Sex & Character / Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition

by Otto Weininger

In a dense crowd I perceive, for instance, a face which attracts me across the swaying mass by its expression. I have no idea what the face is like, and should be quite unable to describe it or give an idea of it; but it has appealed to me in the most disturbing manner, and I find myself asking with keen curiosity, “Where have I seen that face before?”

A man may see the head of a woman for a moment, and this may make a very strong impression on him, and yet he may be unable to say exactly what he has seen, or, for instance, be able to remember the colour of her hair. The retina must be exposed to the object sufficiently long, if only a fraction of a second, for a photographic impression to be made.

If one looks at any object from a considerable distance one has at first only the vaguest impression of its outlines; and as one comes nearer and sees the details more clearly, lively sensations, at first lost in the general mass, are received. Think, for instance, of the first general impression of, say, the sphenoid bone disarticulated from a skull, or of many pictures seen a little too closely or a little too far away. I myself have a remembrance of having had strong impressions from sonatas of Beethoven before I knew anything of the musical notes. Avenarius and Petzoldt have overlooked the fact that the coming into consciousness of the elements is accompanied by a kind of secretion of characterisation.

Some of the simple experiments of physiological psychology illustrate the point to which I have been referring. If one stays in a dark room until the eye has adapted itself to the absence of light, and then for a second subjects oneself to a ray of coloured light, a sensation of illumination will be received, although it is impossible to recognise the quality of the illumination; something has been perceived, but what the something is cannot be apprehended unless the stimulation lasts a definite time.

In the same way every scientific discovery, every technical invention, every artistic creation passes through a preliminary phase of indistinctness. The process is similar to the series of impressions that would be got as a statue was gradually unwrapped from a series of swathings. The same kind of sequence occurs, although, perhaps, in a very brief space of time, when one is trying to recall a piece of music. Every thought is preceded by a kind of half-thought, a condition in which vague geometrical figures, shifting masks, a swaying and indistinct background hover in the mind. The beginning and the end of the whole process, which I may term “clarification,” are what take place when a short-sighted person proceeds to look through properly adapted lenses.

Just as this process occurs in the life of the individual (and he, indeed, may die long before it is complete), so it occurs in history. Definite scientific conceptions are preceded by anticipations. The process of clarification is spread over many generations. There were ancient and modern vague anticipations of the theory of Darwin and Lamarck, anticipations which we are now apt to overvalue. Mayer and Helmholtz had their predecessors, and Goethe and Leonardo da Vinci, perhaps two of the most many-sided intellects known to us, anticipated in a vague way many of the conclusions of modern science. The whole history of thought is a continuous “clarification,” a more and more accurate description or realisation of details. The enormous number of stages between light and darkness, the minute gradations of detail that follow each other in the development of thought can be realised best if one follows historically some complicated modern piece of knowledge, such as, for instance, the theory of elliptical functions.

The process of clarification may be reversed, and the act of forgetting is such a reversal. This may take a considerable time, and is usually noticed only by accident at some point or other of its course. The process is similar to the gradual obliteration of well-made roads, for the maintenance of which no provision has been made. The faint anticipations of a thought are very like the faint recollections of it, and the latter gradually become blurred as in the case of a neglected road over the boundaries of which animals stray, slowly obliterating it. In this connection a practical rule for memorising, discovered and applied by a friend of mine, is interesting. It generally happens that if one wants to learn, say, a piece of music, or a section from the history of philosophy, one has to go over parts of it again and again. The problem was, how long should the intervals be between these successive attempts to commit to memory? The answer was that they should not be so long as to make it possible to take a fresh interest in the subject again, to be interested and curious about it. If the interval has produced that state of mind, then the process of clarification must begin from the beginning again. The rather popular physiological theory of Sigismund Exner as to the formation of “paths” in the nervous system may perhaps be taken as a physical parallel of the process of clarification. According to the theory, the nerves, or rather the fibrils, make paths easy for the stimulations to travel along, if these stimulations last sufficiently long or are repeated sufficiently often. So also in the case of forgetting; what happens is that these paths or processes of the nerve-cells atrophy from disuse. Avenarius would have explained the above processes by his theory of the articulation of the fibres of the brain, but his physical doctrine was rather too crude and too simple for application to psycho-physics. None the less his conception of articulation or jointing is both convenient and appropriate in its application to the process of clarification, and I shall employ it in that connection.

The process of clarification must be traced thoroughly in order to realise its importance, but for the moment, it is important to consider only the initial stage. The distinction of Avenarius between “element” and “character,” which later on will become evident in a process of clarification, is not applicable to the very earliest moments of the process. It is necessary to coin a name for those minds to which the duality of element and character becomes appreciable at no stage of the process. I propose for psychical data at this earliest stage of their existence the word Henid (from the Greek ἑν, because in them it is impossible to distinguish perception and sensation as two analytically separable factors, and because, therefore, there is no trace of duality in them).

Naturally the “henid” is an abstract conception and may not occur in the absolute form. How often psychical data in human beings actually stand at this absolute extreme of undifferentiation is uncertain and unimportant; but the theory does not need to concern itself with the possibility of such an extreme. A common example from what has happened to all of us may serve to illustrate what a henid is. I may have a definite wish to say something particular, and then something distracts me, and the “it” I wanted to say or think has gone. Later on, by some process of association, the “it” is quite suddenly reproduced, and I know at once that it was what was on my tongue, but, so to speak, in a more perfect stage of development.

I fear lest some one may expect me to describe exactly what I mean by “henid.” The wish can come only from a misconception. The very idea of a henid forbids its description; it is merely a something. Later on identification will come with the complete articulation of the contents of the henid; but the henid is not the whole of this detailed content, but is distinguished from it by a lower grade of consciousness, by an absence of, so to speak, relief, by a blending of the die and the impression, by the absence of a central point in the field of vision.