Sex & Character Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition

The further we go in the analysis of woman’s claim to esteem the more we must deny her of what is lofty and noble, great and beautiful. As this chapter is about to take the deci...

It would not be surprising if to many it should seem from the foregoing arguments that “men” have come out of them too well, and, as a collective body, have been placed on an ex...

It is now time to return to the actual subject of this investigation in order to see how far its explanation has been helped by the lengthy digressions, which must often have se...

I made a note, half mechanically, of a page in a botanical work from which later on I was going to make an extract. Something was in my mind in henid form. What I thought, how I...

At last we are ready, clear-eyed and well armed, to deal with the question of the emancipation of women. Our eyes are clear, for we have freed them from the thronging specks of...

The chief objection that will be urged against my views is that they cannot possibly be valid for all women. For some, or even for the majority, they will be accepted as true, b...

“In the beginning the world was nothing but the Âtman, in the form of a man. It looked around and saw nothing different to itself. Then it cried out once, ‘It is I.’ That is how...

“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’a...

The arguments which are in common use to justify a high opinion of woman have now been examined in all except a few points to which I shall recur, from the point of view of crit...

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 acco...

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...

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

The title that I have given to this chapter at once opens the way to misinterpretation. It might appear as if the author supported the view that logical and ethical values were...

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...

David Hume is well known to have abolished the conception of the ego by seeing in it only a bundle of different perceptions in continual ebb and flow. However completely Hume th...

Before proceeding to consider the main difference between the psychical life of the sexes, so far as the latter takes subjective and objective things as its contents, a few psyc...

By psychology, as a whole, we generally understand the psychology of the psychologists, and these are exclusively men! Never since human history began have we heard of a female...

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...

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, a...

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...

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...

Organisation and the power of reproducing thoughts -- Memory of experiences a sign of genius -- Remarks and conclusions -- Remembrance and apperception -- Capacity for compariso...

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...

Meaning of womanhood -- Instinct for pairing or matchmaking -- Man, and matchmaking -- High valuation of coitus -- Individual sexual impulse, a special case -- Womanhood as pair...

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...

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 be...

Differences amongst men -- Intermediate forms and racial anthropology -- Comparison of Judaism and femaleness -- Judaism as an idea -- Antisemitism -- Richard Wagner -- Similari...

Special characterology of woman -- Mother and prostitute -- Relation of two types to the child -- Woman polygamous -- Analogies between motherhood and sexuality -- Motherhood an...

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 existe...

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...

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 a...

Principle of sexually intermediate forms as fundamental principle of the psychology of individuals -- Simultaneity or periodicity? -- Methods of psychological investigation -- E...

The woman question -- Claim for emancipation and maleness -- Emancipation and homo-sexuality -- Sexual preferences of emancipated women -- Physiognomy of emancipated women -- Ot...

Sensation and feeling -- Avenarius’ division into “element” and “character” -- These inseparable at the earliest stage -- Process of “clarification” -- Presentiments -- Grades o...

Psychology and “psychologismus” -- Value of memory -- Theory of memory -- Doctrines of practice and of association -- Confusion with recognition -- Memory peculiar to man -- Mor...

Bisexuality and unisexuality -- Man or woman, male or female -- Fundamental difficulty in characterology -- Experiment, analysis of sensation and psychology -- Dilthey -- Concep...

Position of sexuality -- Steenstrup’s view adopted -- Sexual characters -- Internal secretions -- Idioplasm -- Arrhenoplasm -- Thelyplasm -- Variations -- Proofs from the effect...

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 --...

Sexual preference -- Probability of these being controlled by a law -- First formula -- First interpretation -- Proofs -- Heterostylism -- Interpretation of heterostylism -- Ani...