WOMAN THE PSYCHIC CENTRE 207 



going manner and in the most extreme spirit of 

 hostility. 



The whole modern attack in the West on woman's 

 mind and the qualities of her sex centres primarily 

 in Schopenhauer. 1 The most savage but also the 

 most reasoned and influential case that has been 

 made against woman in the literature of the West 

 has come from Schopenhauer. In his oft-quoted 

 essay on woman Schopenhauer represents, as nobody 

 else either in literature or in science does, the cry 

 of the inmost heart of the pagan of the West who 

 has built the world of the individual integration on 

 force. Nearly all the current arguments against 

 woman's position find their best statement in this 

 essay. Even the crude, fierce, animal attacks on 

 woman in later literature, like those of Nietzsche, 

 Weiniger, and others which have followed them, 

 are scarcely more than echoes of Schopenhauer. 

 Their point of view is best studied in Schopenhauer's 

 essay, where the essential positions are made with 

 greater strength and moderation. 



The first thing which strikes the observer of in- 

 sight on reading Schopenhauer's essay is that 

 Schopenhauer's mind, in the contemplation of 

 woman, is revealed to the reader in a state of fear. 



1 Schopenhauer's Essay on Woman, Belfort Bax's volume of 

 Selections. 



