Nature has made it the calling of the young, strong, and handsome men to look after the propagation of the human race; so that the species may not degenerate.  This is the firm will of Nature, and it finds its expression in the passions of women.  This law surpasses all others in both age and power.  Woe then to the man who sets up rights and interests in such a way as to make them stand in the way of it; for whatever he may do or say, they will, at the first significant onset, be unmercifully annihilated.  For the secret, unformulated, nay, unconscious but innate moral of woman is:  We are justified in deceiving those who, because they care a little for us,—­that is to say for the individual,—­imagine they have obtained rights over the species.  The constitution, and consequently the welfare of the species, have been put into our hands and entrusted to our care through the medium of the next generation which proceeds from us; let us fulfil our duties conscientiously.

But women are by no means conscious of this leading principle in abstracto, they are only conscious of it in concreto, and have no other way of expressing it than in the manner in which they act when the opportunity arrives.  So that their conscience does not trouble them so much as we imagine, for in the darkest depths of their hearts they are conscious that in violating their duty towards the individual they have all the better fulfilled it towards the species, whose claim upon them is infinitely greater. (A fuller explanation of this matter may be found in vol. ii., ch. 44, in my chief work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.)

Because women in truth exist entirely for the propagation of the race, and their destiny ends here, they live more for the species than for the individual, and in their hearts take the affairs of the species more seriously than those of the individual.  This gives to their whole being and character a certain frivolousness, and altogether a certain tendency which is fundamentally different from that of man; and this it is which develops that discord in married life which is so prevalent and almost the normal state.

It is natural for a feeling of mere indifference to exist between men, but between women it is actual enmity.  This is due perhaps to the fact that odium figulinum in the case of men, is limited to their everyday affairs, but with women embraces the whole sex; since they have only one kind of business.  Even when they meet in the street, they look at each other like Guelphs and Ghibellines.  And it is quite evident when two women first make each other’s acquaintance that they exhibit more constraint and dissimulation than two men placed in similar circumstances.  This is why an exchange of compliments between two women is much more ridiculous than between two men.  Further, while a man will, as a rule, address others, even those inferior to himself, with a certain feeling