARACTER

but the anatomical position of male and female characters must be discussed. The examples already given of irxual differences in other parts of the body showed that sexuality is not limited to the genital organs and glands. But where are the limits to be placed ? Do they not reach beyond the primary and secondary sexual characters ? In other words, where does sex display itself, and where is it without influence ?

Many points came to light in the last decade, which bring fresh support to a theory first put forward in 1840, but which at the time found little support since it appeared to be in direct opposition to facts held as established alike by the author of the theory and by his opponents. The theory in question, first suggested by the zoologist J. J. S. Steenstrup, of Copenhagen, ^^but since supported by many others, is that sexual characters are present in every part of the body.)

Ellis has collected the results of investigations on almost every tissue of the body, which serve to show the universal presence of sexual differences. It is plain that there is a striking difference in the coloration of the typical male and female. This fact establishes the existence of sexual differences in the skin (cutis) and in the blood-vessels, and also in the bulk of the colouring-matter in the blood and in the number of red corpuscles to the cubic centimetre of the blood fluid. Bischoff and Rudinger have proved the exist- ence of sexual differences in brain weight, and more recently Justus and Alice Gaule have obtained a similar result with regard to such vegetative organs as the liver, lungs and spleen. In fact, all parts of a woman, although in different degrees in different zones, have a sexual stimulus for the male organism, and similarly all parts of the male have their effect on the female.

The direct logical inference may be drawn, and is sup- ported by abundant facts, that every cell in the body is sexually characteristic and has its definite sexual signifi- cance. I may now add to the principle already laid down in this book, of the universal presence of sexually intermediate

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 13

conditions, that these conditions may present different degrees of development. Such a conception of the exist- ence of different degrees of development in sexuality makes it easy to understand cases of false hermaphroditism or even of the true hermaphroditism, which, since the time of Steenstrup, has been established for so many plants and animals, although not certainly in the case of man. Steen- strup wrote : " If the sex of an animal has its seat only in the genital organs, then one might think it possible for an animal really to be bisexual, if it had at the same time two sets of sexual organs. But sex is not limited to one region, it manifests itself not merely by the presence of certain organs ; it pervades the whole being and shows itself in every point. In a male body, everything down to the smallest part is male, however much it may resemble the correspondmg lemale part, and so also in the female the smallest part is female. The presence of male and female sexual organs in the same body would make the body bisexual only if both sexes ruled the whole body and made themselves manifest in every point, and such a condition, as the manifestations of the sexes are opposing forces, would result simply in the negation of sex in the body in question." If, however, the principle of the existence of innumerable sexually transitional conditions be extended to all the cells of the body, and empirical knowledge supports such a view, Steenstrup's difficulty is resolved, and hermaphroditism no longer appears to be unnatural. There may be conceived for every cell all conditions, from complete masculinity through all stages of diminishing masculinity to its com- plete absence and the consequent presence of complete femininity. Whether we are to think of these gradations in the scale of sexual differentiation as depending on two real substances united in different proportions, or as a single kind of protoplasm modified in different ways (as, for instance, by different spatial dispositions of its molecules), it were wiser not to guess. The first conception is difficult to apply physiologically ; it is extremely difficult to imagine that two sets of conditions should be able to produce the

14 SEX AND CHARACTER

essential physiological similarities of two bodies, one with a male and the other a female diathesis. The second view recalls too vividly certain unfortunate speculations on heredity. Perhaps both views are equally far from the truth. At present empirical knowledge does not enable us to say wherein the masculinity or the femininity of a cell really lies, or to define the histological, molecular or chemical differences which distinguish every cell of a male from every cell of a female. Without anticipating any dis- covery of the future (it is plain already, however, that the specific phenomena of living matter are not going to be referred to chemistry and physics), it may be taken for granted that individual cells possess sexuality in different degrees quite apart from the sexuality of the whole body. Womanish men usually have the skin softer, and in them the cells of the male organs have a lessened power of division upon which depends directly the poorer develop- ment of the male macroscopic characters.

The distribution of sexual characters affords an important proof of the appearance of sexuality in different degrees. Such characters (at least in the animal kingdom) may be arranged according to the strength of their exciting influ- ence on the opposite sex. To avoid confusion, I shall make use of John Hunter's terms for classifying sexual characters. The primordial sexual characters are the male and female genital glands (testes and epididymis, ovaries and epoophoron) ; the primary sexual characters are the internal appendages of the sexual glands (vasa deferential vesiculae seminales, oviducts and uterus), which may have sexual characters quite distinct from those of the glands and the external sexual organs, according to which alone the sex of human beings is reckoned at birth (sometimes quite erroneously, as I shall show) and their consequent fate in life decided. After the primary, come all those sexual characters not directly necessary to reproduction. Such secondary sexual characters are best defined as those which begin to appear at puberty, and which cannot be developed except under the influence on the system of the internal

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 15

secretions of the genital glands. Examples of these are the beards in men, the luxuriant growth of hair in women, the i development of the mammary glands, the character of the voice. As a convenient mode of treatment, and for practical rather than theoretical reasons, certain inherited characters, such as the development of muscular strength or of mental obstinacy may be reckoned as tertiary sexual characters. Under the designation "quaternary sexual characters" may be placed such accessories as relative social position, differ- ence in habit, mode of livelihood, the smoking and drinking habit in man, and the dom -stic duties of women. All these characters possess a- potent and direct sexual influence, and in my opinion often may be reckoned with the tertiary characters or even with the secondary. \This classification of sexual characters must not be taken as implying a defi- nite chain of sequence, nor must it be assumed that the mental sexual characters either determine the bodily charac- ters or are determined by them in some causal nexus. The classification relates only to the strength of the exciting influence on the other sex, to the order in time in which this influence is exerted, and to the degree of certainty with which the extent of the influence may be predicted.^

Study of secondary sexual characters is bound up with consideration of the eflfect of internal secretions of the genital glands on general metabolism. The relation of this influence or its absence (as in the case of artificially cas- trated animals) has been traced out in the degree of de- velopment of the secondary characters. The internal secretions, however, undoubtedly have an influence on all the cells of the body. This is clearly shown by the changes which occur at puberty in all parts of the body, and not only in the s ;■- of the secondary sexual characters. As a matter of fact, ! internal secretions of all the glands must be regard"(^ r iffecting all the tissues.

The inter'ial secretions of the genital glands must be regarded as completing the sexuality of the individual. Every eel' must be considered as possessing an original sexuality, 10 which the influence of the internal secretion in

i6 SEX AND CHARACTER

sufficient quantity is the final determining condition under the influence of which the cell acquires its final determinate character as male or female.

The genital glands are the organs in which the sex of the individual is most obvious, and in the component cells of which it is most conspicuously visible. At the same time it must be noted that the distinguishing characters of the species, race and family to which an organism belongs are also best marked in the genital cells. Just as Steenstrup, on the one hand, was right in teaching that sex extends all over the body and is not confined to the genital organs, so, on the other hand, Naegeli, de Vries, Oskar Hertwig and others have propounded the important theory, and supported it by weighty arguments, that every cell in a multi-cellular organism possesses a combination of the characters of its species and race, but that these characters are, as it were, specially condensed in the sexual cells. Probably this view of the case will come to be accepted by all investigators, since every living being owes its origin to the cleavage and multiplication of a single cell.

Many phenomena, amongst which may be noticed specially experiments on the regeneration of lost parts and investigations into the chemical differences between the corresponding tissues of nearly allied animals, have led the investigators to whom I have just referred to conceive the existence of an " Idioplasm," which is the bearer of the specific characters, and which exists in all the cells of a multi-cellular animal, quite apart from the purposes of re- production. In a similar fashion I have been led to the conception of an " Arrhenoplasm " (male plasm) and a " Thelyplasm " (female plasm) as the two modes in which the idioplasm of every bisexual organism may appear, and which are to be considered, because of reasons which I shall explain, as ideal conditions between which the actual conditions always lie. Actually existing protoplasm is to be thought of as moving from an ideal arrhenoplasm through a real or imaginary indifferent condition (true hermaphro- ditism) towards a protoplasm that approaches, but never

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 17

actually reaches, an ideal thelyplasm. This conception brings to a point what I have been trying to say. I apolo- gise for the new terms, but they are more than devices to call attention to a new idea.

The proof that every single organ, and further, that every single cell possesses a sexuality lying somewhere between arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm, and further, that every cell received an original sexual endowment definite in kind and degree, is to be found in the fact that even in the same organism the different cells do not always possess their sexuality identical in kind and degree. In fact each cell of a body neither contains the same proportion of M and W nor is at the same approximation to arrhenoplasm or thelyplasm ; similar cells of the same body may indeed lie on different sides of the sexually neutral point. If, instead of writing "masculinity" and "femininity" at length, we choose signs to express these, and without any malicious intention choose the positive sign ( + ) for M and the negative ( — ) for W, then our proposition may be ex- pressed as follows : The sexuality of the different cells of the same organism differs not only in absolute quantity but is to be expressed by a different sign. There are many men with a poor growth of beard and a weak muscular develop- ment who are otherwise t)^ically males ; and so also many women with badly developed breasts are otherwise typically womanly. There are womanish men with strong beards and masculine women with abnormally short hair who none the less possess well-developed breasts and broad pelves. I know several men who have the upper part of the thigh of a female with a normally male under part, and some with the right hip of a male and the left of a female. In most cases these local variations of the sexual character affect both sides of the body, although of course it is only in ideal bodies that there is complete symmetry about the middle line. The degree to which sexuality displays itself, however, as, for instance, in the growth of hair, is very often unsymmetrical. This want of uniformity (and the sexual manifestations never show complete uniformity) can hardly

B

1 8 SEX AND CHARACTER

depend on differences of the internal secretion ; for the blood goes to all the organs, having in it the same amount of the internal secretion; although different organs may receive different quantities of blood, in all normal cases its quality and quantity being proportioned to the needs of the part.

Were we not to assume as the cause of these variations the presence of a sexual determinant generally different in every cell but stable from its earliest embryonic development, then it would be simple to describe the sexuality of any individual by estimating how far its sexual glands conformed to the normal type of its sex, and the facts would be much simpler than they really are. Sexuality, however, cannot be regarded as occurring in an imaginary normal quantity distributed equally all over an individual so that the sexual character of any cell would be a measure of the sexual characters of any other cells. Whilst, as an exception, there may occur wide differences in the sexual characters of different cells or organs of the same body, still as a rule there is the same specific sexuality for all the cells. In fact it may be taken as certain that an approximation to a complete uniformity of sexual character over the whole body is much more common than the tendency to any considerable divergences amongst the different organs or still more amongst the different cells. How far these possible variations may go can be determined only by the investigation of individual cases.

There is a popular view, dating back to Aristotle and supported by many doctors and zoologists, that the castra- tion of an animal is followed by the sudden appearance of the characters of the other sex ; if the gelding of a male were to bring about the appearance of female characteristics then doubt would be thrown on the existence in every cell of a primordial sexuality independent of the genital glands. The most recent experimental results of Sellheim and Foges, however, have shown that the type of a gelded male is distinct from the female type, that gelding does not induce the feminine character. It is better to avoid too

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 19

far-reaching and radical conclusions on this matter ; it may be that a second latent gland of the other sex may awake into activity and sexually dominate the deteriorating organ- ism after the removal or atrophy of the normal gland. There are many cases (too readily interpreted as instances of complete assumption of the male character) in which after the involution of the female sexual glands at the climacteric the secondary sexual characters of the male are acquired. Instances of this are the beard of the human grandam, the occasional appearance of short antlers in old does, or of a cock's plumage in an old hen. But such changes are practically never seen except in association with senile decay or with operative interference.

In the case of certain crustacean parasites of fish, how- ever (the genera Cymothoa, Anilocra and Nerocila of the family Cytnothoidce), the changes I have just mentioned are part of the normal life history. These creatures are her- maphrodites of a peculiar kind ; the male and female organs co-exist in them but are not functional at the same period. A sort of protandry exists ; each individual exercises first the functions of a male and afterwards those of the female. During the time of their activity as males they possess ordinary male reproductive organs which are cast off when the female genital ducts and brood organs develop. That similar conditions may exist in man has been shown by those cases of "eviratio" and " effeminatio " which the sexual pathology of the old age of men has brought to light. So also we cannot deny altogether the actual occur- rence of a certain degree of effeminacy when the crucial operation of extirpation of the human testes has been performed.* On the other hand, the fact that the relation is not universal or inevitable, that the castration of an individual does not certainly result in the appearance of the characters of the other sex, may be taken as a proof that it is necessary to assume the original presence through-

* So also in the opposite case ; it cannot be wholly denied that ovariotomy is followed by the appearance of masculine characters.

20 SEX AND CHARACTER

out the body of cells determined by arrhenoplastn or thelyplasm.

The possession by every cell of primitive sexuality on which the secretion of the sexual glands has little effect might be shown further by consideration of the effects of grafting male genital glands on female organisms. For such an experiment to be accurate it would be necessary that the animal from which the testis was to be transplanted should be as near akin as possible to the female on which the testis was to be grafted, as, for instance, in the case of a brother and sister ; the idioplasm of the two should be as alike as possible. In this experiment much would depend on limiting the conditions of the experiment as much as possible so that the results would not be confused by conflicting factors. Experiments made in Vienna have shown that when an exchange of the ovaries has been made between unrelated female animals (chosen at random) the atrophy of the ovaries follows, but that there is no failure of the secondary sexual characters {e.g., degeneration of the mammae). More- over, when the genital glands of an animal are removed from their natural position and grafted in a new position in the same animal (so that it still retains its own tissues) the full development of the secondary sexual characters goes on precisely as if there had been no interference, at least in cases where the operation is successful. The failure of the transplantation of ovaries from one animal to another may be due to the absence of family relationship between the tissues ; the influence of the idioplasm probably is of primary importance.

These experiments closely resemble those made in the transfusion of alien blood. It is a practical rule with surgeons that when a dangerous loss of blood has to be made good, the blood required for transfusion must be obtained from an individual not only of the same species and family, but also of the same sex as that of the patient. The parallel between transfusion and transplantation is at once evident. If I am correct in my views, when surgeons seek to transfuse blood, instead of being content with injec-

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 21

tions of normal salt solution they must take the blood not merely from one of the same species, family and sex, but of a similar degree of masculinity or femininity.

Experiments on transfusion not only lend support to my belief in the existence of sex characters in the blood cor- puscles, but they furnish additional explanations of the failure of experiments in grafting ovaries or testis on indi- viduals of the opposite sex. The internal secretions of the genital glands are operative only in their appropriate en- t'ironment of arrhenoplasm or thelyplasm.

In this connection, I may say a word as to the curative value of organotherapy. Although, as I have shown to be the case, the transplantation of freshly extirpated genital glands into subjects of the opposite sex has no effect, it does not follow that the injection of the ovarian secretion into the blood of a male might not have a most injurious effect. On the other hand, the principle of organotherapy has been opposed on the ground that organic preparations procured from non-allied species could not possibly be expected to yield good results. It is more than likely that the medical exponents of organotherapy have lost many valuable dis- coveries in healing because of their neglect of the biological theory of idioplasm.

The theory of an idioplasm, the presence of which gives the specific race characters to those tissues and cells which have lost the reproductive faculty, is by no means generally accepted. But at the least all must admit that the race characters are collected in the genital glands, and that if experiments with extracts from these are to provide more than a good tonic, the nearest possible relationship between the animals experimented upon must be observed. Parallel experiments might be made as to the effect of transplantation of the genital glands and injections of their extracts on two castrated cocks of the same strain. For instance, the effects of the transplantation of the testes of one of them into any other part of its own body or peritoneal cavity or into any similar part of the other cock might be compared with the efifects of intravenous injection of testis extract of the one on

22 SEX AND CHARACTER

the other. Such parallel investigations would also increase our knowledge as to the most suitable media and quantities of the extracts. It is also to be desired, from the theoretical point of view, that knowledge may be gained as to whether the internal secretion of the genital glands enters into chemical union with the protoplasm of the cells or whether it acts as a physiological stimulus independent of the quantity supplied. So far we know nothing that would enable us to come to a definite opinion on this point.

The limited influence of the internal secretions of the sexual glands in formmg the sexual characters must be realised to warrant the theory of a primary, generally slight, difference in each cell, but still determinate sexual influence.* If the existence of distinct graduations of these primary characteristics in all the cells and tissues can be recognised, there follow many important and far-reaching conclusions. The individual egg-cells and spermatozoa may be found to possess different degrees of maleness and femaleness, not only in different individuals, but in the ovaries and testes of the same individual, especially at different times ; for instance, the spermatozoa differ in size and activity. We are still quite ignorant on these matters, as no one has worked on the requisite lines.

It is extremely interesting to recall in this connection that many times different investigators have observed in the testes of amphibia not only the different stages in the development of spermatozoa, but mature eggs. This inter- pretation of the observations was at first disputed, and it was suggested that the presence of unusually large cells in the tubes of the testes had given rise to the error, but the matter has now been fully confirmed. Moreover, in these Amphibia, sexually intermediate conditions are very common, and this should lead us to be careful in making statements as to the uniform presence of arrhenoplasm or thelyplasm in a body. The methods of assigning sex to a new-born

* The existence of sexual distinctions before puberty shows that the power of the internal secretions of the sexual glands does not account for everything.

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 23

infant seem most unsatisfactory in the light of these facts. If the child is observed to possess a male organ, even although there may be complete epi- or hypo-spadism, or a double failure of descent of the testes, it is at once described as a boy and is henceforth treated as one, although in other parts of the body, for instance in the brain, the sexual determinant may be much nearer thelyplasm than arrheno- plasm. The so> »ner a more exact method of sex discrimina- tion is insisted upon the better.

As a result of these long mductions and deductions we may rest assured that all the cells possess a definite primary sexual determinant which mu-^t not be assumed to be alike or nearly alike throughout the same body. Every cell, every cell-complex, and every organ have their distinctive indices on the scale between thelyplasm and arrhenoplasm. For the exact definition of the sex, an estimation of the indices over the whole body would be necessary. I should be con- tent to bear the blame of all the theoretical and practical errors in this book did I believe myself to have made the working out of a single case possible.

Differences in the primary sexual determinants, together with the varying internal secretions (which differ in quantity and quality in different individuals) produce the pheno- mena of sexually intermediate forms. Arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm, in their countless modifications, are the micro- scopic agencies which, in co-operation with the internal secretions, give rise to the macroscopic differences cited m the last chapter.

If the correctness of the conclusions so far stated maybe assumed, the necessity is at once evident for a whole series of anatomical, physiological, histological and histo-chemical investigations into those differences between male and female types, in the structure and function of the individual organs by which tue dowers of arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm express themselves in the tissues. The knowledge we possess at the present time on these matters comes from the study o averages, but averages fail to satisfy the modern statistician, and their scientific value is very small. Investigations into

24 SEX AND CHARACTER

the sex-differences in the weight of the brain, for instance, have so far proved very little, probably because no care was taken to choose typical conditions, the assignment of sex being dependent on baptismal certificates or on super- ficial glances at the outward appearance. As if every " John " or " Mary " were representative of their sexes because they had been dubbed " male " and " female ! " It would have been well, even if exact physiological data were thought unnecessary, at least to make certain as to a few facts as to the general condition of the body, which might serve as guides to the male or female condition, such as, for instance, the distance between the great trochanters, the iliac spines, and so forth, for a sexual harmony in the different parts of the body is certainly more common than great sexual divergence.

This source of error, the careless acceptance of sexually intermediate forms as representative subjects for measure- ment, has maimed other investigations and seriously retarded the attainment of genuine and useful results. Those, for instance, who wish to speculate about the cause of the superfluity of male births have to reckon with this source of error. In a special way this carelessness will revenge itself on those who are investigating the ultimate causes that de- termine sex. Until the exact degree of maleness or female- ness of all the living individuals of the group on which he is working can be determined, the investigator will have reason to distrust both his methods and his hypotheses. If he classify sexually intermediate forms, for instance, accord- ing to their external appearance, as has been done hitherto, he will come across cases which fuller investigation would show to be on the wrong side of his results, whilst other instances, apparently on the wrong side, would right them- selves. Without the conception of an ideal male and an ideal female, he lacks a standard according to which to estimate his real cases, and he gropes forward to a super- ficial and doubtful conclusion. Maupas, for instance, who made experiments on the determination of sex in Hydatina senta, a Rotifer, found that there was always an experimental

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 25

error of from three to five per cent. At low temperatures the production of females was expected, but always about the above proportion of males appeared ; so also at the higher temperatures a similar proportion of females appeared. It is probable that this error was due to sexually intermediate stages, arrhenoplasmic females at the high temperature, thelyplastic males at the low temperature. Where the problem is more complicated, as in the case of cattle, to say nothing of human beings, the process of investigation will yield still less harmonious results, and the correction of the interpretation which will have to be made by allowing for the disturbance due to the existence of sexually intermediate forms will be much more difficult.

The study of comparative pathology of the sexual types is as necessary as their morphology, physiology and develop- ment. In this region of inquiry as elsewhere, statistics would yield certain results. Diseases manifestly much more abundant in one sex might be described as peculiar to or idiopathic of thelyplasm or arrhenoplasm. Myxoedema, for instance, is idiopathic of the female, hydrocele of the male.

But no statistics, however numerous and accurate, can be regarded as avoiding a source of theoretical error until it has been shown from the nature of any particular affection dealt with that it is in indissoluble, functional relation with maleness or femaleness. The theory of such associated diseases must supply a reason why they occur almost ex- clusively in the one sex, that is to say, in the phrase of this treatise, why they are thelyplasmic or arrhenoplasmic.

CHAPTER III

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION

Carmen :

" L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, Que nul ne peut apprivoiser : Et c'est bien en vain qu'on I'appelle S'il lui convient de refuser. Rien n'y fait ; menace ou priere : L'un parle, I'autre se tait ; Et c'est I'autre que je prefere ; II n'a rien dit, mais il me plait.

L'amour est enfant de Boheme II n'a jamais connu de loi."

It has been recognised from time immemorial that, in all forms of sexually differentiated life, there exists an attrac- tion between males and females, between the male and the female, the object of which is procreation. But as the male and the female are merely abstract conceptions which never appear in the real world, we cannot speak of sexual attraction as a simple attempt of the masculine and the feminine to come together. The theory which I am develop- ing must take into account all the facts of sexual relations if it is to be complete ; indeed, if it is to be accepted instead of the older views, it must give a better interpretation of all these sexual phenomena. My recognition of the fact that M and F (maleness and femaleness) are distributed in the living world in every possible proportion has led me to the dis- covery of an unknown natural law, of a law not yet sus- pected by any philosopher, a law of sexual attraction. As

THE LAWS Uf SEXUAL ATTRACTION 27

observations on human beings first led me to my results, I. shall begin with this side of the subject.

Every one possesses a definite, individual taste of his own with regard to the other sex. If we compare the portrait of the women which some famous man has been known to love, we shall nearly always find that they are all closely alike, the similarity being most obvious in the contour (more precisely in the " figure ") or in the face, but on closer examination being found to extend to the minutest details, ad unguem, to the finger-tips. It is precisely the same with every one else. So, also, every girl who strongly attracts a man recalls to him the other girls he has loved before.'« We see another side of the same phenomenon when we re- call how often we have said of some acquaintance or another, " I can't imagine how that type of woman pleases him." Darwin, in the " Descent of Man," collected many instances of the existence of this individuality of the sexual taste amongst animals, and I shall be able to show that there are analogous phenomena even amongst plants.

(Sexual attraction is nearly always, as in the case of gravi- tation, reciprocal./ Where there appear to be exceptions to this rule, there is nearly always evidence of the presence of special influences which have been capable of preventing the direct action of the special taste, which is almost always reciprocal, or which have left an unsatisfied craving, if the direct taste were not allowed its play.

The common saying, " Waiting for Mr. Right," or state- ments such as that " So-and-so are quite unsuitable for one another," show the existence of an obscure presenti- ment of the fact that every man or woman possesses certain individual peculiarities which qualify or disqualify him or her for marriage with any particular member of the opposite sex ; and that this man cannot be substituted for that, or this woman for the other without creating a disharmony.

It is a common personal experience that certain individuals of the opposite sex are distasteful to us, that others leave us cold ; whilst others again may stimulate us until, at last,

28 SEX AND CHARACTER

some one appears who seems so desirable that everything in the world is worthless and empty compared with union with such a one. What are the qualifications of that per- son ? What are his or her peculiarities ? If it really be the case — and I think it is — that every male type has its female counterpart with regard to sexual affinity, it looks as if there were some definite law. What is this law ? How does it act ? " Like poles repel, unlike attract," was what I was told when, already armed with my own answer, I resolutely importuned different kinds of men for a statement, and sub- mitted instances to their power of generalisation. The formula, no doubt, is true in a limited sense and for a cer- tain number of cases. But it is at once too general and too vague ; it would be applied differently by different persons, and it is incapable of being stated in mathematical terms.

This book does not claim to state all the laws of sexual affinity, for there are many ; nor does it pretend to be able to tell every one exactly which individual of the opposite sex will best suit his taste, for that would imply a complete knowledge of all the laws in question. In this chapter only one of these laws will be considered — the law which stands in organic relation to the rest of the book. I am working at a number of other laws, but the following is that to which I have given most investigation, and which is most elaborated. In criticising this work, allowance must be made for the incomplete nature of the material conse- quent on the novelty and difficulty of the subject.

Fortunately it is not necessary for me to cite at length either the facts from which I originally derived this law of sexual affinity or to set out in detail the evidence I obtained from personal statements. I asked each of those who helped me, to make out his own case first, and then to carry out observations in his circle of acquaintances. I have paid special attention to those cases which have been notice and remembered, in which the taste of a friend has not been understood, or appeared not to be present, or was different from that of the observer. The minute degree of knowledge of the external form of the human body which

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 29

is necessary for the investigation is possessed by every one.

I have come to the law which I shall now formulate by a method the validity of which I shall now have to prove.

The law runs as follows :("For true sexual union it is necessary that there come together a complete male (M) and a complete female (F), even although in different cases the M and F are distributed between the two individuals in different proportions.)

The law may be expressed otherwise as follows :

if we take fx, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a male, and denote his real sexual constitution as M^u, so many parts really male, plus Wfx, so many parts really female ; if we also take a>, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a female, and denote her real sexual con- stitution as W(u, so many parts really female, plus Mw, so many parts really male ; then, if there be complete sexual affinity, the greatest possible sexual attraction between the two individuals, jn and w,

(i) M/u (the truly male part in the "male") + Mw (the truly male part in the " female ") will equal a con- stant quantity, M, the ideal male ; and

(2) Wfx + W(u (the ideal female parts in respectively the " male " and the " female ") will equal a second constant quantity, W, the ideal female.

This statement must not be misunderstood. Both formulas refer to one case, to a single sexual relation, the second following directly from the first and adding nothing to it, as I set out from the point of view of an individual possessing just as much femaleness as he lacks of maleness. Were he completely male, his requisite complement would be a complete female, and vice versa. If, however, he is com- posed of a definite inheritance of maleness, and also an inheritance of femaleness (which must not be neglected), then, to complete the individual, his maleness must be com- pleted to make a unit ; but so also must his femaleness be completed.

30 SEX AND CHARACTER

If; for instance, an individual be composed thus :

[f M ft i and

Uw,

then the best sexual complement of that individual will be another compound as follows :

[iM (t) i and if W.

It can be seen at once that this view is wider in its reach than the common statement of the case. That male and female, as sexual types, attract each other is only one instance of my general law, an instance in which an imaginary individual,

J I M

^\o W finds its complement in an equally imaginary individual,

( o M

There can be no hesitation in admittin^j the existence of definite, individual sexual preferences, and such an admission carries with it approval of the necessity of mvestigating the laws of the preference, and its relation to the rest of the bodily and mental characters of an individual. The law, as I have stated it, can encounter no initial sense of impossi- bility, and is contrary neither to scientific nor common experience. But it is not self-evident. It might be that the law, which cannot yet be regarded as fully worked out, might run as follows :

M/i — Mfü = a constant ;

that is to say, it may be the difference between the degrees of masculinity and not the sum of the degrees of ma-;cu- linity that is a constant quality, so that the most masculine man would stand just as far removed from his complement

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 31

(who in this case would he nearly midway between mascu- hnity and femininity) as the most feminine man would be removed from his complement who would be near the extreme of femininity. Althouj^h, as I have said, this is conceivable, it is not borne oui by experience. Recognising that we have to do here witli an empirical law, and trying to observe a wise scientilic re-.traint, we shall do well to avoid speaking as if there were any " force " pulling the two individuals together as if they were puppets ; the law is no more than the statement tliat an identicnl relation can be made out in each case of maximum sexual attraction. We are dealing, in fact, with what Ostwald termed an *' invariant" and Avenarius a " multiponible "; and this is the constant sum formed by the total masculinity and the total femininity in all cases where a pair of living beings come together with the maximum sexual attraction.

In this matter we may neglect altogether the so-called aesthetic factor, the stimulus of beauty. For does it not frequently happen that one man is completely captivated by a particular woman and raves about her beauty, whilst another, who is not the sexual complement of the woman in question, cannot imagine what his friend sees in her to admire. (Without discussing the laws of aesthetics or attempting to gather together examples of relative values, it may readily be admitted that a man may consider a woman beautiful who, from tlie aesthetic standpoint, is not merely indifferent but actually ugly, that in fact pure aesthetics deal not with absolute beauty, but merely with conceptions of beauty from which the sexual factor has been eliminatedJ

I have myseh worked out the law in, at the lowest, many hundred cases, and I have found that the exceptions were only apparent. Almost every couple one meets in the street furnishes a new proof. The exceptions were specially instructive, as they not only suggested but led to the investi- gation of other laws of sexuality. (l myself made special investigations in the followmg way. I obtained a set of photographs of aesthetically beautiful women of blameless

32 SEX AND CHARACTER

character, each of which was a good example of some definite proportion of femininity, and I asked a number of my friends to inspect these and select the most beautiful. The selection made was invariably that which I had pre- dicted. With other male friends, who knew on what I was engaged, I set about in another fashion. They provided me with photographs from amongst which I was to choose the one I should expect them to think most beautiful. Here, too, 1 was uniformly successful. With others, I was able to describe most accurately their ideal of the opposite sex, independently of any suggestions unconsciously given by them, often in minuter detail than they had realised. Sometimes, too, I was able to point out to them, for the first time, the qualities that repelled them in individuals of the opposite sex, although for the most part men realise more readily the characters that repel them than the characters that attract them./

I believe that with a little practice any one could readily acquire and exercise this art on any circle of friends. A knowledge of other laws of sexual affinity would be of great importance. A number of special constants might be taken as tests of the existence of complementary individuals. For instance, the law might be caricatured so as to require that the sum of the length of the hairs of any two perfect lovers should always be the same. But, as I have already shown in chapter ii., this result is not to be expected, because all the organs of the same body do not necessarily possess the same degree of maleness or femaleness. Such heuristic rules would soon multiply and bring the whole subject into ridicule, and I shall therefore abstain from further sugges- tions of the kind.

I do not deny that my exposition of the law is somewhat dogmatical and lacks confirmation by exact detail. But I am not so anxious to claim finished results as to incite others to the study, the more so as the means for scientific investi- gations are lacking in my own case. But even if much remains theoretical, I hope that I shall have firmly riveted the chief beams in my edifice of theory by showing how it

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 33

explains much that hitherto has found no explanation, and so shall have, in a fashion, proved it retrospectively by ihowing how much it would explain if it were true.

A most remarkable confirmation of my law may be found in the vegetable kingdom, in a group of facts hitherto regarded as isolated and to be so strange as to have no parallel. Every botanist must have guessed already that I have in mind the phenomena of heterostylism, first discovered by Persoon, then described by Darwin and named by Hilde- brand. Many Dicotyledons, and a few Monocotyledons, for instance, species of Primulaceae and Geraneaceae and many Rubiaceas, phanerogams in the flowers of which both the pollen and the stigma are functional, although only in cross- fertilisation, so that the flowers are hermaphrodite in struc- ture but unisexual physiologically, display the peculiarity that in different individuals the stamens and the stigma have different lengths. The individuals, all the flowers of which have long styles and therefore high stigmas and short anthers, are, in my judgment, the more female, whilst the individuals with short styles and long anthers are more male. In addition to such dimorphic plants, there are also trimor- phic plants, such as Lythriim salicaria, in which the sexual organs display three forms differing in length. There are not only long-styled and short-styled forms, but flowers with styles of a medium length.

Although only dimorphism and trimorphism have been recognised in the books, these conditions do not exhaust the actual complexities of structure. Darwin himself pointed out that if small differences were taken into account, no less than five different situations of the anthers could be distinguished. Alongside such plain cases of discontinuity, of the separation of the different degrees of maleness and femaleness in plainly distinct individuals, there are also cases in which the different degrees grade into each other without breaks in the series. There are analogous cases of discon- tinuity in the animal kingdom, although they have always been thought of as unique and isolated phenomena, as the parallel with heterostylism had not been suggested, in

c

34 SEX AND CHARACTER

several genera of insects, as, for instance, some Earwigs (Forficulce) and Lamellicorn Beetles {Lucanus cervus), the Sta.g-heet\e (Dynasies hercules), and Xylotrupes gideon, there are some males in which the antennae, the secondary sexual characters by which they differ most markedly from the females, are extremely long, and others in which they are very short. Bateson, who has written most on this subject, distinguishes the two forms as " high males " and " low males." It is true that a continuous series of intermediate forms links the extreme types, but, none the less, the vast majority of the individuals are at one extreme or the other. Unfortunately, Bateson did not investigate the relations between these different types of males and the females, and so it is not known if there be female types with special sexual affinity for these male types. Thus these observa- tions can be taken only as a morphological parallel to heterostylism and not as cases of the law of complementary sexual attraction.

Heterostylous plants may possibly be the means of estab« lishing my view that the law of sexual complements holds good for every kind of living thing. Darwin first, and after him many other investigators have proved that in heterosty- lous plants fertilisation has the best results, or, indeed, may be possible only when the pollen from a macrostylous flower (a flower with the shortest form of anthers and longest pistil) falls on the stigma of a microstylous blossom (one where the pistil is the shortest possible and the stamens at their greatest length), or vice versa. In other words, if the best result is to be attained by the cross-fertilisation of a pair of flowers, one flower with a long pistil, and there- fore high degree of femaleness, and short stamens must be mated with another possessing a correspondingly short pistil, and so, with the amount of femaleness complementary to the first flower, and with long stamens complementary to the short stamens of the first flower. In the case of flowers where there are three pistil lengths, the best results may be expected when the pollen of one blossom is transmitted to another blossom in which the stigma is the nearest comple.

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 35

ment of the stigma of the flower from which the pollen came ; if another combination is made, either naturally or by artificial fertilisation, then, if a result follows at all, the seedlings are scanty, dwarfed and sometimes infertile, much as when hybrids between species are formed.

It is to be noticed that the authors who have discussed heterostylism are not satisfied with the usual explanation, which is that the insects which visit the flowers carry the pollen at different relative positions on their bodies corre- sponding to the different lengths of the sexual organs and so produce the wonderful result. Darwin, moreover, admits that bees carry all sorts of pollen on every part of their bodies ; so that it has still to be made clear how the female organs dusted with two or three kinds of pollen make their choice of the most suitable. The supposition of a power of choice, however interesting and wonderful it is, does not account for the bad results which follow artificial dusting with the wrong kind of pollen (so-called " illegitimate fertilisation "). The theory that the stigmas can only make use of, or are capable of receiving only " legitimate pollen " has been proved by Darwin to be erroneous, inas- much as the insects which act as fertilisers certainly some- times start various cross-breedings.

The hypothesis that the reason for this selective retention on the part of individuals is a special quality, deep-seated in the flowers themselves, seems more probable. CWe have probably here to do with the presence, just as in human beings, of a maximum degree of sexual attraction between individuals, one of which possesses just as much femaleness as the other possesses maleness, and this is merely another mode of stating my sexual law. > The probability of this interpreta- tion is increased by the fact that in the short-styled, long- anthered, more male flowers, the pollen grains are larger and the papillae on the stigmas are smaller than the corre- sponding parts of the long-styled, short-anthered, more female flowers. Here we have certainly to do with different degrees of maleness and femaleness. These circumstances supply a stong corroboration of my law of sexual affinity,

36 SEX AND CHARACTER

that in the vegetable kingdom as well as in the animal kingdom (I shall return later to this point) fertilisation has the best results when it occurs between parents with maximum sexual affinity.*

Consideration of sexual aversion affords the readiest proof that the law holds good throughout the animal kingdom. I should like to suggest here that it would be extremely interesting to make observations as to whether the larger, heavier and less active egg-cells exert a special attraction on the smaller and more active spermatozoa, whilst those egg- cells with less food-yolk attract more strongly the larger and less active spermatozoa. It may be the case, as L. Weill has already suggested in a speculation as to the factors that determine sex, that there is a correlation between the rates of motion or kinetic energies of conjugating sexual cells. It has not yet been determined, although indeed it would be difficult to determine, if the sexual cells, apart from the streams and eddies of their fluid medium, approach each other with equal velocities or sometimes display special activity. There is a wide field for investigation here.

^s I have repeatedly remarked, my law is not the only law of sexual affinity, otherwise, no doubt, it would have been discovered long ago. Just because so many other factors are bound up with it,t because another, perhaps manv other laws sometimes overshadow it, cases of undis- turbed action of sexual affinity are rareJ As the necessary investigations have not yet been finished, I will not speak at length of such laws, but rather by way of illustration I shall refer to a few factors which as yet cannot be demon- strated mathematically.

I shall begin with some phenomena which are pretty

* For special purposes the breeder, whose object frequently is to modify natural tendencies, will often disregard this law.

f In speaking of the sexual taste in men and women, one thinks at once of the usual but not invariable preference individuals show for a particular colour of hair. It would certainly seem as if the reason for so strongly marked a preference must lie deep in human nature.

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 37

generally recognised. Men when quite young, say under twenty, are attracted by much older women (say those of thirty-five and so on), whilst men of thirty-five are attracted by women much younger than themselves. So also, on the other hand, quite young girls (sweet seventeen) generally prefer much older men, but, later in life, may marry strip- lings. The whole subject deserves close attention and is both popular and easily noticed.

In spite of the necessary limitation of this work to the consideration of a single law, it will make for exactness if I try to state the formula in a more definite fashion, without the deceptive element of simplicity. Even without being able to state in definite quantities the other factors and the co-operating laws, we may reach a satisfactory exactness by the use of a variable factor.

The first formula was only an abstract general statement of what is common to all cases of maximum sexual attrac- tion so far as the sexual relation is governed by the law. I must now try to find an expression for the strength of the sexual affinity in any conceivable case, an expression which, on account of its general form, can be used to describe the relationship between any two living beings, even if these belong to different species or to the same sex.

If

f a M ' ( ßW

ß' M

(where a, a', ß, and ß' are each greater than o and less than unity) define the sexual constitutions of any two living beings between which there is an attraction, then the strength of the attraction may be expressed thus :

a- ß

where /' is an empirical or analytical function of the period during which it is possible for the individuals to act upon one another, what may be called the "reaction-time"; whilst K is the variable factor in which we place all the

38 SEX AND CHARACTER

known and unknown laws of sexual affinity, and which also varies with the degree of specific, racial and family relation- ship, and with the health and absence of deformity in the two individuals, and which, finally, will become smaller as the actual spacial distance between the two is greater, and which can be determined in any individual case.

When in this formula a = /3 A must be infinity ; this is the extreme case ; it is sexual attraction as an elemental force, as it has been described with a weird mastercrait by Lynkeus in the novel "Im Postwangen." Such sexual attraction is as much a natural law as the downward growth of a rootlet towards the earth, or the migration of bacteria to the oxygen at the edge of a microscopic cover-glass. But it takes some time to grow accustomed to such a view. I shall refer to this point again.

li a — ß has its maximun value, which is when it equals unity, then A = K . /.

This would be the extreme case of the action of all the sympathetic and antipathetic relations between human beings (leaving out of account social relations in their narrowest sense, which are merely the safeguards of communities) which are not included in the l.iw of sexual affinity. As K generally increases with the strength of congenital relation- ship, A has a greater value when the individuals are of the same nationality than when they belong to different nation- alities. The value of f is great in this case, and onr; can investigate its fluctuations, as, for instance, when two domestic animals of different species are in association ; at first it usually stands for violent enmity, or fear of each other (and A has a negative value), whilst later on a friendship may come about.

When K = o in the formula

_ K./'

A =

then A = o, which means that between two living beings of origin too remote there may be no trace of sexual attraction.

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 39

The provisions of the criminal statute-books, however, in reference to sodomy and bestiality show plainly that even in the case of very remote species K has a value greater than nothing. The formula may apply to two individuals not only not of the same species, but even not of the same order.

It is a new theory that the union of male and female organisms is no mere matter of chance, but is guided by a definite law ; and the actual complexities which I have merely suggested show the need for complete investigation into the mysterious nature of sexual attraction.

The experiments of Wilhelm Pfeffer have shown that the male cells of many cryptogams are naturally attracted not merely by the female cells, but also by substances which they have come in contact with under natural conditions, or which have been nitroduced to them experimentally, in the latter case the substances being sometimes of a kind with which they could not possibly have come in contact, except under the conditions of experiment. Thus the male cells of ferns are attracted not only by the malic acid secreted naturally by the archegonia, but by synthetically prepared malic acid, whilst the male cells of mosses are attracted either by the natural acid of the female cells or by acid prepared from cane sugar. A male cell, which, we know not how, is influenced by the degree of concentration of a solution, moves towards the most concentrated part of the fluid. Pfeffer named such movements " chemotactic " and coined the word " chemotropism " to include these and many other asexual cases of motion stimulated by chemical bodies. There is much to support the view that the attraction exercised by females on males which perceive them at a distance by sense organs is to be regarded as analogous in certain respects with chemotropism.

It seems highly probable that chemotropism is also the explanation of the restless and persistent energy with which for days together the mammalian spermatozoa seek the entrance to the uterus, although the natural current pro- duced from the mucous membrane of the uterus is frorO

40 SEX AND CHARACTER

within outwards. The spermatozoon, in spite of all me- chanical and other hindrances, makes for the egg-cell with an almost incredible certainty. In this connection we may call to mind the prodigious journeys made by many fish ; salmon travel for months together, practically without taking any food, from the open sea to the sources of the Rhine, against the current of the river, in order to spawn in locali- ties that are safe and well provided with food.

I have recently been looking at the beautiful sketches which P. Falkenberg has made of the processes of fertilisa- tion in some of the Mediterranean seaweeds. When we speak of the lines of force between the opposite poles of magnets we are dealing with a force no more natural than that which irresistibly attracts the spermatozoon and the egg-cell. The chief jdifference seems to be that in the case of the attraction between the inorganic substances, strains are set up in the media between the two poles, whilst in the living matter the forces seem confined to the organisms themselves. According to Falkenberg's observations, the spermatozoa, in moving towards the egg-cells, are able to overcome the force which otherwise would be exercised upon them by a source of light. The sexual attraction, the chemotactic force, is stronger than the phototactic force.

/when a union has taken place between two individuals wno, according to my formula, are not adapted to each other, if later, the natural complement of either appears, the inclination to desert the makeshift at once asserts itself, in accordance with an inevitable law of nature. A divorce takes place, as much constitutional, depending on the nature of things, as when, if iron sulphate and caustic potash are brought together, the SO4 ions leave the iron to unite with the potassium. When in nature an adjustment of such differences of potential is about to take place, he who would approve or disapprove of the process from the moral point of view would appear to most to play a ridiculous partf

This is the fundamental idea in Goethe's "Wahlver- wandtschaften " (Elective Affinities), and in the fourth

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 41

cnapter of the first part of that work he makes it the subject of a playful introduction which was full of un- dreamed of future significance, and the full force of which he was fated himself to experience in later life. I must con- fess to being proud that this book is the first work to take up his ideas. None the less, it is as little my intention as it was the intention of Goethe to advocate divorce ; I hope only to explain it. There are human motives which indispose man to divorce and enable him to withstand it. This I shall discuss later on. The physical side of sex in man is less completely ruled by natural law than is the case with lower animals. We get an indication of this in the fact that man is sexual throughout the year, and that in him there is less trace than even in domestic animals of the existence of a special spring breeding-season.

The law of sexual affinity is analogous in another respect to a well-known law of theoretical chemistry, although, indeed, there are marked differences. The violence of a chemical reaction is proportionate to the mass of the sub- stances involved, as, for instance, a stronger acid solution unites with a stronger basic solution with greater avidity, just as in the case of the union of a pair of living beings with strong maleness and femaleness. But there is an essential difference between the living process and the reaction of the lifeless chemical substances. The living organism is not homogeneous and isotropic in its composi- tion ; it is not divisible into a number of small parts of identical properties. The difference depends on the principle of individuality, on the fact that every living thing is an individual, and that its individuality is essen- tially structural. And so in the vital process it is not as in inorganic chemistry ; there is no possibility of a larger pro- portion forming one compound, a smaller proportion form- ing another. The organic chemotropism, moreover, may be negative. In certain cases the value of A may result in a negative quantity, that is to say, the sexual attraction may appear in the form of sexual repulsion. It is true that in purely chemical processes the same reaction may take place

42 SEX AND CHARACTER

at different rates. Taking, however, the total failure of some reaction by catalytic interference as the equivalent of a sexual repulsion, it never happens, according to the latest investigations at least, that the interference merely induces the reaction after a longer or shorter interval. On the other hand, it happens frequently that a compound which is formed at one temperature breaks up at another tempera- ture. /Here the " direction " of the reaction is a function of the temperature, as, in the vital process, it may be a function of time.

In the value of the factor " /," the time of reaction, a final analogy of sexual attraction with chemical processes may be found, if we are willing to trace the comparison without laying too much stress upon ity Consider the formula for the rapidity of the reaction, the different degrees of rapidity with which a sexual attraction between two individuals is established, and reflect how the value of "A" varies with the value of " t." However, what Kant termed mathematical vanity must not tempt us to read into our equations complicated and difficult processes, the validity of which is uncertain. All that can be implied is simple enough ; sensual desire increases with the time during which two individuals are in propinquity ; if they were shut up together, it would develop if there were no repulsion, or practically no repulsion between them, in the fashion of some slow chemical process which takes much time before its result is visible. Such a case is the confi- dence with which it is said of a marriage arranged without love, " Love will come later ; time will bring it."

It is plain that too much stress must not be laid on the analogy between sexual affinity and purely chemical pro- cesses. None the less, I thought it illuminating to make the comparison. It is not yet quite clear if the sexual attrac- tion is to be ranked with the " tropisms," and the matter cannot be settled without going beyond mere sexuality to discuss the general problem of erotics. The phenomena of love require a different treatment, and I sliall return to them in the second part of this book. None the less, there

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 43

are analogies that cannot be denied when human attractions and chemotropism are compared. I may refer as an instance to the relation between Edward and Ottilie in Goethe's " Wahlverwandtschaften."

Mention of Goethe's romance leads naturally to a dis- cussion of the marriage problem, and I may here give a few of the practical inferences which would seem to follow from the theoretical considerations of this chapter. It is clear that a natural law, not dissimilar to other natural laws, exists with regard to sexual attraction ; this law shows that, whilst innumerable gradations of sexuality exist, there always may be found pairs of beings the members of which are almost perfectly adapted to one another. So far, marriage has its justification, and, from the standpoint of biology, free love is condemned. Monogamy, however, is a more difficult problem, the solution of which involves other con- siderations, such as periodicity, to which I shall refer later, and the change of the sexual taste with advancing years. ^A second conclusion may be derived from heterostylism, especially with reference to the fact that " illegitimate fertili- sation " almost invariably produces less fertile offspring. This leads to the consideration that amongst other forms of life the strongest and healthiest offspring will result from unions in which there is the maximum of sexual suitability. As the old saying has it, " love-children " turn out to be the finest, strongest, and most vigorous of human beings. Those who are interested in the improvement of mankind must therefore, on purely hygienic grounds, oppose the ordinary mercenary marriages of convenience.}

It is more than probable that the law of sexual attraction may yield useful results when applied to the breeding of animals. More attention will have to be given to the secondary sexual characters of the animals which it is proposed to mate. The artificial methods made use of to secure the serving of mares by stallions unattractive to them do not always fail, but are followed by indifferent results. Probably an obvious result of the use of a substituted stallion in impregnating a mare is the extreme nervousness

44 SEX AND CHARACTER

of the progeny, which must be treated with bromide and other drugs. So, also, the degeneration of modern Jews may be traced in part to the fact that amongst them marriages for other reasons than love are specially common.

Amongst the many fundamental principles established by the careful observations and experiments of Darwin, and since confirmed by other investigators, is the fact that both very closely related individuals, and those whose specific characters are too unlike, have little sexual attraction for each other, and that if in spite of this sexual union occurs, the offspring usually die at an early stage or are very feeble, or are practically infertile. So also, in heterostylous plants " legitimate fertilisation " brings about more numerous and vigorous seeds than come from other unions.

^t may be said in general that the offspring of those parents which showed the greatest sexual attraction succeed best^

Tnis rule, which is certainly universal, implies the correct, ness of a conclusion which might be drawn from the earlier part of this book, When a marriage has taken place and children have been produced, these have gained nothing from the conquest of sexual repulsion by the parents, for such a conquest could not take place without damage to the mental and bodily characters of the children that would come of it. ^t is certain, however, that many childless marriages have been loveless marriages. The old idea that the chance of conception is increased where there is a mutual participation in the sexual act is closely connected with what we have been considering as to the greater intensity of the sexual attraction between two comple- mentary individuals^

CHAPTER IV

HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY

The law of Sexual Attraction gives the long-sought-for explanation of sexual inversion, of sexual inclination towards members of the same sex, whether or no that be accompanied by aversion from members of the opposite sex. Without reference to a distinction which I shall deal with later on, I may say at once that it is exceedingly probable that, in all cases of sexual inversion, there will be found indications of the anatomical characters of the other sex. There is no such thing as a genuine "psycho-sexual her- maphroditism " ; the men who are sexually attracted by men have outward marks of effeminacy, just as women of a similar disposition to those of their own sex exhibit male characters. That this should be so is quite intelligible if we admit the close parallelism between body and mind, and further light is thrown upon it by the facts explained in the second chapter of this book ; the facts as to the male or female principle not being uniformly present all over the same body, but distributed in different amounts in different organs. In all cases of sexual inversion, there is invariably an anatomical approximation to the opposite sex.

Such a view is directly opposed to that of those who would maintain that sexual inversion is an acquired character, and one that has superseded normal sexual impulses. Schrenk-Notzing, Kraepelin, and Fere are amongst those writers who have urged the view that sexual inversion is an acquired habit, the result of abstinence from normal intercourse and particularly induced by example. But what about the first offender ? Did the god Herma-

46 SEX AND CHARACTER

phroditos teach him ? It might equally be sought to prove ; that the sexual inclination of a normal man for a normal woman was an unnatural, acquired habit — a habit, as some ancient writers have suggested, that arose from some acci- dental discovery of its agreeable nature. Just as a normal man discovers for himself what a woman is, so also, in the case of a sexual " invert " the attraction exercised on him by a person of his own sex is a normal product of his development from his birth. Naturally the opportunity must come in which the individual may put in practice his desire for inverted sexuality, but the opportunity will be taken only when his natural constitution has made the indi- vidual ready for it. That sexual abstinence (to take the second supposed cause of inversion) should result in any- thing more than masturbation may be explained by the supposition that inversion is acquired, but that it should be coveted and eagerly sought can only happen when the demand for it is rooted in the constitution. In the same fashion normal sexual attraction might be said to be an acquired character, if it could be proved definitely that, to fall in love, a normal man must first see a woman or a picture of a woman. Those who assert that sexual inversion is an acquired character, are making a merely incidental or accessory factor responsible for the whole constitution of an organism.

There is little reason for saying that sexual inversion is acquired, and there is just as little for regarding it as in- herited from parents or grandparents. Such an assertion, it is true, has not been made, and seems contrary to all experience ; but it has been suggested that it is due to a neuropathic diathesis, and that general constitutional weak- ness is to be found in the descendants of those who have displayed sexual inversion. In fact sexual inversion has usually been regarded as psycho-pathological, as a symptom of degeneration, and those who exhibit it have been con- sidered as physically unfit. This view, however, is falling into disrepute, especially as Krafft-Ebing, its principal champion, abandoned it in the later editions of his work.

HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY 47

None the less, it is not generally recognised that sexual inverts may be otherwise perfectly healthy, and with regard to other social matters quite normal. When they have been asked if they would have wished matters to be different with them in this respect, almost invariably they answer in the negative.

It is due to the erroneous conceptions that I have men- tioned that homo-sexuality has not been considered in relation with other facts. Let those who regard sexual inversion as pathological, as a hideous anomaly of mental development (the view accepted by the populace), or believe it to be an acquired vice, the result of an execrable seduc- tion, remember that there exist all transitional stages reaching from the most masculine male to the most effeminate male and so on to the sexual invert, the false and true hermaphrodite ; and then, on the other side, suc- cessively through the sapphist to the virago and so on until the most feminine virgin is reached. In the interpretation of this volume, sexual inverts of both sexes are to be defined as individuals in whom the factor a (see page 8, chap, i.) is very nearly 0.5 and so is practically equal to a ; in other words, individuals in whom there is as much maleness as femaleness, or indeed who, although reckoned as men, may contain an excess of femaleness, or as women and yet be more male than female. Because of the want of uniformity in the sexual characters of the body, it is fairly certain that many individuals have their sex assigned them on account of the existence of the primary male sexual characteristic, even although there may be delayed descensus iesHculorum, or epi- or hypo-spadism, or, later on, absence of active sperma- tozoa, or even, in the case of assignment of the female sex, absence of the vagina, and thus male avocations (such as compulsory military service) may come to be assigned to those in whom a is less than 0.5 and a greater than 0.5. The sexual complement of such individuals really is to be found on their own side of the sexual line, that is to say, on the side on which they are reckoned, although in reality they may belong to the other.

48 SEX AND CHARACTER

Moreover, and this not only supports my view but can b« explained only by it, there are no inverts who are completely sexually inverted. In all of them there is from the begin- ning an inclination to both sexes ; they are, in fact, bisexual. It may be that later on they may actively encourage a slight leaning towards one sex or the other, and so become practically unisexual either in the normal or in the inverted sense, or surrounding influence may bring about this result for them. But in such processes the fundamental bisexuality is never obliterated and may at any time give evidence of its suppressed presence.

Reference has often been made, and in recent years has increasingly been made, to the relation between homo- sexuality and the presence of bisexual rudiments in the embryonic stages of animals and plants. What is new in my view is that according to it, homo-sexuality cannot be regarded as an atavism or as due to arrested embryonic development, or incomplete differentiation of sex ; it cannot be regarded as an anomaly of rare occurrence interpolating itself in customary complete separation of the sexes. Homo-sexuality is merely the sexual condition of these intermediate sexual forms that stretch from one ideally sexual condition to the other sexual condition. In my view all actual organisms have both homo-sexuality and hetero- sexual ity.

That the rudiment of homo-sexuality, in however weak a form, exists in every human being, corresponding to the greater or smaller development of the characters of the opposite sex, is proved conclusively from the fact that in the adolescent stage, while there is still a considerable amount of undifferentiated sexuality, and before the internal secretions have exerted their stimulating force, passionate attachments with a sensual side are the rule amongst boys as well as amongst girls.

A person who retains from that age onwards a marked tendency to "friendship" with a person of his own sex must have a strong taint of the other sex in him. Those, however, are still more obviously intermediate sexual forms,

HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY 49

who, after association with both sexes, fail to have aroused in them the normal passion for the opposite sex, but still endeavour to maintain confidential, devoted affection with those of their own sex.

There is no friendship between men that has not an ele- ment of sexuality in it, however little accentuated it may be in the nature of the friendship, and however painful the idea of the sexual element would be. But it is enough to remember that there can be no friendship unless there has been some attraction to draw the men together. Much of the affection, protection, and nepotism between men is due to the presence of unsuspected sexual compatibility.

An analogy with the sexual friendship of youth may be traced in the case of old men, when, for instance, with the involution following old age, the latent amphisexuality of man appears. This may be the reason why so many men of fifty years and upwards are guilty of indecency.

Homo-sexuality has been observed amongst animals to a considerable extent. F. Karsch has made a wide, if not complete, compilation from other authors. Unfortunately, practically no observations were made as to the grades of maleness or femaleness to be observed in such cases. But we may be reasonably certain that the law holds good in the animal world. If bulls are kept apart from cows for a considerable time, homo-sexual acts occur amongst them; the most female are the first to become corrupted, the others later, some perhaps never. (It is amongst cattle that the greatest number of sexually intermediate forms have been recorded.) This shows that the tendency was latent in them, but that at other times the sexual demand was satis- fied in normal fashion. Cattle in captivity behave precisely as prisoners and convicts in these matters. Animals exhibit not merely onanism (which is known to them as to human beings), but also homo-sexuality ; and this fact, together with the fact that sexually intermediate forms are known to occur amongst them, I regard as strong evidence for my law of sexual attraction.

Inverted sexual attraction, then, is no exception to my

D

50 SEX AND CHARACTER

law of sexual attraction, but is merely a special case of it. An individual who is half-man, half-woman, requires as sexual complement a being similarly equipped with a share of both sexes in order to fulfil the requirements of the law. This explains the fact that sexual inverts usually associate only with persons of similar character, and rarely admit to intimacy those who are normal. The sexual attraction is mutual, and this explains why sexual inverts so readily recognise each other. This being so, the normal element in human society has very little idea of the extent to which homo-sexuality is practised, and when a case becomes public property, every normal young profligate thinks that he has a right to condemn such " atrocities." So recently as the year 1900 a professor of psychiatry in a German university urged that those who practised homo-sexuality should be castrated.

The therapeutical remedies which have been used to combat homo-sexuality, in cases where such treatment has been attempted, are certainly less radical than the advice of the professor ; but they serve to show only how little the nature of homo-sexuality was understood. The method used at present is hypnotism, and this can rest only on the theory that homo-sexuality is an acquired character. By suggesting the idea of the female form and of normal congress, it is sought to accustom those under treatment to normal rela- tions. But the acknowledged results are very few.

The failure is to be expected from our standpoint. The hypnotiser suggests to the subject the image of a "typical" woman, ignorant of the innate differences in the subject and unaware that such a type is naturally repulsive to him. And as the normal typical woman is not his complement, it is fruitless of the doctor to advise the services of any casual Venus, however attractive, to complete the cure of a man who has long shunned normal intercourse. If our formula were used to discover the complement of the male invert, it would point to the most man-like woman, the Lesbian or Sapphist type. Probably such is the only type of woman who would attract the sexual invert or please him. If a

HOMO-SEXUALITY AND PEDERASTY 51

cure for sexual inversion must be sought because it cannot be left to its own extinction, then this theory offers the following solution. Sexual inverts must be brought to sexual inverts, from homo-sexualists to Sapphists, each in their grades. Knowledge of such a solution should lead to repeal of the ridiculous laws of England, Germany and Austria directed against homo-sexuality, so far at least as to make the punishments the lightest possible. In the second part of this book it will be made clear why both the active and the passive parts in male homo-sexuality appear disgraceful, although the desire is greater than in the case of the normal relation of a man and woman. In the abstract there is no ethical difference between the two.

In spite of all the present-day clamour about the existence of different rights for different individualities, there is only one law that governs mankind, just as there is only one logic and not several logics. It is in opposition to that law, as well as to the theory of punishment according to which the legal offence, not the moral offence, is punished, that we forbid the homo-sexualist to carry on his practices whilst we allow the hetero-sexualist full play, so long as both avoid open scandal. Speaking from the standpoint of a purer state of humanity and of a criminal law untainted by the pedagogic idea of punishment as a deterrent, the only logical and rational method of treatment for sexual inverts would be to allow them to seek and obtain what they require where they can, that is to say, amongst other inverts.

My theory appears to me quite incontrovertible and con- clusive, and to afford a complete explanation of the entire set of phenomena. The exposition, however, must now face a set of facts which appear quite opposed to it, and which seem absolutely to contradict my reference of sexual inversion to the existence of sexually intermediate types, and my explanation of the law governing the attraction of these types for each other. It is probably the case that my explanation is sufficient for all female sexual inverts,fbut it is certainly true that there are men with very little taint oi

52 SEX AND CHARACTER

femaleness about them who yet exert a very strong influ- ence on members of their own sex, a stronger influence than that of other men who may have more femaleness — an influence which can be exerted even on very male men, and an influence which, finally, often appears to be much greater than the influence any woman can exert on these men.^ Albert Moll is justified in saying as follows : "There exist psycho-sexual hermaphrodites who are at- tracted by members of both sexes, but who in the case of each sex appear to care only for the characters peculiar to that sex ; and, on the other hand, there are also psycho- sexual (?) hermaphrodites who, in the case of each sex, are attracted, not by the characteristics peculiar to that sex, but by those which are either sexually indifferent or even antagonistic to the sex in question." Upon this distinction depends the difference between the two sets of phenomena indicated in the title of this chapter — Homo- sexuality and Pederasty. The distinction may be expressed as follows : The homo-sexualist is that type of sexual invert who prefers very female men or very male women, in accordance with the general law of sexual attraction. The pederast, on the other hand, may be attracted either by very male men or by very female women, but in the latter case only in so far as he is not pederastic. Moreover, his inclination for the male sex is stronger than for the female sex, and is more deeply seated in his nature. The origin of pederasty is a problem in itself and remains unsolved by this investi- gation.

CHAPTER V

THE SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND THE SCIENCE OF FORM

In view of the admitted close correspondence between matter and mind, we may expect to find that the conception of sexually intermediate forms, if applied to mental facts, will yield a rich crop of results. The existence of a female mental type and a male mental type can readily be imagined (and the quest of these types has been made by many investigators), but such perfect types never occur as actual individuals, simply because in the mind, as in the body, all sorts of sexually intermediate conditions exist. My concep- tion will also be of great service in helping us to discriminate between the different mental qualities, and to throw some light into what has always been a dark corner for psycholo- gists— the differences between different individuals. A great step will be made if we are able to supply graded categories for the mental diathesis of individuals ; if it shall cease to be scientific to say that the character of an individual is merely male or female ; but if we can make a measured judgment and say that such and such an one is so many parts male and so many parts female. Which element in any particular individual has done, said, or thought this or the other ? By making the answer to such a question pos- sible, we shall have done much towards the definite descrip- tion of the individual, and the new method will determine the direction of future investigation. The knowledge of the past, which set out from conceptions which were really confused averages, has been equally far from reaching the broadest truths as from searching out the most intimate,

54 SEX AND CHARACTER

detailed knowledge. This failure of past methods gives us hope that the principle of sexually intermediate forms may serve as the foundation of a scientific study of character and justifies the attempt to make of it an illuminating principle for the psychology of individual differences. Its application to the science of character, which, so far, has been in the hands of merely literary authors, and is from the scientific point of view an untouched field, is to be greeted more warmly as it is capable of being used quanti- tatively, so that we venture to estimate the percentage of maleness and femaleness which an individual possesses even in the mental qualities. The answer to this question is not given even if we know the exact anatomical position of an organism on the scale stretching from male to female, although as a matter of fact congruity between bodily and mental sexuality is more common than incongruity. But we must remember what was stated in chap. ii. as to the uneven distribution of sexuality over the body.

The proportion of the male to the female principle in the same human being must not be assumed to be a constant quantity. An important new conclusion must be taken into account, a conclusion which is necessary to the right application of the principle which clears up in a striking fashion earlier psychological work. The fact is that every human being varies or oscillates between the maleness and the femaleness of his constitution. In some cases these oscillations are abnormally large, in other cases so small as to escape observation, but they are always present, and when they are great they may even reveal themselves in the outward aspect of the body. Like the variations in the magnetism of the earth, these sexual oscillations are either regular or irregular. The regular forms are sometimes minute ; for instance, many men feel more male at night. The large and regular oscillations correspond to the great divisions of organic life to which attention is only now being directed, and they may throw light upon many puzzling phenomena. The irregular oscillations probably depend chiefly upon the environment, as for instance on

SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM 55

che sexuality of surrounding human beings. They may help to explain some curious points in the psychology of a crowd which have not yet received sufficient attention.

In short, bi-sexuality cannot be properly observed in a single moment, but must be studied through successive periods of time. This time-element in psychological differ- ences of sexuality may be regularly periodic or not. The swing towards one pole of sexuality may be greater than the following swing to the other side. Although theoreti- cally possible, it seems to be extremely rare for the swing to the male side to be exactly equal to the swing towards the female side.

It may be admitted in principle, before proceeding to detailed investigation, that the conception of sexually inter- mediate forms makes possible a more accurate description of individual characters in so far as it aids in determining the proportion of male and female in each individual, and of measuring the oscillations to each side of which any individual is capable. A point of method must be decided at once, as upon it depends the course the investigation will pursue. Are we to begin by an empirical investigation of the almost innumerable intermediate conditions in mental sexuality, or are we to set out with the abstract sexual types, the ideal psychological man and woman, and then in- vestigate deductively how far such ideal pictures correspond with concrete cases ? The former method is that which the development of psychological knowledge has pursued; ideals have been derived from facts, sexual types constructed from observation of the manifold complexity of nature ; it would be inductive and analytic. The latter mode, deductive and synthetic, is more in accordance with formal logic.

I have been unwilling to pursue the second method as fully as is possible, because every one can apply for himself to concrete facts the two well-defined extreme types ; once it is understood that actual individuals are mixtures of the types, it is simple to appiy theory to practice, and the actual pursuit of detailed cases would involve much repetition and bring little theoretical advantage. The second method,

56 SEX AND CHARACTER

however, is impracticable. The collection of the long series of details from which the inductions would be made would simply weary the reader.

In the first or biological part of my work, I give little attention to the extreme types, but devote myself to the fullest investigation of the intermediate stages. In the second part, I shall endeavour tv> make as full a psycho- logical analysis as possible of the characters of the male and female types, and will touch only lightly on concrete instances.

I shall first mention, without laying too much stress on them, some of the more obvious mental characteristics of the intermediate conditions.

Womanish men are usually extremely anxious to marry, at least (I mention this to prevent misconception) if a sufficiently brilliant opportunity offers itself. When it is possible, they nearly always marry whilst they are still quite young. It is especially gratifying to them to get as wives famous women, artists or poets, or singers and actresses.

Womanish men are physically lazier than other men in proportion to the degree of their womanishness. There are " men " who go out walking with the sole object of display- ing their faces like the faces of women, hoping that they will be admired, after which they return contentedly home. The ancient " Narcissus " was a prototype of such persons. These people are naturally fastidious about the dressing of their hair, their apparel, shoes, and linen ; they are con- cerned as to their personal appearance at all times, and about the minutest details of their toilet. They are con- scious of every glance thrown on them by other men, and because of the female element in them, they are coquettish in gait and demeanour. Viragoes, on the other hand, fre- quently are careless about their toilet, and even about the personal care of their bodies; they take less time in dressing than many womanish men. The dandyism of men on the one hand, and much of what is called the emancipation of women, are due to the increase in the numbers of these epicene creatures, and not merely to a passing fashion.

SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM 57

^Indeed, if one inquires why anything becomes the fashion it will be found that there is a true cause for iy

The more femaleness a woman possesses the less will she understand a man, and the sexual characters of a man will have the greater influence on her. This is more than a mere application of the law of sexual attraction, as I have already stated it. So also the more manly a man is the less will he understand women, but the more readily be in- fluenced by them as women. Those men who claim to understand women are themselves very nearly women. Womanish men often know how to treat women much better than manly men. Manly men, except in most rare cases, learn how to deal with women only after long expe- rience, and even then most imperfectly.

Although I have been touching here in a most superficial way on what are no more than tertiary sexual characters, I wish to point out an application of my conclusions to peda- gogy. I am convinced that the more these views are understood the more certainly will they lead to an indi- vidual treatment in education. At the present time shoe- makers, who make shoes to measure, deal more rationally with individuals than our teachers and schoolmasters in their application of moral principles. ^At present the sexually intermediate forms of individuals (especially on the female side) are treated exactly as if they were good examples of the ideal male or female types. There is wanted an " orthopaedic" treatment of the soul instead of the torture caused by the appUcation of ready-made con- ventional shapes. The present system stamps out much that is original, uproots much that is truly natural, and distorts much into artificial and unnatural forms.y

From time immemorial there have been only two systems of education ; one for those who come into the world desig- nated by one set of characters as males, and another for those who are similarly assumed to be females. Almost at once the "boys" and the "girls" are dressed differently, learn to play different games, go through different courses of instruction, the girls being put to stitching and so forth.

58 SEX AND CHARACTER

The intermediate individuals are placed at a great disad- vantage. And yet the instincts natural to their condition reveal themselves quickly enough, often even before puberty. There are boys who like to play with dolls, who learn to knit and sew with their sisters, and who are pleased to be given girls' names. There are girls who delight in the noisier sports of their brothers, and who make chums and playmates of them. After puberty, there is a still stronger display of the innate differences. Manlike women wear their hair short, affect manly dress, study, drink, smoke, are fond of mountaineering, or devote themselves passionately to sport. Womanish men grow their hair long, wear corsets, are experts in the toilet devices of women, and show the greatest readiness to become friendly and intimate w'th them, preferring their society to that of men.

Later on, the different laws and customs to which the so« called sexes are subjected press them as by a vice into distinctive moulds. The proposals which should follow from my conclusions will encounter more passive resist- ance, I fear, in the case of girls than in that of boys. I must here contradict, in the most positive fashion, a dogma that is authoritatively and widely maintained at the present time, the idea that all women are alike, that no individuals exist amongst women. It is true that amongst those indi- viduals whose constitutions lie nearer the female side than the male side, the differences and possibilities are not so great as amongst those on the male side ; the greater varia- bility of males is true not only for the human race but for the living world, and is related to the principles established by Darwin. None the less, there are plenty of differences amongst women. The psychological origin of this common error depends chiefly on a fact that I explained in chap, iii., the fact that every man in his life becomes intimate only with a group of women defined by his own constitution, and so naturally he finds them much alike. /For the same reason, and in the same way, one may often hear a woman say that all men are alike. And the narrow uniform view about men, displayed by most of the leaders of the

SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM 59

women's rights movement depends on precisely the same cause./

It is clear that the principle of the existence of innu- merable individual proportions of the male and female principles is a basis of the study of character which must be applied in any rational scheme of pedagogy.

The science of character must be associated with some form of psychology that takes into account some theory of the real existence of mental phenomena in the same fashion that anatomy is related to physiology. And so it is necessary, quite apart from theoretical reasons, to attempt to pursue a psychology of individual differences. This attempt will be readily enough followed by those who believe in the paral- lelism between mind and matter, for they will see in psycho- logy no more than the physiology of the central nervous system, and Vv^ill readily admit that the science of character must be a sister of morphology. As a matter of fact there is great hope that in future characterology and mor- phology will each greatly help the other. The principle of sexually intermediate forms, and still more the parallelism between characterology and morphology in the widest application, make us look forward to the time when phy- siognomy will take its honourable place amongst the sciences, a place which so many have attempted to gain for it but as yet unsuccessfully.

The problem of physiognomy is the problem of the rela- tion between the static mental forces and the static bodily forces, just as the problem of physiological psychology deals with the dynamic aspect of the same relations. It is a great error in method, and in fact, to treat the study of physiognomy, because of its difficulty, as impracticable. And yet this is the attitude of contemporary scientific circles, unconsciously perhaps rather than consciously, but occasionally becoming obvious, as for instance in the case of the attempt of von Möbius to pursue the work of Gall with regard to the physiognomy of those with a natural aptitude for mathematics. ^If it be possible, and many have shown that it is possible, to judge correctly

/

6o SEX AND CHARACTER

much of the character of an individual merely from the examination of his external appearance, without the aid of cross-examination or guessing, it cannot be impossible to reduce such modes of observation to an exact method^) There is little more required than an exact study of the expression of the characteristic emotions and the tracking (to use a rough analogy) of the routes of the cabled passing to the speech centres.

None the less it will be long before official science ceases to regard the study of physiognomy as illegitimate. Although people will still believe in the parallelism of mind and body, they will continue to treat the physiognomist as as much of a charlatan as until quite recently the hypnotist was thought to be. ^None the less, all mankind at least unconsciously, and intelligent persons consciously, will continue to be physiognomists, people will continue to judge character from the nose, although they will not admit the existence of a science of physiognomy J and the portraits of celebrated men and of murderers will continue to interest every one.

I am inclined to believe that the assumption of a univer- sally acquired correspondence between mind and body may be a hitherto neglected fundamental function of our mind. It is certainly the case that every one believes in physiog- nomy and actually practises it. The principle of the exist- ence of a definite relation between mind and body must be accepted as an illuminating axiom for psychological research, and it will be for religion and metaphysics to work out the details of a relationship which must be accepted as existing.

Whether or no the science of character can be linked with morphology, it will be valuable not only to these sciences but to physiognomy if we can penetrate a little deeper into the confusion that now reigns in order to find if wrong methods have not been responsible for it. I hope that the attempt I am about to make will lead some little way into the labyrinth, and will prove to be of general application.

SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM 6i

Some men are fond of dogs and detest cats ; others are devoted to cats and dislike dogs. Inquiring minds have delighted to ask in such cases, Why are cats attractive to one person, dogs to another ? Why ?

1 do not think that this is the most fruitful way of stating the problem. I believe it to be more important to ask in what other respects lovers of dogs and of cats differ from one another. The habit, where one difference has been detected, of seeking for the associated differences, will prove extremely useful not only to pure morphology and to the science of character,'(but ultimately to physiognomy, the meeting-point of the two science^ Aristotle pointed out long ago that many characteristics of animals do not vary independently of each other. Later on Cuvier, in par- ticular, but also Geoffrey St. Hilaire and Darwin made a special study of these " correlations." Occasionally the association of the characters is easy to understand on obvious utilitarian principles ; where for instance the ali- mentary canal is adapted to the digestion of flesh, the jaws and body must be adapted for the capture of the prey. But association such as that between ruminant stomachs and the presence of cloven hoofs and of horns in the male, or of immunity to certain poisons with particular colouring of the hair, or among domestic pigeons of short bills with small feet, of long bills with large feet, or in cats of deafness with white fur and blue eyes — such are extremely difficult to refer to a single purpose.

I do not in the least mean to assert that science must be content with no more than the mere discovery of correla- tions. Such a position would be little better than that of a person who was satisfied by finding out that the placing of a penny in the slot of a particular automatic machine always was followed by the release of a box of matches. It would be making resignation the leading principle of meta- physics. We shall get a good deal further by such correla- tions, as, for instance, that of long hair and normal ovaries ; but these are within the sphere of physiology, not of morphology. Probably the goal of an ideal morphology

62 SEX AND CHARACTER

could be reached best not by deductions from an attempted synthesis of observations on all the animals that creep on the land or swim in the sea (in the fashion of collectors of postage stamps), but by a complete study of a few organisms. Cuvier by a kind of guess-work used to re- construct an entire animal from a single bone : full knowledge would enable us to do this in a complete, definite, qualitative and quantitative fashion. When such a knowledge has been attained, each single character will at once define and limit for us the possibilities of the other characters. Such a true and logical extension of the prin- ciple of correlation in morphology is really an application of the theory of functions to the living world. It would not exclude the study of causation, but limit it to its proper sphere. No doubt the "causes" of the correlations of organisms must be sought for in the idioplasm.

The possibility of applying the principle of correlated variation to psychology depends on differential psychology, the study of psychological variation. I believe, moreover, that a combination of study of the anatomical "habit," and the mental characteristics will lead to a statical psycho- physics, a true science of physiognomy. The rule of investigation in all the three sciences will have to be that the question is posed as follows ; given that two organisms are known to differ in one respect, in what other respects are they different ? This will be the golden rule of dis- covery, and, following it, we shall no longer lose ourselves hopelessly in the dark maze that surrounds the answer to the question " Why ? " As soon as we are informed as to one difference, we must diligently seek out the others, and the mere putting of the question in this form will directly bring about many discoveries.

The conscious pursuit of this rule of investigation will be particularly valuable in dealing with problems of the mind. Mental actions are not co-existent in the sense of physical characters, and it has been only by accidental and fortunate chances, when the phenomena have presented themselves in rapid succession in an individual, that discoveries of

SCIENCE OF CHARACTER AND FORM 63

correlation in mental phenomena have been noticed. The correlated mental phenomena may be very different in kind, and it is only when we know what we are after and deliberately seek for them that we shall be able to transcend the special difficulties of the kind of material we are investi- gating, and so secure for psychology what is comparatively simple in anatomy.

CHAPTER VI

EMANCIPATED WOMEN

As an immediate application of the attempt to establish the principle of intermediate sexual forms by means of a differential psychology, we must now come to the question which it is the special object of this book to answer, theoretically and practically, I mean the woman question, theoretically so far as it is not a matter of ethnology and national economics, and practically in so far as it is not merely a matter of law and domestic economy, that is to say, of social science in the widest sense. The answer which this chapter is about to give must not be considered as final or as exhaustive. It is rather a necessary pre- liminary investigation, and does not go beyond deductions from the principles that I have established. It will deal with the exploration of individual cases and will not attempt to found on these any laws of general significance. The practical indications that it will give are not moral maxims that could or would guide the future ; they are no more than technical rules abstracted from past cases. The idea of male and female types will not be discussed here ; that is reserved for the second part of my book. This preliminary investigation will deal with only those charac- tero-logical conclusions from the principle of sexually intermediate forms that are of significance in the woman question.

The geneial direction of the investigation is easy to understand from what has already been stated. A woman's demand for emancipation and her qualification for it are in direct proportion to the amount of maleness in her. The

EMANCIPATED WOMEN 65

idea of emancipation, however, is many-sided, and its indefiniteness is increased by its association with many practical customs which have nothing to do with the theory of emancipation. By the term emancipation of a woman, I imply neither her mastery at home nor her subjection of her husband, I have not in mind the courage which enables her to go freely by night or by day unaccompanied in public places, or the disregard of social rules which prohibit bachelor women from receiving visits from men, or discussing or listening to discussions of sexual matters. I exclude from my view the desire for economic indepen- dence, the becoming fit for positions in technical schools, universities and conservatoires or teachers' institutes. And there may be many other similar movements associated with the word emancipation which I do not intend to deal with. /Emancipation, as I mean to discuss it, is not the wish for an outward equality with man, but what is of real importance in the woman question, the deep-seated craving to acquire man's character, to attain his mental and moral freedom, to reach his real interests and his creative power/ I maintain that the real female element has neither the desire nor the capacity for emancipation in this sense. All those who are striving for this real emancipation, all women who are truly famous and are of conspicuous mental ability, to the first glance of an expert reveal some of the ana- tomical characters of the male, some external bodily resem- blance to a man. Those so-called "women" who have been held up to admiration in the past and present, by the advocates of woman's rights, as examples of what women can do, have almost invariably been what I have described as sexually intermediate forms. The very first of the his- torical examples, Sappho herself, has been handed down to us as an example of the sexual invert, and from her name has been derived the accepted terms for perverted sexual relations between women. The contents of the second and third chapter thus at once become important with regard to the woman question. The characterological materia) at our disposal with regard to celebrated and emancipated

66 SEX AND CHARACTER

women is too vague to serve as the foundation of any satis^ factory theory. What is wanted is some principle which would enable us to determine at what point between male and female such individuals were placed. My law of sexual affinity is such a principle. Its application to the facts of homo-sexuality showed that the woman who attracts and is attracted by other women is herself half male. Interpreting the historical evidence at our disposal in the light of this principle, we find that the degree of emancipation and the proportion of maleness in the composition of a woman are practically identical. Sappho was only the forerunner of a long line of famous women who were either homo-sexually or bisexually inclined. Classical scholars have defended Sappho warmly against the implication that there was anything more than mere friendship in her relations with her own sex, as if the accusation were necessarily degrading. In the second part of my book, however, I shall show reasons in favour of the possibility that homo-sexuality is a higher form than hetero-sexuality. For the present, it is enough to say that homo-sexuality in a woman is the out- come of her masculinity and presupposes a higher degree of development. Catherine II. of Russia, and Queen Christina of Sweden, the highly gifted although deaf, dumb and blind, Laura Bridgman, George Sand, and a very large number of highly gifted women and girls concerning whom 1 myself have been able to collect information, were partly bisexual, partly homo-sexual.

I shall now turn to other indications in the case of the large number of emancipated women regarding whom there is no evidence as to homo-sexuality, and I shall show that my attribution of maleness is no caprice, no egotistical wish of a man to associate all the higher manifestations of intelli- gence with the male sex. Just as homo-sexual or bisexual women reveal their maleness by their preference either for women or for womanish men, so hetero-sexual women dis- play maleness in their choice of a male partner who is not preponderatingly male. The most famous of George Sand's many affairs were those with de Musset, the most effeminat«

EMANCIPATED WOMEN e-j

and sentimental poet, and with Chopin, who might be described almost as the only female musician, so effeminate are his compositions.* Vittoria Colonna is less known because of her own poetic compositions than because of the infatuation for her shown by Michael Angelo, whose earlier friendships had been with youths. The authoress, Daniel Stern, was the mistress of Franz Liszt, whose life and compositions were extremely effeminate, and who had a dubious friendship with Wagner, the interpretation of which was made plain by his later devotion to King Ludwig IL of Bavaria. Madame de Staal, whose work on Germany is probably the greatest book ever produced by a woman, is supposed to have been intimate with August Wilhelm Schlegel, who was a homo-sexualist, and who had been tutor to her children. At certain periods of his life, the face of the husband of Clara Schumann might have been taken as that of a woman, and a good deal of his music, although certainly not all, was effeminate.

When there is no evidence as to the sexual relations of famous women, we can still obtain important conclusions from the details of their personal appearance. Such data support my general proposition.

George Eliot had a broad, massive forehead ; her move- ments, like her expression, were quick and decided, and lacked all womanly grace. The face of Lavinia Fontana was intellectual and decided, very rarely charming ; whilst that of Rachel Ruysch was almost wholly masculine. The biography of that original poetess, Annette von Droste- Hülshoff, speaks of her wiry, unwomanly frame, and of her face as being masculine, and recalling that of Dante. The authoress and mathematician, Sonia Kowalevska, like Sappho, had an abnormally scanty growth of hair, still less than is the fashion amongst the poetesses and female

* Chopin's portraits shovp his effeminacy plainly. erimee

describes George Sand as being as thin as a nail. At the first meeting of the two, the lady behaved like a man, and the man like a girl. He blushed when she looked at him and began to pay him compliments in her bass voice.

68 SEX AND CHARACTER

students of the present day. It would be a serious omission to forget Rosa Bonheur, the very distinguished painter ; and it would be difficult to point to a single female trait in her appearance or character. The notorious Madame Blavatsky is extremely masculine in her appearance.

I might refer to many other emancipated women at present well known to the public, consideration of whom has provided me with much material for the support of my proposition that the true female element, the abstract "woman," has nothing to do with emancipation. There is some historical justification for the saying "the longer the hair the smaller the brain," but the reservations made in chap. ii. must be taken into account.

(jt is only the male element in emancipated women that craves for emancipation^

There is, then, a stronger reason than has generally been supposed for the familiar assumption of male pseudonyms by women writers. Their choice is a mode of giving ex- pression to the inherent maleness they feel ; and this is still more marked in the case of those who, like George Sand, have a preference for male attire and masculine pur- suits. The motive for choosing a man's name springs from the feeling that it corresponds with their own character much more than from any desire for increased notice from the public. As a matter of fact, up to the present, partly owing to interest in the sex question, women's writings have aroused more interest, ceteris paribus, than those of men ; and, owing to the issues involved, have always received a fuller consideration and, if there were any justification, a greater meed of praise than has been accorded to a man's work of equal merit. At the present time especially many women have attained celebrity by work which, if it had been produced by a man, would have passed almost un- noticed. Let us pause and examine this more closely.

If we attempt to apply a standard taken from the names of men who are of acknowledged value in philosophy, science, literature and art, to the long list of women who have achieved some kind of fame, there will at once be a miserable

EMANCIPATED WOMEN 69

collapse. Judged in this way, it is difficult to grant any real degree of merit to women like Angelica Kaufmann or Madame Lebrun, Fernan Caballero or Hroswitha von Gapküersheim, Mary Somerville or George Egerton, Eliza- beth Barrett Browning or Sophie Germain, Anna Maria Schurmann or Sybilla Merian. I will not speak of names (such as that of Droste-Hülshoff) formerly so over-rated in the annals of feminism, nor will I refer to the measure of fame claimed for or by living women. It is enough to make the general statement that there is not a single woman in the history of thought, not even the most manlike, who can be truthfully compared with men of fifth or sixth-rate genius, for instance with Riickert as a poet. Van Dyck as a painter, or Scheirmacher as a philosopher. If we eliminate hysterical visionaries,* such as the Sybils, the Priestesses of Delphi, Bourignon, Kettenberg, Jeanna de la Mothe Guyon, Joanna Southcote, Beate Sturmin, St. Teresa, there still remain cases like that of Marie Bashkirtseff. So far as I can remember from her portrait, she at least seemed to be qui^e womanly in face and figure, although her forehead was rather masculine. But to any one who studies her pictures in the Salle des Etrangers in the Luxemburg Gallery in Paris, and compares them with those of her adored master, Bastien Lepage, it is plain that she simply had assimilated the style of the latter, as in Goethe's " Elec- tive Affinities " Ottilie acquired the handwriting of Eduard. There remain the interesting and not infrequent cases where the talent of a clever family seems to reach its maxi- mum in a female member of the family. But it is only talent that is transmitted in this way, not genius. Mar- garethe van Eyck and Sabina von Steinbach form the best illustrations of the kind of artists who, according to Ernst Guhl, in author with a great admiration for women- workers, " have been undoubtedly influenced in their choice of an

* Hysteria is the principal cause of much of the intellectual activity of many of the women above mentioned. But the usual view, that these cases are pathological, is too limited an interpreta- tion, us I shall show in the second part of this work.

70 SEX AND CHARACTER

artistic calling by their fathers, mothers, or brothers. In other words, they found their incentive in their own families. There are two or three hundred of such cases on record, and probably many hundreds more could be added without exhausting the numbers of similar instances." In order to give due weight to these statistics it may be mentioned that Guhl had just been speaking of " roughly, a thousand names of women artists known to us."

This concludes my historical review of the emancipated women. It has justified the assertion that real desire for emancipation and real fitness for it are the outcome of a woman's maleness.

"NThe vast majority of women have never paid special attention to art or to science, and regard such occupations merely as higher branches of manual labour, or if they pro- fess a certain devotion to such subjects, it is chiefly as a mode of attracting a particular person or group of persons of the opposite sex.) Apart from these, a close investigation shows that women really interested in intellectual matters are sexually intermediate forms.

If it be the case that the desire for freedom and equality with man occurs only in masculine women, the inductive conclusion follows that the female principle is not conscious of a necessity for emancipation ; and the argument becomes stronger if we remember that it is based on an examination of the accounts of individual cases and not on psychical investigation of an " abstract woman."

If we now look at the question of emancipation from the point of view of hygiene (not morality) there is no doubt as to the harm in it. The undesirability of emancipation lies in the excitement and agitation involved. It induces women who have no real original capacity but undoubted imitative powers to attempt to study or write, from various motives, such as vanity or the desire to attract admirers. Whilst it cannot be denied that there are a good many women with a real craving for emancipation and for higher education, these set the fashion and are followed by a host of others who get up a ridiculous agitation to convince themselves of

EMANCIPATED WOMEN 71

the reality of their views. And many otherwise estimable and worthy wives use the cry to assert themselves against their husbands, whilst daughters take it as a method of rebelling against maternal authority. The practical outcome of the whole matter would be as follows ; it being remem- bered that the issues are too mutable for the establishment of uniform rules or laws. Let there be the freest scope given to, and the fewest hindrances put in the way of all women with masculine dispositions who feel a psychical necessity to devote themselves to masculine occupations and are physically fit to undertake them. But the idea of mak- ing an emancipation party, of aiming at a social revolution, must be abandoned. Away with the whole ** woman's movement," with its unnaturalness and artificiality and its fundamental errors.

It is most important to have done with the senseless cry for " full equality," for even the malest woman is scarcely more than 50 per cent, male, and it is only to that male part of her that she owes her special capacity or whatever importance she may eventually gam. It is absurd to make comparisons between the few really intellectual women and one's average experience of men, and to deduce, as has been done, even the superiority of the female sex. As Darwin pointed out, the proper comparison is between the most highly developed individuals of two stocks. " If two lists," Darwin wrote in the " Descent of Man," " were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music — comprising composition and performance, history, science, and philosophy, with half a dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison." Moreover, if these lists were carefully examined it would be seen that the women's list would prove the soundness of my theory of the maleness of their genius, and the comparison would be still less pleasing to the champions of woman's rights»

It is frequently urged that it is necessary to create a public feeling in favour of the full and unchecked mental development of women. Such an argument overlooks

72 SEX AND CHARACTER

the fact that " emancipation," the " woman question," " women's rights movements," are no new things in history, but have always been with us, although with varying prominence at different times in history. It also largely exaggerates the difficulties men place in the way of the mental development of women, especially at the present time.* Furthermore it neglects the fact that at the present time it is not the true woman who clamours for eman- cipation, but only the masculine type of woman, who misconstrues her own character and the motives that actuate her when she formulates her demands in the name of woman.

<s^s has been the case with every other movement in history, so also it has been with the contemporary woman's movement. Its origmators were convmced that it was being put forward for the first time, and that such a thing had never been thought of before. They maintained that women had hitherto been held in bondage and enveloped in dark- ness by man, and that it was high time for her to assert her- self and claim her natural rights./

But the prototype of this movement, as of other move- ments, occurred in the earliest times. Ancient history and mediaeval times alike give us instances of women who, in social relations and intellectual matters, fought for such emancipation, and of male and female apologists of the female sex. It is totally erroneous to suggest that hitherto women have had no opportunity for the undisturbed development of their mental powers.

Jacob Burckhardt, speaking of the Renaissance, says : " The greatest possible praise which could be given to the Italian women-celebrities of the time was to say that they were like men in brains and disposition ! " The virile deeds of women recorded in the epics, especially those of Boiardo and Ariosto, show the ideal of the time. To call

* There have been many celebrities amongst men who received practically no education — for instance, Robert Burns and Wolfram von Eschenbach ; but there are no similar cases amongst women to compare with them-

EMANCIPATED WOMEN 73

>a woman a "virago " nowadays would be a doubtful com- ipliment, but it originally meant an honour.

Women were first allowed on the stage in the sixteenth century, and actresses date from that time. " At that period it was admitted that women were just as capable as men of embodying the highest possible artistic ideals." It was the period when panegyrics on the female sex were rife ; Sir Thomas More claimed for it full equality with the male sex, and Agrippa von Nettesheim goes so far as to represent women as superior to men ! And yet this was all lost for the fair sex, and the whole question sank into the oblivion from which the nineteenth century recalled it.

Is it not very remarkable that the agitation for the eman- cipation of women seems to repeat itself at certain intervals in the world's history, and lasts for a definite period ?

yt has been noticed that in the tenth, fifteenth, and six- teenth, and now again in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the agitation for the emancipation of women has been more marked, and the woman's movement more vigorous than in the intervening periods. It would be premature to found a hypothesis on the data at our dis- posal, but the possibility of a vastly important periodicity must be borne in mind, of regularly recurring periods in which it may be that there is an excess of production of hermaphrodite and sexually intermediate forms. Such a state of affairs is not unknown in the animal kingdom.

According to my interpretation, such a period would be one of minimum " gonochorism," cleavage of the sexes ; and it would be marked, on the one hand, by an increased production of male women, and on the other, by a similar increase in female men. There is strong evidence in favour of such a periodicity ; if it occurs it may be associated with the "secessionist taste," which idealised tall, lanky women with fiat chests and narrow hips.^ The enormous recent increase in a kind of dandified homo-sexuality may be due to the increasing effeminacy of the age, and the peculiarities of the Pre-Raphaelite movement may have a similar explanation.

74 SEX AND CHARACTER

The existence of such periods in organic Hfe, comparable with stages in individual life, but extending over several generations, would, if proved, throw much light on many obscure points in human history, concerning which the so-called " historical solutions," and especially the economic- materialistic views now in vogue have proved so futile. The history of the world from the biological standpoint has still to be written ; it lies in the future. Here 1 can do little more than indicate the direction which future work should take.

Were it proved that at certain periods fewer herma- phrodite beings were produced, and at certain other periods more, it would appear that the rising and falling, the periodic occurrence and disappearance of the woman movement in an unfailing rhythm of ebb and flow, was one of the ex- pressions of the preponderance of masculine and feminine women with the concomitant greater or lesser desire for emancipation.

Obviously I do not take into account in relation to the woman question the large number of womanly women, the wives of the prolific artisan class whom economic pressure forces to factory or field labour. The connection between industrial progress and the woman question is much less close than is usually realised, especially by the Social Democratic Group. The relation between the mental energy required for intellectual and for industrial pursuits is even less. .^France, for instance, although it can boast three of the most famous women, has never had a successful woman's movement, and yet in no other European country are there so many really businesslike, capable womei'^^ The struggle for the material necessities of life has nothing to do with the struggle for intellectual development, and a sharp distinction mast be made between the two.

The pro-pects of the movement for intellectual advance on the part of women are not very promising ; but still less promising is another view, sometimes discussed in the same connection, the view that^he human race is moving towards a complete sexual differentiation, a definite sexual dimorphism.N

EMANCIPATED WOMEN 75

The latter view seems to me fundamentally untenable, because in the higher groups of the animal kingdom there is no evidence for the increase of sexual dimorphism. Worms and rotifers, many birds and the mandrills amongst the apes, have more advanced sexual dimorphism than man. On the view that such an increased sexual dimorphism were to be expected, the necessity for emancipation would gradually disappear as mankind became separated into the completely male and the completely female. On the other hand, the view that there will be periodical resurrections of the woman's movement would reduce the whole affair to ridiculous impotence, making it only an ephemeral phase in the history of mankind.

A complete obliteration will be the fate of any emancipa- tion movement which attempts to place the whole sex in a new relation to society, and to see in man its perpetual oppressor. A corps of Amazons might be formed, but as time went on the material for the corps would cease to occur. The history of the woman movement during the Renaissance and its complete disappearance contains a lesson for the advocates of women's rights. Real intellectual freedom cannot be attained by an agitated mass ; it must be fought for by the individual. Who is the enemy ? What are the retarding influences ?

The greatest, the one enemy of the emancipation of women is woman herself. It is left to the second part of my work to prove this.

SECOND OR PRINCIPAL PART THE SEXUAL TYPES

CHAPTER I

MAN AND WOMAN

" All that a man does is physiognomical of him."

Carlyle,

A FREE field for the investigation of the actual contrasts between the sexes is gained when we recognise that male and female, man and woman, must be considered only as types, and that the existing individuals, upon whose quali- ties there has been so much controversy, are mixtures of the types in different proportions. {Sexually intermediate forms, which are the only actually existing individualsy^were dealt with in a more or less schematic fashion in the first part of this book. Consideration of the general biological applica- tion of my theory was entered upon there ; but now I have to make mankind the special subject of my investigation, and to show the defects of the results gained by the method of introspective analysis, as these results must be qualified by the universal existence of sexually intermediate condi- tions. In plants and animals the presence of hermaphro- ditism is an undisputed fact ; but in them it appears more to be the juxtaposition of the male and female genital glands in the same individual than an actual fusion of the two sexes, more the co-existence of the two extremes than a quite neutral condition. In the case of human beings, however, it appears to be psychologically true that an indi- vidual, at least at one and the same moment, is always either man or woman. This is in harmony with the fact that each individual, whether superficially regarded as male or female, at once can recognise his sexual complement in.

8o SEX AND CHARACTER

another individual "woman" or " man."* This uni-sexuaHty is demonstrated by the fact, the theoretical value of which can hardly be over-estimated, that, in the relations of two homo-sexual men one always plays the physical and psy- chical roll of the man, and in cases of prolonged inter- course retains his male first-name, or takes one, whilst the other, who plays the part of the woman, either assumes a woman's name or calls himself by it, or — and this is suffi- ciently characteristic — receives it from the former.

In the same way, in the sexual relations of two women, one always plays the male and the other the female part, a fact of deepest significance. Here we encounter, in a most unexpected fashion, the fundamental relationship between the male and female elements. In spite of all sexually intermediate conditions, human beings are always one of two things, either male or female. There is a deep truth underlying the old empirical sexual duality, and this must not be neglected, even although in concrete cases there is not a necessary harmony in the anatomical and morphological conditions. To realise this is to make a great step forward and to advance towards most important results. In this way we reach a conception of a real " being." The task of the rest of this book is to set forth the significance of this " existence." As, however, this existence is bound up with the most difficult side of characterology, it will be well, before setting out on our adventurous task, to attempt some preliminary orientation.

The obstacles in the way of characterological investiga- tion are very great, if only on account of the complexity of the material. Often and often it happens that when the path through the jungle appears to have been cleared, it is lost again in impenetrable thickets, and it seems impossible

* I once heard a bi-sexual man exclaim, when he saw a bi-sexual actress with a slight tendency to a beard, a deep sonorous voice, and very little hair on her head, " There is a fine woman." " Woman " means something different for every man or for every poet, and yet it is always the same, the sexual complement of their own constitution.

MAN AND WOMAN 8i

to recover it. But the greatest difficulty is that when the systematic method of setting out the complex material has been proceeded with and seems about to lead to good results, then at once objections of the most serious kind arise and almost forbid the attempt to make types. With regard to the differences between the sexes, for instance, the most useful theory that has been put forward is the existence of a kind of polarity, two extremes separated by a multitude of intermediate conditions. The characterolo- gical differences appear to follow this rule in a fashion not dissimilar to the suggestion of the Pythagorean, Alcmaeon of Kroton, and recalling the recent chemical resurrection of Schelling's " Natur-philosophie."

But even if we are able to determine the exact point occupied by an individual on the line between two ex- tremes, and multiply this determination by discovering it for a great many characters, would this complex system of co-ordmate lines really give us a conception of the indivi- dual ? Would it not be a relapse to the dogmatic scepticism of Mach and Hume, were we to expect that an analysis could be a full description of the human individual ? And in a fashion it would be a sort of Weismannistic doc- trine of particulate determinants, a mosaic psychology.

/rhis brings us in a new way directly against the old, over- ripe problem. Is there in a man a single and simple exist- ence, and, if so, in what relation does that stand to the ^' complex psychical phenomena ? Has man, indeed, a soul ? It is easy to understand why there has never been a science of character. The object of such a science, the character itself, is problematical. The problem of all metaphysics and theories of knowledge, the fundamental problem of psychology, is also the problem of characterology. At the least, characterology will have to take into account the the'^ry of knowledge itself with regard to its postulates, claims, and objects, and will have to attempt to obtain infor- mation as to all the differences in the nature of men./

This unlimited science of character will be something more than the " psychology of individual differences," the

F

82 SEX AND CHARACTER

renewed insistence upon which as a goal of science we owe to L. William Stern ; it will be more than a sort of polity of the motor and sensory reactions of the individual, and in so far will not sink so low as the usual " results " of the modern experimental psychologists, which, indeed, are little more than statistics of physical experiments. It will hope to retain some kind of contact with the actuahties of the soul which the modern school of psychology seems to have forgotten, and will not have to fear that it will have to offer to ardent students of psychology no more than profound studies of words of one syllable, or of the results on the mind of small doses of caffein. It is a lamentable testimony to the insufficiency of modern psychology that distinguished men of science, who have not been content with the study of perception and association, have yet had to hand over to poetry the explanation of such fundamental facts as heroism and self-sacrifice. {No science will become shallow so quickly as psychology if it deserts philosophy. Its separation from philosophy is the true cause of its impotency. Psychology will have to discover that the doctrine of sensations is practically useless to it. The empirical psychologists of to-day, in their search for the development of character, begin with investigation of touch and the common sensations. But the analysis of sensations is simply a part of the physiology of sense, and any attempt to bring it into relation with the real problems of psychology must fail!\

It is a misfortune of the scientific psychology of the day that it has been influenced so deeply by two physicists, Fechner and von Helmholtz, with the result that it has failed to recognise that only the external and not the internal world can be reconstructed from sensations. The two most intelligent of the empirical psychologists of recent times, William James and R. Avenarius, have felt almost instinctively that psychology cannot really rest upon sensa- tions of the skin and muscles, although, indeed, all modern psychology does depend upon study of sensations. Dilthey did not lay enough stress on his argument that existing

MAN AND WOMAN 83

psychology does nothing towards problems that are eminently psychological, such as murder, friendship, lone- liness, and so forth. If anything is to be gained in the future there must be a demand for a really psychological psychology, and its first battle-cry must be : " Away with the study of sensations."

In attempting the broad and deep characterology that I have indicated, I must set out with a conception of character itself as a unit existence. As in the fifth chapter of Part I., I tried to show that behind the fleeting physiological changes there is a permanent morphological form, so in charac- terology we must seek the permanent, existing something through the fleeting changes.

\The character, however, is not something seated behind the thoughts and feelings of the individual, but something revealing itself in every thought and feeling. " All that a man does is physiognomical of him." Just as every cell bears within it the characters of the whole individual, so every psychical manifestation of a man involves not merely a few little characteristic traits, but his whole being, of which at one moment one quality, at another moment another quality, comes into prominence.^

Just as no sensation is ever isolated, but is set in a com- plete field of sensation, the world of the Ego, of which now one part and now the other, stands out more plainly, so the whole man is manifest in every moment of the psychical life, although, now one side, now the other, is more visible. This existence, manifest in every moment of the psychical life, is the object of characterology. By accepting this, there will be completed for the first time a real psychology, existing psychology, in manifest contradiction of the mean- ing of the word, having concerned itself almost entirely with the motley world, the changing field of sensations, and over- looked the ruling force of the Ego. The new psychology would be a doctrine of the whole, and would become fresh and fertile inasmuch as it would combine the complexity of the subject and of the object, two spheres which can be separated only in abstraction. Many disputed points of

84 SEX AND CHARACTER

psychology (perhaps the most important) would be settled by an application of such characterology, as that would explain why so many different views have been held on the same subject. The same psychical process appears from time to time in different aspects, merely because it takes tone and colouring from the individual character. And so it well may be that the doctrine of differential psychology may receive its completion in the domain -of general psychology. vThe confusion of characterology with the doctrine of the soul has been a great misfortune, but because this has occurred in actual history, is no reason why it should con- tinue. The absolute sceptic differs only in a word from the absolute dogmatist. The man who dogmatically accepts the position of absolute phenomenalism, believing it to relieve him of all the burden of proof that the mere entering on another standpoint would itself entail, will be ready to dismiss without proof the existence which characterology posits, and which has nothing to do with a metaphysical " essence."/

Characterology has to defend itself against two great enemies. The one assumes that character is something ultimate, and as little the subject-matter of science as is the art of a painter. The other looks on the sensations as the only realities, on sensation as the ground-work of the world of the Ego, and denies the existence of cha- racter. What is left for characterology, the science of character ? On the one hand, there are those who cry, " Deindividuo nulla scientia," and " Individuum est ineffa- bile " ; on the other hand, there are those sworn to science, who maintain that science has nothing to do with character.

In such a cross-fire, characterology has to take its place, and it may well be feared that it may share the fate of its sisters and remain a trivial subject like physiognomy or a diviner's art like graphology.

CHAPTER II

MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY

" Woman does not betray her secret."

Kant.

" From a woman you can learn nothing of women."

Nietzsche.

(i

Py psychology, as a whole, we generally understand the psychology of the psychologists, and these are exclusively men ! Never since human history began have we heard of a female psychology !,) None the less the psychology of woman constitutes a chapter as important with regard to general psychology as that of the child. And inasmuch as the psychology of man has always been written with un- conscious but definite reference to man, general psychology has become simply the psychology of men, and the problem of the psychology of the sexes will be raised as soon as the existence of a separate psychology of women has been realised. Kant said that in anthropology the peculiarities of the female were more a study for the philosopher than those of the male, and it may be that the psychology of the sexes will disappear in a psychology of the female.

None the less the psychology of women will have to be written by men. It is easy to suggest that such an attempt is foredoomed to failure, inasmuch as the conclusions must be drawn from an alien sex and cannot be verified by intro- spection. Granted the possibility that woman could describe herself with sufficient exactness, it by no means follows that she would be interested in the sides of her

86 SEX AND CHARACTER

character that would interest us. Moreover, even if she could and would explore herself fully, it is doubtful if she could bring herself to talk about herself. I shall show that | these three improbabilities spring from the same source j in the nature of woman.

This investigation, therefore, lays itself open to the charge that no one who is not female can be in a posi- tion to make accurate statements about women. In the meantime the objection must stand, although, later, I shall have more to say of it. I will say only this much — up to now, and is this only a consequence of man's suppression ? — we have no account from a pregnant woman of her sensa- tions and feelings, neither in poetry nor in memoirs, nor even in a gynaecological treatise. This cannot be on account of excessive modesty, for, as Schopenhauer rightly pointed out, there is nothing so far removed from a pregnant woman as shame as to her condition. Besides, there would still remain to them the possibility of, after the birth, con- fessing from memory the psychical life during the time ; if a sense of shame had prevented them from such communi- cation during the time, it would be gone afterwards, and the varied interests of such a disclosure ought to have induced some one to break silence. But this has not been done. Just as we have always been indebted to men for really trustworthy expositions of the psychical side of women, so also it is to men that we owe descriptions of the sensations of pregnant women. What is the meaning of this ?

Although in recent times we have had revelations of the psychical life of half-women and three-quarter women, it is practically only about the male side of them that they have written. We have really only one clue ; we have to rely upon the female element in men. The principle of sexually intermediate forms is the authority for what we know about women through men. I shall define and complete the application of this principle later on. In its indefinite form, the principle would seem to imply that the most womanish man would be best able to describe woman, and that the

MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY 87

description might be completed by the real woman. This, however, is extremely doubtful. I must point out that a man can have a considerable proportion of female- ness in him without necessarily, to the same extent, being able to portray intermediate forms. It is the more remark- able that the male can give a faithful account of the nature of the female ; since, indeed, it must be admitted from the extreme maleness of successful portrayers of women that we cannot dispute the existence of this capacity in the abstract male ; this power of the male over the female is a most remarkable problem, and we shall have to consider it later. For the present we must take it as a fact, and pro- ceed to inquire in what lies the actual psychological difference between male and female.

It has been sought to attribute the fundamental difference of the sexes to the existence of a stronger sexual impulse in man, and to derive everything else from that. Apart from the question as to whether the phrase "sexual instinct" denotes a simple and real thing, it is to be doubted if there is proof of such a difference. It is not more probable than the ancient theories as to the influence of the "unsatistied womb" in the female, or of the " semen retentum " in men, and we have to be on guard against the current tendency to refer nearly everything to sublimated sexual instinct. No sys- tematic theory could be founded on a generalisation so vague. It is most improbable that the greater or lesser strength of the sexual impulse determines other qualities.

O^s a matter of fact, the statements that men have stronger sexual impulses than women, or that women have them stronger than men, are false. The strength of the sexual impulse in a man does not depend upon the proportion of masculinity in his composition, and in the same way the degree of femininity of a woman does not determine her sexual impulse*' These differences in mankind still await classification.

Contrary to the general opinion, there is no difference in the total sexual impulses of the sexes. However, if we examine the matter in respect to the two component forces

88 SEX AND CHARACTER

into which Albert Moll analysed the impulse, we shall find that a difference does exist. These forces may be termed the " liberating " and the " uniting " impulses. The first appears in the form of the discomfort caused by the accu- mulation of ripe sexual cells ; the second is the desire of the ripe individual for sexual completion. Both impulses are possessed by the male ; in the female only the latter is present. The anatomy and the physiological processes of the sexes bear out the distinction.

In this connection it may be noted that only the most male youths are addicted to masturbation, and although it is often disputed, I believe that similar vices occur only among the maler of women, and are absent from the female nature.

I must now discuss the "uniting" impulse of women, for that plays the chief, if not the sole part in her sexuality. But it must not be supposed that this is greater in one sex than the other. Any such idea comes from a confusion between the desire for a thing and the stimulus towards the active part in securing what is desired. Throughout the animal and plant kingdoms, the male reproductive cells are the motile, active agents, which move through space to seek out the passive female cells, and this physiological difference is sometimes confused with the actual wish for, or stimulus to, sexual union. And to add to the confusion, it happens, in the animal kingdom particularly, that the male, in addition to the directly sexual stimulus, has the instinct to pursue and bodily capture the female, whilst the latter has only the passive part to be taken possession of. These differences of habit must not be mistaken for real differences of desire.

It can be shown, moreover, that woman is sexually much more excitable (not more sensitive) physiologically than man.

/The condition of sexual excitement is the supreme moment of a woman's life.; The woman is devoted wholly to sexual matters, that is to say, to the spheres of begetting and of reproduction. Her relations to her husband and children complete her life, whereas the male is something more than

MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY 89

sexual. In this respect, rather than in the relative strength of the sexual impulses, there is a real difference between the sexes.y It is important to distinguish between the intensity with which sexual matters are pursued and the proportion of the total activities of life that are devoted to them and to their accessory cares. The greater absorption of the human female by the sphere of sexual activities is the most signifi- cant difference between the sexes.

The female, moreover, is completely occupied and content with sexual matters, whilst the male is interested in much else, in war and sport, in social affairs and feasting, in philo- sophy and science, in business and politics, in religion and art. I do not mean to imply that this difference has always existed, as I do not think that important. As in the case of the Jewish question, it may be said that the Jews have their present character because it has been forced upon them, and that at one time they were different. It is now impossible to prove this, and we may leave it to those who believe in the modification by the environment to accept it. The his- torical evidence is equivocal on the point. In the question of women, we have to take people as they exist to-day. If, however, we happen to come on attributes that could not possibly have been grafted on them from without, we may believe that such have always been with them. Of contem- porary women at least one thing is certain. Apart from an exception to be noted in chap. xii.,(it is certain that when the female occupies herself with matters outside the interests of sex, it is for the man that she loves or by whom she wishes to be loved^ She takes no real interest in the things for themselves. It may happen that a real female learns Latin ; if so, it is for some such purpose as to help her son who is at school. Desire for a subject and ability for it, interest in it, and the facility for acquiring it, are usually proportional. He who has slight muscles has no desire to wield an axe ; those without the faculty for mathematics do not desire to study that subject. Talent seems to be rare and feeble in the real female (although possibly it is merely that the dominant sexuality prevents its development), with

90 SEX AND CHARACTER

the result that woman has no power of forming the com- binations which, although they do not actually make the individuality, certainly shape it.

Corresponding to true women, there are extremely female men who are to be found always in the apartments of the women, and who are interested in nothing but love and sexual matters. Such men, however, are not the Don Juans. (The female principle is, then, nothing more than sexuality ; the male principle is sexual and something more.') This difference is notable in the different way in which men and women enter the period of puberty. In the case of the male the onset of puberty is a crisis; he feels that something new and strange has come into his being, that something has been added to his powers and feelmgs independently of his will. The physiological stimulus to sexual activity appears to come from outside his being, to be independent of his will, and many men remember the disturbing event throughout their after lives. The woman, on the other hand, not only is not disturbed by the onset of puberty, but feels that her importance has been increased by it. The male, as a youth, has no longing for the onset of sexual maturity ; the female, from the time when she is still quite a young girl, looks forward to that time as one from which everything is to be expected. Man's arrival at maturity is frequently accom- panied by feelings of repulsion and disgust ; the young female watches the development of her body at the approach of puberty with excitement and impatient delight. It seems as if the onset of puberty were a side path in the normal development of man, whereas in the case of woman it is the direct conclusion. There are few boys approaching puberty to whom the idea that they would marry (in the general sense, not a particular girl) would not appear ridiculous, whilst the smallest girl is almost invariably excited and interested in the question of her future marriage. For such reasons a woman assigns positive value only to her period of maturity in her own case and in that of other women ; in childhood, as in old age, she has no real relation to the world. \The thought of her childhood is for her, later on,

MALE AND FEMALE SEXUALITY 91

only the remembrance of her stupidity ; she faces the /approach of old age with dislike and abhorrence^ The only real memories of her childhood are connected with sex, and these fade away in the intensely greater significance of her maturity. The passage of a woman from virginity is the great dividing point of her life, whilst the corresponding event in the case of a male has very little relation to the course of his life./

Woman is only sexual, man is partly sexual, and this difference reveals itself in various ways. The parts of the male body by stimulation of which sexuality is excited are limited in area, and are strongly localised, whilst in the case of the woman, they are diffused over her whole body, so that stimulation may take place almost from any part. When in the second chapter of Part I., I explained that sexuality is distributed over the whole body in both sexes, I did not mean that, therefore, the sense organs, through which the definite impulses are stimulated, were equally distributed. There are, certainly, areas of greater excitability, even in the case of the woman, but there is not, as in the man, a sharp division between the sexual areas and the body generally.

'The morphological isolation of the sexual area from the rest of the body in the case of man, may be taken as sym- bolical of the relation of sex to his whole nature./ Just as there is a contrast between the sexual and the sexless parts of a man's body, so there is a time-change in his sexuality. &he female is always sexual, the male is sexual only inter- mittently. The sexual instinct is always active in woman (as to the apparent exceptions to this sexuality of women, I shall have to speak later on), whilst in man it is at rest from time to time. And thus it happens that the sexual impulse of the male is eruptive in character and so appears stronger. The real difference between the sexes is that in the male the desire is periodical, in the female continuous/

This exclusive and persisting sexuality of the female has important physical and psychical consequences. As the sexuality of the male is an adjunct to his life, it is possible for him to keep it in the physiological background, and out

92 SEX AND CHARACTER

of his consciousness. And so a man can lay aside his sexuality and not have to reckon with it. A woman has not her sexuality limited to periods of time, nor to localised organs. (And so it happens that a man can know about his sexuality, whilst a woman is unconscious of it and can in all good faith deny it, because she is nothing but sexuality, because she is sexuality itself.) vjt is impossible for women, because they are only sexual to recognise their sexuality, because recognition of anything requires duality. With man it is not only that he is not merely sexual, but anatomically and physiologically he can " detach " himself from it. That is why he has the power to enter into whatever sexual relations he desires ; if he likes he can limit or increase such relations ; he can refuse or assent to them. He can play the part of a Don Juan or a monk. He can assume which he will. To put it bluntly, man possesses sexual organs ; her sexual organs possess woman./

We i^ay, therefore, deduce from the previous arguments that man has the power of consciousness of his sexuality and so can act against it, whilst the woman appears to be without this power. This implies, moreover, that there is greater differentiation in man, as in him the sexual and the unsexual parts of his nature are sharply separated. The possibility or impossibility of being aware of a particular definite object is, however, hardly a part of the customary meaning of the word consciousness, which is generally used as implying that if a being is conscious he can be conscious of any object. This brings me to consider the nature of the female consciousness, and I must take a long detour to consider it.

CHAPTER III

MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS

Before proceeding to consider the main difference between the psychical hfe of the sexes, so far as the latter takes subjective and objective things as its contents, a few psy- chological soundings must be taken, and conceptions formulated. As the views and principles of prevailing systems of psychology have been formed without con- sideration of the subject of this book, it is not surprising that they contain little that I am able to use. (At present there is no psychology but many psychologists^ and it would really be a matter of caprice on my part to choose any particular school and attempt to apply its principles to my subject. I shall rather try to lay down a few useful principles on my own account.

The endeavours to reach a comprehensive and unifying conception of the whole psychical process by referring it to a single principle have been particularly evident in the relations between perceptions and sensations suggested by different psychologists. Herbart, for instance, derived the sensations from elementary ideas, whilst Horwicz supposed them to come from perceptions. Most modern psychologists have insisted that such monistic attempts must be fruitless. None the less there was some truth in the view.

/To discover this truth, however, it is necessary to make a distinction that has been overlooked by modern workers. We must distinguish between the perceiving of a percep- tion, feeling of a sensation, thinking a thought from the later repetitions of the process in which recognition plays a

94 SEX AND CHARACTER

part. In many cases this distinction is of fundamental importance.

Every simple, clear, plastic perception and every distinct idea, before it could be put into words, passes through a stage (which may indeed be very short) of indistinctness. So also in the case of association ; for a longer or shorter time before the elements about to be grouped have actually come together, there is a sort of vague, generalised expecta- tion or presentiment of association^ Leibnitz, in particular, has worked at kindred processes, and I believe them to underlie the attempts of Herbart and Horwicz.

The common acceptance of pleasure and pain as the fundamental sensations, even with Wundt's addition of the sensations of tension and relaxation, of rest and stimulation, makes the division of psychical phenomena into sensations and perceptions too narrow for due treatment of the vague preliminary stages to which I have referred. I shall go back therefore to the widest classification of psychical phenomena that I know of, that of Avenarius into " elements " and " characters." The word " character " in this connection, of course, has nothing to do with the subject of charac- terology.

Avenarius added to the difficulty of applying his theories by his use of a practically new terminology (which is cer- tainly most striking and indispensable for some of the new views he expounded). But what stands most in the way of accepting some of his conclusions is his desire to derive his psychology from the physiology of the brain, a physiology which he evolved himself out of his inner consciousness with only a slight general acquaintance with actual biological facts. The psychological, or second part of his " Critique of Pure Experience," was really the source from which he derived the first or physiological part, with the result that the latter appears to its readers as an account of some dis- covery in Atlantis. Because of these difficulties I shall give here a short account of the system of Avenarius, as I find it useful for my thesis.

An " Element " in the sense of Avenarius represents what

MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS 95

thV usual psychology terms a perception^ or the content of a perception, what Schopenhauer called a presentation, what in England is called an " impression " or " idea," the " thing," " fact," or "object" of ordinary language; and the word is used independently of the presence or absence of a special sense-organ stimulation — a most important and novel addition. In the sense of Avenarius, and for our purpose, it is a matter of indifference to the terminology how far what is called " analysis " takes place, the whole tree may be taken as the " element," or each single leaf, or each hair, or (where most people would stop), the colours, sizes, weights, temperatures, resistances, and so forth. Still, the analysis may go yet further, and the colour of the leaf may be taken as merely the resultant of its quality, intensity, luminosity, and so forth, these being the elements. Or we may go still further and take modern ultimate conceptions reaching units incapable of sub-division.

In the sense of Avenarius, then, elements are such ideas as "green," "blue," "cold," "warm," "soft," "hard," "sweet," "bitter," and their "character" is the particular kind of quality with which they appear, not merely their pleasantness or unpleasantness, but also such modes of presentation as "surprising," "expected," "novel," "in- different," "recognised," "known," "actual," "doubtful," categories which Avenarius first recognised as being psycho- logical. For instance, what I guess, believe, or know is an " element " ; the fact that I guess it, not believe it or know it, is the " character " in which it presents itself psycho- logically (not logically).

Now there is a stage in mental activity in which this sub-division of psychical phenomena cannot be made, which is too early for it. All " elements " at their first appearance are merged with the floating background, the whole being vaguely tinged by " character." To follow my meaning, think of what takes place, when for the first time at a distance one sees something in the landscape, such as a shrub or a heap of wood, at the moment when one does not yet know what " it " is.

96 SEX AND CHARACTER

At this moment " element " and " character " are abso- lutely indistinguishable (they are always inseparable as Petzoldt ingeniously pointed out), so improving the original statement of Avenarius.

In a dense crowd I perceive, for instance, a face which attracts me across the swaying mass by its expression. I have no idea what the face is like, and should be quite unable to describe it or give an idea of it ; but it has appealed to me in the most disturbing manner, and I find myself asking with keen curiosity, " Where have 1 seen that face before ? "

(^ man may see the head of a woman for a moment, and this may make a very strong impression on him, and yet he may be unable to say exactly what he has seen, or, for instance, be able to remember the colour of her hair. The retina must be exposed to the object sufficiently long, if only a fraction of a second, for a photographic impression to be made.\

If one looks at any object from a considerable distance one has at first only the vaguest impression of its outlines ; and as one comes nearer and sees the details more clearly, lively sensations, at first lost in the general mass, are received. Think, for instance, of the first general impres- sion of, say, the sphenoid bone disarticulated from a skull, or of many pictures seen a little too closely or a little too far away. I myself have a remembrance of having had strong impressions from sonatas of Beethoven before I knew anything of the musical notes. Avenarius and Petz- oldt have overlooked the fact that the coming into con- sciousness of the elements is accompanied by a kind of secretion of characterisation.

Some of the simple experiments of physiological psy- chology illustrate the point to which I have been referring. If one stays in a dark room until the eye has adapted itself to the absence of light, and then for a second subjects oneself to a ray of coloured light, a sensation of illumina- tion will be received, although it is impossible to recognise the quality of the illumination ; something has been

MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS 97

perceived, but what the something is cannot be apprehended unless the stimulation lasts a definite time. .

yn the same way every scientific discovery, every tech- nical invention, every artistic creation passes through a preliminary phase of indistinctness. The process is similar to the series of impressions that would be got as a statue was gradually unwrapped from a series of swathings. The same kind of sequence occurs, although, perhaps, in a very brief space of time, when one is trying to recall a piece of music. Every thought is preceded by a kind of half- thought, a condition in which vague geometrical figures, shifting masks, a swaying and indistinct background hover in the mind. The beginning and the end of the whole process, which I may term " clarification," are what take place when a short-sighted person proceeds to look through properly adapted lenses^

Just as this process occurs in the life of the individual (and he, indeed, may die long before it is complete), so it occurs in history. \Definite scientific conceptions are pre- ceded by anticipations. The process of clarification is spread over many generations. There were ancient and modern vague anticipations of the theory of Darwin and Lamarck, anticipations which we are now apt to overvalue. Mayer and Helmholz had their predecessors, and Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps two of the most many-sided intellects known to us, anticipated in a vague way many of the conclusions of modern science. The whole history of thought is a continuous " clarification," a more and more accurate description or realisation of details. The enormous number of stages between light and darkness, the minute gradations of detail that follow each other in the develop- ment of thought can be realised best if one follows histori- cally some complicated modern piece of knowledge, such as, for instance, the theory of elliptical functions^

The process of clarification may be reversed, and the act of forgetting is such a reversal. This may take a consider- able time, and is usually noticed only by accident at some point or other of its course. The process is similar to the

G

98 SEX AND CHARACTER

gradual obliteration of well-made roads, for the maintenance of which no provision has been made. The faint anticipa- tions of a thought are very like the faint recollections of it, and the latter gradually become blurred as in the case of a neglected road over the boundaries of which animals stray, slowly obliterating it. In this connection a practical rule for memorising, discovered and applied by a friend of mine, is interesting. It generally happens that if one wants to learn, say, a piece of music, or a section from the history of philosophy, one has to go over parts of it again and again. The problem was, how long should the intervals be between these successive attempts to commit to memory ? The answer was that they should not be so long as to make it possible to take a fresh interest in the subject again, to be interested and curious about it. If the interval has produced that state of mind, then the process of clarification must begin from the beginning again. The rather popular physiological theory of Sigismund Exner as to the formation of "paths" in the nervous system may perhaps be taken as a physical parallel of the process of clarification. According to the theory, the ne'-ves, or rather the fibrils, make paths easy for the stimulations to travel along, if these stimulations last sufficiently long or are repeated sufficiently often. So also in the case of forgetting ; what happens is that these paths or processes of the nerve-cells atrophy from disuse. Ave- narius would have explained the above processes by his theory of the articulation of the fibres of the brain, but his physical doctrine was rather too crude and too simple for application to psycho-physics. None the less his conception of articulation or jointing is both convenient and appropriate in its application to the process of clarification, and I shall employ it in that connection.

The process of clarification must be traced thoroughly in order to realise its importance, but for the moment, it is important to consider only the initial stage. The distinction of Avenarius between " element " and " character," which later on will become evident in a process of clarification, is not applicable to the very earliest moments of the process.

MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS 99

It is necessary to coin a name for those minds to which the duahty of element and character becomes appreciable at no stage of the process. I propose for psychical data at this earliest stage of their existence the word Hen id (from the Greek h, because in them it is impossible to distinguish perception and sensation as two analytically separable factors, and because, therefore, there is no trace of duality in them).

Naturally the "henid" is an abstract conception and may not occur in the absolute form. How often psychical data in human beings actually stand at this absolute extreme of undifferentiation is uncertain and unimportant ; but the theory does not need to concern itself with the possibility of such an extreme. A common example from what has happened to all of us may serve to illustrate what a henid is. I may have a definite wish to say something particular, and then something distracts me, and the '* it " I wanted to say or thmk has gone. Later on, by some process of asso- ciation, the " it " IS quite suddenly reproduced, and I know at once that it was what was on my tongue, but, so to speak, in a more perfect stage of development.

I fear lest some one may expect me to describe exactly what I mean by " henid." The wish can come only from a misconception. The very idea of a henid forbids its de- scription ; it is merely a something. Later on identification will come with the complete articulation of the contents of the henid ; but the henid is not the whole of this detailed content, but is distinguished from it by a lower grade of consciousness, by an absence of, so to speak, relief, by a blending of the die and the impression, by the absence of a central point in the field of vision.

And so one cannot describe particular henids ; one can only be conscious of their existence.

None the less henids are things as vital as elements and characters. Each henid is an individual and can be dis- tinguished from other henids. Later on I shall show that probably the mental data of early childhood (certainly of the first fourteen months) are all henids, although perhaps not in the absolute sense. Throughout childhood these

100 SEX AND CHARACTER

data do not reach far from the henid stage ; in adults there is always a certain process of development going on. Probably the perceptions of some plants and animals are henids. \[n the case of mankind the development from the henid to the completely differentiated perception and idea is always possible, although such an ideal condition may seldom be attained) ^Whilst expression in words is im- possible in the case of the absolute henid, as words imply articulated thoughts, there are also in the highest stages of the intellect possible to man some things still unclarified and, therefore, unspeakable^

The theory of henids will help in the old quarrel between the spheres of perception and sensation, and will replace by a developmental conception the ideas of element and charater which Avenarius and Petzoldt deduced from the process of clarification. It is only when the elements become distinct that they can be distinguished from the characters. Man is disposed to humours and sentimentali- ties only so long as the contours of his ideas are vague ; when he sees things in the light instead of the dark his process of thinking will become different.

Now what is the relation between the investigation I have been making and the psychology of the sexes ? What is the distinction between the male and the female (and to reach this has been the object of my digression) in the process of clarification ?

Here is my answer :

The male has the same psychical data as the female, but in a more articulated form ; where she thinks more or less in henids, he thinks in more or less clear and detailed pre- sentations in which the elements are distinct from the tones of feeling, s^ith the woman, thinking and feeling are identical, for man they are in opposition. The woman has many of her mental experiences as henids, whilst in man these have passed through a process of clarification. Woman is senti- mental, and knows emotion but not mental excitement^

The greater articulation of the mental data in man is reflected in the more marked character of his body and

MALE AND FEMALE CONSCIOUSNESS loi

face, as compared with the roundness and vagueness of the woman. In the same connection it is to be remembered that, notwithstanding the popular behef, the senses of the male are much more acute than those of the woman. The only exception is the sense of touch, an exception of great interest to which I shall refer later. It has been established, moreover, that the sensibility to pain is much more acute in man, and we have now learned to distinguish between that and the tactile sensations.

A weaker sensibility is likely to retard the passage of mental data through the process of clarification, although we cannot quite take it for granted that it must be so. Perhaps a more trustworthy proof of the less degree of articulation in the mental data of the woman may be drawn from consideration of the greater decision in the judgments made by men, although indeed it may be the case that this distinction rests on a deeper basis. It is certainly the case that whilst we are still near the henid stage we know much more certainly what a thing is not than what it is. What Mach has called instinctive experience depends on henids. While we are near the henid stage we think round about a subject, correct ourselves at each new attempt, and say that that was not yet the right word. Naturally that condition implies uncertainty and indecision in judgment. Judgment comes towards the end of the process of clarification ; the act of judgment is in itself a departure from the henid stage. /The most decisive proof for the correctness of the view that attributes henids to woman and differentiated thoughts to man, and that sees in this a fundamental sexual distinction, lies in the fact that wherever a new judgment is to be made, (not merely something already settled to be put into pro- verbial form) it is always the case that the female expects from man the clarification of her data, the interpretation of her henids. It is almost a tertiary sexual character of the male, and certainly it acts on the female as such, that she expects from him the interpretation and illumination of her thoughts. It is from this reason that so many girls say that they could only marry, or, at least, only love a man who was

I02 SEX AND CHARACTER

cleverer than themselves ; that they would be repelled by a man who said that all they thought was right, and did not know better than they did. In short, the woman makes it a criterion of manliness that the man should be superior to herself mentally, that she should be influenced and domi- nated by the man ; and this in itself is enough to ridicule all ideas of sexual equalityX

SThe male lives consciously, the female lives unconsciously. This is certainly the necessary conclusion for the extreme cases. The woman receives her consciousness from the man ; the function to bring into consciousness what was outside it is a sexual function of the typical man with regard to the typical woman, and is a necessary part of his ideal completeness^

And now we are brought up against the problem of talent ; the whole modern woman question appears to be resolving itself into a dispute as to whether men or women are more highly gifted. As the question is generally pro- pounded there is no attempt to distinguish between the pure types of sex ; the conclusions with regard to these that I have been able to set forth have an important bearing on the answer to the question.

CHAPTER IV

TALENT AND GENIUS

There has been so much written about the nature of genius that, to avoid misunderstanding, it will be better to make a few general remarks before going into the subject.

And the first thing to do is to settle the question of talent. Genius and talent are nearly always connected in the popular idea, as if the first were a higher, or the highest, grade of the latter, and as if a man of very high and varied talents might be a sort of intermediate between the two. This view is entirely erroneous. Even if there were different degrees or grades of genius, they would have absolutely nothing to do with so-called " talent." A talent, for instance the mathematical talent, may be possessed by some one in a very high degree from birth ; and he will be able to master the most difficult problems of that science with ease ; but for this he will require no genius, which is the same as originality, individuality, and a condition of general productiveness.

On the other hand, there are men of great genius who have shown no special talent in any marked degree ; for instance, men like Novalis or Jean Paul. Genius is dis- tinctly not the superlative of talent ; there is a world-wide difference between the two ; they are of absolutely unlike nature ; they can neither be measured by one another or compared to each other.

vfalent is hereditary ; it may be the common possession of a whole family {e.g., the Bach family) ; genius is not transmitted ; it is never diffused, but is strictly individual/

Many ill-balanced people, and in particular women,

104 SEX AND CHARACTER

regard genius and talent as identical. Women, indeed, have not the faculty of appreciating genius, although this is not the common view. Any extravagance that distin- guishes a man from other men appeals equally to their sexual ambition ; they confuse the dramatist with the actor, and make no distinction between the virtuoso and the artist. For them the talented man is the man of genius, and Nietzsche is the type of what they consider genius. What has been called the French type of thought, which so strongly appeals to them, has nothing to do with the \ highest possibilities of the mind. {Great men take them- selves and the world too seriously to become what is called merely intellectual. Men who are merely intellectual are insincere ; they are people who have never really been deeply engrossed by things and who do not feel an over- powering desire for production. All that they care about is that their work should glitter and sparkle like a well-cut stone, not that it should illuminate anything. They are more occupied with what will be said of what they think { than by the thoughts themselvesN There are men who are willing to marry a woman they do not care about merely because she is admired by other men. Such a relation exists between many men and their thoughts. I cannot help thinking of one particular living author, a blaring,' outrageous person, who fancies that he is roaring when he is only snarling. Unfortunately, Nietzsche (however superior he is to the man I have in mind) seems to have devoted himself chiefly to what he thought would shock the public. He is at his best when he is most unmindful of effect. His was the vanity of the mirror, saying to what it reflects, " See how faithfully I show you your image." In youth when a man is not yet certain of himself he may try to secure his own position by jostling others. ^Great men, hcwevef, ;ire painfully ni^j'-^'T-si'/c only from f^xes^^y.) They are not like a girl who is most pleased about a new dress because she knows that it will annoy her frier^ds.

Genius ! genius ! how much mental disturbance and dis- comfort, hatred and envy, jealousy and pettiness, has it not

TALENT AND GENIUS 105

aroused in the majority of men, and how much counterfeit and tinsel has the desire for it not occasioned ?

I turn gladly from the imitations of genius to the thing itself and its true embodiment. But where can I begin ? All the qualities that go to make genius are in so intimate connection that to begin with any one of them seems to lead to premature conclusions.

All discussions on the nature of genius are either biologi- cal-clinical, and serve only to show the absurd presumption of present knowledge of this kind in its hope to solve a problem so difficult ; or they descend from the heights of a metaphysical system for the sole purpose of including genius in their purview. If the road that I am about to take does not lead to every goal at once, it is only because that is the nature of roads.

Consider how much deeper a great poet can reach into the nature of man than an average person. Think of the extraordinary number of characters depicted by Shakespeare or Euripides, or the marvellous assortment of human beings that fill the pages of Zola. After the Penthesilea, Heinrich von Kleist created Kätchen von Heilbronn, and Michael Angelo embodied from his imagination the Delphic Sibyls and the Leda. CThere have been few men so little devoted to art as Kant and Schelling, and yet these have written most profoundly and truly about ity In order to depict a man one must understand him, and to understand him one must be like him ; in order to portray his psychological activities one must be able to reproduce them in oneself. To understand a man one must have his nature in oneself. One must be like the mind one tries to grasp. It takes a thief to know a thief, and only an innocent man can under- stand another innocent man. The poseur only understands other poseurs, and sees nothing but pose in the actions of others ; whilst the simple-minded fails to understand the most flagrant pose. ^To understand a man is really to be that man)

It would seem to follow that a man can best understand himself — a conclusion plainly absurd. No one can under-

io6 SEX AND CHARACTER

stand himself, for to do that he would have to get outside himself ; the subject of the knowing and willing activity would have to become its own object. To grasp the universe it would be necessary to get a standpoint outside the universe, and the possibility of such a standpoint is incompatible with the idea of a universe. He who could understand himself could understand the world. I do not make the statement merely as an explanation : it contains an important truth, to the significance of which I shall recur. For the present I am content to assert that no one can understand his deepest, most intimate nature. This happens in actual practice ; when one wishes to understand in a general way, it is always from other persons, never from oneself, that one gets one's materials. The other person chosen must be similar in some respect, however different as a whole ; and, making use of this similarity, he can recognise, represent, comprehend. So far as one under- stands a man, one is that man.

^he man of genius takes his place in the above argument as he who understands incomparably more other beings than the average man. Goethe is said to have said of him- self that there was no vice or crime of which he could not trace the tendency in himself, and that at some period of his life he could not have understood fully. The genius, therefore, is a more complicated, more richly endowed, more varied man ; and a man is the closer to being a genius the more men Jie has in hi'^ personalitv, and the more really and strongly he has these others within himy If comprehension of those about him only flickers in him like a poor candle, then he is unable, like the great poet, to kindle a mighty flame in his heroes, to give distinction and character to his creations. The ideal of an artistic genius is to live in all men, to lose himself in all men, to reveal himself in multitudes ; and so also the aim of the philosopher is to discover all others in himself, to fuse them into a unit which is his own unit.

This protean character of genius is no more simultaneous than the bi-sexuality of which I have spoken. Even the

TALENT AND GENIUS 107

greatest genius cannot understand the nature of all men at the same time, on one and the same day. The compre- hensive and manifold rudiments which a man possesses in his mind can develop only slowly and by degrees with the gradual unfolding of his whole life. It appears almost as if there were a definite periodicity in his development. These periods, v^'hen they recur, however, are not exactly alike ; they are not mere repetitions, but are intensifications of their predecessors, on a higher plane. No two moments in the life of an individual are exactly alike ; there is between the later and the earlier periods only the similarity of the higher and lower parts of a spiral ascent. Thus it has frequently happened that famous men have con- ceived a piece of work in their early youth, laid it aside during manhood, and resumed and completed it in old age. Periods exist in every man, but in different degrees and with varying "amplitude." Just as the genius is the man who contains in himself the greatest number of others in the most active way, so the amplitude of a man's periods will be the greater the wider his mental relations may be. Qllustrious men have often been told, by their teachers, in their youth " that they were always in one extreme or another." As if they could be anything else ! These transitions in the case of unusual men often assume the character of a crisis. Goethe once spoke of the " recurrence of puberty" in an artist. The idea is obviously to be associated with the matter under discussion/^

It results from their periodicity that, in men of genius, sterile years precede productive years, these again to be followed by sterility, the barren periods being marked by psychological self-depreciation, by the feeling that they are less than other men ; times in which the remembrance of the creative periods is a torment, and when they envy those who go about undisturbed by such penalties. Just as his moments of ecstasy are more poignant, so are the periods of depression of a man of genius more intense than those of other men. Every great man has such periods, of longer or shorter duration, times in which he loses self-

io8 SEX AND CHARACTER

confidence, in which he thinks of suicide ; times in which, indeed, he may be sowing the seeds of a future harvest, but which are devoid of the stimulus to production ; times which call forth the blind criticisms " How such a genius is degenerating!" "How he has played himself out!" " How he repeats himself ! " and so forth.

It is just the same with other characteristics of the man of genius. Not only the material, but also the spirit, of his work is subject to periodic change. At one time he is in- clined to a philosophical and scientific view ; at another time the artistic influence is strongest ; at one time his intervals are altogether in the direction of history and the growth of civilisation ; later on it is " nature " (compare Nietzsche's "Studies in Infinity" with his "Zarathustra ") ; at another time he is a mystic, at yet another simplicity itself ! (Björnson and Maurice Maeterlinck are good modern examples.) In fact, the " amplitude " of the periods of famous men is so great, the different revelations of their nature so various, so many different individuals appear in them, that the periodicity of their mental life may be taken almost as diagnostic. I must make a remark sufiiciently obvious from all this, as to the existence of almost incredibly great changes in the personal appearance of men of genius from time to time. Comparison of the portraits at different times of Goethe, Beethoven, Kant, or Schopenhauer are enough to establish this. The number of different aspects that the face of a man has assumed may be taken almost as a physiognomical measure of his talent.*

People with an unchanging expression are low in the intellectual scale. Physiognomists, therefore, must not be surprised that men of genius, in whose faces a new side of their minds is continually being revealed, are difficult to classify, and that their individualities leave little permanent mark on their features.

* I cannot help using the word " talent " from time to time, when I really mean genius ; but I wish it to be remembered that I am convinced of the existence of a fundamental distinction between " talent," or " giftedness," and " genius."

TALENT AND GENIUS 109

It is possible that my introductory description of genius will be repudiated indignantly, because it would imply that a Shakespeare has the vulgarity of his Falstaff, the rascality of his lago, the boorishness of his Caliban, and because it identifies great men with all the low and contemptible things that they have described. As a matter of fact, men of genius do conform to my description, and as their biographies show, are liable to the strangest passions and the most repulsive instincts. And yet the objection is invalid, as the fuller exposition of the thesis will reveal. Only the most superficial survey of the argument could support it, whilst the exactly opposite conclusion is a much more likely inference. Zola, who has so faithfully de- scribed the impulse to commit murder, did not himself commit a murder, because there were so many other characters in him. The actual murderer is in the grasp of his own disposition : the author describing the murder is swayed by a whole kingdom of impulses. Zola would know the desire for murder much better than the actual murderer would know it, he would recognise it in himself, if it really came to the surface in him, and he would be prepared for it. In such ways the criminal instincts in great men are intellectualised and turned to artistic purposes as in the case of Zola, or to philosophic purposes as with Kant, but not to actual crime.

The presence of a multitude of possibilities in great men has important consequences connected with the theory of henids that I elaborated in the last chapter. A man under- stands what he already has within himself much more quickly than what is foreign to him (were it otherwise there would be no intercourse possible : as it is we do not realise how often we fail to understand one another). To the genius, who understands so much more than the average man, much more will be apparent.

The schemer will readily recognise his fellow ; an im- passioned player easily reads the same power in another person ; whilst those with no special powers will observe nothing. Art discerns itself best, as Wagner said. In the

no SEX AND CHARACTER

case of complex personalities the matter stands thus : one of these can understand other men better than they can understand themselves, because within himself he has nol only the character he is grasping, but also its opposite. Duality is necessary for observation and comprehension ;/ii we -inquire from psychology what is the most necessary condition for becoming conscious of a thing, for grasping it, we shall find the answer in " contrast." If everything were a uniform grey we should have />^c )de^ of colour ; absolute unison of sound would soon j^ /Ue^p in all mankind ; duality, the power which can differentiate, is the origin of the alert consciousness. Thus it happens that no one can understand himself were he to think of nothing else all his life, but he can understand another to whom he is partly alike, and from whom he is also partly quite different. Such a distribution of qualities is the condition most favourable for understanding. In short, to under- stand a man means to have equal parts of himself and of his opposite in one.

^hat things must be present in pairs of contrasts if we are to be conscious of one member of the pair is shown by the facts of colour-vision. Colour-blindness always extends to the complementary colours. Those who are red blind are also green blind ; those who are blind to blue have no consciousness of yellow. This law holds good for all mental phenomena ; it is a fundamental condition of con- sciousness. The most high-spirited people understand and experience depression much more than those who are of level disposition. Any one with so keen a sense of delicacy and subtilty as Shakespeare must also be capable of ex- treme grossness^

The more types and their contrasts a man unites in his own mind the less will escape him, since observation follows comprehension, and the more he will see and understand what other men feel, think, and wish. There has never been a genius who was not a great discerner of men. The great man sees through the simpler man often at a glance, and would be able to characterise him completely.

TALENT AND GENIUS iii

Most men have this, that, or the other faculty or sense disproportionately developed. One man knows all the birds and tells their different voices most accurately. Another has a love for plants and is devoted to botany from his childhood. One man pores lovingly into the many layered rocks of the earth, and has only the vaguest appreciation of the skies ; to aaiother the attraction of cold, star-sown space is supreme. One man is repelled by the mountains and seeks the restless sea ; another, like Nietzsche, gets no help from the tossing waters and hungers for the peace of the hills. Every man, however simple he may be, has some side of nature with which he is in special sympathy and for which his faculties are specially alert. And so the ideal genius, who has all men within him, has also all their preferences and all their dislikes. There is in him not only the universality of men, but of all nature. He is the man to whom all things tell their secrets, to whom most happens, and whom least escapes. He understands most things, and those most deeply, because he has the greatest number of things to contrast and compare them with. The genius is he who is conscious of most, and of that most acutely. And so without doubt his sensations must be most acute ; but this must not be understood as implying, say, in the artist the keenest power of vision, in the composer the most acute hearing ; the measure of genius is not to be taken from the acuteness of the sense organ but from that of the perceiving brain.

The consciousness of the genius is, then, the furthest removed from the henid stage. It has the greatest, most limpid clearness and distinctness. In this way genius declares itself to be a kind of higher masculinity, and thus the female cannot be possessed of genius. The conclusion of this chapter and the last is simply that the life of the male is a more highly conscious life than that of the female, and genius is identical with the highest and widest con- sciousness. This extremely comprehensive consciousness of the highest types of mankind is due to the enormous number of contrasting elements in their natures.

112 SEX AND CHARACTER

Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathe- matics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything with- out having learned it.

It stands to reason that this infinite knowledge does not include theories and systems which have b^pn formulated by science from facts, neither the history of the Spanish war of succession nor experiments in dia-magnetism.

The artist does not acquire his knowledge of the colours reflected on water by cloudy or sunny skies, by a course of optics, any more than it requires a deep study of character- ology to judge other men. But the more gifted a man is, the more he has studied on his own account, and the more subjects he has made his own.

The theory of special genius, according to which for instance, it is supposed that a musical " genius " should be a fool at other subjects, confuses genius with talent. A musician, if truly great, is just as well able to be universal in his knowledge as a philosopher or a poet. Such an one was Beethoven. On the other hand, a musician may be as limited in the sphere of his activity as any average man of science. Such an one was Johann Strauss, who, in spite of his beautiful melodies, cannot be regarded as a genius if only because of the absence of construc- tive faculty in him. To come back to the main point ; there are many kinds of talent, but only one kind of genius, and that is able to choose any kind of talent and master it. There is something in genius common to all those who possess it ; however much difference there may seem to be between the great philosopher, painter, musician, poet, or religious teacher. The particular talent through the medium of which the spirit of a man develops is of less importance than has generally been thought. The limits of the different arts can easily be passed, and much besides native inborn gifts have to be taken into account. The history of one art should be studied along with the history of other arts, and in that way many obscure events might be ex-

TALENT AND GENIUS 113

plained. It is outside my present purpose, however, to go into the question of what determines a genius to become, say^ a mystic, or, say, a great delineator.

From genius itself, the common quality of all the different manifestations of genius, woman is debarred. I will discuss later as to whether such things are possible as pure scientific or technical genius as well as artistic and philosophical genius. There is good reason for a greater exactness in the use of the word. But that may come, and however clearly we may yet be able to describe it woman will have to be excluded from it. I am glad that the course of my inquiry has been such as to make it impossible for me to be charged with having framed such a definition of genius as necessarily to exclude woman from it.

I may now sura up the conclusions of this chapter. Whilst woman has no consciousness of genius, except as manifested in one particular person, who imposes his personality on her, man has a deep capacity for realising it, a capacity which Carlyle, in his still little understood book I on " Hero-Worship," has described so fully and perma- nently. In " Hero- Worship," moreover, the idea is definitely I insisted on that genius is linked with manhood, that it represents an ideal masculinity in the highest form. Woman has no direct consciousness of it ; she borrows a kind of , imperfect consciousness from man. Woman, in short, has ^ x / an unconscious life, man a conscious life, and the genius j the most conscious life.

^CHAPTER V

TALENT AND MEMORY

The following observation bears on my henid theory :

I made a note, half mechanically, of a page in a botanical work from which later on I was going to make an extract. Something was in my mind in henid form. What I thought, how I thought it, what was then knocking at the door of my consciousness, I could not remember a minute afterwards, in spite of the hardest effort. I take this case as a typical example of the henid.

The more deeply impressed, the more detailed a complex perception may he the more easily does it reproduce itself. Clearness of the consciousness is the preliminary condition for remembering, and the memory of the mental stimulation is proportional to the intensity of the consciousness. " I shall not forget that " ; " I shall remember that all my life " ; "That will never escape my memory again." Such phrases men use when things have made a deep impression on them, of moments in which they have gained wisdom or have become richer by an important experience. As the power of being reproduced is directly proportionate to the organisation of a mental impression, it is clear that there can be no recollection of an absolute henid.

As the mental endowment of a man varies with the organisation of his accumulated experiences, the better endowed he is, the more readily will he be able to remember his whole past, everything that he has ever thought or heard, seen or done, perceived or felt, the more completely in fact will he be able to reproduce his whole life. Universal remembrance of all its experiences, therefore, is the surest,

TALENT AND MEMORY 115

most general, and most easily proved mark of a genius. If a common theory, especially popular with the philosophers of the coffee-house, be true, that productive men (because they are alway scovering new ground) have no memory, it is often because they are productive only from being on new ground.

The great extent and acuteness of the memory of men of genius, which I propose to lay down dogmatically as a necessary inference from my theory, without attempting to prove it further, is not incompatible with their rapid loss of the facts impressed on them in school, the tables of Greek verbs, and so forth. Their memory is of what they have experienced, not of what they have learned. Of all that was acquired for examination purposes only so much will be retained as was in harmony with the natural talent of the pupil. Thus a house-painter may have a better memory for colours than a great philosopher ; the most narrow philologist may remember Greek aorists that he has learned by heart better than his teacher, who may none the less be a great poet. The uselessness of the experimental school of psychology (notwithstanding their marvellous arsenal of instruments of experimental precision) is shown by their expectation of getting results as to memory from tests with letters, unconnected words, long rows of figures. ^ These experiments have so little bearing on the true memory of man, on the memory by which he recalls the experiences of his life, that one wonders if such psychologists have realised that such a thing as the mind exists,' The customary experiments place the most different subjects under the same conditions, pay no attention to the individuality of these subjects, and treat them merely as good or bad registering apparatus. There is a parable in the fact that the two German words ''bemerken" (take notice of) and " merken " (remember) come from the same root. Only what is harmonious with some inborn quality will be retained. When a man remembers a thing, it is because he was capable of taking some interest in the thing ; when he forgets, it is because he was uninterested. The religious

Ti6 SEX AND CHARACTER

man will surely and exactly remember texts, the poet verses, and the mathematician equations.

This brings us in another fashion to the subject of the last chapter, and to another reason for the great memories of genius. The more significant a man is, the more different personalities he unites in himself, the more interests that are contained in him, the more wide his memory must be. All men have practically the same opportunities of per- ception, but the vast majority of men apprehend only an infinitesimal part of what they have perceived. The ideal genius is one in whom perception and apprehension are identical in their field. Of course no such being actually exists. On the other hand, there is no man who has ap- prehended nothing that he has perceived. In this way we may take it that all degrees of genius (not talent) exist ; no male is quite without a trace of genius. Complete genius is an ideal ; no man is absolutely without the quality, and no man possesses it completely. Apprehension or absorp- tion, and memory or retention, vary together in their extent and their permanence. There is an uninterrupted gradation from the man whose mentality is unconnected from moment to moment, and to whom no incidents can signify anything because there is within him nothing to compare them with (such an extreme, of course, does not exist) to the fully developed minds for which everything is unforgettable, because of the firm impressions made and the sureness with which they are absorbed. The extreme of genius also does not exist, because even the greatest genius is not wholly a genius at every moment of his life.

What is at once a deduction from the necessary connec- tion between memory and genius, and a proof of the actuality of the connection, lies in the extraordinary memory for minute details shown by the man of genius. Because of the universality of his mind, everything has only one interpretation for him, an interpretation often unsuspected at the time ; and so things cling obstinately in his memory and remain there inextinguishably, although he may have taken not the smallest trouble to take note of

them.' f'AFidj so XDn&; may almost take as anothjern'mafk Q^aä^fti genius that; thc: phrase,. "this is no {ongQvtnifJu-b^^jin^i meaning for him. i..:Xhefe is .nothing itha^üi^I no.rk(ng€C(|:r/Ufö for him, probably just because he hasj^a,cte2^6riici83itfe.ali»^ other men of the changes that come witbitimet* c v/J sdi boß

The following appears to^he;t)neiofi(th^,[jbestifmiaii[§ jferfl the objective examination of the endowment i3f;:a^-naa5i)ä) Ik after a long separation from him we resume the new initeBf) course with the circumstances of the last, then we shall find that the highly endowed man has forgotten nothing, that he vividly and completely takes up the subject from where it was left off with the fullest recollection of the details. How much ordinary men forget of their lives any one can prove to his astonishment and horror. It may happen that we have been for hours importantly engaged with a man a few weeks before, and we may find that he has forgotten all about it. It is true that if one recalls all the circumstances to his mind, he begins to remember, and, finally, with sufficient help, may remember almost com- pletely. Such experience has made me think that there may be an empirical proof of the hypothesis that no abso- lute forgetting ever occurs ; that if the right method with the individual be chosen recollection may always be induced.

It follows also that from one's own experience, from what one has thought or said, heard or read, felt or done, one can give the smallest possible to another, that the other does not already know. Consideration of the amount that a man can take in from another would seem to serve as a sort of objective measure of his genius, a measure that does not have to wait for an estimation of his actual creative efforts. I am not going to discuss the extent to which this theory opposes current views on education, but I recommend parents and teachers to pay attention to it. The extent to which a man can detect differences and resemblances must depend on his memories. This faculty 'yill be best developed in those whose past permeates their present, all the moments of the life of whom are amalga-

ir8 SEX AND CHARACTER

mated. Such persons will have the greatest opportunities of detecting resemblances and so finding the material for comparisons. They will always seize hold of from the past what has the greatest resemblance to the present experience, and the two experiences will be combined in such a way that no similarities or differences will be concealed. And so they are able to maintain the past against the influence of the present. It is not without reason that from time immemorial the special merit of poetry has been considered to be its richness in beautiful comparisons and pictures, or that we turn to again and again, or await our favourite images with impatience when we read Homer or Shake- speare or Kloppstock. <To-day when, for the first time for a century and a half, Germany is without great poets or painters, and when none the less it is impossible to find any one who is not an " author," the power of clear and beautiful comparison seems to have gone.. A period the nature of which can best be described in vague and dubious words, the philosophy of which has become in more than one sense the philosophy ot the unconscious can contain nothing great. ■(Consciousness is the mark of greatness,) and befoie it the unconscious is dispersed as the sun disperses a mist. If only consciousness were to come to this age, how quickly voices that are now famous would become silent. It is only in full consciousness, in which the experience of the present assumes greater intensity by its union with all the experiences of the past, that imagination, the necessary quality tor all philosophical as for all artistic effort, can find a place. It is untrue, therefore, that women have more imagination than men. The experiences on account of which men have assigned higher powers of imagination to women come entirely from the imaginative sexual life of women. The only inferences that can be drawn from this do not belong to the present section of my work.

\rhe absence of women from the history of music must be referred to deeper causes ; but it also supports my con- tention that women are devoid of imagination. To produce

TALENT AND MEMORY 119

music requires a great deal more imagination than the malest woman possesses, and much more than is required for other kinds of artistic or for scientific effort. ^There is nothing in nature, nothing in the sphere of the senses, corresponding directly with sound pictures. Music has no relation to the world of experience ; there is no " music." no chords or melodies in the natural world ; these have to be evolved from the imagination of the composer. Every other art has more definite relations to empirical art. Even architecture, which has been compared with music, has definite relations to matter, although, like music, it has no anticipations in the senses. Architecture, too, is an entirely masculine occupation. The very idea of a female architect excites compassion.*)

The so-called stupefying effect of music on the creative or practical musician (especially instrumental music) depends on the fact that even the sense of smell is a better guide to man in the world of experience than the contents of a musical work. And it is just this complete absence of all relation to the world of sight, taste, and smell, that makes music specially unfitted to express the female nature. It also explains why this peculiarity of his art demands the highest grade of imagination from a musician, and why those to whom musical compositions " come " seem stranger to their fellow men than painters or sculptors. The so-called " imagination " of women must be very different from that of men, since there is no woman with even the same position in the history of music that Angelica Kaufmann had in art.

Where anything obviously depends on strong moulding women have not the smallest leaning towards its production, neither in philosophy nor in music, in the plastic arts nor in architecture. Where, however, a weak and vague senti- mentality can be expressed with little effort, as in painting or verse-making, or in pseudo-mysticism and theosophy, women have sought and found a suitable field for their efforts. Their lack of productiveness in the former sphere is in harmony with the vagueness of the psychical life of

I20 SEX AND CHARACTER

women. Music is the nearest possible approach to the organisation of a sensation. Nothing is more definite, characteristic, and impressive than a melody, nothing that will more strongly resist obliteration. One remembers much longer what is sung than what is spoken, and the arias belter than the recitatives.

Let us note specially here that the usual phrases of the defenders of women do not apply to the case of women. Music is not one of the arts to which women have had access only so recently that it is too soon to expect fruits ; from the remotest antiquity women have sung and played. And yet . . .

It is to be remembered that even in the case of drawing and painting women have now had opportunities for at least two centuries. Every one knows how many girls learn to draw and sketch, and it cannot be said that there has not yet been time for results were results possible. As there are so few female painters with the smallest importance in the history of art, it must be that there is something in the nature of things against it. As a matter of fact, the painting and etching of women is no more than a sort of elegant, luxurious handiwork. The sensuous, physical element of colour is more suitable for them than the intellectual work of formal line-drawing, and hence it is, that whereas women have acquired some small distinction in painting they have gained none in drawing. ^The power of giving form to chaos is with those in whom the most universal memory has made the widest comprehension possible ; it is a quality of the masculine genius./

I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself ; greater men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to understand a genius.

TALENT AND MEMORY 121

VThere are probably very few people who have not at some time of their lives had some quality of genius. If they have not had such, it is probable that they have also been without great sorrow or great pain^ They would have needed only to live sufficiently intently for a time for some quality to reveal itself. The poems of first love are a case in point, and certainly such love is a sufficient stimulus.

It must not be forgotten that quite ordinary men in moments of excitement, in anger at some underhanded deed, have found words with which they never would have been credited. sThe greater part of what is called expression in art as in language depends (if the reader will remember what I have said about the process of " clarification ") on the fact that some individual more richly endowed clarifies, organises, and exhibits some idea almost instantaneouly, an idea which to a less endowed person was still in the henid form. The course of clarification is much shortened in the mind of the second person.)

If it really were the case, as popular opinion has tried to establish, that the genius were separated from ordinary men by a thick wall through which no sound could penetrate, then all understanding of the efforts of genius would be denied to ordinary men, and their works would fail to make any impression on them. All hopes of progress depend on this being untrue. And it is untrue. <^he difference be- tween men of genius and the others is quantitative not qualitative, of degree not of kind.

There is, moreover, very little sense in preventing young people from giving expression to their ideas on the pretext that they have less experience than have older persons. There are many who may live a thousand years without encountering experience of any value. It could only be in a society of persons equally gifted that such an idea could have any meaning./

Because the life of the genius is more intense even in his earliest years than that of other children, his memory can go further back. In extreme cases the memory may be cor iplete and vivid back to the third year of life, whereas

122 SEX AND CHARACTER

in most recollection begins much later. I know some people whose earliest recollections date only from their eighth year, and there are instances of an even later begin- ning of the conscious life. I do not maintam that the date at which active memory begins can be taken as a measure of relative genius, that he who remembers from his second year is so much the more of a genius than he who can go back only to his fourth or fifth year. But in a general way, I believe the parallel to hold good.

Even in the cases of the greatest men, some time, greater or shorter, elapsed between the date of their earliest recol- lection and the time from which onwards they remember everything, from the time, in fact, in which their genius was ripe. But in the case of most men there is forgetfulness of the greater part of their lives ; they are conscious only that they themselves and none other have lived their lives. Out of their whole lives there only remain certain moments, and scattered recollections, which serve as sign-posts. If they are asked about any particular thing they can only tell, for in- stance, because in such and such a month they were so old, or they wore such and such clothes, they lived at this place, or that their income was so much.

If one has lived with them in former years, it is only after great trouble that the past can be brought to their mind. In such cases one is surely justified in saying that such a person is ungifted, or at least in not considering him con- spicuously able.

The request for an autobiography would put most men into a most painful position ; they could scarcely tell if they were asked what they had done the day before. Memory with most people is quite spasmodic and purely associative. In the case of the man of genius every impression that he has received endures ; he is always under the influence of impressions ; and so nearly all men of genius tend to suffer from fixed ideas. The psychical condition of men's minds may be compared with a set of bells close together, and so arranged that in the ordinary man a bell rings only when one beside it sounds, and the vibration lasts only a moment.

TALENT AND MEMORY 123

In the genius, when a bell sounds it vibrates so strongly that it sets in action the whole series, and remains in action throughout life. The latter kind of movement often gives rise to extraordinary conditions and absurd impulses, that may last for weeks together and that form the basis of the supposed kinship of genius with insanity.

For similar reasons gratitude is apparently the rarest human virtue. People are often very conscious of how much they have borrowed, but they neither can nor will try to remember the necessity in which they stood, nor the free- dom which that help brought them. Even if want of memory were really the cause of ingratitude, it would not be sufficient for a man to possess a marvellous memory to have a like spirit of gratitude. A special condition is also necessary, but its description cannot be undertaken here.

From the connection between giftedness and memory, which is so often mistaken and denied because it is not sought where it is to be found, from the power of self recol- lection, a further fact is to be deduced. The poet who feels urged to write without premeditation, without reflection, without having willingly pressed the pedal ; the musician to whom the desire to compose has come, so that he must create whether he will or no, even if he feels more inclined to sleep or to rest ; tnese, in such moments, will simply reproduce thoughts they have carried in their heads all their lives. A composer wno can remember none of his songs or subjects by heart, or a poet who cannot recollect any of his poems — without having carefully learned them — such men are in no sense really great.

Before we apply these remarks to the consideration of the mental differences of the sexes, we must make yet one more distinction between different kinds of memory. The individual moments in the life of a gifted man are not remembered as disconnected points, not as different particles of time, each one separated and defined from the following one, as the numerals one, two, and so on.

The result of self-observation shows that sleep, the limitations of consciousness, the gaps in memory, even

124 SEX AND CHARACTER

special experiences, appear to be in some mysterious way one great whole ; incidents do not follow each other like the tickings of a watch, but they pass along in a single unbroken stream. With ordinary men the moments which are united in a close continuity out of the original discrete multiplicity are very few, and the course of their lives resembles a little brook, whereas with the genius it is more like a mighty river into which all the little rivulets flow from afar ; that is to say, the universal comprehension of genius vibrates to no experience in which all the individual moments have not been gathered up and stored. ^This peculiar contmuity by which a man first realises that he exists, that he is, and that he is in the world, is all comprehensive in the genius, limited to a few important moments in the mediocre, and altogether lacking in woman?) When a woman looks back over her life and lives again her experiences, there is presented no continuous, unbroken stream, but only a few scattered points. And what kind of points ? They are just those which accord with woman's natural instincts. Of what these interests exclusively consist the second chapter gave a preliminary idea ; and those who remember the ideas in question will not be astonished at the following facts : The female is concerned altogether with one class of recollections — those connected with the sexual impulse and reproduction. She thinks of her lovers and proposals, of her marriage day, of every child as if it were a doll ; of the flowers which she received at every ball, the number, size, and price of the bouquets ; of every serenade ; of every verse which (as she fondly imagines) was written for her ; of every phrase by which a lover has im- pressed her ; but above all — with an exactness which is as contemptible as it is disquieting to herself — of every compliment without exception that has ever been paid her.

That is all that the real woman recalls of her life. But it is just those things which human beings never forget, and those they cannot remember that give the clue to knowledge of their life and character. It belongs to a later period of the book to go more thoroughly into the reason why the

TALENT AND MEMORY 125

female has precisely the remembrances she has. Some important conclusion may be expected from reflection on the incredible memory with which women recall all the adulation and flattery, all the proofs of gallantry, which have happened to them since childhood.

Whatever may be urged against the present complete limitation of the female memory to the sphere of sexuality and conjugal life, it is to me quite evident. Various arguments about girls' schools, and so forth, I am prepared for. These difficulties will have to be cleared away later. But I must just say again that all memory, which is to be used as a means of psychological definition of the individual, can include only the memory of what has been learnt when learning means actual experience.

The explanation of the discontinuity in the psychical life of women (reference to which is introduced here, only because it is a necessary psychological factor in the problem of memory, and without reference to its spiritualistic or idealistic significance) can be reached only when the nature of continuity is studied with reference to the deepest problems of philosophy and psychology.

As a proof of the fact I will at present quote nothing more than the statement of Lotze, which has so often caused astonishment, that women much more readily submit them- selves to new relationships and more easily accommodate themselves to them than men, in whom the parvenu can be seen much longer, whereas one might not be able to tell the peasant from the peeress, the woman brought up in poor surroundings from the patrician's daughter. Later on I shall deal more exhaustively with this subject.

At any rate, it will now be seen why (if neither vanity, desire for gossip, nor imitation drives them to it) only the better men write down recollections of their lives, and how I perceive in this a strong evidence of the connection between memory and giftedness. It is not as if every man of genius wished to write an autobiography : the incitement to autobiography comes from special, very deep-seated psychological conditions. But on the other hand, the

126 SEX AND CHARACTER

writing of a full autobiography, if it is the oi.tcome of a genuine desire, is always the sign of a superior man. For real faithful memory is the source of reverence. The really great would resist any temptation to give up his past in exchange for material advantage or mental health ; the greatest treasures of the world, even happiness itself, he would not take in exchange for his memories.

^he desire for a draught of the waters of Lethe is the trait of mediocre or inferior natures. And however much a really great man, as Goethe says, may condemn and abhor his past failings, and although he sees others clinging fast to theirs, he will never smile at those past actions and failings of his own, or make merry over his early mode of life and thoughty^

The class of persons, now so much in evidence, who claim to have " conquered " their pasts, have the smallest possible claim to the word " conquer." They are those who idly relate that they formerly believed this or the other, but have now " overcome " their beliefs, whereas they are as little in earnest about the present as they were about the past. They see only the mechanism, not the soul of things, and at no stage what they believe themselves to have conquered was deep in their natures.

4n contrast with these it may be noticed with what painful care great men render even the, apparently, most minute details in their own biographies tjffor them the past and present are equal ; with others neither of the two are real/

The famous man realises how everything, even the smallest, most secondary, matters played an important part in his life, how they have helped his development, and to this fact is due his extraordinary reverence for his own memoirs. And such an autobiography is not written all at once, as it were, with one event treated like another, and without meditatio , ; nor does the idea of it suddenly occur to a mnn ; the material for such a work by a great man, so to speak, is always at hand.

<^is new experiences acquire a deeper significance because of the past, which is always present to him, and hence the

TALENT AND MEMORY 127

great man, and only the great man, feels that he himself is in very truth a " man of destiny. / And so it comes that great men are always more " superstitious " than average men. To sum up, I may say :

Y^ man is himself important precisely in proportion that all things seem important to him./

In the course of further investigation this dictum will be seen to have a deep significance even apart from its bearing on theuniversality, comprehension, and comparison exhibited by the genius.

The position of woman in these matters is not difficult to explain. A real woman never becomes conscious of a des- tiny, of her own destiny ; she is not heroic ; she fights most for her possessions, and there is nothing tragic in the struggle as her own fate is decided with the fate of her possessions, /inasmuch as woman is without continuity, she can have no true reverence ; as a fact, reverence is a purely male virtue. A man is first reverent about himself, and self- respect is the first stage in reverence for all things^ But it costs a woman very little to break off with her past ; if the word irony could be fittingly used here, one might say that a man does not easily regard his past with irony and superiority as women appear to do — and not only after marriage.

Later on I shall show how women are exactly the opposite of that which reverence means. I would rather be silent about the reverence of widows.

The superstition of women is psychologically absolutely different from the superstitions of famous men.

The reverent relation to one's own past, which depends on a real continuity of memory, and which is possible only by comprehension, can be shown in relation to a still wider and deeper subject.

Whether a man has a real relationship to his own past or not, involves the question as to whether he has a desire for immortality, or if the idea of death is indifferent to him.

The desire for immortality is to-day, as a rule, treated shamefully, and in a very different spirit^

^28 SEX AND CHARACTER

Not only is the problem treated as merely ontological, but / the psychological side of it is only trifled with. It has been held that it is connected, like the doctrine of the trans- migration of souls, with the feeling that we have all experi- enced, when, in doing something certainly for the first time, we seem to remember having gone through the same experience before. Another generally adopted view is to derive the idea of immortality from the belief in spirits, as has been done by Tylor, Spencer, Avenarius, and others, although in any other age than this age of experimental psychology it would have been dismissed a priori. ( I am sure that it must seem impossible to the majority of thinking men to regard a belief so important to man- kind, about which there has been so much strife, as merely the last stage in a syllogism of which the first premiss is the midnight dream of a dead man. How can phe- nomena of that kind explain the belief in the continuity of their lives after death held so firmly by Goethe or Bach, or the desire for immortality which speaks to us in Beethoven's last sonatas ? The desire for the persistence of the con- scious seit must spring from sources mightier than these feeble rationalistic guesses^ \The deeper source of the belief depends on the relation of J a man to his own past. Our consciousness and vision of the past is the strongest ground for our desire to be conscious in the future. The man who values his past, who holds his mental life in greater respect than his corporeal life, is not willing to give up his consciousness at death. And so this organic primary desire for immortality is strongest in men of genius, in the men whose pasts are richest. This con- nection between the desire for immortality and memory receives strong support from what is related by those who have been rescued from sudden death. > Even if they had not thought it out before they relive their past in a few moments, at once and with frantic rapidity. The feeling of what is impending brings in violent contrast the intensity of the present consciousness and the idea that it may cease for ever. In reality we know very little of the mental state of

TALENT AND MEMORY 129

the dying. It takes more than an ordinary person to inter- pret it, and for reasons connected with what I have been saying men of genius usually avoid death-beds. But it is quite wrong to ascribe the sudden appearance of religion in so many people who are fatally ill, to a desire to make sure of their future state. It is extremely superficial to assume that the doctrine of hell can for the first time assume such an importance to the dying as to make them afraid to pass away "with a lie on their lips."*

The important point is this : Why do men who have lived throughout a lying life feel towards the end a sudden desire for truth ? And why are others so horrified, although they do not believe in punishment in the next world, when they hear of a man dying with a lie on his lips or with an unrepented action ? And why have both the hardness of heart until the end and the death-bed repentance appealed so forcibly to the imagination of poets ? The discussion as to the " euthanasia " of atheists, which was so popular in the eighteenth century, is more than a mere historical curiosity as F. A. Lange con- sidered it.

I adduce these considerations not merely to suggest a possibility which is hardly more than a guess. It seems to be unthinkable that it is not the case that many more people than actual geniuses have some trace of genius. The quantitative difference in natural endowment will be most marked at the moment when the endowrr'^nt becomes active. And for most men this moment is the point of dearh. If we were not accustomed to regard men of genius as a separate class shut off from the others like the payers of income-tax, we should find less difficulty in grafting these new ideas on the old. And just as the earliest recollections of childhood which a man has are not the result of some external event breaking through the

* I venture to remind readers how often at the approach of death those who have been occupied with purely scientific matters have turned to religious problems, e.g., Newton, Gauss, Riemann, Weber.

I

I30 SEX AND CHARACTER

continuity of the past course of his life, but are the result of his internal development, there comes to every one a day on which his consciousness is so intensified that remem- brance remains, and from that time onwards, according to his endowment, more or fewer remembrances are formed (a factor which by itself upsets the whole of modern psychology), so in different men there are many different stimulants of the consciousness of which the last is the hour of death, and from the point of view of their de- gree of genius men might almost be classified by the number of things that excite their consciousness. I take this opportunity of again urging the falseness of a doc- trine of modern psychology (which treats men simply as better or worse pieces of registering apparatus and takes no notice of the internal, ontogenetic development of the mind) ; I mean the idea that in youth we retain the greatest number of impressions. We must not confuse really ex- perienced impressions with the mere material on which to exercise memorising. Such stuff a child learns more easily simply because it is not weighted with mental impres- sions. A psychology which is opposed to experience in matters so fundamental must be rejected. What I am attempting at present is no more than to give the faintest indication of that ontogenetic psychology or theoretical biography which sooner or later will replace what now passes for the science of mind. Every programme repre- sents some definite conviction ; before we wish to reach a goal we have some definite conception of what the goal is to be. The name " theoretical biography " will define the new subject from philosophy and physiology, and the biological method of treatment introduced by Darwin, Spencer, and others will be widened until it becomes a science capable of giving a rational orderly account of the whole course of the mental life from the cradle to the grave. It is to be called biography, not biology, because it is to deal with the investigation of the permanent laws that rule the mental development of an individual, whereas biology itself concerns itself with individuals themselves.

TALENT AND MEMORY 131

The new knowledge will seek general points of view and the establishment of types. Psychology must try to be- come theoretical biography. Existing psychology would find its place in the branches of the new science, and in this way only would Wundt's desire to establish the founda- tions of a science of the mind be fulfilled. It would be absurd to despair of this simply because of the uselessness of the existing science of the mind which has not yet even grasped its own object. In this way a justification for experimental psychology might yet be found, in spite of the important results of the investigations by Windelband and Rickert on the relation between natural and psychical science, or the old dichotomy between the physical and mental sciences.

The relation between the continuity of memory and the desire for immortality is borne out by the fact that woman is devoid of the desire for immortality. It is to be noted that those persons are quite wrong who have attributed the desire for immortality to the fear of death. Women are as much afraid of death as are men, but they have not the longing for immortality.

My attempted explanation of the psychological desire for immortality is as yet more an indication of the connection between the desire and memory than a deduction from a higher natural law. It will always be found that the con- nection actually exists ; the more a man lives in his past (not, as a superficial reader might guess, in his future) the more intense will be his longing for immortality. The lack of the desire for immortality in women is to be associated with the lack in them of reverence for their own personality. It seems, however, that the absence of both reverence and desire for immortality in woman is due to a more general principle, and in the same fashion in the case of man the co-existence of a higher form of memory and the desire for immortality may be traced to some deeper root. So far, I have attempted only to show the coincidence of the two, how the deep respect for their own past and the deep desire for their own future are to be found in the same individuals.

132 SEX AND CHARACTER

It will now be my task to find the common origin of these two factors of the mind.

Let us take as a starting-point what we were able to lay down as to the universality of the memory of great men. To such everything is equally real: what took place long ago and the most recent experience. Thus it happens that a single experience does not end with the moment of time in which it happened, does not disappear as this moment of time disappears, but through the memory is wrested from the grasp of time. vM^^mory makes experience timeless ; the essence of it is that it should transcend time. A man can only remember the past because memory is free from the control of time, because events which in nature are functions of time, in the spirit have conquered time)

But here a difficulty crops up. How can memory be a negation of time if, on the other hand, it is certain that if we had no memory we should be unconscious of time ? It is certainly true that we shall always be conscious of the passing of time by our memory of the past. If the two are in so intimate a relation how can the one be the negation of the other ?

Vrhe difficulty is easy to resolve. It is just because a living creature — not necessarily a human being — by being endowed with memory is not wholly absorbed by the experiences of the moment that it can, so to speak, oppose itself to time, take cognisance of it, and make it the subject of observation. Were the being wholly abandoned to the experience of the moment and not saved from it by memory then it would change with time and be a floating bubble in the stream of events ; it could never be conscious of time, for consciousness implies duality. The mind must have transcended time to grasp it, it must have stood outside it in order to be able to reflect upon it. This does not apply merely to special moments of time, as, for instance, to the case that we cannot be conscious of sorrow until the sorrow is over, but it is a part of the conception of time. If we could not free ourselves from time, we could have no knowledge of time^

TALENT AND MEMORY 133

In order to understand the condition of timelessness let us reflect on what memory rescues from time. What tran- scends time is only what is of interest to the individual, what has meaning for him ; in fact, all that he assigns value to. We remember only the things that have some value for us even if we are unconscious of the value. It is the value that creates the timelessness. We forget everything that has no value for us even if we are unconscious of that absence of value.

What has value, then, is timeless ; or, to put it the other way, a thing has the more value the less it is a function of time. In all the world value is in proportion to inde- pendence of time ; only things that are timeless have a positive value. Although this is not what I take to be the deepest and fullest meaning of value, it is, at least, the first special law of the theory of values.

A hasty survey of. common facts will suffice to prove this relation between value and duration. We are always in- clined to pay little attention to the views of those whom we have known only for a short time, and, as a rule, we think little of the hasty judgments of those who easily change their ideas. On the other hand, uncompromising fixedness gains respect, even if it assume the form of vindictiveness or obstinacy. The cere perennins of the Roman poets and the Egyptian pyramids lasting for forty centuries are favourite images. The reputation a man leaves behind him would soon be depreciated were it suspected that it would soon disappear instead of being handed down the centuries. A man dislikes to be told that he is always changing ; but let it be put that he is simply showing new sides of his character and he will be proud of the permanence through the changes. He who is tired of life, for whom life has ceased to be of interest, is interesting to no one. The fear of the extinction of a name or of a family is well known.

So also statute laws and customs lose in value if their validity is expressly limited in time ; and if two people are making a bargain, they will be the more ready to distrust one another if the bargain is to be only of short duration.

134 SEX AND CHARACTER

In fact, the value that we attach to things depends to a large extent on our estimate of their durability.

This law of values is the chief reason why men are inte- rested in their death and their future. The desire for value shows itself in the efforts to free things from time, and this pressure is exerted even in the case of things which sooner or later must change, as, for instance, riches and position and everything that we call the goods of this world. Here lies the psychological motive for the making of wills and the bestowal of property. The motive is not care for relatives, because a man without relatives very often is more anxious to settle his goods, not feeling, perhaps, like the head of a family, that in any event his existence will have some kind of permanence, that traces of him will be left after his own death.

The great politician or ruler, and especially the despot, whose rule ends with his death, seeks to increase his own value by making it independent of time. He may attempt it through a code of laws or a biography like that of Julius Caesar, by some great philosophical undertaking, by the founding of museums or collections, or (and this perhaps is the favourite way) by alterations of the calendar. And he seeks to extend his power to the utmost during his life-time, to preserve it and make it stable by enduring contracts and diplomatic marriages, and most of all by attacking and re- moving everything that could endanger the permanence of his kingdom. And so the politician becomes a conqueror.

Psychological and philosophical investigations of the theory of values have neglected the time element. Perhaps this is because they have been very much under the influence of political economy. I believe, however, that the appli- cation of my principle to political economy would be of considerable value. Very slight reflection will lead one to see that in commercial affairs the time element is a most important factor in estimating value. The common defini- tion of value, that it is in proportion to the power of the thing valued to relieve our wants, is quite incomplete with- out the element of time. Such things as air and water have

TALENT AND MEMORY 135

no value only in so far as they are not localised and individualised ; but as soon as they have been localised and individualised, and so received form, they have received a quality that may not last, and with the idea of duration comes the idea of value. Form and timelessness, or indi- viduation and duration, are the two factors which compose value.

Thus it can be shown that the fundamental law of the theory of value applies both to individual psychology and to social psychology. And now I can return to what is, after all, the special task of this chapter.

The first general conclusion to be made is that the desire for timelessness, a craving for value, pervades ail spheres of human activity. And this desire for real value, which is deeply bound up with the desire for power, is completely absent in the woman. It is only in comparatively rare cases that old women trouble to make exact directious about the disposition of their property, a fact in obvious relation with the absence in them of the desire for immortality.

Over the dispositions of a man there is the weight of something solemn and impressive — something which makes him respected by other men.

The desire for immortality itself is merely a specific case of the general law that only timeless thmgs have a positive value. On this is founded its connection with memory. The permanence with which experiences stay with a man is proportional to the significance which they had for him. Putting it in a paradoxical form, I may say : Value is created by the past. Only that which has a positive value remains protected by memory from the jaws of time ; and so it may be with tlie individual psychical life as a whole. If it is to have a positive value, it must not be a function of time, but must subdue time by eternal duration after physical death. This draws us incomparably nearer the innermost motive of the desire for immortality. The com- plete loss of significance which a rich, individual, fully-lived life would suffer if it were all to end with death, and the consequent senselessness of everything, as Goethe said, in

136 SEX AND CHARACTER

other words, to Eckermann (February 14, 1829) lead to the demand for immortality. The strongest craving for immortality is possessed by the genius, and this is explained by all the other facts which have been discussed as to his nature.

Memory only fully vanquishes time when it appears in a universal form, as in universal men.

The genius is thus the only timeless man — at least, this and nothing else is his ideal of himself ; he is, as is proved by his passionate and urgent desire for immortality, just the man with the strongest demand for timeiessness, with the greatest desire for value.*

<And now we are face to face with an almost astonishing coincidence. The timeiessness of the genius will not only be manifest in relation to the single moments of his life, but also in his relation to what is known as " his generation," or, in a narrower sense, " his time." As a matter of fact, he has no relations at all with it. The age does not create the genius it requires. The genius is not the product of his age, is not to be explained by it, and we do him no honour if we attempt to account for him by it.)

Carlyle justly noted how many epochs had called for great men, how badly they had needed them, and how they still did not obtain them.

The coming of genius remains a mystery, and men reverently abandon their efforts to explain it. And as the causes of its appearance do not lie in any one age, so also the consequences are not limited by time. The achieve- ments of genius live for ever, and time cannot change them, By his works a man of genius is granted immortality on the earth, and thus in a threefold manner he has transcended time. His universal comprehension and memory forbid the annihilation of his experiences with the passing of the

* It is often a cause for astonishment that men with quite ordi- nary, even vulgar, natures experience no fear of death. But it is quite explicable : it is not the fear of death which creates the desire for immortality, but the desire for immortality which causes fear of death.

TALENT AND MEMORY 137

moment in which each occurred ; his birth is independent of his age, and his work never dies.

Here is the best place to consider a question which, strangely enough, appears to have received no attention. The question is, if there be anything akin to genius in the world of animals and plants ? Although it must be admitted that exceptional forms occur amongst animals and plants, these cannot be regarded as coming under our definition of genius. Talent may exist amongst them as amongst men below the standard of genius. But the special gift, what Moreau, Lombroso, and others have called the " divine spark," we must deny to animals. This limita- tion is not jealousy nor the anxious guarding of a privilege, but is founded on good grounds.

Is there anything unexplained by the assumption that the first appearance of genius was in man ! In the first place, it is because of this that the human race has an objective mind ; in other words, that man is the only organism with a history.

^The history of the human race (naturally I mean the history of its mind and not merely of its wars) is readily intelligible on the theory of the appearance of genius, and of the imitation by the more monkey-like individuals of the conduct of those with genius. The chief stages, no doubt, were house-building, agriculture, and, above all, speech. Every single word has been the invention of a single man, as, indeed, we still see, if we leave out of consideration the merely technical terms. How else could language have arisen ? The earliest words were " onomatopoetic " ; a sound similar to the exciting cause was evolved almost without the will of the speaker, in direct response to the sensuous stimulation. All the other words were originally metaphors, or comparisons, a kind of primitive poetry, for all prose has come from poetry, f Many, perhaps the majority of the greatest geniuses, have remained unknown. Think of the proverbs, now almost commonplaces, such as " one good turn deserves another." These were said for the first time by some great man. How many quotations

138 SEX AND CHARACTER

from the classics, or sayings of Christ, have passed into the common language, so that we have to think twice before we can remember who were the authors of them. Language is as little the work of the multitude as our ballads. Every form of speech owes much that is not acknowledged to individuals of another language. Because of the universality of genius, the words and phrases that he invents are useful not only to those who use the language in which he wrote them. /A nation orients itself by its own geniuses, and derives from them its ideas of its own ideals, but the guiding star serves also as a light to other nations. As speech has been created by a few great men, the most extraordinary wisdom lies concealed in it, a wisdom which reveals itself to a few ardent explorers but which is usually overlooked by the stupid professional philologists.^

The genius is not a critic of language, but its creator, as he is the creator of all the mental achievements which are the material of culture and which make up the objective mind, the spirit of the peoples. The "timeless" men are those who make history, for history can be made only by those who are not floating with the stream. It is only those who are unconditioned by time who have real value, and whose productions have an enduring force. And the events that become forces of culture become so only because they have an enduring value.

If we make a criterion of genius the exhibition of this threefold " timelessness " we shall have a measure by which it is easy to test all claimants. Lombroso and Türck have expanded the popular view which ascribes genius to all whose intellectual or practical achievements are much above the average. Kant and Schelling have insisted on the more exclusive doctrine that genius can be predicated only of the great creative artists. The truth probably lies between the two. I am inclined to think that only great artists and great philosophers (amongst the latter, I include, above all, the great religious teachers) have proved a claim to genius. Neither the " man of action " nor " the man of science " has any claim.

TALENT AND MEMORY 139

Men of action, famous politicians and generals, may possess a few traits resembling genius (particularly a specially good knowledge of men and an enormous capacity for remembering people). The psychology of such traits will be dealt with later ; they are confused with genius only by those whom the externals of greatness dazzle. The man of genius almost typically renounces such external greatness because of the real greatness within him. The really great man has the strongest sense of values ; the distinguished general is absorbed by the desire for power. The former seeks to link power with real value ; the latter desires that power itself should be valued. Great generals and great politicians, like the bird Phoenix, are born out of fiery chaos and like it disappear again in chaos. The great emperor or the great demagogue is the only man who lives entirely in the present ; he does not dream of a more beautiful, better future ; his mind does not dwell on his own past which has already passed, and so in the two ways most possible to man, he does not transcend time, but lives only in the moment. The great genius does not let his work be determined by the concrete finite conditions that surround him, whilst it is from these that the work of the statesman takes its direction and its termination. And so the great emperor is no more than a phenomenon of nature, whereas the genius is outside nature and is an incorporation of the mind. The works of men of action crumble at the death of their authors, if indeed they have not already decayed, or they survive only a brief time leaving no traces behind them except what the chronicles record as having been done and later undone. The emperor creates no works that survive time, passing into eternity ; such creations come from genius. It is the genius in reality and not the other who is the creator of history, for it is only the genius who is outside and unconditioned by history. The great man has a history, the emperor is only a part of history. The great man transcends time ; time creates and time destroys the emperor.

The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher

140 SEX AND CHARACTER

(I think of such names as Newton and Gauss, Linnasus and Darwin, Copernicus and GaHleo), deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action. Men of science are not universal ; they deal only with a branch or branches of knowledge. This is not due, as is sometimes said, merely to the extreme modern specialisation that makes it impossible to master everything. Even in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there are still amongst the learned men individuals with a knowledge as many-sided as that of Aristotle or Leibnitz ; the names of von Humboldt and William Wundt at once come to my mind. The absence of genius comes from something much more deeply seated in the men of science, and in science itself, from a cause which I shall explain in the eighth chapter. Probably some one may be disposed to argue that if even the most distinguished men of science have not a knowledge so universal as that of the philosopher, there are some who stand on the outermost fringes of philosophy, and to whom it is yet difficult to deny the word genius. I think of such men as Fichte, Schleier- macher, Carlyle, and Nietzsche. Which of the merely scientitic has felt in himself an unconditioned comprehen- sion of all men and of all things, or even the capacity to verify any single thing in his mind and by his mind ? On the contrary, has not the whole history of the science of the last thousand years been directed against this ? This is the reason why men of science are necessarily one-sided. No man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, however eminent his achievements, has that continuous unforgetting life that the genius exhibits, and this is because of his want of universality.

finally, it is to be observed that the investigations of the scientific are always in definite relation to the knowledge of their day. The scientific man takes possession of a definite store of experimental or observed knowledge, increases or alters it more or less, and then hands it on. And much will be taken away from his achievements, much will silently disappear ; his treatises may make a brave show in the libraries, but they cease to be actively alive. On the other

TALENT AND MEMORY 141

hand, we can ascribe to the work of the great philosopher, as to that of the great artist, an imperishable, unchangeable presentation of the world, not disappearing with time, and which, because it was the expression of a great mind, will always find a school of men to adhere to it. There still exist disciples of Plato and Aristotle, of Spinoza and Berkeley and Bruno, but there are now none who denote them- selves as followers of Galileo or Helmholtz, of Ptolemy or Copernicus. It is a misuse of terms, due to erroneous ideas, to speak of the " classics " of science or of pedagogy in the sense that we speak of the classics of philosophy and art.^

The great philosopher bears the name of genius deservedly and with honour. And if it will always be the greatest pain to the philosopher that he is not an artist, so the artist envies the philosopher his tenacious and controlled strength of systematic thought, and it is not surprising that the artist has taken pleasure in depicting Prometheus and Faust, Prospera and Cyprian, Paul the Apostle and II Penseroso. The philo- sopher and the artist are alternate sides of one another.

We must not be too lavish in attributing genius to those who are philosophers or we shall not escape the reproach of being merely partisans of philosophy against science. Such a partisanship is foreign to my purpose, and, I hope, to this book, ^t would only be absurd to discuss the claims to genius of such men as Anaxagoras, Geulincx, Baader, or Emerson. I deny genius either to such unoriginally pro- found writers as Angelus Silesius, Philo and Jacobi, or to original yet superficial persons such as Comte Feuerbach, Hume, Herbart, Locke, and Karneades. The history of art is equally full of preposterous valuations, whilst, on the other hand, the history of science is extremely free from false estimations./ The history of science busies itself very little with the biographies of its protagonists ; its object is a system of objective, collective knowledge in which the individual is swept away. The service of science demands the greatest sacrifice, for in it the individual human being renounces all claim to eternity as such.

CHAPTER VI

MEMORY, LOGIC, AND ETHICS

The title that I have given to this chapter at once opens the way to misinterpretation. It might appear as if the author supported the view that logical and ethical values were the objects exclusively of empirical psychology, psychical phenomena, like perception and sensation, and that logic and ethics, therefore, were subsections of psychology and based upon psychology.

I declare at once that I call this view, the so-called psy- chologismus, at once false and injurious. It is false because it can lead to nothing ; and injurious because, while it hardly touches logic and ethics, it overthrows psychology itself. The exclusion of logic and ethics from the foun- dations of psychology, and the insertion of them in an appendix, is one of the results of the overgrowth of the doctrine of empirical perception, of that strange heap of dead, fleshless bones which is known as empirical psycho- logy, and from which all real experience has been excluded. I have nothing to do with the empirical school, and in this matter lean towards the transcendentalism of Kant.

As the object of my work, however, is to discover the differences between different members of humanity, and not to discuss categories that would hold good for the angels in heaven, I shall not follow Kant closely, but remain more directly in psychological paths.

The justification of the title of this chapter must be reached along other Unes. The tedious, because entirely new, demonstration of the earlier part of my work has shown that the human memory stands in intimate relation

MEMORY, LOGIC, AND ETHICS 145

with things hitherto supDOsed unconnected with it — such things as time, value, genius, immortality. I have attempted to show that memory stands in intimate connection with all these. There must be some strong reason for the complete absence of earlier allusions to this side of the subject. I believe the reason to be no more than the inadequacy and slovenliness which hitherto have spoiled theories of memory.

I must here call attention to a theory first propounded by Charles Bonnet in the middle of the eighteenth century and towards the end of the nineteenth century, specially insisted upon by Ewald Hering and E. Mach. This theory regarded the human memory as being only a special case of a pro- perty common to all organised matter, the property that makes the path of new stimuli rather easier if these resemble stimuli that have acted at some former time. The theory really makes the human memory an adaptation in the sense of Lamarck, the result on the living organism of repeated stimulation. It is true that there is a point in common between the human memory and the increase of sensitiveness caused by the repeated application of a stimu- lus ; that identical element consists in the permanence of the effect of the first stimulation. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the growth of a muscle that is much used or the adaptation of the eater of arsenic or morphia to increased doses, and the recollection of past experiences by human beings. In the one case the trace of the old is just to be felt in the new stimulation ; in the other case, by means of the consciousness, the old situations are actually reproduced with all their individuation. The iden- tification of the two is so superficial that it is a waste of time to dwell longer on it.

The doctrine of association as the theory of memory is linked with the foregoing physiological theory as a matter of history, through Hartley, and, as a matter of fact, because the idea of habit is shared by the two. The asso- ciation theory attributes memory to the mechanical play of the linking of presentations according to four laws. It

144 SEX AND CHARACTER

overlooks the fact that memory (the continuous memory of man) is a function of the will. I can remember a thing if I really will. In the case of hypnosis, when the recollec- tion of all that has been forgotten is induced, an outside will replaces the will of the subject. It is will that sets in action the chains of association, and we have to deal here with something deeper than a mechanical principle.

In the association psychology, which first splits up the psychic life, and then vainly imagines that it can weld the re-assorted pieces together again, there is another confusion, the confusion between memory and recollection, which has persisted in spite of the well-founded objections of Avenarius and von Höffding. The recognition of a circum- stance does not necessarily involve the special reproduction of the former impression, even although there seems to be a tendency for the new impression, at least, partly to recall the old one. But there is another kind of recognition, perhaps as common, in which the new impression does not appear to be directly linked with an association, but in which it comes, so to speak, "coloured" (James would say "tinged") with that character that would be called by von Höffding the "familiarity quality." To him who returns to his native place the roads and streets seem familiar, even although he has forgotten the names, has to ask his way, and can think of no special occasion on which he went along them. A melody may seem " familiar " and yet I may be unable to say where I heard it. /The " character " (in the sense of Avenarius) of familiarity, of intimacy, hovers over the sense- impression itself, and analysis can detect no associations, none of the fusing of the old and new, which, according to the assertion of a presumptuous pseudo-psychology, produces the feeling ; these cases are quite easy to distinguish from cases in which there is a real although vague association with an older experience in henid formj

In individual psychology this distinction is of great importance. In the highest types of mankind the conscious- ness of the continuous past is present in so active a form that the moment such a one sees a acquaintance in the

MEMORY, LOGIC, AND ETHICS 145

street he is at once able to reproduce the last meeting as a complete experience, whereas in the case of the less gifted person, the feeling of familiarity that makes recognition possible, occurs when he is able to recall the past connection in all its details.

If we now, in conclusion, ask whether or no other animals than man possess a similar faculty for remembering and reviving their earlier lives in their entirety it is most probable that the answer must be in the negative. Animals could not, as they do, remain for hours at a time, motionless and peaceful on one spot, if they were capable of thinking of the future or of remembering the past. Animals have the feeling of familiarity and the sense of expectation (as we find from the recognition of his master by a dog after twenty years' absence) ; but they possess no memory and no hope. They are capable of recognition through the sense of familiarity, but they have no memory.

As memory has been shown to be a special character unconnected with the lower spheres of psychical life, and the exclusive property of human beings, it is not surprising that it is closely related to such higher things as the idea of value and of time, and the craving for immortality, which is absent in animals, and possible to men only in so far as they possess the quality of genius. If memory be an essen- tially human thing, part of the deepest being of humanity, finding expression in mankind's most peculiar qualities, then it will not be surprising if memory be also related to the phenomena of logic and ethics. I have now to explore this relationship.

I may set out from the old proverb that liars have bad memories. It is certain that the pathological liar has prac- tically no memory. About male liars I shall have more to say ; they are not common, however. But if we remember what was said as to the absence of memory amongst women we shall not be surprised at the existence of the numerous proverbs and common sayings about the untruthfulness of women. It is evident that a being whose memory is very, slight, and who can recall only in the most imperfect fashion

K

146 SEX AND CHARACTER

\vhat it has said or done, or suffered, must lie easily if it has the gift of speech. The impulse to untruthfulness will be hard to resist if there is a practical object to be gained, and if the influence that comes from a full conscious reality of the past be not present. The impulse to lie is stronger in woman, because, unlike that of man, her memory is not continuous, whilst her life is discrete, unconnected, dis- continuous, swayed by the sensations and perceptions of the moment instead of dominating them. Unlike man, her experiences float past without being referred, so to speak, to a definite, permanent centre ; she does not feel herself, past and present, to be one and the same throughout all her life. It happens almost to every man that sometimes he "does not understand himself"; indeed, wilh very many men, it happens (leaving out of the question the facts of psychical periodicity) that if they think over their pasts in their minds they find it very difficult to refer all the events to a single conscious personality ; they do not grasp how it could have been that they, being what they feel themselves at the time to be, could ever have done or felt or thought this, that, or the other. And yet in spite of the difficulty, they know that they had gone through these experiences. The feeling of identity in all circumstances of life is quite wanting in the true woman, because her memory, even if exceptionally good, is devoid of continuity. The conscious- ness of identity of the male, even although he may fail to understand his own past, manifests itself in the very desire to understand that past. Women, if they look back on their earlier lives, never understand themselves, and do not even wish to understand themselves, and this reveals itself in the scanty interest they give to the attempts of man to understand them, u he woman does not interest herself about herself, and hence there have been no female psychologists, no psychology of women written by a woman, and she is incapable of grasping the anxious desire of the man to understand the beginning, middle, and end of his individual life in their relation to each other, and to interpret the whole as a continual, logical, necessary sequence.)

MEMORY, LOGIC, AND ETHICS 147

At this point there is a natural transition to logic. A creature like woman, the absolute woman, who is not con- scious of her own identity at different stages of her life, has no evidence of the identity of the subject-matter of thought at different times. \If in her mind the two stages of a change cannot be present simultaneously by means of memory, it is impossible for her to make the comparison and note the change.) A being whose memory is never sufficiently good as to make it psychologically possible to perceive identity through the lapse of time, so as to enable her, for instance, to pursue a quantity through a long mathematical reckoning ; such a creature in the extreme case would be unable to control her memory for even the moment of time required to say that A will be still A in the next moment, to pronounce judgment on the identity A = A, or on the opposite propo- sition that A is not equal to A, for that proposition also requires a continuous memory of A to make the comparison possible.

I have been making no mere joke, no facetious sophism or paradoxical proposition. I assert that the judgment of identity depends on conceptions, never on mere perceptions and complexes of perceptions, and the conceptions, as logical conceptions, are independent of time, retaining their constancy, whether I, as a psychological entity, think them constant or not. But man never has a conception in the purely logical form, for he is a psychological being, affected by the condition of sensations ; he is able only to form a general idea (a typical, connotative, representative concep- tion) out of his individual experiences by a reciprocal effacing of the differences and strengthening of the simi- larities, thus, however, very closely approximating to an abstract conception, and in a most wonderful fashion using it as such. He must also be able to preserve this idea which he thinks clear, although in reality it is confused, and it is memory alone that brings about the possibility of that Were he deprived of memory he would lose the possibility of thinking logically, for this possibility is incarnated, so to speak, only in a psychological medium.

148 SEX AND CHARACTER

Memory, then, is a necessary part of the logical faculty. The propositions of logic are not conditioned by the exist- ence of memory, but only the power to use them. The proposition A = A must have a psychological relation to time, otherwise it would be Ati = At2. Of course this is not the case in pure logic, but man has no special faculty of pure logic, and must act as a psychological being.

I have already shown that the continuous memory is the vanquisher of time, and, indeed, is necessary even for the idea of time to be formed. And so the continuous memory is the psychological expression of the logical proposition of identity. The absolute woman, in whom memory is absent, cannot take the proposition of identity, or its contradictory, or the exclusion of the alternative, as axiomatic.

Besides these three conditions of logical thought, the fourth condition, the containing of the conclusion in the major premiss, is possible only through memory. That proposition is the groundwork of the syllogism. The pre- misses psychologically precede the conclusion, and must be retained by the thinking person whilst the minor premiss applies the law of identity or of non-identity. The grounds for the conclusion must lie in the past. And for this reason continuity which dominates the mental processes of man is bound up with causality. Every psychological application of the relation of a conclusion to its premisses implies the continuity of memory to guarantee the identity of the propo- sitions. As woman has no continuous memory she can have no principium rationis sufficientis.

And so it appears that woman is without logic.

George Simmel has held this familiar statement to be erroneous, inasmuch as women have been known to draw conclusions with the strongest consistency. That a woman in a concrete case can unrelentingly pursue a given course at the stimulation of some object is no more a proof that she understands the syllogism, than is her habit of perpetually recurring to disproved arguments a proof that the law of identity is an axiom for her. ^he point at issue is whether or no they recognise the logical axioms as the criteria of

MEMORY, LOGIC, AND ETHICS 149

the validity of their thoughts, as the directors of their process of thinking, whether they make or do not make these the rule of conduct and the principle of judgment. A woman cannot grasp that one must act from principle ; as she has no continuity she does not experience the necessity for logical support of her mental processes. Hence the ease with which women assume opinions. If a woman gives vent to an opinion, or statement, and a man is so foolish as to take it seriously and to ask her for the proof of it, she regards the request as unkind and offensive, and as impugning her character. A man feels ashamed of himself, feels himself guilty if he has neglected to verify a thought, whether or no that thought has been uttered by him ; he feels the obligation to keep to the logical standard which he has set up for himself. Woman resents any attempt to require from her that her thoughts should be logical. <^he may be regarded as " logically insane."/

The most common defect which one could discover in the conversation of a woman, if one really wished to apply to it the standard of logic (a feat that man habitually shuns, so showing his contempt for a woman's logic) is the quaternio terminorum, that form of equivocation which is the result of an incapacity to retain definite presentations; in other words, the result of a failure to grasp the law of identity. Woman is unaware of this ; she does not realise the law nor make it a criterion of thought. <^Man feels himself bound to logic ; the woman is without this feeling. It is only this feeling of guilt that guarantees man's efforts to think logically. Probably the most profound saying of Descartes, and yet one that has been widely misunderstood, is that all errors are crimes)

(The source of all error in life is failure of memory. Thus logic and ethics, both of which deal with the furtherance of truth and join in its highest service, are dependent on memory. The conception dawns on us that Plato was not so far wrong when he connected discernment with memory. Memory, it is true, is not a logical and ethical act, but it is a logical and ethical phenomenon) <^A man who has had a vivid and deep perception regards it as a fault, if some half-

I50 SEX AND CHARACTER

hour afterwards he is thinking of something different, even if external influences have intervened. A man thinks him- self unconscientious and blameworthy if he notices that he has not thought of a particular portion of his life for a long time. Memory, moreover, is linked with morality, because it is only through memory that repentance is possible. All forgetfulness is in itself immoral. And so reverence ps a moral exercise ; it is a duty to forget nothing, and for this reason we should reverence the dead.) Equally from logical and ethical motives, man tries to carry logic into his past, in order that past and present may become one.

\It is with something of a shock that we realise here*that we approach the deep connection between logic and ethics, long ago suggested by Socrates and Plato, discovered anew by Kant and Fichte, but lost sight of by living workers.

A creature that cannot grasp the mutual exclusiveness of A and not A has no difficulty in lying ; more than that, such a creature has not even any consciousness of lying, being without a standard of truth. Such a creature if endowed with speech will lie without knowing it, without the possibility of knowing it; Veritas norma sui et falsa est. There is nothing more upsetting to a man than to find, when he has discovered a woman in a lie, and has asked her, " Why did you lie about it ? " that she simply does not understand the question, but simply looks at him and laughingly tries to soothe him, or bursts into tearsi

The subject does not end with the part played by memory. Lying is common enough amongst men. And lies can be told in spite of a full remembrance of the subject which for some purpose some one wishes to be informed about. Indeed, it might almost be said that the only persons who can lie are those who misrepresent facts in spite of a superior knowledge and consciousness of them.

-(Truth must first be regarded as the real value of logic and ethics before it is correct to speak of deviations from truth for special motives as lies from the moral point of view. Those who have not this high conception should be adjudged as guilty rather of vagueness and exaggeration

MEMORY, LOGIC, AND ETHICS 151

than of lying : they are not immoral but non-moral. And in this sense the woman is non-moral.)

The root of such an absolute misconception of truth must lie deep. The continuous memory against which alone a man can be false, is not the real source of the effort for truth, the desire for truth, the basal ethical-logical phenomenon, but only stands in intimate relation with it,

(That which enables man to have a real relation to truth and which removes his temptation to lie, must be some- thing independent of all time, something absolutely unchangeable, which as faithfully reproduces the old as if it were new, because it is permanent itself ; it can only be that source in which all discrete experiences unite and which creates from the first a continuous existence. It is what produces the feehng of responsibility which oppresses all men, young and old, as to their actions, which makes them know that they are responsible, which leads to the phenomena of repentance and consciousness of sin, which calls to account before an eternal and ever present self things that are long past, its judgment being subtler and more comprehensive than that of any court of law or of the laws of society, and which is exerted by the individual him- self quite independently of all social codes (so condemning the moral psychology which would derive morality from the social life of man). Society recognises the idea of illegality, but not of sin ; it presses for punishment without wishing to produce repentance ; lying is punished by the law only in its ceremonious form of perjury, and error has never been placed under its ban.) Social ethics with its conception of duty to our neighbour and to society, and practical exclusion from consideration of the other fifteen hundred million human beings, cannot extend the realm of morality, when it begins by limiting it in this arbitrary fashion.

What is this " centre of apperception " that is superior to time and change ?

It can be nothing less than what raises man above himself (as a part of the world of sense) which joins him to an

152 SEX AND CHARACTER

order of things that only the reason can grasp, and that puts the whole world of sense at his feet. It is nothing else than personality.

The most sublime book in the world, the " Criticism of Practical Reason," has referred morality to an intelli.^ent ego, distinct from all empirical consciousness. I must now turn to that side of my subject.

CHAPTER Vir

LOGIC, ETHICS AND THE EGO

(PAVID Hume is well known to have abolished the concep- tion of the ego by seeing in it only a bundle of different perceptions in continual ebb and flow. However completely Hume thought himself to have compromised the ego, at least he explained his view relatively moderately. He proposed to say nothing about a few metaphysicians who appeared to rejoice in another kind of ego ; for himself he was quite certain that he had none, and he dared to suppose that the majority of mankind, leaving the few peculiar metaphysicians out of the question, were, like himself, mere bundles. So the polite man expressed himself. In the next chapter I shall show how his irony recoils on himself. That his view became so famous depends partly on the over-estimation in which Hume is held and which is largely due to Kant. Hume was a most distinguished empirical psychologist, but he cannot be regarded as a genius, the popular view notwithstanding.) It is not very much to be the first of English philosophers, but Hume has not even a claim to that position. I do not think that Kant would have given so much praise to Hume if he had been fully acquainted with all Hume's work and not merely with the " Enquiry," as he certainly rejected the position of Spinoza, according to which men were not " substances," but merely accidents.

-Lichtenberg, who took the field against the ego later than Hume, was still bolder. He is the philosopher of imperson- ality, and calmly corrects the conversational " I think" mto an actual " it thinks " ; he regards the ego as a creation of

154 SEX AND CHARACTER

the grammarian. In this Hume had anticipated him, inas- much as he also had declared, at the end of his analysis, all disputes as to the identity of the person to be merely a battle of words.)

E. Mach has recently represented the universe as a coherent mass, and the egos as points in which the coherent mass has greater consistency. The only realities are the perceptions, which are connected in one individual strongly, but which are weaker in another individual who is thus differentiated from the first.

The contents of the perceptions are the realities, and they persist externally to the worthless personal recollections. The ego is not a real but only a practical entity and cannot be isolated, and, therefore, the idea of individual immortality must be rejected. None the less the idea of an ego is not wholly to be rejected ; here and there, as, for instance, in Darwin's struggle for existence, it appears to have some validity.

It is extraordinary how an investigator who has accom- plished so much, not only as a historian of his special branch and as a critic of ideas, but who is also fully equipped with knowledge of biology, should have paid no heed to the fact that every organic being is indivisible from the first, and is not composed of anything like atoms, monads, &c. The first distinctive mark of the living as opposed to inorganic matter is that the former is always differentiated into dissimilar, mutually dependent parts, and is not homogeneous like a crystal. And so it should have been borne in mind that it was at least possible that individuation» the fact that organic beings are not united, like Siamese twins, would prove to have importance in psychical matters, and the ego, therefore, was more than Mach's idea of it as a mere waiting-hall of perceptions.

It may be that there exists a psychical correlation even amongst animals. Everythmg that an animal feels and perceives has a different " note " or " colour " in every individual. This individual quality is not only characteristic of the class, genus, species, race, and family, but also is

LOGIC, ETHICS AND THE EGO 155

different in every individual of the same family, &c. The idioplasm is the physiological equivalent of this specific individual quality of the sensations and perceptions, and there are reasons analogous with those in favour of the supposition of an idioplasm for the supposition of an individual character amongst animals. The sportsman who has to do with dogs, the trainer with horses, and the keeper with animals will readily admit the existence of this individuality as a constant element. It is clear that we have to do here with something more than a mere rendezvous of perceptions.

But even if this psychical analogue of the idioplasm were proved to exist in the case of animals, it could not be ranked with the intelligible character, the existence of which in any living creature except man cannot be maintained. The intelligible character of men, their individuation, has the same relation to empirical character that memory has to the simple power of recognition. And finally we come to identity, by which the structure, form, law, and cosmos persist even through the change of contents. \The conside- rations from which is drawn the proof of the existence in man of such a noumenal, trans-empirical subject must now be stated briefly./ They come from logic and ethics.

Logic deals with the true significance of the principle of identity (also with that of contradiction ; the exact relation of these two, and the various modes of stating it are con- troversial matters outside the present subject). The propo- sition A = A is axiomatic and self-evident. It is the primi- tive measure of truth for all other propositions ; however much we may think over it we must return to this funda- mental proposition. It is the principle of the distinction between truth and error ; and he who regards it as meaning- less tautology, as was the case with Hegel and many of the later empiricists (this being not the only surprising point of contact between two schools apparently so different) is right in a fashion, but has misunderstood the nature of the proposition. A = A, the principle of all truth, cannot itself be a special truth. He who finds the proposition of identity

156 SEX AND CHARACTER

or that of non-identity meaningless does so by his own fault. He must have expected to find in these propositions special ideas, a source of positive knowledge. ''^But they are not in themselves knowledge, separate acts of thought, but the common standard for all acts of thought^ And so they cannot be compared with other acts of thought. <(The rule of the process of thought must be outside thought. The proposition of identity does not add to our knowledge ; it does not increase but rather founds a kingdom. The proposition of identity is either meaningless or means everything. Upon what do the propositions of identity and of non-identity depend ? The common view is that they are judgments. Sigwart, for instance, who has recently discussed the matter, puts it as follows : The two judgments A is B and A is not B cannot be true at the same time because the judgment "An unlearned man is learned" would involve a contradiction because the predicate "learned" is affirmed of a subject of which the judg- ment has been made implicitly that he is unlearned, so that in reality two judgments are made, X is learned and X is unlearned. The " psychologismus " of this method of argument is plain. It has recourse to a temporary judg- ment preceding the formation of the conception "unlearned man." The proposition, however, A is not A claims validity quite apart from the past, present, or future existence of other judgments. It depends on the conception " unlearned man." It makes the conception more certain by excluding contradictory instances.

^ This, then, gives us the true function of the principles of identity and non-identity. They are materials for concep- tions^

This function concerns only logical conceptions, but not what have been called psychological conceptions. The conception is always represented psychologically by a generalisation ; and this presentation in a certain fashion is included in the conception. The generalisation represents the conception psychologically, but is not identical with it. It can, so to speak, be richer (as when I think of a triangle)

LOGIC, ETHICS AND THE EGO 157

or it can be poorer (the conception of a lion contains more than my generaUsation of Hons). The logical conception is the plumb-line which the attention tries to follow ; it is the goal and pole-star of the psychological generalisation.

\Pure logical thought cannot occur in the case of men ; it would be an attribute of deity. A human being must always think partly psychologically because he possesses not only reason but also senses, and his thought cannot free itself from temporal experiences but must remain bound by them. Logic, however, is the supreme standard by which the individual can test his own psychological ideas and those of others. When two men are discussing anything it is the conception and not the varying individual pre- sentations of it that they aim at. ) The conception, then, is the standard of value for the individual presentations. The mode in which the psychological generalisation comes into existence is quite independent of the conception and has no significance in respect to it. The logical character which invests the conception with dignity and power is not derived from experience, for experience can give only vague and wavering generalisations. Absolute constancy and absolute coherence which cannot come from ex- perience are the essence of the conception of that power concealed in the depths of the human mind whose handi- work we try hard but in vain to see in nature. Concep- tions are the only true realities, and the conception is not in nature ; it is the rule of the essence not of the actual existence.

\When I enunciate the propositio