Die Weltweisen
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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FEW people are conscious of the deep influence exerted by sexual life upon the sentiment, thought and action of man in his social relations to others. Schiller, in his essay "Die Weltweisen," touches upon this subject in these memorable words: "So long as philosophy keeps together the structure of the Universe so long does it maintain the world's machinery by hunger and love".
From the standpoint of the philosopher sexual life takes a subordinate position.
Schopenhauer ("Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," third edition, vol. ii., p. 586, etc.) considers it peculiar that love has hitherto offered material to the poet only and not also to the philosopher, the scant researches by Plato, Rousseau and Kant always excepted.
Whatever Schopenhauer, and after him E. von Hartmann, the philosopher of the unknown, discuss about sexual relationship, is so thoroughly incorrect and illogical that, so far as science is concerned, empirical psychology and the metaphysics of man's sexual existence are simply virgin soil. Michelet's "L'amour" and Mantegazza's "Physiology of Love" are merely clever causeries, and cannot be considered in the light of scientific research.
The poet is the better psychologist, for he is swayed rather by sentiment than by reason, and always treats his subject in a partial fashion. He cannot discern deep shadows, because he is dazed by the blazing light and overcome by the benign heat of the subject. Although the "Physiology of Love" provides inexhaustible material for the poetry of all ages and of all peoples, nevertheless the poet will not discharge his arduous task adequately without the active co-operation of natural philosophy and, above all, that of medicine, a science which ever seeks to trace all psychological manifestations to their anatomical and physiological sources.
In these efforts medicine succeeds, perhaps, in forming a connection between the pessimistic reflections of the philosopher of the stamp of Schopenhauer and Hartmann1, and the gay and naïve creations of the poet.
It is not intended to build up in this book a system of the psychology of sexual life, still from the close study of psychopathology there arise most important psychological facts which it behoves the scientist to notice.
The object of this treatise is merely to record the various psychopathological manifestations of sexual life in man and to reduce them to their lawful conditions. This task is by no means an easy one, and the author is well aware of the fact that, despite his (varied) far-reaching experience in psychiatry and criminal medicine, he is yet unable to offer anything but an imperfected system.
The importance of the subject, however, demands scientific research on account of its forensic bearing and its deep influence upon the common weal. The medical barrister only then finds out how sad the lack of our knowledge is in the domain of sexuality when he is called upon to express an opinion as to the responsibility of the accused whose life, liberty and honour are at stake. He then begins to appreciate the efforts that have been made to bring light into darkness.
1 Hartmann's philosophical conception of love ("Philosophy of the Unknown," Berlin, 18 (59, p. 583) is: " Love causes more pain than pleasure. Pleasure is only an illusion. Reason would demand the avoidance of love were it not for that fatal sexual instinct. Hence it would be better to be castrated." Schopenhauer expresses the same view in his work: "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung," third edition, vol. ii. p. 586, etc.
