if i now start out to consider the woman soul as it has developed itself under the influence of all the circumstances mentioned above, perhaps many will expect a theory about the character of the feminine soul life. but, at present, when the greatest problems of psychology are in revolution and undecided, such a theory would be as scientifically impossible as aphorisms are unanswerable. likewise, conclusions, based upon experience, concerning the psychic peculiarity of woman would be in this chaotic transition period, superficial, if they attempted to be absolute. only one decided opinion about the spiritual life of woman i cannot—in consequence of my monistic-evolutionary conception of the spiritual and physical life—refrain from expressing. this opinion is that, in the one hundred thousand years at least in which woman has practised the physical maternal functions, the spiritual attributes essential for motherhood must have been so strongly developed by her that this development has had, and still has always, as a result a pronounced difference between 59the feminine and masculine soul—that is to say, everywhere where the soul, as well as the body of a woman, is adapted and desirous of motherhood—a fitness and readiness which can still be called the normal condition. the spiritual qualities which maternity required have become the attributes of “womanliness,” the qualities which paternity required, have become the attributes of “manliness.” this difference has become quite as significant for the functional fitness of both sexes for the perpetuation and development of the race, as for the wealth of life of each new generation. the obliteration or retention of this difference is therefore a vital question for mankind.
figuratively expressed, this seems to me the process: from a common root of universal human spiritual life issue two stems which can again unite in their blossoming. the ramification has necessarily involved a division of labour in two equally important spheres. from this point of view i give, in the following, my opinion of the value of the influence of the woman movement upon the spiritual life of woman.
we all know that life expresses itself as movement, that movement brings with it change, transformation; that this can mean quite as well disintegration as higher organisation.
the woman movement is the most significant of all movements for freedom in the world’s history. the question whether this movement leads mankind in a higher or lower direction is the most 60serious question of the time. those who assert unconditionally the former or the latter have uttered a premature judgment. the question must be formulated thus:
(a) has the woman movement brought to mankind a higher degree of vital force, a greater faculty for self-preservation, a more complete organisation, by which the more simple forms have become more finely complex, the more uniform have become richer, more diverse; the incoherent have attained a more perfect unity? or has the woman movement called forth an activity which represses life? degrades, scatters, and reduces the powers to uniformity, in society and in mankind?
(b) is woman’s spiritual life now in general above the level at which it was in the beginning of the woman movement? have modern women finer perceptions, deeper feelings, clearer ideas, a firmer will, richer association of ideas? do their spiritual faculties so work together that they mutually enhance instead of hinder one another? in a word is the modern woman more soulful than the woman of any other time?
(c) is the body of the modern woman, at all stages of life, stronger, more healthy, and more beautiful than that of the woman of the previous century, when the woman movement began in real earnest in europe?
(d) does the modern woman perform in more perfect manner than the woman of that time, the physical and psychic functions of motherhood?
61if the question be put thus then the objective investigator must answer to all—“yes and no.”
but if this investigator is an evolutionist, then he knows that the progress of every social evolution is like that which womankind is now experiencing. we see first, how, in any given sphere of society, where those engaged therein have attained a pure, instinctive certainty in their actions through laws and customs, the individuals oppressed by these laws and customs must rebel against the limits, drawn from without, for the development and exercise of their powers. this revolt occasions at first a stage of anarchy in which everything seems to collapse—while in the previous conserving epoch “crystallisation” furnished the vital danger! but after such an anarchistic stage there comes infallibly the constructive stage, where a part of the old is organised, incorporated, into the new. but this acts no longer as instinctive impulse. no, mankind has become conscious anew of these values of law and custom; they have been recognised by the thought, encompassed by feeling, sanctioned by the will as still always indispensable, in another and higher form it is true than that against which the individuals rebelled. but just as the leaves which once grew green above in the summer light, gradually become one with the earth, so the motives of the new customs sink gradually down into the unknown; man acts again with instinctive certainty and uniformity—until the new period of 62stagnation evokes a new rebellion and achievement of individualism.
the woman movement finds itself now at a point where it is about to pass from the dynamic stage to a static stage. exactly at this point a survey begins to be possible; and it is also necessary for every one who believes that the ideal, as well as the practical direction of the woman movement, in future, must be influenced by the knowledge gained about the effect of the movement, thus far, upon the uplifting of the life of mankind.
every great achievement of individualism is as inconsiderate as the spring tide and must be, in order to have strength for its task. the woman movement was so also. but it encountered two other great ideas of the time, socialism and evolutionism, and in consequence the woman movement was obliged to modify gradually its conception of the feminine individual and of her position in existence.
on the one hand, as has been already shown, man has had to understand that “open competition” and “individual initiative” are not absolute political-economic truths. on the other hand, the defender of women’s rights has been forced to understand more and more that woman’s soul is no unchangeable value which must remain the same however much the spheres have changed toward which this spiritual life directed itself and from which it received its impression. while feminists fifty years ago scorned the objection 63that “womanliness” would be lost in business life or in politics, now the evolutionist mind in thinking women understands that all human soul life is subject to the law of change; that just as indisputably as the soul life of man is changed by different vocations and surroundings, so that of woman also must be changed. the feminists founded their dogma that the woman movement can only benefit woman, man, the child, the family, society, mankind upon the conviction of the stability of “true womanliness.”
and if the woman movement had not had this religious certainty of belief, how could it have withstood the mass of prejudice and stupidity which it encountered in its own, as well as in the other sex? the woman movement has conquered because it was self-intoxicated.
and quite naturally! after a stability of centuries, during which the position of woman was altered only in and with the general progress of culture, women finally recognised that they could accelerate their own progress and with it also the somewhat snail-like course of universal human culture. and so woman asserted herself and increased her motion. the faster this movement became, the more was she seized by the intoxication which always accompanies every vigorous physical or psychic movement. and when has a movement of the time advanced more rapidly?
folk-migrations, crusades, slave rebellions, revolutions 64have led a race, a class, a group, beyond certain geographical or social boundaries. the emancipation of women has shifted and extended the limits of the freedom of movement of half mankind. no wonder that the extent of the movement in and for itself was advanced as proof of the infallibility of its direction. all points of departure, the natural right of man, individual freedom, social necessity—all led out into the sun, which, in society as in nature, should radiate over woman as well as over man; they led up onto the summit where man and woman both should breathe the air of the heights. all obstacles which were raised with the help of arguments such as, “the nature of woman,” “the welfare of the family,” “the idea of society,” “the purpose of god”—all proved temporary. and of necessity—for the innermost law of life, the law of development, of life enhancement, carried the movement forward. when it began, the biblical expression about the wind was quoted, “man knows not whence it comes nor whither it goes.” now all know it. now the spirit of the time speaks with “feminist” voice. the ideas of emancipation “are in the air,” like bacilli, by which only savages are thus far wholly untouched.
there are now no great movements of the time whose path does not run parallel with or cut across the woman movement. every new generation is involuntarily and unconsciously drawn along with it. the ends already attained seem to the present 65age obvious; the ends, for which man is still struggling to-day, will appear equally obvious to the future. the woman movement is now a power with which even its most bitter adversaries must reckon. and this force has so quickly attained prominence exactly as a result of fanaticism. just as the white and the blue nile mingle their waters in the main stream, so in every great current of time enthusiasm is mingled with fanaticism. and it is the latter which bears the most fruit, for it gives power of growth to the passions of the majority, good as well as bad.
every great idea begins with great promulgators. the promulgator who has the spirit does not hold to the letter. and the woman movement which was spirit began also with women and men who did not follow the call of the spirit of the time; no, who from lonely heights sent out their awakening call to the time. men who give their age new ideals have always religious natures. this means, according to a good definition, that they are “individualists in their being, social in their action.”
such natures burn, above all, with the passion to find themselves. then they burn with the passion to sacrifice themselves in order to help others, whose suffering or wrongs they feel as deeply as if they were their own. no one who passively endures an injustice against himself has the material in him to struggle for the rights of others. the one who patiently forbears becomes an accessory to the injustice done to others. he 66who resists the injustice which he himself meets can open up the way to a higher right for others. such path-finders were the first apostles of the emancipation of women. they consecrated to this task a faith which required no proof, a faith which saw visions and heard melodies of the glorious future that their victory would prepare for mankind. they emanated neither from scientific investigations, nor from systems of political economy, nor from philosophic evidence, nor theories of political science. they flung themselves into the struggle with inadequate weapons, without plan of campaign, just as do all impelled by the spirit. but such a method always evokes later dissension among the disciples. sects are formed, gradually a church is crystallised, an orthodoxy, a papacy, and an inquisition. this course is physically necessary as long as mankind is still in greatest part a mass. a paul more “christian” than christ and a luther more “paulist” than paul are met also in the woman movement.
this has now, among most people of culture, passed beyond the stage of the great apostles and martyrs and heralds. the movement has reached the point where certain typical manifestations, certain conventional forms testify that the masses—which stoned the prophets—have now, since the ideas of the woman movement have become truisms, banalities, the fashion, appropriated them to themselves and endeavour to transform them to their image and adapt them to their needs.
67again and again the old tale repeats itself: the trolls steal the weapons of the gods but they cannot use them. again and again there is occasion to deplore the fact that the autocrat of genius, whether he rule over a people or a kingdom of ideas, has heirs, heirs who diminish his work. again and again it must be recognised that no spiritual formation vanishes at one blow. the servile mind, intrigue, pettiness, delusion—all that, from which the great spirits of the woman movement hoped to “emancipate” woman—could not suddenly vanish out of the world. and since all this must go somewhere it finally finds room in the woman movement itself!
but on the other side—since after all everything has another side—it must be admitted that the levelling and conserving tendency of the average person is of real value at the stage when an idea begins to be transformed into law and custom.
those who can work only in crowds receive their significance exactly because of their collective work. they push aside the “individual emancipation” which they do not need for their own part, since they have no individuality to emancipate. but by diligent and efficient work they succeed in securing certain results, which are the common cause of all. so the philistines make for themselves a footstool of that which was a stumbling-block for their congenial souls in the previous generation. from this height they look down upon the new truth of their time. and those who 68perceive and uphold this new truth turn aside from the great uniformed army which now advances safely where the little vanguard has previously and laboriously opened up the way. those who turn aside will form the new vanguard when it comes to achieving, in the spirit of the first apostle, the emancipation not only of women in the mass, but of each individual woman. when the present work of the woman movement for joint, common ends shall no longer be necessary, because one end after another has been attained, then comes the task of the present “radical” feminism: the accomplishment of “emancipation” by leading it up to those free heights which already the path-finders are endeavouring to attain, the heights where every feminine individuality can choose her own path of life, perhaps at variance with all others; can choose it in freedom, answerable only to her own conscience. although this summary grouping historically as well as psychologically corresponds approximately to the past, present, and future of the woman movement, yet there are so many ramifications of the three groups into one another, that the woman movement now exhibits a tangled confusion in which every exact demarcation is impossible.
whoever lives to witness it will see the course of progress just described—for which the modern labour movement offers quite as good material for observation as the woman movement—repeat itself in the next great emancipation movement. 69i mean the movement for the right and freedom of the child, which will be the unconditional result of the victory of the woman and labour movements. this idea is still in the morning-clear hour of inspiration. but from the cry, “away with the child destroying home training,” we can hear that the troop of philistines will appear by afternoon upon the scene, to adopt the idea into their midst!
by means of the comparison with socialism, i have endeavoured to emphasise that the woman movement’s formation of dogmas and its doctrinary fanaticism are not effects of the peculiarity of the feminine mind. these phenomena are typical of every movement of the time thus far observed. they are essential above all because a new belief without dogma and without ritual is for the masses a sword without a hilt: it offers nothing tangible, nothing whereby the masses can come into relation with the idea.
that certain feminists still believe that the woman movement has advanced just as the exodus of the children of israel out of the land of bondage, that is to say, under god’s special protection against wandering astray; that they stigmatise as “treason” and “defection” the assertion that this movement was determined by the same psychological and sociological laws as every other movement for freedom—this shows to how high a degree many leaders of the woman movement lack elementary psychological and sociological conceptions. 70this deficiency is, however, being continually remedied. and in the generation which now advances, dogmatic fanaticism has well nigh vanished, but pure enthusiasm is preserved.
we can thus expect from this generation a clearer understanding of the necessary social repressions which the woman movement has now sufficient strength to impose upon itself without forfeiting thereby its character of a movement for freedom. as such it cannot and dare not cease until it has attained all its ends. as long as the law treats women as one race, men as another, there is a woman question. not until man and woman, equal and united, work together for mankind will the woman movement belong to the past.
