CHAPTER XIV

WOMAN AND MANKIND

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 dubiety that had hitherto obscured the question, and we are armed with a well-founded grasp of theory, and a secure ethical basis. We are far from the maze in which this controversy usually lies, and our investigation has got beyond the mere statement of different natural capacity for men and women, to a point whence the part of women in the world-whole and the meaning of her relation to humanity can be estimated. I am not going to deal with any practical applications of my results; the latter are not nearly optimistic enough for me to hope that they could have any effect on the progress of political movements. I refrain from working out laws of social hygiene, and content myself with facing the problem from the standpoint of that conception of humanity which pervades the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

This conception is in great danger from woman. Woman is able, in a quite extraordinary way, to produce the impression that she herself is really non-sexual, and that her sexuality is only a concession to man. But be that as it may, at the present time men have almost allowed themselves to be persuaded by woman that their strongest and most markedly characteristic desire lies in sexuality, that it is only through woman that they can hope to satisfy their truest and best ambitions, and that chastity is an unnatural and impossible state for them. How often it happens that young men who are wrapped up in their work are told by women to whom they appeal and who would prefer to have them paying them attention, or even as sons-in-law, that “they ought not to work too hard,” that they ought to “enjoy life.” At the bottom of this sort of advice there lies a feeling on the woman’s part, which is none the less real because it is unconscious, that her whole significance and existence depend on her mission as a procreating agent, and that she goes to the wall if man is allowed to occupy himself altogether with other than sexual matters.

That women will ever change in this respect is doubtful. There is nothing to show that she ever was different. It may be that to-day the physical side of the question is more to the fore than formerly, since a great deal of the “woman movement” of the times is merely a desire to be “free,” to shake off the trammels of motherhood; as a whole the practical results show that it is revolt from motherhood towards prostitution, a prostitute emancipation rather than the emancipation of woman that is aimed at: a bold bid for the success of the courtesan. The only real change is man’s behaviour towards the movement. Under the influence of modern Judaism, men seem inclined to accept woman’s estimate of them and to bow before it.

Masculine chastity is laughed at, and the feeling that woman is the evil influence in man’s life is no longer understood, and men are not ashamed of their own lust.

It is now apparent from where this demand for “seeing life,” the Dionysian view of the music-hall, the cult of Goethe in so far as he follows Ovid, and this quite modern “coitus-cult” comes. There is no doubt that the movement is so widespread that very few men have the courage to acknowledge their chastity, preferring to pretend that they are regular Don Juans. Sexual excess is held to be the most desirable characteristic of a man of the world, and sexuality has attained such pre-eminence that a man is doubted unless he can, as it were, show proofs of his prowess. Chastity, on the other hand, is so despised that many a really pure lad attempts to appear a _blasé roué_. It is even true that those who are modest are ashamed of the feeling; but there is another, the modern form of shame--not the eroticist’s shame, but the shame of the woman who has no lover, who has not received appraisement from the opposite sex. Hence it comes that men make it their business to tell each other what a right and proper pleasure they take in “doing their duty” by the opposite sex. And women are careful to let it be known that only what is “manly” in man can appeal to them: and man takes their measure of his manliness and makes it his own. Man’s qualifications as a male have, in fact, become identical with his value with women, in women’s eyes.

But God forbid that it should be so; that would mean that there are no longer any _men_.

Contrast with this the fact that the high value set on women’s virtue originated with man, and will always come from men worthy of the name; it is the projection of man’s own ideal of spotless purity on the object of his love.

But there should be no mistaking this true chastity for the shivering and shaking before contact, which is soon changed for delighted acquiescence, nor for the hysterical suppression of sexual desires. The outward endeavour to correspond to man’s demand for physical purity must not be taken for anything but a fear lest the buyer will fight shy of the bargain; least of all the care which women so often take to choose only the man who can give them most value must not deceive any one (it has been called the “high value” or “self-respect” a girl has for herself)! If one remembers the view women take of virginity, there can be very little doubt that woman’s one end is the bringing about of universal pairing as the only means by which they acquire a real existence; that women desire pairing, and nothing else, even if they personally appear to be as uninterested as possible in sensual matters. All this can be fully proved from the generality of the match-making instinct.

In order to be fully persuaded of this, woman’s attitude towards the virginity of those of her own sex must be considered.

It is certain that women have a very low opinion of the unmarried. It is, in fact, the one female condition which has a negative value for woman. Women only respect a woman when she is married; even if she is unhappily married to a hideous, weak, poor, common, tyrannical, “impossible” man, she is, nevertheless, married, has received value, existence. Even if a woman has had a short experience of the freedom of a courtesan’s life, even if she has been on the streets, she still stands higher in a woman’s estimation than the old maid, who works and toils alone in her room, without ever having known lawful or unlawful union with a man, the enduring or fleeting ecstasy of love.

Even a young and beautiful girl is never valued by a woman for her attractions as such (the sense of the beautiful is wanting in woman since they have no standard in themselves to measure it by), but merely because she has more prospect of enslaving a man. The more beautiful a young girl is, the more promising she appears to other women, the greater her value to woman as the match-maker in her mission as guardian of the race; it is only this unconscious feeling which makes it possible for a woman to take pleasure in the beauty of a young girl. It goes without saying that this can only happen when the woman in question has already achieved her own end (because, otherwise, envy of a contemporary, and the fear of having her own chances jeopardised by others, would overcome other considerations). She must first of all attain her own union, and then she is ready to help others.

Women are altogether to blame for the unpleasant associations which are so unfortunately connected with “old maids.” One often hears men talking respectfully of an elderly woman; but every woman and girl, whether married or single, has nothing but contempt for such a one, even when, as is often the case, they are unconscious that it is so with them. I once heard a married woman, whose talents and beauty put jealousy quite out of the question, making fun of her plain and elderly Italian governess for repeatedly saying that: “Io sono ancora una virgine” (that she was still a virgin). The interpretation put on the words was that the speaker wished to admit she had made a virtue of necessity, and would have been very glad to get rid of her virginity if she could have done so without detriment to her position in life.

This is the most important point of all: women not only disparage and despise the virginity of other women, but they set no value on their own state of virginity (except that men prize it so highly). This is why they look upon every married woman as a sort of superior being. The deep impression made on women by the sexual act can be most plainly seen by the respect which girls pay to a married woman, of however short a standing; which points to their idea of their existence being the attainment of the same zenith themselves. They look upon other young girls, on the contrary, as being, like themselves, still imperfect beings awaiting consummation.

I think I have said enough to show that experience confirms the deduction I made from the importance of the pairing instinct in women, the deduction that virgin worship is of male, not female origin.

A man demands chastity in himself and others, most of all from the being he loves; a woman wants the man with most experience and sensuality, not virtue. Woman has no comprehension of paragons. On the contrary, it is well known that a woman is most ready to fly to the arms of the man with the widest reputation for being a Don Juan.

Woman requires man to be sexual, because she only gains existence through his sexuality. Women have no sense of a man’s love, as a superior phenomenon, they only perceive that side of him which unceasingly desires and appropriates the object of his affections, and men who have none or very little of the instinct of brutality developed in them have no influence on them.

As for the higher, platonic love of man, they do not want it; it flatters and pleases them, but it has no significance for them, and if the homage on bended knees lasts too long, Beatrice becomes just as impatient as Messalina.

In coitus lies woman’s greatest humiliation, in love her supremest exaltation. Since woman desires coitus and not love, she proves that she wishes to be humiliated and not worshipped. The ultimate opponent of the emancipation of women is woman.

It is not because sexual union is voluptuous, not because it is the typical example of all the pleasures of the lower life, that it is immoral. Asceticism, which would regard pleasure in itself as immoral, is itself immoral, inasmuch it attributes immorality to an action because of the external consequences of it, not because of immorality in the thing itself; it is the imposition of an alien, not an inherent law. A man may seek pleasure, he may strive to make his life easier and more pleasant; but he must not sacrifice a moral law. Asceticism attempts to make man moral by self-repression and will give him credit and praise for morality simply because he has denied himself certain things. Asceticism must be rejected from the point of view of ethics and of psychology inasmuch as it makes virtue the effect of a cause, and not the thing itself. Asceticism is a dangerous although attractive guide; since pleasure is one of the chief things that beguile men from the higher path, it is easy to suppose that its mere abandonment is meritorious.

In itself, however, pleasure is neither moral nor immoral. It is only when the desire for pleasure conquers the desire for worthiness that a human being has fallen.

Coitus is immoral because there is no man who does not use woman at such times as a means to an end; for whom pleasure does not, in his own as well as her being, during that time represent the value of mankind.

During coitus a man forgets all about everything, he forgets the woman; she has no longer a psychic but only a physical existence for him. He either desires a child by her or the satisfaction of his own passion; in neither case does he use her as an end in herself, but for an outside cause. This and this alone makes coitus immoral.

There is no doubt that woman is the missionary of sexual union, and that she looks upon herself, as on everything else, merely as a means to its ends. She wants a man to satisfy her passion or to obtain children; she is willing to be used by man as a tool, as a thing, as an object, to be treated as his property, to be changed and modelled according to his good pleasure. But we should not allow ourselves to be used by others as means to an end.

Kundry appealed often to Parsifal’s compassion for her yearnings: but here we see the weakness of sympathetic morality, which attempts to grant every desire of those around, however wrong such wishes may be. Ethics and morality based on sympathy are equally absurd, since they make the “ought” dependent on the “will,” (whether it be the will of oneself, or of others, or of society, it is all the same,) instead of making the “will” dependent on the “ought”; they take as a standard of morality concrete cases of human history, concrete cases of human happiness, concrete moments in life instead of the idea.

But the question is: how ought man to treat woman? As she herself desires to be treated or as the moral idea would dictate?

If he is going to treat her as she wishes, he must have intercourse with her, for she desires it; he must beat her, for she likes to be hurt; he must hypnotise her, since she wishes to be hypnotised; he must prove to her by his attentions how little he thinks of himself, for she likes compliments, and has no desire to be respected for herself.

If he is going to treat her as the moral idea demands, he must try to see in her the concept of mankind and endeavour to respect her. Even although woman is only a function of man, a function he can degrade or raise at will, and women do not wish to be more or anything else than what man makes them, it is no more a moral arrangement than the suttee of Indian widows, which, even though it be voluntary and insisted upon by them, is none the less terrible barbarity.

The emancipation of woman is analogous to the emancipation of Jews and negroes. Undoubtedly the principal reason why these people have been treated as slaves and inferiors is to be found in their servile dispositions; their desire for freedom is not nearly so strong as that of the Indo-Germans. And even although the whites in America at the present day find it necessary to keep themselves quite aloof from the negro population because they make such a bad use of their freedom, yet in the war of the Northern States against the Federals, which resulted in the freedom of the slaves, right was entirely on the side of the emancipators.

Although the humanity of Jews, negroes, and still more of women, is weighed down by many immoral impulses; although in these cases there is so much more to fight against than in the case of Aryan men, still we must try to respect mankind, and to venerate the idea of humanity (by which I do not mean the human community, but the being, man, the soul as part of the spiritual world). No matter how degraded a criminal may be, no one ought to arrogate to himself the functions of the law; no man has the right to lynch such an offender.

The problem of woman and the problem of the Jews are absolutely identical with the problem of slavery, and they must be solved in the same way. No one should be oppressed, even if the oppression is of such a kind as to be unfelt as such. The animals about a house are not “slaves,” because they have no freedom in the proper sense of the word which could be taken away.

But woman has a faint idea of her incapacity, a last remnant, however weak, of the free intelligible ego, simply because there is no such thing as an absolute woman. Women are human beings, and must be treated as such, even if they themselves do not wish it. Woman and man have the same rights. That is not to say that women ought to have an equal share in political affairs. From the utilitarian standpoint such a concession, certainly at present and probably always, would be most undesirable; in New Zealand, where, on ethical principles, women have been enfranchised, the worst results have followed. As children, imbeciles and criminals would be justly prevented from taking any part in public affairs even if they were numerically equal or in the majority; woman must in the same way be kept from having a share in anything which concerns the public welfare, as it is much to be feared that the mere effect of female influence would be harmful. Just as the results of science do not depend on whether all men accept them or not, so justice and injustice can be dealt out to the woman, although she is unable to distinguish between them, and she need not be afraid that injury will be done her, as justice and not might will be the deciding factor in her treatment. But justice is always the same whether for man or woman. No one has a right to forbid things to a woman because they are “unwomanly”; neither should any man be so mean as to talk of his unfaithful wife’s doings as if they were his affair. Woman must be looked upon as an individual and as if she were a free individual, not as one of a species, not as a sort of creation from the various wants of man’s nature; even though woman herself may never prove worthy of such a lofty view.

Thus this book may be considered as the greatest honour ever paid to women. Nothing but the most moral relation towards women should be possible for men; there should be neither sexuality nor love, for both make woman the means to an end, but only the attempt to understand her. Most men theoretically respect women, but practically they thoroughly despise them; according to my ideas this method should be reversed. It is impossible to think highly of women, but it does not follow that we are to despise them for ever. It is unfortunate that so many great and famous men have had mean views on this point. The views of Schopenhauer and Demosthenes as to the emancipation of women are good instances. So also Goethe’s

Immer is so das Mädchen beschäftigt und reifet im stillen Häuslicher Tugend entgegen, den klugen Mann zu beglücken. Wünscht sie dann endlich zu lesen, so wählt sie gewisslich ein Kochbuch,

is scarcely better than Molière’s

... Une femme en sait toujours assez, Quand la capacité de son esprit se hausse A connaître un pourpoint d’avec un haut de chausse.

Men will have to overcome their dislike for masculine women, for that is no more than a mean egoism. If women ever become masculine by becoming logical and ethical, they would no longer be such good material for man’s projection; but that is not a sufficient reason for the present method of tying woman down to the needs of her husband and children and forbidding her certain things because they are masculine.

For even if the possibility of morality is incompatible with the idea of the absolute woman, it does not follow that man is to make no effort to save the average woman from further deterioration; much less is he to help to keep woman as she is. In every living woman the presence of what Kant calls “the germ of good” must be assumed; it is the remnant of a free state which makes it possible for woman to have a dim notion of her destiny. The theoretical possibility of grafting much more on this “germ of good” should never be lost sight of, even although nothing has ever been done, or even if nothing could ever be done in that respect.

The basis and the purpose of the universe is the good, and the whole world exists under a moral law; even to the animals, which are mere phenomena, we assign moral values, holding the elephant, for instance, to be higher than the snake, notwithstanding the fact that we do not make an animal accountable when it kills another. In the case of woman, however, we regard her as responsible if she commits murder, and in this alone is a proof that women are above the animals. If it be the case that womanliness is simply immorality, then woman must cease to be womanly and try to be manly.

I must give warning against the danger of woman trying merely to liken herself outwardly to man, for such a course would simply plunge her more deeply into womanliness. It is only too likely that the efforts to emancipate women will result not in giving her real freedom, in letting her reach free-will, but merely in enlarging the range of her caprices.

It seems to me that if we look the facts of the case in the face there are only two possible courses open for women: either to pretend to accept man’s ideas, and to think that they believe what is really opposed to their whole, unchanged nature, to assume a horror of immorality (as if they were moral themselves), of sexuality (as if they desired platonic love); or to openly admit that they are wrapped up in husband and children, without being conscious of all that such an admission implies, of the shamelessness and self-immolation of it.

Unconscious hypocrisy, or cynical identification with their natural instincts; nothing else seems possible for woman.

But it is neither agreement nor disagreement with, but rather the denial and overcoming of her womanishness that a woman should aim at. If a woman really were to wish, for instance, for man’s chastity, it would mean that she had conquered the woman in her, it would mean that pairing was no longer of supreme importance to her and that her aim was no longer to further it. But here is the trouble: such pretensions must not be accepted as genuine, even although here and there they are actually put forward. For a woman who longed for man’s purity is, apart from her hysteria, so stupid and so incapable of truthfulness that she is unable to perceive that she is in this way negating herself, making herself absolutely worthless, without existence!

It is difficult to decide which is preferable: the unlimited hypocrisy which can appropriate the thing that is most foreign to it, _i.e._, the ascetic ideal, or the ingenuous admiration for the reformed rake, the complacent devotion to him. The principal problem of the woman question lies in the fact that in each case woman’s one desire is to put all responsibility on man, and in this it is identical with the problem of mankind.

Friedrich Nietzsche says in one of his books: “To underestimate the real difficulties of the man and woman problem, to fail to admit the abysmal antagonism and the inevitable nature of the constant strain between the two, to dream of equal rights, education, responsibilities and duties, is the mark of the superficial observer, and any thinker who has been found shallow in these difficult places--shallow by nature--should be looked upon as untrustworthy, as a useless and treacherous guide; he will, no doubt, be one of those who ‘briefly deal with’ all the real problems of life, death and eternity--who never gets to the bottom of things. But the man who is not superficial, who has depth of thought as well as of purpose, the depth which not only makes him desire right but endows him with determination and strength to do right, must always look on woman from the oriental standpoint:--as a possession, as private property, as something born to serve and be dependent on him--he must see the marvellous reasonableness of the Asiatic instinct of superiority over women, as the Greeks of old saw it, those worthy successors and disciples of the Eastern school. It was an attitude towards woman which, as is well known, from Homer’s time till that of Pericles, grew with the growth of culture, and increased in strength step by step, and gradually became quite oriental. What a necessary, logical, desirable growth for mankind! if we could only attain to it ourselves!”

The great individualist is here thinking in the terms of social ethics, and the autonomy of his moral doctrine is overshadowed by the ideas of caste, groups, and divisions. And so, for the benefit of society, to preserve the place of men, he would place woman in subjection, so that the voice of the wish for emancipation could no longer be heard, and so that we might be freed from the false and foolish cry of the existing advocates of women’s rights, advocates who have no suspicion of the real source of woman bondage. But I quoted Nietzsche, not to convict him of want of logic, but to lead to the point that the solution of the problem of humanity is bound up with the solution of the woman problem. If any one should think it a high-flown idea that man should respect woman as an entity, a real existence, and not use her merely as a means to an end, that he should recognise in her the same rights and the same duties (those of building up one’s own moral personality) as his own, then he must reflect that man cannot solve the ethical problem in his own case, if he continues to lower the idea of humanity in the women by using her simply for his own purposes.

Coitus is the price man has to pay to women, under the Asiatic system, for their oppression. And although it is true that women may be more than content with such recompence for the worst form of slavery, man has no right to take part in such conduct, simply because he also is morally damaged by it.

Even technically the problem of humanity is not soluble for man alone; he has to consider woman even if he only wishes to redeem himself; he must endeavour to get her to abandon her immoral designs on him. Women must really and truly and spontaneously relinquish coitus. That undoubtedly means that woman, as woman, must disappear, and until that has come to pass there is no possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth. Pythagoras, Plato, Christianity (as opposed to Judaism), Tertullian, Swift, Wagner, Ibsen, all these have urged the freedom of woman, not the emancipation of woman from man, but rather the emancipation of woman from herself.

It is easy to bear Nietzsche’s anathema in such company! But it is very hard for woman to reach such a goal by her own strength. The spark in her is so flickering that it always needs the fire of man to relight it; she must have an example to go by. Christ is an example; He freed the fallen Magdalen, He swept away her past and expiated it for her. Wagner, the greatest man since Christ’s time, understood to the full the real significance of that act: until woman ceases to exist as woman for man she cannot cease being woman. Kundry could only be released from Klingsor’s curse by the help of a sinless, immaculate man--Parsifal. This shows the complete harmony between the psychological and philosophical deduction which is dealt with in Wagner’s “Parsifal,” the greatest work in the world’s literature. It is man’s sexuality which first gives woman existence as woman. Woman will exist as long as man’s guilt is inexpiated, until he has really vanquished his own sexuality.

It is only in this way that the eternal opposition to all anti-feministic tendencies can be avoided; the view that says, since woman is there, being what she is, and not to be altered, man must endeavour to make terms with her; it is useless to fight, because there is nothing which can be exterminated. But it has been shown that woman is negative and ceases to exist the moment man determines to be nothing but true existence.

That which must be fought against is not an affair of ever unchangeable existence and essence: it is something which can be put an end to, and which ought to be put an end to.

* * * * *

This is the way, and no other, to solve the woman question, and this comes from comprehending it. The solution may appear impossible, its tone exaggerated, its claims overstated, its requirements too exacting. Undoubtedly there has been little said about the woman question, as women talk of it; we have been dealing with a subject on which women are silent, and must always remain silent--the bondage which sexuality implies.

This woman question is as old as sex itself, and as young as mankind. And the answer to it? Man must free himself of sex, for in that way, and that way alone, can he free woman. In his purity, not, as she believes, in his impurity, lies her salvation. She must certainly be destroyed, as woman; but only to be raised again from the ashes--new, restored to youth--as a real human being.

So long as there are two sexes there will always be a woman question, just as there will be the problem of mankind. Christ was mindful of this when, according to the account of one of the Fathers of the Church--Clemens--He talked with Salome, without the optimistic palliation of the sex which St. Paul and Luther invented later: death will last so long as women bring forth, and truth will not prevail until the two become one, until from man and woman a third self, neither man nor woman, is evolved.

* * * * *

Now for the first time, looking at the woman question as the most important problem of mankind, the demand for the sexual abstinence on the part of both sexes is put forward with good reason. To seek to ground this claim on the prejudicial effects on the health following sexual intercourse would be absurd, for any one with knowledge of the physical frame could upset such a theory at all points; to found it on the immorality of passion would also be wrong, because that would introduce a heteronomous motive into ethics. St. Augustine, however, must certainly have been aware, when he advocated chastity for all mankind, that the objection raised to it would be that in such a case the whole human race would quickly disappear from the face of the earth.

This extraordinary apprehension, the worst part of which appears to be the thought that the race would be exterminated, shows not only the greatest unbelief in individual immortality and eternal life for moral well-doers; it is not only most irreligious, but it proves at the same time the cowardice of man and his incapacity to live an individual life. To any one who thinks thus, the earth can only mean the turmoil and press of those on it; death must seem less terrible to such a man than isolation. If the immortal, moral part of his personality were really vigorous, he would have courage to look this result in the face; he would not fear the death of the body, nor attempt to substitute the miserable certainty of the continuation of the race for his lack of faith in the eternal life of the soul. The rejection of sexuality is merely the death of the physical life, to put in its place the full development of the spiritual life.

Hence it follows that it cannot be a moral duty to provide for the continuance of the race. This common argument appears to me to be so extraordinarily false that I am almost ashamed to meet it. Yet at the risk of making myself ridiculous I must ask if any one ever consummated coitus to avoid the great danger of letting the human race die out, if he failed in his duty? And would it not follow that any man who prefers chastity would be open to the charge of immoral conduct? Every form of fecundity is loathsome, and no one who is honest with himself feels bound to provide for the continuity of the human race. And what we do not realise to be a duty, is not a duty.

On the contrary, it is immoral to procreate a human being for any secondary reason, to bring a being into the limitations of humanity, the conditions made for him by his parentage; the fundamental reason why the possible freedom and spontaneity of a human being is limited is that he was begotten in such an immoral fashion. That the human race should persist is of no interest whatever to reason; he who would perpetuate humanity would perpetuate the problem and the guilt, the only problem and the only guilt. The only true goal is divinity and the union of humanity with the Godhead; that is the real choice between good and evil, between existence and negation. The moral sanction that has been invented for coitus, in supposing that there is an ideal attitude to the act in which only the propagation of the race is thought of, is no sufficient defence. There is no such imperative in the mind of man; it is merely an ingenious defence of a desire, and there is the fundamental immorality in it, that the being to be created has no power of choice with regard to his parents. As for the sexual union in which the production of children is prevented, there is no possible justification.

Sexual union has no place in the idea of mankind, not because ascetism is a duty, but because in it woman becomes the object, the cause, and man does what he will with her, looks upon her merely as a “thing,” not as a living human being with an inner, psychic, existence. And so man despises woman the moment coitus is over, and the woman knows that she is despised, even although a few minutes before she thought herself adored.

The only thing to be respected in man is the idea of mankind; this disparagement of woman (and himself), induced by coitus, is the surest proof that it is opposed to that idea of mankind. Any one who is ignorant of what this Kantian “idea of mankind” means, may perhaps understand it when he thinks of his sisters, his mother, his female relatives; it concerns them all: for our own sakes, then, woman ought to treated as human, respected and not degraded, all sexuality implying degradation.

But man can only respect woman when she herself ceases to wish to be object and material for man; if there is any question of emancipation it should be the emancipation from the prostitute element. It has never until now been made clear where the bondage of woman lies; it is in the sovereign, all too welcome power wielded on them by the Phallus. There can be no doubt that the men who have really desired the emancipation of women are the men who are not very sexual, who have no great craving for love, who are not very profound, but who are men of noble and spiritual minds. I am not going to try to palliate the erotic motives of man, nor to represent his antipathy to the “emancipated woman” as being in any sense less than it is; it is much easier to go with the majority, than, as Kant did, to climb, painfully and slowly, to the heights of isolation.

But a great deal of what is taken for enmity to emancipation is due to the want of confidence in its possibility. Man does not really want woman as a slave: he is usually only too anxious for a companion. The education which the woman of the present day receives is not calculated to fit her for the battle against her real bondage. The last resource of her “womanly” teacher, if she declines to do this or that, is to say that no man will have her unless she does it. Women’s education is directed solely to preparing them for their marriage, the happy state in which they are to find their crown. Such training would have little effect on man, but it serves to accentuate woman’s womanishness, her dependence, and her servile condition. The education of woman must be taken out of the hands of woman; the education of mankind must be taken out of the hands of the mother. This is the first step towards placing woman in a relation to the idea of mankind, which since the beginning she has done more than anything else to hinder.

* * * * *

A woman who had really given up her sexual self, who wished to be at peace would be no longer “woman.” She would have ceased to be “woman,” she would have received the inward and spiritual sign as well as the outward form of regeneration.

Can such a thing be?

There is no absolute woman, but even so to say “yes” to the above question is like giving one’s assent to a miracle. Emancipation will not make woman happier; it will not ensure her salvation, and it is a long road which leads to God. No being in the transition stage between freedom and slavery can be happy. But will woman choose to abandon slavery in order to become unhappy? The question is not merely if it be possible for woman to become moral. It is this: is it possible for woman really to wish to realise the problem of existence, the conception of guilt? Can she really desire freedom? This can happen only by her being penetrated by an ideal, brought to the guiding star. It can happen only if the categorical imperative were to become active in woman; only if woman can place herself in relation to the moral idea, the idea of humanity.

In that way only can there be an emancipation of woman.

INDEX

Æsthetics and Erotics, Chap. XI., 236-251

Affinity, sexual, compared with chemical, 41

Ahriman, 183

Alcmæon, of Kroton, 81

Alexander the Great, 229

Amphibia, hermaphroditism, 22

Anæsthesia, sexual, 274

Anatomical distinctions of the sexes, 3

Anatomy, as guide to sexuality, 3, 4

Animals, women and the sexual union of, 257

Angelo, M., 105

Anti-Christ, 183

Antisemitism, 303, 304, 312

Apprehension, 116

Architecture, 119

Aristotle, 18, 140, 187, 293

Arrhenoplasm, Chap. II., 11-25

Aryans, 302

Asceticism, 329, 336, 347

Attraction, between the sexes, 26, 27

Autobiography, 122

Avenarius, 31, 82, 94, 100, 128, 144, 322

Bach, 103, 323

Bachelors, and women, 258

Bacon, 182

Bashkirtseff, Marie, 69

Bateson, on dimorphic earwigs, 34

Beatrice, 240, 336

Beauty, analysis of, 240, 242

Beethoven, 96, 112, 317

Bentham, 176, 317

Berkeley, 141, 317

Bisexuality, oscillations in, 55

Bischoff, 12, 217

Björnson, 108

Blavatsky, Mdme., 68

Blindness, colour, 110

Blood, transfusion of, 20

Bölsche, 329

Bonheur, Rosa, 68

Bonnet, 143

Boys and girls, education of, 58

Breeding, application of laws of sexual attraction to, 43

Breuer, on hysteria, 265, 269, 270

Bridgman, Laura, 66

Brünnhilde, 223

Bruno, 141, 240, 316

Buchner, 315

Buddha, 325, 328

Burckhardt, 72

Burns, Robert, 317

Byron, Lord, 236

Cæsar, 134, 229, 230, 326

Carlyle, 113, 136, 140, 175, 229, 307, 317

Castration, effect of, 18

Catharsis, 269

Catherine II. of Russia, 66

Catholic view of marriage, 221

Catholicism and women, 207

Cattle, homosexuality in, 49

Causality, invented by man, 279

Cells, sexuality of, 15, 17, 22, 23

Ceres, 224

Chamberlain on Jews, 312, 321, 323, 328 on origin of Christianity, 328

“Character” of Avenarius, 94, 95, 96

Characterology, Chap. V., 52-63

Characters, classification of, 14 secondary sexual, 43

Chastity, 331, 332, 334, 335, 341, 346

Chemistry, Kepler’s estimate of, 315

Chemotropism, 39, 41

Child, relation of mother and prostitute to, 219

Chinese, 187, 302

Chivalry, 204

Chopin, 67

Christ, 313, 325, 329

Christianity and Judaism, 325, 327, 328

Clairvoyance, 277

Classification, 97

Clemens, 345

Cleopatra, 230

Coitus, 332, 337, 343

Colour blindness, 110

Commerce, and Jews, 325

Communism, 307

Comparisons, in poetry, 118

Compassion, womanly, 197

Compliments, and women, 203

Comprehension, power of by genius, 105

Comte, A., 141, 204, 244

Confucius, 328

Consciousness, male and female, Chap. III., 93-102

Conventions, women and, 262, 263

Conversion, Jews and, 323

Copernicus, 140, 315

Coquetry, and sexuality, 232

Correlations, importance of, 61

Cromwell, 229

Crustacea, hermaphroditism in, 19

Cuvier, 61, 62, 315

Cyrano de Bergerac, 211

Danäe, 231

Dante, 249, 299

Darwin, 97, 130, 140, 217 on correlation, 61 on female talent, 71 on heterostylism, 33, 34 on sexual tastes of animals, 27 on union of those akin, 44

Da Vinci, 97

Death, 346

Death, consciousness at, 128, 129

De Bergerac, 211

Decalogue, 313

Demeter, 224

Demosthenes, 340

Descartes, 149

Determinants, in psychology, 81

Determination of sex, 23

De Vries, on cell characters, 16

Dilthey, 82

Dimorphism, sexual, 6

Divorce, 221

Don Juan, 90, 233, 299, 332, 335

Doppelganger, 210

Drawing, and women, 120

Dualism of the world, 166

Dürer, 322

Eckhard, 313

Education, 57 of the race, 348 of women, 348

Ego, awakening of, 164

Ego, conception of, Chap. VII., 153-162

“Elective Affinities,” 69, 218

“Element” of Avenarius, 94

Eliot, George, 67

Emancipation of Women, Chap. VI., 64-75, 338

Embryoes, sexual differentiation of, 5

Emerson, 141, 230

Empedocles, 172

Emperors and genius, 139

Empiricism, and English philosophy, 317

English philosophy, 153

English and Jew compared, 317, 319

Erotics, and æsthetics, Chap. XI., 236-251

Eroticism and humour, 318

Ethics and Logic, Chap. VI., 142-152, Chap. VII., 153-162

Euler, 315

Euripides, 105, 187

Exner, 98

Faithfulness, sexual, 220

Falkenberg, on fertilisation in seaweeds, 40

Fall, meaning of, 283

Familiarity, quality of, 144

Family, origin of, 205 amongst the Jews, 310

Faraday, 315

Fechner, 82, 292, 313, 322

Female, contrasted with male, Chap. I., 79-84

Féré, on sexual inversion, 45

Ferns, sexual attraction caused by malic acid, 39

Fertility, limited in prostitutes, 216

Feuerbach, 141, 305

Fichte, 140, 150, 307

Fischart, 226

Flowers, heterostylous, 33, 34

Forgetting, analysis of process, 97

Form, matter and form, 293

Formula, of sexual attraction, 29, 37, 38 of sexual constitution, 8

Fouqué, 188

Free love, 221

Free will, 209

Freud, on hysteria, 265-277

Friendship, 49, 288

Galileo, 140, 315

Gall, on physiognomy, 59

Gauss, 140

Gaule, 12

Genesis, Book of, 295

Genital, glands, effect of transplantation, 21

Genius, compared with talent, Chap. IV., 103-113 and the Ego, Chap. VIII., 163-185 in evolution of race, 137 and language, 137 and maleness, 113 and memory, Chap. V., 114-141 and morality, 183 and time, 136 summary of, 169, 182, 183

Germain, Sophie, 194

Girls and boys, education of, 58

God, Schopenhauer’s definition, 313

Goethe, 40, 41, 43, 69, 97, 106, 107, 120, 126, 174, 203, 218, 228, 313, 316, 332, 340

Gonochorism, 6, 73

Grafting, of sexual organs, 20

Greeks and religion, 323

Guilt, hysterical consciousness of, 275

Hæckel’s “gonochorism,” 6

“Hakon,” King, 328

Hamilton, 317

Handel, 322

Happiness, impossibility of, 285

Hartley, 143, 317

Hatred, 236

Hauptmann, 276

Havelock Ellis, 11, 12

Hebbel, 279

Hegel, 155

Heine, 316, 323

Hellenbach, 287

Helmholtz, 82, 97

Henids, 99

Herbart, 93, 94, 141, 246

Hering, 143

Hermaphroditism, 6, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 45

“Hero-worship,” 113

Hertwig, 16

Heterostylism, 33, 34

Hildebrand, on heterostylism, 33

Hobbes, 316, 317

Homosexuality, Chap. IV., 45-52 of famous women, 66

Horwicz, 93, 94

Hume, 81, 141, 153, 164, 175, 193, 208, 218, 317

Humour, analysis of, 318

Hunter, John, 14

Hutcheson, 175

Huxley, 193, 317

Hydrocele, 25

Hypnotism, 50

Hypnotism and hysteria, 277

Hysteria, analysis of, 265

Ibsen, 160, 187, 218, 224, 231, 258, 290, 325, 343

Idealism, 176

Idioplasm, 16, 21, 155

Imagination, of women, 119

Immortality, 127, 135, 314, 346

“Impressions,” maternal, 217

Impulse, sexual, 87, 88, 282

Individualism, 176

Individuality, 282

Individuation, 282

Infants, sex of, 23, 24

Innocence, 243

Intermediate sexual forms, 7

Inversion, sexual, 45

Irony, 323

Israels, 316

James, W., 82, 144

Janet, on hysteria, 265, 267, 268

Jealousy, and women, 205, 289

Jewish race, 303

Jews and English compared, 319 and women compared, 320

Joshua, 328

Judaism, Chap. XIII., 301-330 and Christianity, 325 and the Messiah, 329

Kant, 42, 85, 105, 138, 150, 153, 158, 159, 161, 164, 192, 208, 237, 246, 270, 313, 320, 331, 340

Karneades, 141

Karsch, 49

Kaufmann, 119

Kepler, 315

Kleptomania, 205

Kowalevsky, Sonia, 67

Kraepelin, 45

Kundry, 270, 319, 337, 344

“Lady from the Sea,” 218

Lamarck, 97, 143, 315

Lange, 129, 208

Language, origin of, 137

Latin, women and, 89

Lavater, 174

Laws against homosexuality, 51 of sexual attraction, 29

Leda, 231, 291

Leibnitz, 140, 171, 172, 316

Lepage, Bastien, 69

Lewes, 317

Liars, and memory, 145

Libraries, and women, 206

Lichtenberg, 153

Linnæus, 140, 315

Locke, 141, 317

Logic and the Ego, Chap. VII., 153, 162

Logic and ethic, Chap. VII., 153-162 and memory, Chap. VI., 142-152

Lohengrin, 324

Lombroso, 138

Lotze, 125

Love, analysis of, 236, 251 maternal, 225 and sexuality, 239

Luther, 325

Luxemburg, 69

Mach, 143, 154, 201, 208, 210, 322

Madness, and genius, 183

Madonna worship, 249

Maeterlinck, 108

Mahomet, 187, 325

Male and Female, Chap. I., 79-84 minds, 284 plasmas, 11

Malic acid in ferns, 39

Marriage, effect on progeny of loveless, 44 ideas of boys and girls on, 90 religious, 221

Marx, 307

Marxism, 329

Masculine women, 2, 8, 17

Match-making, and women, 252-300 amongst Jews, 311

Materialism, and Jews, 314

Matriarchy, 222

Matter, and form, 293 and woman, 292

Maupas, on rotifers, 24

Maupassant, 276

Mayer, 97

Medicine, Jewish influence on, 315

Medical view of hysteria, 271

“Meistersingers,” 305

Memory, 282 and genius, Chap. V., 114-141 in boys and girls, 294 in relation to logic, Chap. VI., 142-152

Messalina, 336

Messiah, 325, 329

Meta-organisms, 287

Metaphysics, Jews and, 322

Microcosm, 171

Mill, J. S., 176, 317

Milne-Edwards, 291

Mirandola, 188

Modesty, 261, 274 womanly, 200

Molière, 340

Moll, 52, 88

Monads, 198, 287, 294, 297

Monogamy, 43, 220

Morality, 176

Morality of women, 196, 278, 340

More, 73

Morphology, in relation to character, Chap. V., 52-63

Motherhood, analysis of, Chap. X., 214-235

Mozart, 323

Müller, Joh., 217

Murder, 109

Music, and women, 118

Myxodema, 25

Naegeli, 16

Names, and women, 206

“Nana,” 231

Napoleon, 182, 228, 326, 327

Newton, 140, 315

New Testament, 325

New Zealand, 339

Nietzsche, 104, 108, 140, 167, 329, 342, 344

Nirwana, 174

Nobility, Jews and, 308

Nörgler, 174

Novalis, 103, 165, 258

Nudity, 240, 241

Organotherapy, 21

Oriental view of women, 342

Origen, 187

Oscillations, in sexuality, 54

Ostwald, 31, 315

Ovid, 332

Owen, 307

Painting, and women, 120

Pairing, woman’s chief instinct, 252-300 and Jews, 311

“Parsifal,” 305, 337, 344

Pascal, 179, 205

Pasiphäe, 291

Pasteur, 315

Paternity, 232, 346

Pathology, 25

Paul, Jean, 103, 164, 318

Pederasty, Chap. IV., 45-52

“Peer Gynt,” 224, _foot note_

Periodicity, of genius, 107

Personality, multiple, 211, 267

Persoon, 33

Petzoldt, 96, 100

Pfeffer, 39

Phallus, relation of, to women, 298, 347

Philosophy, English, 153

Philosophers, and genius, 141

Physiognomy, 59, 60

Piety, 322

Pity, 199

Plasmas, male and female, 11

Plato, 149, 150, 240, 246, 293, 313, 343

Platonic love, 239

Pleasure, 282

Politeness, and women, 203

Politician, character of, 230

Politicians and genius, 139 and value, 134

Pollen, in heterostylous flowers, 35

Polyandry, 222

Polygamy, 220

Pregnancy, 86, 222

Pre-Raphaelites, 73

Prévost, 256

Preyer, 315

Pride, of women, 201

Property, Jewish relation to, 306

Prostitution, analysis of, Chap. X., 214-235

Protestantism, and women, 207

Psychology, 142 male and female, Chap. IX., 186-213

Puberty, effect of, 90

Pythagoras, 343

Rabbis, Jewish, 311

Race, persistence of human, 224, 346

Raphael, 226

Recognition, 282

Red Sea, crossing of, 323

Regeneration, of lost parts, 16 moral, 283

Religion, founders of, 326, 327 importance of, 323 Jews and, 321 women and, 261

Revenge, 289

Reverence, 322

Richepin, 226

Rousseau, 307

Rudiments, of embryonic sexual organs, 3

Ruskin, 307

St. Augustine, 345

Salome, 345

Samson, 328

Sand, George, 66

Sappho, 65, 66

Schelling, 81, 105, 138, 165, 246

Schiller, 230, 246

Schleiermacher, 140

Schoolmasters, and types, 57

Schopenhauer, 95, 167, 174, 199, 218, 223, 236, 237, 238, 281, 295, 305, 313, 318, 340

Schrenk-Notzing, 45

Schurtz, 205

Schwammerdam, 315

Science, and genius, 140 Judaism, in, 314

Secretion, internal, and sexual characters, 15

Sellheim and Foges, experiments on castration, 18

Servant, type of woman, 272

Sex, appearance of, in embryos, 5 assignment of, to infants, 22, 23, 24

Sexual attraction, laws of, Chap. III., 26-44 characters, secondary, 14, 43 impulses, 88

Sexuality, of male and female compared, 85, 92 opposed to love, 239 of women, 260, 331, 332, 334, 335

Shaftesbury, 246

Shakespeare, 105, 109, 110, 317

Shelley, 168, 317

Shrew, type of woman, 272

“Siegfried,” 223, 305

Sigwart, 156

Simmel, George, 148

Slavery, compared with Jewish problem, 338

Smith, Adam, 175, 317

Socialism, 307

Society, origin of, 205

Socrates, 150, 246, 326

Solidarity, of the Jews, 310

Solitude, and women, 205

Solliers, on sexual anæsthesia, 274

Somerville, Mary, 194

Sophocles, 184

Soul, 313 denied by modern science, 315 and great men, 168 and modern psychology, 209 and women, 187

Spencer, Herbert, 128, 130, 263, 317

Spinoza, 316, 317

Sprengel, 315

State, 307

Steenstrup, 12, 13

Sterility, 216

Stern, L. W., 82

Sterne, 317

“Stockman, Dr.,” 325

Strauss, 112

Strindberg, 187

Sudermann, 256

Suggestibility, of women, 294

Suicide, of women, 286

Sulpicia, 319

Superstition, of women, 127

Swift, 317, 343

Sympathy, 177, 197

“Tannhäuser,” 240, 305

Telegony, 233

Teresa, St., 277

Tertullian, 187, 314, 343

“Tesman,” in Hedda Gabler, 258

Thelyplasm, Chap. II., 11-25

Time, relation to value, 133

Tolstoy, 231

Touch, sense of, in women, 191

Tragedy, 319

Transcendentalism, 314

Transfusion, of blood, 20

Travel, desire of, 237, _note_

Truth, 150

Türck, 138

Tylor, 128

Types, male and female, mental, 53

Undine, 188

Universality, of genius, 112

Untruthfulness, of women, 266

Value, theory of, 133

Vanity, of women, 202

Variation in sexual characters, 18

Virginity, a male idea, 333 woman’s attitude to, 334

Virtue of women, 333

Vogt, on hysteria, 265, 274, 277

Von Eschenbach, 264

Von Höffding, 144

Von Humboldt, 140

Von Kleist, 105

Von Möbius, 59

Wagner, 67, 109, 211, 240, 279, 305, 319, 343

Weill, 36

Weismann, 81

Wier, 81

Will, 282

Wit and humour, 318

Woman and animals, 290, 291 character of, 280 emancipated, 64 famous, 69 future of, Chap. XIV., 331-340 compared with Jews, 320 and matter, 292 sexuality of, 260 summary of her nature, Chap. XII., 252-300

Wundt, 94, 131, 140

“Zarathustra,” 108, 167

Zionism, 307, 312

Zola, 105, 231, 304

Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, London

Transcriber’s Notes

The language of the source document (including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, etc.) has been retained, unless listed below. Many of the proper names mentioned in the book are spelled differently from what is usual. These have been left as printed as well, unless listed below.

Page xviii, Continuous and discontinuance memory: as printed in the source document.

Page 36, so many other actors: possibly an error for so many other factors.

Page 141, Prospera: possibly an error for Prospero.

Page 205, much more developed in men than in women: probably an error for much more developed in women than in men (cf. remainder of paragraph).

Page 282, The terms in the left-hand row: as printed in the source document.

Page 307, in the left row: as printed in the source document.

Changes made

Some minor obvious typographical and punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected silently.

Footnotes have been moved to directly underneath the paragraph where they are referenced.

Page 7: Boyle-Guy-Lussac changed to Boyle-Gay-Lussac

Page 25: thelyplastic changed to thelyplasmic

Page 29: closing quote mark added after ... in different proportions.

Page 38: Postwangen changed to Postwagen

Page 69: Jeanna de la Mothe Guyon changed to Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon; Footnote 6: Hysterias if ... changed to Hysteria is ...

Page 97: Helmholz changed to Helmholtz as elsewhere

Page 118: Kloppstock changed to Klopstock

Page 160: Nebbel’s epigram changed to Hebbel’s epigram

Page 181: Ernest Mack changed to Ernest Mach

Page 185: closing quote mark added after Latin text

Page 217: Th. Bischof changed to Th. Bischoff

Page 305: Tannhaüser changed to Tannhäuser

Index: some minor spelling changes made to conform to the text.