The unconceptual nature of the thinking of a woman is simply the result of her less perfect consciousness, of her want of an ego. It is the conception that unites the mere complex of perceptions into an object, and this it does independently of the presence of an actual perception. The existence of the complex of perceptions is dependent on the will; the will can shut the eyes and stop the ears so that the person no longer sees nor hears, but may get drunk or go to sleep and forget. It is the conception which brings freedom from the eternally subjective, eternally psychological relativity of the actual perceptions, and which creates the things in themselves. By its power of forming conceptions the intellect can spontaneously separate itself from the object; conversely, it is only when there is a comprehending function that subject and object can be separated and so distinguished; in all other cases there is only a mass of like and unlike images present mingling together without law and order. The conception creates definite realities from the floating images, the object from the perception, the object which stands like an enemy opposite the subject that the subject may measure its strength upon it. The conception is thus the creator of reality; it is the “transcendental object” of Kant’s “Critique of Reason,” but it always involves a transcendental “subject.”
It is impossible to say of a mere complex of perceptions that it is like itself; in the moment that I have made the judgment of identity, the complex of perceptions has become a concept. And so the conception gives their value to all processes of verification and all syllogisms; the conception makes the contents of thought free by binding them. It gives freedom both to the subject and object; for the two freedoms involve each other. All freedom is in reality self-binding, both in logic and in ethics. Man is free only when he himself is the law. And so the function of making concepts is the power by which man gives himself dignity; he honours himself by giving freedom to the objective world, by making it part of the objective body of knowledge to which recourse may be had when two men differ. The woman cannot in this way set herself over against realities, she and they swing together capriciously; she cannot give freedom to her objects as she herself is not free.
The mode in which perceptions acquire independence in conceptions is the means of getting free from subjectivity. The conception is that about which I think, write, and speak. And in this way there comes the belief that I can make judgments concerning it. Hume, Huxley, and other “immanent” psychologists, tried to identify the conception with a mere generalisation, so making no distinction between logical and psychological thought. In doing this they ignored the power of making judgments. In every judgment there is an act of verification or of contradiction, an approval or rejection, and the standard for these judgments, the idea of truth, must be something external to that on what it is acting. If there are nothing but perceptions, then all perceptions must have an equal validity, and there can be no standard by which to form a real world. Empiricism in this fashion really destroys the reality of experience, and what is called positivism is no more than nihilism. The idea of a standard of truth, the idea of truth, cannot lie in experience. In every judgment this idea of the existence of truth is implicit. The claim to real knowledge depends on this capacity to judge, involves the conception of the possibility of truth in the judgment.
This claim to be able to reach knowledge is no more than to say that the subject can judge of the object, can say that the object is true. The objects on which we make judgments are conceptions; the conception is what we know. The conception places a subject and an object against one another, and the judgment then creates a relation between the two. The attainment of truth simply means that the subject can judge rightly of the object, and so the function of making judgments is what places the ego in relation to the all, is what makes a real unity of the ego and the all possible. And thus we reach an answer to the old problem as to whether conception or judgment has precedence; the answer is that the two are necessary to one another. The faculty of making conceptions cleaves subject and object and unites them again.
A being like the female, without the power of making concepts, is unable to make judgments. In her “mind” subjective and objective are not separated; there is no possibility of making judgments, and no possibility of reaching, or of desiring, truth. No woman is really interested in science; she may deceive herself and many good men, but bad psychologists, by thinking so. It may be taken as certain, that whenever a woman has done something of any little importance in the scientific world (Sophie Germain, Mary Somerville, &c.) it is always because of some man in the background whom they desire to please in this way; and it is more often justifiable to say “cherchez l’homme” where women are concerned than “cherchez la femme” in the case of men.
But there have never been any great discoveries in the world of science made by women, because the facility for truth only proceeds from a desire for truth, and the former is always in proportion to the latter. Woman’s sense of reality is much less than man’s, in spite of much repetition of the contrary opinion. With women the pursuit of knowledge is always subordinated to something else, and if this alien impulse is sufficiently strong they can see sharply and unerringly, but woman will never be able to see the value of truth in itself and in relation to her own self. Where there is some check to what she wishes (perhaps unconsciously) a woman becomes quite uncritical and loses all touch with reality. This is why women so often believe themselves to have been the victims of sexual overtures; this is the reason of extreme frequency of hallucinations of the sense of touch in women, of the intensive reality of which it is almost impossible for a man to form an idea. This also is why the imagination of women is composed of lies and errors, whilst the imagination of the philosopher is the highest form of truth.
The idea of truth is the foundation of everything that deserves the name of judgment. Knowledge is simply the making of judgments, and thought itself is simply another name for judgment. Deduction is the necessary process in making judgments, and involves the propositions of identity and of contradictories, and, as I have shown, these propositions are not axiomatic for women.
A psychological proof that the power of making judgments is a masculine trait lies in the fact that the woman recognises it as such, and that it acts on her as a tertiary sexual character of the male. A woman always expects definite convictions in a man, and appropriates them; she has no understanding of indecision in a man. She always expects a man to talk, and a man’s speech is to her a sign of his manliness. It is true that woman has the gift of speech, but she has not the art of talking; she converses (flirts) or chatters, but she does not talk. She is most dangerous, however, when she is dumb, for men are only too inclined to take her quiescence for silence.
The absolute female, then, is devoid not only of the logical rules, but of the functions of
