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