Male and Female Consciousness
" . . . It is necessary to coin a name for those minds to which the duality of
element and character becomes appreciable at no stage in the process. I
propose for phychical data at the earliest stage of their existence the word
Henid (from the Greek, 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 the
absolute extreme of undifferent- iation 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. . . . One cannot describe
particular henids; one can only be conscious of their existence.
None the less henids are things as vital as elements and characters. Each
henid is an individual and can be distinguished from other henids. Later on I
shall show that probably the mental data of early childhood (certainly of the
first fourteen months) are all henids, although perhaps not in the absolute
sense. Throughout childhood these data do not reach far from the henid stage;
in adults there is always a certain process of development going on. Probably
the perceptions of some plants and animals are henids. In the case of mankind
the development from the henid to the completely differentiated perception and
idea is always possible, although such an ideal condition may seldom be
attained. . . .
Now what is the relation between the investigation I have been making and the
psychology of the sexes? What is the distinction between the male and the
female (and to reach this has been the object of my digression) in the process
of clarification?
Here is my answer:
The male has the same psychical data as the female, but in a more articulated
form; where she thinks more or less in henids, he thinks in more or less clear
and detailed presentations in which the elements are distinct from the tones
of feeling. With the woman, thinking and feeling are identical, for man they
are in opposition. The woman has many of her mental experiences as henids,
whilst in man these have passed through a process of clarification. Woman is
sentimental, and knows emotion but not mental excitement.
. . . It is certainly the case that whilst we are still near the henid stage
we know much more certainly what a thing is not than what it is. Instinctive
experience depends on henids. Naturally that condition implies uncertainty and
indecision in judgment. Judgment comes towards the end of the process of
clarification; the act of judgment is in itself a departure from the henid
stage.
The most decisive proof for the correctness of the view that attributes henids
to woman and differentiated thoughts to man, and that sees in this a
fundamental sexual distinction, lies in the fact that wherever a new judgment
is to be made, (not merely something already settled to be put into proverbial
form) it is always the case that the female expects from man the clarification
of her data, the interpretation of her henids. It is almost a tertiary sexual
character of the male, and certainly it acts on the female as such, that she
expects from him the interpretation and illumination of her thoughts. It is
from this reason that so many girls say that they could only marry, or, at
least, only love a man who was cleverer than themselves; that they would be
repelled by a man who said that all they thought was right, and did not know
better than they did. In short, the woman makes it a criterion of manliness
that the man should be superior to herself mentally, that she should be
influenced and dominated by the man; and this in itself is enough to ridicule
all ideas of sexual equality.
The male lives consciously, the female lives unconsciously. This is certainly
the necessary conclusion for the extreme cases. The woman receives her
consciousness from the man; the function to bring into consciousness what was
outside it is a sexual function of the typical man with regard to the typical
woman, and is a necessary part of his ideal completeness. . . . "
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