Page:B20442294.djvu/259

Rh perish, like the things of the world. The prostitute abandons the lasting purpose of her sex, to live in the instincts of the moment. The great prostitute and the great tribune are firebrands causing destruction all around them, leaving death and devastation in their paths, and pass like meteors unconnected with the course of human life, indifferent to its objects, and soon disappearing, whilst the genius and the mother work for the future in silence. The prostitute and the tribune may be called the enemies of God; they are both anti-moral phenomena.

Great men of action, then, must be excluded from the category of genius. The true genius, whether he be an artist or a philosopher, is always strongly marked by his relation to the constructive side of the world.

The motive that actuates the prostitute requires further investigation. The purpose of the motherly woman was easy to understand; she is the upholder of the race. But the fundamental idea of prostitution is much more mysterious, and no one can have meditated long on the subject without often doubting if it were possible to get an explanation. Perhaps the relation of the two types to the sexual act may assist the inquiry. I hope that no one will consider such a subject below the dignity of a philosopher. The spirit in which the inquiry is made is the chief matter. It is at least clear that the painters of Leda and Danäe have pondered over the problem, and many great writers—I have in mind Zola's "Confession of Claude," his "Hortense," "Renée," and "Nana," Tolstoi's "Resurrection," Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler," and "Rita," and above all the "Sonja" of that great soul Dostoyevski—must have been thinking of the general problem rather than merely wishing to describe particular cases.

The maternal woman regards the sexual relations as means to an end; the prostitute considers them as the end itself. That sexual congress may have another purpose than mere reproduction is plain, as many animals and plants are devoid of it. On the other hand, in the animal kingdom sexual congress is always in connection with reproduction