THE SEXUAL TYPES -
Man and Woman
"All that a man does is physiognomical of him"
Carlyle
A free field for the investigation of the actual contrasts between the sexes
is gained when we recognise that male and female, man and woman, must be
considered only as types, and that the existing individuals, upon whose
qualities there has been so much controversy, are mixtures of the types in
different proportions. Sexually intermediate forms, which are the only
actually existing individuals, were dealt with in a more or less schematic
fashion in the first part of this book. Consideration of the general
biological application of my theory were entered upon there; but now I have to
make mankind the special subject of my investigation, and to show the defects
of the results gained by the method of introspective analysis, as these
results must be qualified by the universal existence of sexually intermediate
conditions. In plants and animals the presence of hermaphroditism is an
undisputed fact; but in them it appears more to be a juxtaposition of the male
and female genital glands in the same individual than an actual fusion of the
two sexes, more the co-existence of the two extremes than a quite neutral
condition. In the case of human beings, however, it appears to be
psychologically true that an individual, at least at one and the same moment,
is always either man or woman. This is in harmony with the fact that each
individual, whether superficially regarded as male or female, at once can
recognise his sexual complement in another individual "woman" or "man." This
uni-sexuality is demonstrated by the fact, the theoretical value of which can
hardly be overestimated, that, in the relations of two homosexual men one
always plays the physical and psychical role of the man, and in cases of
prolonged intercourse retains his male first-name, or takes one, whilst the
other, who plays the part of the woman, either assumes a woman's name or calls
himself by it, or - and this is sufficiently characteristic - receives it from
the former.
In the same way, in the sexual relations of two women, one always plays the
male and the other the female part, a fact of the deepest significance. Here
we encounter, in a most unexpected fashion, the fundamental relationship
between the male and the female elements. In spite of all sexually
intermediate conditions, human beings are always one of two things, either
male or female. There is a deep truth underlying the old empirical sexual
duality, and this must not be neglected, even although in concrete cases there
is not a necessary harmony in the anatomical and morphological conditions. To
realise this is to make a great step forward and to advance towards most
important results. In this way we reach a conception of a real "being." The
task of the rest of this book is to set forth the significance of this
"existence." As, however, this existence is bound up with the most difficult
side of characterology, it will be well, before setting out on our adventurous
task, to attempt some preliminary orientation.
. . . Is there in a man a single and simple existence, and, if so, in what
relation does it stand to the complex psychical phenomena? Has man, indeed, a
soul? It is easy to understand why there has never been a science of
character. The object of such a science, the character itself, is
problematical. The problem of all metaphysics and theories of knowledge, the
fundamental problem of psychology, is also the problem of characterology. At
the least, characterology will have to take into account the theory of
knowledge itself with regard to its postulates, claims, and objects, and will
have to attempt to obtain information as to all the differences in the nature
of men.
This unlimited science of character will be something more than the
"psychology of individual differences," the renewed insistence upon which as a
goal of science we owe to L. William Stern; it will be more than a sort of
polity of the motor and sensory reactions of the individual, and in so far
will not sink so low as the usual "results" of the modern experimental
psychologists, which, indeed, are little more than statistics of physical
experiments. It will hope to retain some kind of contact with the actualities
of the soul which the modern school of psychology seems to have forgotten, and
will not have to fear that it will have to offer to ardent students of
psychology not more than profound studies of words of one syllable, or of the
results on the mind of small doses of caffein. It is a lamentable testimony to
the insufficiency of modern psychology that distinguished men of science, who
have not been content with the study of perception and association, have yet
had to hand over to poetry the explanation of such fundamental facts as
heroism and self-sacrifice.
No science will become shallow so quickly as psychology if it deserts
philosophy. Its separation from philosophy is the true cause of its impotency.
Psychology will have to discover that the doctrine of sensations is
practically useless to it. The empirical psychologists of today, in their
search for the development of character, begin with investigation of touch and
the common sensations. But the analysis of sensations is simply a part of the
physiology of sense, and any attempt to bring it into relation with the real
problems of psychology must fail.
The two most intelligent of the empirical psychologists of recent times,
William James and R. Avenarius, have felt almost instinctively that psychology
cannot really rest upon sensations of the skin and muscles, although, indeed,
all modern psychology does depend upon study of sensation. Dilthey did not lay
enough stress on his argument that existing psychology does nothing towards
problems that are eminently psychological, such as murder, friendship,
loneliness, and so forth. If anything is to be gained in the future there must
be a demand for a really psychological psychology, and its first battle-cry
must be: "Away with the study of sensations."
In attempting the broad and deep characterology that I have indicated, I must
set out with a conception of character itself as a unit of existence. In
characterology we must seek the permanent, existing something through fleeting
changes.
The character, however, is not something seated behind the thoughts and
feelings of the individual, but something revealing itself in every thought
and feeling. "All that a man does is physiognomical of him." Just as every
cell bears within it the characters of the whole individual, so every
psychical manifestation of a man involves not merely a few little
characteristic traits, but his whole being, of which at one moment one
quality, at another moment another quality, comes into prominence.
Just as no sensation is ever isolated, but is set in a complete field of
sensation, the world of the Ego, of which now one part and now the other,
stands out more plainly, so the whole man is manifest in every moment of the
psychical life, although, now one side, now the other, is more visible. This
existence, manifest in every moment of the psychical life, is the object of
characterology. By accepting this, there will be completed for the first time
a real psychology, existing psychology, in manifest contradiction of the
meaning of the word, having concerned itself almost entirely with the motley
world, the changing field of sensations, and overlooked the ruling force of
the Ego. The new psychology would be a doctrine of the whole, and would become
fresh and fertile inasmuch as it would combine the complexity of the subject
and the object, two spheres which can be separated only in abstraction. Many
disputed points of psychology (perhaps the most important) would be settled by
an application of such characterology, as that would explain why so many
different views have been held on the same subject. The same psychical process
appears from time to time in different aspects, merely because it takes tone
and colouring from the individual character. And so it well may be that the
doctrine of differential psychology may receive its completion in the domain
of general psychology.
The confusion of characterology with the doctrine of the soul has been a great
misfortune, but because this has occurred in actual history, is no reason why
it should continue. The absolute sceptic differs only in a word from the
absolute dogmatist. The man who dogmatically accepts the position of absolute
phenomenalism, believing it to relieve him of all the burdens of proof that
the mere entering on another standpoint would itself entail, will be ready to
dismiss without proof the existence which characterology posits, and which has
nothing to do with a metaphysical "essence."
Characterology had to defend itself against two great enemies. The one assumes
that character is something ultimate, and as little the subject-matter of
science as is the art of a painter. The other looks on the sensations as the
only realities, on sensation as the groundwork of the world of the Ego, and
denies the existence of character. What is left for characterology, the
science of character? On the one hand, there are those who cry, "De individuo
nulla scientia," and "Individuum est ineffabile", on the other hand, there are
those sworn to science, who maintain that science has nothing to do with
character.
In such a cross-fire, characterology has to take its place, and it may well be
feared that it may share the fate of its sisters and remain a trivial subject
like physiognomy or a diviner's art like graphology.
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