Otto Weininger on the character of man

Genius is the intensification of the self-consciousness which is the distinguishing character of mankind. The distinguishing mark of a genius is his universality. The genius is the man who is so intensely aware of his own inner experience that he is conscious of containing within himself a far greater variety of opposite qualities than the average person. He therefore understands the nature—the virtues, the vices and the inner conflicts—of a far wider diversity of different types of person and different characters, because he is aware of containing all these within himself.

Every human being contains potentially within himself the whole of humanity. But most of us are conscious only of certain aspects which are derived from our race, nationality, sex, age, social class, family and other influences from our heredity or environment. To the extent that we emancipate ourselves from our unconscious dependence on these particular characteristics our true individuality is enhanced. And to the extent that we become aware in ourselves of other characteristics which we share with those of other races, nationalities, ages, social classes or the other sex, our individuality is further enhanced. We become more individual by becoming more universal. “The highest possibility of man’ is affirmed by Weininger as being ‘the possibility of Christ’, who was actively conscious of containing within himself the whole of mankind, and who was therefore the perfection of genius.

One of the features by which we judge works of genius is their quality of timelessness. Those works which are more universal in their significance, which belong to humanity altogether rather than to any particular race, nation or age, are those which are more endurable. Those which are subject to fashion, which bear the mark of belonging to a particular time in history or to a particular nation, are less significant as works of genius. For this reason Weininger considered that philosophers and artists can be men of genius, but not scientists or men of action. The works of the great philosophers and artists of the world are of universal significance and do not belong to a particular age. Scientists, unless like Aristotle or Leibniz they were also philosophers, not only deal with a special branch of knowledge which is not of universal human significance, but their work is continually superseded by the work of later scientists. Men of action, like great

7

= <3) NY f Reret4