means of gratifying a man's passion, is simply not true. On the
contrary, it is a characteristic of genuine love that the physical
embrace is of no great importance, does not even rise to full
consciousness. The personality of the beloved is everything, physical
sensation nothing. Weininger identifies love with passion and his
argument is easily refutable by the experience of many. In love there is
neither means nor end; if, however, categoric formulas must be used, one
might speak of a reciprocal action. Equally erroneous is his
corresponding assertion that the artist loves a woman spiritually, that
is, in the sense of deifying her, for the purpose of drawing from her
inspiration for his work. If he loves her, then his love is the alpha
and omega of his striving, and if love inspires him to achieve a
masterpiece, the effect of love on him must be considered great and
good, because it is a creative effect.

The extreme individualistic ideal would lead to an absolutely
unproductive view of life. Asceticism stands condemned because it is
unproductive. I may regard an Indian fakir who has become so godlike
that he can sustain life on six grains of rice a day, and draw breath
once every quarter of an hour--to say nothing of speech or
cleanliness--as a very strange individual; but I see nothing positive or
important in him. The road which leads from the individual to the
universal cannot be the rejection of the world; it must be its
perfection, resulting from productivity of mind, or soul, or deed. He
who on principle refuses to be productive, condemns himself to
annihilation in the higher sense. I admit that he who works at his own
perfection does good work, too; but it is the inexplicable secret of all
truly creative labour--in the highest as well as in the lowest
sense--that it must ultimately affect the world and eternity. The
strongest emotions, the inner illumination of the mystic and the love of
the great erotic, have been conceived in the _heart of hearts_; and have
ultimately grown beyond their creator, from the individual to the
universal. The more intimate and powerful the creative impulse has been,
the more retarded and abundant may, perhaps, be the effect. But the
chain which links the great soul to humanity cannot be broken, the work
will make itself manifest--the work of deed, the work of the mind, the
work of love--I do not say to "the public," but to life, to the world.
The creative personality alone is the