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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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