The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization: Translated from the Sixth German EditionBloch, Iwan
Philosophy
The Sexual Life of Our Time in Its Relations to Modern Civilization: Translated from the Sixth German Edition
Bloch, Iwan
Sex; Sexual ethics
Unquestionably Kant’s explanation is the only true one; it is the one
which Schiller had in his mind when in his essay on the connexion
between the animal and the spiritual nature of man, he spoke of the
happiness of the animals as of such a kind that
“it is dependent merely upon the periods of the organism, and these
are subject to chance, to blind hazard, because this happiness rests
solely on sensation.”
The sexual love of primitive man was, like this, purely instinctive and
impulsive.
For him, beginning, course, and end, of every love-process was “directly
=linear=, with no to-and-fro oscillations into the indefinite province
of the transcendental.” The need for love and the satisfaction of that
need were in primitive man entirely limited to the physical process of
sexual activity (L. Jacobowski, “The Beginnings of Poetry,” p. 84).
It was the interpenetration of the whole of sexuality with spiritual
elements which first interrupted this single line of sensation, making
in a sense two lines: hence arose the frequently unhappy dualism between
body and mind in our experience of love; and yet at the same time it was
the cause of the elevation of human love to purely =individual=
feelings, which, extending far beyond the purposes of reproduction,
subserved the spiritual demands of the loving individual himself.[6]
Natural science, and especially the doctrine of descent, have shown that
in the higher animal world, to which we have proved primitive man
belongs, a =complication= of the sexual impulse exists as compared to
this condition in lower forms; this complication consists mainly in the
intimate association of =sensory stimuli= with the sexual impulse. In a
speech to monks, reported in the Pali Canon, Buddha has well described
the sexual part played by the various senses:
“I do not know, young men, any other =form= which fetters the heart of
man like a woman’s form.
“A woman’s form, young men, fetters the heart of man.
“I do not know, young men, any other =voice= which fetters the heart
of man like the voice of woman.
“The voice of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.
“I do not know, young men, any other =odour= which fetters the heart
of man like the odour of woman.
“The odour of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.
“I do not know, young men, any other =taste= which fetters the heart
of man like the taste of woman.
“The taste of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.
“I do not know, young men, any =touch= which fetters the heart of man
like the touch of woman.
“The touch of woman, young men, fetters the heart of man.”
Then there follows, in the same rhythmical form, an enumeration of the
sexual stimuli emanating from woman through eye, ear, smell, taste, and
touch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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