Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
Wolfram indicates clearly enough what is at the bottom of woman’s
heart, but he does not say all that is to be said. Women deceive
themselves as well as others on this point. One cannot artificially
suppress and supplant one’s real nature, the physical as well as the
other side, without something happening. The hygienic penalty that must
be paid for woman’s denial of her real nature is hysteria.
Of all the neurotic and psychic phenomena, those of hysteria are the
most fascinating for psychologists; they represent a far more difficult
and, therefore, a more interesting study than those observed in
melancholia or in simple paranoia.
The majority of psychiatrists have a distrust of psychological analyses
which it is not easy for them to shake off; every statement of
pathological alteration of tissues or intoxication by certain means is
for them _a limine_ credible; it is only in psychical matters that they
refuse to recognise a primary cause. But since no reason has so far been
given why psychical phenomena should be of importance secondary to
physical phenomena, it is quite justifiable to disregard such
prejudices.
It is quite possible--there is nothing to prevent it being so--that a
very great deal, perhaps everything, may depend on the proper
interpretation of the “psychical mechanism” of hysteria. That this is so
is proved by the fact that the few conclusions of any value with
reference to hysteria so far discovered have been arrived at in this
way; the investigations carried out by Pierre Janet, Oskar Vogt, and
particularly by J. Breuer and S. Freud, show what I mean. All good work
on hysteria will undoubtedly follow the lines these men have worked on;
that is to say, by investigation of the psychological processes which
led up to the disease.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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