CHAPTER I

Transcriber’s Notes

Text printed in italics has been transcribed _between underscores_.

Small capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS. A caret followed

by a character represents a superscript character (as in f^t).

More Transcriber’s Notes may be found at the end of this text.

SEX & CHARACTER

THE GERMAN PRESS

ON “SEX AND CHARACTER.”

_Die Umschau._--“Dr. Otto Weininger’s book is destined to place the

relation of the sexes in a new light. He traces the contrast between man

and woman to a single principle, and makes an attempt to reduce the

spiritual differences of the sexes to a system.”

_Allgemeine Wiener Medizinische Zeitung._--“An extraordinary book, that

called forth the learned criticism of two faculties, and had appeared in

a third edition a few months after its publication, before the

scientific world had been able to pronounce upon it seriously, not to

say finally.... A book that will henceforth be in the hands of every

doctor who has occasion to study the antithetical character of the two

sexes.”

_Der Volkserzieher._--“There is no aspect of modern thought which he

(Weininger) has not touched upon in the course of his investigations, no

recess of the labyrinthine modern soul into which he does not invite us

to glance with him, no question on which he has not touched, or to which

he has not, indeed, offered a solution in accordance with his own

philosophy.”

_Allgemeine Zeitung._--“This book... is a sensational work, both by

reason of its contents and of the tragic fate of its author. Weininger,

as is commonly known, shot himself in the autumn of 1903 at the early

age of twenty-three, in the house in Vienna where Beethoven had died....

But it is the book itself, even more than its author’s individuality,

which is abnormal. It is nothing less than an attempt to construct a

system of sexual characterology on the broadest scientific basis, with

all the resources of the most modern philosophy.”

_Münchener Neueste Nachrichten._--“‘Sex and Character,’ by Dr.

Weininger, has none of the character of a youthful work. The learning

revealed in this book, and indeed its whole conception, are such that we

might take it for the strenuous achievement of a lifetime.”

_Neues Wiener Tageblatt._--“A great philosophical, biological, and

social question is here treated by a gifted and learned author with

perfect freedom and breadth, yet with a seriousness, a wealth of

scientific knowledge, that would ensure the book a place in the front

rank, even were the style less excellent, vivacious, and individual than

it is.”

_Die Wage._--“The author is a brilliant stylist. On every page I find

aphorisms, in which the form fits the thought like a veil of silver. And

these thoughts are no ordinary ones. The writer goes his own way, he

knows secret paths which no man has yet trodden, and he shrinks from no

obstacles. He lets himself down cautiously into the abyss, for he has

determined to sound the deepest depths; from time to time, however, he

looks up from the pit and rejoices in the light of the eternal stars,

even though they lie hid from his mortal vision. He carries his

arguments to their ultimate conclusion. We rebel against these

conclusions, but we admire the uncompromising logic of the thinker.”

SEX & CHARACTER

BY

OTTO WEININGER

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE

SIXTH GERMAN EDITION

[Illustration]

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

1906

_All rights reserved_

_Copyright, London: William Heinemann, 1906_

_Copyright, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906_

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

On October 4, 1903, Otto Weininger died by his own hand, at the age of

twenty-three and a half years. There is perhaps in all history no other

instance of a man who had produced a work so mature in its scientific

character, and so original in its philosophical aspect as “Sex and

Character” when he was no more than twenty-one years old. We will not

attempt to decide whether this was the case of a genius, who, instead of

developing his intellectual powers gradually in the course of a

lifetime, concentrated them in one mighty achievement, and then cast off

the worn-out husk of the flesh, or of an unhappy youth, who could no

longer bear the burden of his own ghastly knowledge.

“Sex and Character” is undoubtedly one of those rare books that will be

studied long after its own times, and whose influence will not pass

away, but will penetrate deeper and deeper, compelling amazement and

inviting reflection in steadily expanding circles. It may be noted with

satisfaction that the book is by no means in harmony with contemporary

thought. The discussions, so much in favour nowadays, concerning the

emancipation of women, sexuality, the relation of women to culture, and

so forth, are deprived of their data by this publication; for here, laid

down with all the penetrating acumen of the trained logician, is a

characterisation of sexual types, “M” (the ideal man), and “W” (the

ideal woman), which traces all the much discussed psychological

phenomena back to a final source, and actually gives a definitive

solution to the feminine problem, a solution altogether alien to the

field of inquiry wherein the answer has hitherto been sought. In the

science of characterology, here formulated for the first time, we have a

strenuous scientific achievement of the first importance. All former

psychologies have been the psychology 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 themselves have been suggested by men; they

repeat the discoveries, more or less real, which men have made about

them. By a 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 psychology 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 necessary 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 conceptions to some extent), the Courtesan

and the Mother. These are differentiated by their pre-occupation with

the sexual act (the main, and in 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 masterly psychological (not

physiological) 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, æsthetics, memory, the _ego_, the Jewish race, and many

others, rising 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 comes into sharp conflict with the fashionable tendencies

towards an unscientific monism and its accompanying phenomena,

pan-sexuality and the ethics of species, and characterises 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

(whom Weininger calls the greatest of human beings after Jesus) gives

artistic expression in his _Parsifal_ to the conception 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 the two chapters: “The Nature of Woman and her significance

in the Universe,” and “Woman and Mankind,” we drink from a fountain of

the ripest wisdom. A tragic and most unhappy mind reveals itself here,

and no thoughtful man will lay down this book without deep emotion and

admiration; many, indeed, will close it with almost religious

reverence.

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 measuring 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 investigation, but combines the psychical

differences between the sexes into a system; it deals not with women,

but with woman. It sets out, indeed, from the most common and obvious

facts, but intends to reach a single, concrete principle. 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 philosophical, although

its characteristic method, justified by the subject, is to set out from

the most trivial details of experience. The task of the philosopher

differs from that of the artist in one important respect. The one deals

in symbols, 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 generalisation, a thesis going to the root of

the matter and proving itself--appears to strike against us harshly,

almost offensively. Where my exposition is anti-feminine, and that is

nearly everywhere, men themselves will receive it with little heartiness

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 inadequacy of all empirical

psychological philosophy follows directly from empirical psychology

itself. The respect for 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, psychological, 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 dignity; I share with him this distaste. I

may say, however, 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 æsthetics, 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 introspective. It was necessary to be done with

biology before turning 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 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 experimentally 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

_Page_

AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION ix

FIRST OR PREPARATORY PART

SEXUAL COMPLEXITY

INTRODUCTION 1

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 -- Resumé -- Early

anticipations

CHAPTER II

MALE AND FEMALE PLASMAS 11

Position of sexuality -- Steenstrup’s view adopted -- Sexual

characters -- Internal secretions -- Idioplasm -- Arrhenoplasm

-- Thelyplasm -- Variations -- Proofs from the effects of

castration -- Transplantation and transfusion -- Organotherapy

-- Individual differences between cells -- Origin of

intermediate sexual conditions -- Brain -- Excess of male births

-- Determination of sex -- Comparative pathology

CHAPTER III

THE LAWS OF SEXUAL ATTRACTION 26

Sexual preference -- Probability of these being controlled by a

law -- First formula -- First interpretation -- Proofs --

Heterostylism -- 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

attraction -- All men have the rudiments of homo-sexuality --

Friendship 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

principle of the psychology of individuals -- Simultaneity or

periodicity? -- Methods of psychological investigation --

Examples -- Individualised education -- Conventionalising --

Parallelism between morphology and characterology -- Physiognomy

and the principles of psycho-physics -- Method of the doctrine

of variation -- A new way of stating the problem -- 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 women -- Femaleness and emancipation -- 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 differences in the perception of sexuality --

Local and periodical cessation of male sexuality -- Differences

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

understanding -- Forgetting -- Paths and organisation --

Conception of “henids” -- The henid as the simplest, psychical

datum -- Sexual differences in the organisation of the contents

of the mind -- Sensibility -- Certainty of judgment -- Developed

consciousness as a male character

CHAPTER IV

TALENT AND GENIUS 103

Genius and talent -- Genius and giftedness -- Methods --

Comprehension of many men -- What is meant by comprehending men

-- Great complexity of genius -- Periods in psychic life -- No

disparagement of famous men -- Understanding and noticing --

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 114

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 -- Remembrance of personal

creations -- Continuous and discontinuance memory -- Continuity

and piety -- Past and present -- Past and future -- Desire for

immortality -- Existing psychological 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 -- Individuation and duration constituents of

value -- Desire for immortality a special case -- Desire for

immortality in genius connected 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 religion and artists have genius

CHAPTER VI

MEMORY, LOGIC AND ETHICS 142

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

individuality -- Logic and ethics as witnesses for the existence

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 163

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 arrogance -- 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-conscious microcosm

-- The naturally-synthetic activity of genius -- Significant and

symbolical -- Definition of the genius in relation to ordinary

men -- Universality as freedom -- Morality or immorality 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 requirement 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 ζωον πολιτικον -- Consciousness and

morality -- The great criminal -- Genius as duty and submission

-- Genius and crime -- Genius and insanity -- Man as his own

creator

CHAPTER IX

MALE AND FEMALE PSYCHOLOGY 186

Soullessness 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 judgment -- Nature

of judgment -- Woman and truth as a criterion of thought --

Woman and logic -- Woman non-moral, not immoral -- Woman and

solitude -- 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 individuality -- 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 214

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 prostitute

careless of the race -- The prostitute, the criminal and the

conqueror -- Emperor and prostitute -- Motive of the prostitute

-- 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

CHAPTER XI

EROTICS AND ÆSTHETICS 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

æsthetics, logic and ethics -- Modes of love -- Projection

phenomena -- 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

sexuality -- 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 -- Individual

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 -- Contrast 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

CHAPTER XIII

JUDAISM 301

Differences amongst men -- Intermediate forms and racial

anthropology -- Comparison of Judaism and femaleness -- Judaism

as an idea -- Antisemitism -- Richard Wagner -- Similarities

between Jews and women -- Judaism in science -- The Jew not a

monad -- The Jew and the Englishman -- Nature of 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 religion -- Judaism and the

present time -- Judaism, femaleness, culture and humanity

CHAPTER 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 351

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 we approach only by thinking in an ever-narrowing

circle, and by continually being able to add new specific and

differentiating attributes to the general idea, “thing,” or “something.”

It was known that fishes formed a class of the animal kingdom distinct

from mammals, birds, or invertebrates, 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 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, contracted 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 discussions 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 between 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

treatment 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 combinations and mixtures, between animals

and plants, between phanerogams and cryptogams, and between mammals and

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 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 separation 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 starting-point what has

been established by embryology regarding 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 belong cannot be recognised. In the

fifth week of fœtal life processes begin which, by the end of the fifth

month of pregnancy, have turned the genital rudiments, at first alike in

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 however 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 undeveloped 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 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 condition of things

has been minutely investigated in the true genital organs and ducts, the

region called the “urino-genital 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 of the sexes, and in different classes and groups of

creatures different degrees of gonochorism may be noted. Different kinds

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 between males and females so

complete as to reach sexual dimorphism. A condition much more frequent

amongst them is the occurrence of forms intermediate in regard to sex,

what is called abnormal hermaphroditism; 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 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 behaviour of which follows the law of

Boyle-Gay-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 themselves.

Let it be noted clearly that I am discussing the existence not merely of

embryonic sexual neutrality, but of a permanent bisexual condition. Nor

am I taking into consideration 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 dealing 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.

The fact is that males and females are like two substances 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

condition 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:

{ α M { β W

A = { B = {

{ α´W { β´M

always remembering that each of the factors α, α´, β, β´ must be greater

than 0 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 coinciding 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 type have by no means striven against the scientific

representation 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 industrial 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 judgment 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 chapter. 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

between 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 abstractions 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. Traces of it

may be found in Chinese myths, but it became active in Greek thought. We

may recall the mythical personification 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, but the anatomical position of

male and female characters must be discussed. The examples already given

of sexual 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 existence 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 supported by abundant

facts, that every cell in the body is sexually characteristic and has

its definite sexual significance. I may now add to the principle already

laid down in this book, of the universal presence of sexually

intermediate conditions, that these conditions may present different

degrees of development. Such a conception of the existence 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. Steenstrup 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 corresponding female 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 complete 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 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 discovery 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 development 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 influence 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

deferentia vesiculæ 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 secretions of the genital glands. Examples of

these are the beards in men, the luxuriant growth of hair in women, the

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, difference

in habit, mode of livelihood, the smoking and drinking habit in man, and

the domestic 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 definite chain of

sequence, nor must it be assumed that the mental sexual characters

either determine the bodily characters 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 effect of internal secretions of the genital glands on general

metabolism. The relation of this influence or its absence (as in the

case of artificially castrated animals) has been traced out in the

degree of development 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 seats of the secondary sexual

characters. As a matter of fact, the internal secretions of all the

glands must be regarded as affecting all the tissues.

The internal secretions of the genital glands must be regarded as

completing the sexuality of the individual. Every cell must be

considered as possessing an original sexuality, to which the influence

of the internal secretion in 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 reproduction. 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

hermaphroditism) towards a protoplasm that approaches, but never

actually reaches, an ideal thelyplasm. This conception brings to a point

what I have been trying to say. I apologise 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 expressed 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 development who are otherwise

typically 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 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 castration 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

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 organism 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, however (the genera

_Cymothoa_, _Anilocra_ and _Nerocila_ of the family _Cymothoidæ_), the

changes I have just mentioned are part of the normal life history. These

creatures are hermaphrodites 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 occurrence of a certain degree of effeminacy when the crucial

operation of extirpation of the human testes has been performed.[1] 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

throughout the body of cells determined by arrhenoplasm or thelyplasm.

[1] So also in the opposite case; it cannot be wholly denied that

ovariotomy is followed by the appearance of masculine characters.

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 mammæ). Moreover, 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 injections 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 corpuscles, but they furnish

additional explanations of the failure of experiments in grafting

ovaries or testis on individuals of the opposite sex. The internal

secretions of the genital glands are operative only in their appropriate

environment 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 discoveries 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 effects of intravenous injection of testis extract of

the one on 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

forming the sexual characters must be realised to warrant the theory of

a primary, generally slight, difference in each cell, but still

determinate sexual influence.[2] 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.

[2] The existence of sexual distinctions before puberty shows that the

power of the internal secretions of the sexual glands does not account

for everything.

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 interpretation 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 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 arrhenoplasm. The sooner

a more exact method of sex discrimination is insisted upon the better.

As a result of these long inductions and deductions we may rest assured

that all the cells possess a definite primary sexual determinant which

must 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 content 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 phenomena of sexually intermediate

forms. Arrhenoplasm and thelyplasm, in their countless modifications,

are the microscopic agencies which, in co-operation with the internal

secretions, give rise to the macroscopic differences cited in the last

chapter.

If the correctness of the conclusions so far stated may be 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 the 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 of averages,

but averages fail to satisfy the modern statistician, and their

scientific value is very small. Investigations into 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

superficial 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 measurement, 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 determine sex.

Until the exact degree of maleness or femaleness 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,

according 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 themselves. 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 superficial 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 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, thelyplasmic 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 development. 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. Myxœdema, 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 exclusively 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 l’appelle

S’il lui convient de refuser.

Rien n’y fait; menace ou prière:

L’un parle, l’autre se tait;

Et c’est l’autre que je préfère;

Il n’a rien dit, mais il me plaît.

* * * * *

L’amour est enfant de Bohême

Il n’a jamais connu de loi.”

It has been recognised from time immemorial that, in all forms of

sexually differentiated life, there exists an attraction 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 developing 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 discovery of

an unknown natural law, of a law not yet suspected by any philosopher, a

law of sexual attraction. As 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 recall 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 gravitation,

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 statements such as that

“So-and-so are quite unsuitable for one another,” show the existence of

an obscure presentiment 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, 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

person? 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 submitted

instances to their power of generalisation. The formula, no doubt, is

true in a limited sense and for a certain 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

consequent 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 noticed 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 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 μ, any individual regarded in the ordinary way as a male, and

denote his real sexual constitution as Mμ, so many parts really male,

plus Wμ, so many parts really female; if we also take ω, any individual

regarded in the ordinary way as a female, and denote _her_ real sexual

constitution as Wω, so many parts really female, plus Mω, so many parts

really male; then, if there be complete sexual affinity, the greatest

possible sexual attraction between the two individuals, μ and ω,

(1) Mμ (the truly male part in the “male”) + Mω (the truly male part

in the “female”) will equal a constant quantity, M, the ideal male;

and

(2) Wμ + Wω (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 versâ_. If, however, he is composed 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 completed to make a unit; but so also must his

femaleness be completed.

If, for instance, an individual be composed thus:

{ ³⁄₄ M

μ { and

{ ¹⁄₄ W,

then the best sexual complement of that individual will be another

compound as follows:

{ ¹⁄₄ M

ω { and

{ ³⁄₄ 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,

{ 1 M

χ {

{ 0 W,

finds its complement in an equally imaginary individual,

{ 0 M

γ {

{ 1 W.

There can be no hesitation in admitting the existence of definite,

individual sexual preferences, and such an admission carries with it

approval of the necessity of investigating 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 impossibility, 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:

Mμ - Mω = a constant;

that is to say, it may be the difference between the degrees of

masculinity and not the sum of the degrees of masculinity that is a

constant quality, so that the most masculine man would stand just as far

removed from his complement (who in this case would lie nearly midway

between masculinity and femininity) as the most feminine man would be

removed from his complement who would be near the extreme of femininity.

Although, as I have said, this is conceivable, it is not borne out by

experience. Recognising that we have to do here with an empirical law,

and trying to observe a wise scientific restraint, 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

that an identical 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 æsthetic 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 æsthetics or attempting to gather together

examples of relative values, it may readily be admitted that a man may

consider a woman beautiful who, from the æsthetic standpoint, is not

merely indifferent but actually ugly, that in fact pure æsthetics deal

not with absolute beauty, but merely with conceptions of beauty from

which the sexual factor has been eliminated.

I have myself 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

investigation of other laws of sexuality. I myself made special

investigations in the following way. I obtained a set of photographs of

æsthetically beautiful women of blameless 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 predicted. 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,

I 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 suggestions 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 investigations 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 explains much

that hitherto has found no explanation, and so shall have, in a fashion,

proved it retrospectively by showing 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 Hildebrand. Many

Dicotyledons, and a few Monocotyledons, for instance, species of

Primulaceæ and Geraneaceæ and many Rubiaceæ, 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 structure

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 trimorphic plants,

such as _Lythrum 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 discontinuity 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 several genera of insects, as, for instance, some Earwigs

(_Forficulæ_) and Lamellicorn Beetles (_Lucanus cervus_), the

Stag-beetle (_Dynastes Hercules_), and _Xylotrupes gideon_, there are

some males in which the antennæ, 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 observations

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 establishing 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 heterostylous 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

versâ_. 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 therefore 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 complement 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 corresponding 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, inasmuch as the insects which act as fertilisers certainly

sometimes 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. We 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 interpretation is

increased by the fact that in the short-styled, long-anthered, more male

flowers, the pollen grains are larger and the papillæ on the stigmas are

smaller than the corresponding 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 strong

corroboration of my law of sexual affinity, 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.[3]

[3] For special purposes the breeder, whose object frequently is to

modify natural tendencies, will often disregard this law.

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.

As 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 actors are bound up with it,[4] because

another, perhaps many other laws sometimes overshadow it, cases of

undisturbed action of sexual affinity are rare. 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 demonstrated mathematically.

[4] 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.

I shall begin with some phenomena which are pretty 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 striplings. 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 attraction 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

{ α M { β W

χ { and γ {

{ α´ W { β´ M

(where α, α´, β, and β´ are each greater than 0 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:

K

A = -----_f^t_

α - β

where _f^t_ 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 known and unknown laws of sexual affinity, and

which also varies with the degree of specific, racial and family

relationship, 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 α = β 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 mastercraft by Lynkeus in the novel “Im Postwagen.” 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.

If α - β has its maximum value, which is when it equals unity, then A =

K. _f^t_.

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 law of sexual

affinity. As K generally increases with the strength of congenital

relationship, A has a greater value when the individuals are of the same

nationality than when they belong to different nationalities. The value

of _f^t_ is great in this case, and one 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 = 0 in the formula

K . _f^t_

A = ---------,

α - β

then A = 0, which means that between two living beings of origin too

remote there may be no trace of sexual attraction.

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 introduced 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 produced from the mucous membrane of the uterus is from

within outwards. The spermatozoon, in spite of all mechanical 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 localities 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 fertilisation 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 difference 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 who, 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 part.

This is the fundamental idea in Goethe’s “Wahlverwandtschaften”

(Elective Affinities), and in the fourth chapter of the first part of

that work he makes it the subject of a playful introduction which was

full of undreamed of future significance, and the full force of which he

was fated himself to experience in later life. I must confess 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 substances 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 composition; 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 essentially structural. And so in the

vital process it is not as in inorganic chemistry; there is no

possibility of a larger proportion forming one compound, a smaller

proportion forming 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 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 temperature. 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 “_t_,” 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 it.

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 confidence

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 processes. None the less, I thought

it illuminating to make the comparison. It is not yet quite clear if the

sexual attraction 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 shall return to them in the second part of this book.

None the less, there 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 discussion 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

considerations, 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 fertilisation” 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 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.

It may be said in general that the offspring of those parents which

showed the greatest sexual attraction succeed best.

This rule, which is certainly universal, implies the correctness 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. It 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 complementary 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 hermaphroditism”; 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 Féré 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 Hermaphroditos 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 accidental 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 individual ready for it. That sexual abstinence (to take the second

supposed cause of inversion) should result in anything 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 inherited 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 weakness

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 considered 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. 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 mentioned 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 seduction, 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,

successively 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 α (see page 8, chap. i.) is very nearly 0.5 and so is practically

equal to α´; 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

testiculorum_, or epi- or hypo-spadism, or, later on, absence of active

spermatozoa, 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 α is less

than 0.5 and α´ 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.

Moreover, and this not only supports my view but can be explained only

by it, there are no inverts who are completely sexually inverted. In all

of them there is from the beginning 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-sexuality.

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, 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 element 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 satisfied 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 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 relations. 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 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 conclusive, 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, but it is certainly true that there are men with

very little taint of femaleness about them who yet exert a very strong

influence 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 attracted 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 investigation.

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 conception 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 psychologists--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 possible, we shall have done much

towards the definite description 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 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 quantitatively,

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 the 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 differences 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 theoretically

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 intermediate 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 investigate 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 apply theory to

practice, and the actual pursuit of detailed cases would involve much

repetition and bring little theoretical advantage. The second method,

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 to make as

full a psychological 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 displaying 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 concerned as to their personal

appearance at all times, and about the minutest details of their toilet.

They are conscious 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, frequently 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.

Indeed, if one inquires why anything becomes the fashion it will be

found that there is a true cause for it.

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 influenced 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 experience, 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 pedagogy. I am convinced that the more

these views are understood the more certainly will they lead to an

individual treatment in education. At the present time shoemakers, 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 “orthopædic”

treatment of the soul instead of the torture caused by the application

of ready-made conventional shapes. The present system stamps out much

that is original, uproots much that is truly natural, and distorts much

into artificial and unnatural forms.

From time immemorial there have been only two systems of education; one

for those who come into the world designated 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. The intermediate

individuals are placed at a great disadvantage. 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 with 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 resistance, 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 individuals 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 variability 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 women’s rights

movement depends on precisely the same cause.

It is clear that the principle of the existence of innumerable

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 parallelism between

mind and matter, for they will see in psychology no more than the

physiology of the central nervous system, and will 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 morphology

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 physiognomy 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 relation 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 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 cables 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,

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 universally 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 physiognomy and actually practises it. The principle of

the existence 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.

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?

I 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 sciences. Aristotle pointed out long ago that many

characteristics of animals do not vary independently of each other.

Later on Cuvier, in particular, 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 alimentary 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 correlations. 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 metaphysics. We shall get

a good deal further by such correlations, 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 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

reconstruct 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

principle 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 discovery, 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

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

investigating, 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

preliminary 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 charactero-logical conclusions from the principle of sexually

intermediate forms that are of significance in the woman question.

The general 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 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

independence, 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

anatomical characters of the male, some external bodily resemblance 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 historical 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 material at our disposal with regard to

celebrated and emancipated women is too vague to serve as the

foundation of any satisfactory 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 outcome 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 I 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 intelligence 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 display 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 effeminate and sentimental poet, and with Chopin, who might be

described almost as the only female musician, so effeminate are his

compositions.[5] 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 II. 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.

[5] Chopin’s portraits show his effeminacy plainly. Merimée 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.

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 movements, 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 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.

It 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 expression 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 pursuits.

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

unnoticed. 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 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 Gandersheim, Mary Somerville

or George Egerton, Elizabeth 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 Rückert as a poet, Van Dyck as a painter, or

Scheirmacher as a philosopher. If we eliminate hysterical

visionaries,[6] such as the Sybils, the Priestesses of Delphi,

Bourignon, Kettenberg, Jeanne 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 quite 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 “Elective

Affinities” Ottilie acquired the handwriting of Eduard.

[6] 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 interpretation,

as I shall show in the second part of this work.

There remain the interesting and not infrequent cases where the talent

of a clever family seems to reach its maximum in a female member of the

family. But it is only talent that is transmitted in this way, not

genius. Margarethe van Eyck and Sabina von Steinbach form the best

illustrations of the kind of artists who, according to Ernst Guhl, an

author with a great admiration for women-workers, “have been undoubtedly

influenced in their choice of an 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.

The 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 profess 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 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 remembered 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 making 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 gain. 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 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.[7] Furthermore it neglects the fact that at the present time it is

not the true woman who clamours for emancipation, 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.

[7] 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.

As has been the case with every other movement in history, so also it

has been with the contemporary woman’s movement. Its originators were

convinced 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 darkness by

man, and that it was high time for her to assert herself and claim her

natural rights.

But the prototype of this movement, as of other movements, occurred in

the earliest times. Ancient history and mediæval 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 a woman a

“virago” nowadays would be a doubtful compliment, 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 emancipation of

women seems to repeat itself at certain intervals in the world’s

history, and lasts for a definite period?

It has been noticed that in the tenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, 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 disposal, 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 flat 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.

The existence of such periods in organic life, 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 I can do little more than indicate

the direction which future work should take.

Were it proved that at certain periods fewer hermaphrodite 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

expressions 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 women. The struggle for the material

necessities of life has nothing to do with the struggle for intellectual

development, and a sharp distinction must be made between the two.

The prospects 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 the human race

is moving towards a complete sexual differentiation, a definite sexual

dimorphism.

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 emancipation 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 qualities there has been so much controversy, are mixtures of

the types in different proportions. Sexually intermediate forms, which

are the only actually existing individuals, were dealt with in a more or

less schematic fashion in the first part of this book. Consideration of

the general biological application 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 conditions. In plants and

animals the presence of hermaphroditism 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 individual, 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 another individual

“woman” or “man.”[8] This uni-sexuality 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

psychical roll of the man, and in cases of prolonged intercourse 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 sufficiently characteristic--receives it from the

former.

[8] 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.

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 investigation 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 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 characterological differences appear to follow this rule

in a fashion not dissimilar to the suggestion of the Pythagorean,

Alcmæon 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 extremes, and multiply this

determination by discovering it for a great many characters, would this

complex system of co-ordinate lines really give us a conception of the

individual? 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 doctrine of particulate determinants, a mosaic psychology.

This brings us in a new way directly against the old, over-ripe problem.

Is there in a man a single and simple existence, 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 theory of knowledge itself with regard to its postulates,

claims, and objects, and will have to attempt to obtain information 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 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 actualities 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 sensations 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

psychology does nothing towards problems that are eminently

psychological, such as murder, friendship, loneliness, 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 characterology 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 complete 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 meaning of the word, having concerned

itself almost entirely with the motley world, the changing field of

sensations, and overlooked 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 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.

The 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 continue. 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 character. What is

left for characterology, the science of character? On the one hand,

there are those who cry, “De individuo nulla scientia,” and “Individuum

est ineffabile”; 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.