The sympathies that exist between them and men are
skin-deep only, and do not touch the mind or the feelings or the
character_. They form the _sexus sequior_--the second sex, inferior in
every respect to the first; their infirmities should be treated
with consideration; but to show them great reverence is extremely
ridiculous, and lowers us in their eyes. When Nature made two
divisions of the human race, she did not draw the line exactly through
the middle. These divisions are polar and opposed to each other, it is
true; but the difference between them is not qualitative merely, it is
also quantitative.
[Footnote 1: _Translator's Note_.--- Juan Huarte (1520?-1590)
practised as a physician at Madrid. The work cited by Schopenhauer is
known, and has been translated into many languages.]
[Footnote 2: _Translator's Note_.--See _Counsels and Maxims_, p. 12,
Note.]
This is just the view which the ancients took of woman, and the view
which people in the East take now; and their judgment as to her proper
position is much more correct than ours, with our old French notions
of gallantry and our preposterous system of reverence--that highest
product of Teutonico-Christian stupidity.
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