208 THE SCIENCE OF POWER 



The essay exhibits the dread of woman's mental 

 influence as a kind of overwhelming obsession 

 of Schopenhauer's intellect, just as the fear of 

 woman's physical influence is exhibited in the early 

 patristic writings as an overwhelming obsession of 

 the ascetic mind. It will be perceived clearly at a 

 later period that the mental attitude of Schopenhauer 

 in this case is characteristically true to type. The 

 psychology of Schopenhauer in the essay is the 

 typical psychology of Power recognizing its true 

 relation to Power, which it fears to be destined 

 to supersede it. 



Schopenhauer's central position is extraordinarily 

 fundamental and uncompromising. He declares 

 woman to be the natural enemy of man. The reason 

 given for thus describing her has to be noted. She 

 is, he asserted, the breaker and subduer of man's 

 will power. We recognize on scrutiny that this will 

 power which Schopenhauer has in mind is none 

 other than the will power of the fighting male of the 

 race the terrible, all-subduing, dominant creature 

 of efficiency in the individual integration, acknow- 

 ledging no authority but his own will and no morality 

 but his own advantage. And it is as the repre- 

 sentative of this dominant will power of the past 

 that we see Schopenhauer standing before woman 

 in a state of instinctive and almost vindictive in- 



