can assume any shape. Those experiments which ascribe to girls a better memory for learning by rote than boys are explained in this way: they are due to the nullity and inanity of women, who can be saturated with anything and everything, whilst man only retains what has an interest for him, forgetting all else.
This accounts for what has been called woman's submissiveness, the way she is influenced by the opinions of others, her suggestibility, the way in which man moulds her formless nature. Woman is nothing; therefore, and only, therefore, she can become everything, whilst man can only remain what he is. A man can make what he likes of a woman: the most a woman can do is to help a man to achieve what he wants.
A man's real nature is never altered by education: woman, on the other hand, by external influences, can be taught to suppress her most characteristic self, the real value she sets on sexuality.
Woman can appear everything and deny everything, but in reality she is never anything.
Women have neither this nor that characteristic; their peculiarity consists in having no characteristics at all; the complexity and terrible mystery about women come to this; it is this which makes them above and beyond man's understanding—man, who always wants to get to the heart of things.
It may be said, even by those who may wish to agree with the foregoing arguments, that they have not indicated what man really is. Has he any special male characteristics, like match-making and want of character in women? Is there a definite idea of what man is, as there is of woman, and can this idea be similarly formulated?
Here is the answer: The idea of maleness consists in the fact of an individuality, of an essential monad, and is covered by it. Each monad, however, is as different as possible from every other monad, and therefore cannot be classified in one comprehensive idea common to many other monads. Man is the microcosm; he contains all kinds of possibilities.
