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It would be hard to find another man who showed even in mild form the characteristics and the mental processes that Otto Weininger revealed in the extreme. His personality was manifold, twisted, fantastic. To understand him and interpret his mental gyrations is a most difficult task. His outward life could not reflect the versatility, the sharp lights and the deep shadows, of his mental life.
In order to understand the structure of Otto Weininger's personality, it is necessary first to trace the inclinations that were instruments in shaping his attitudes and reactions, both sane and morbid, and to study his background. First, there is the history of his immediate family.
Otto Weininger's father was born January 31, 1854, in Vienna.
It appears that Leopold Weininger's personality was like that of his son Otto. This resemblance was important and was, as we shall see, deeply significant in understanding Otto's personality. A description of the elder Weininger appeared in the newspaper Der Tag (Vienna, January 3, 1923), called “Erinnerung and Leopold Weininger” (Memoir of Leopold Weininger) and written by Emil Lucka, a close friend of the family.
In this article Lucka makes the startling statement that Leopold Weininger was “one of the last of the great goldsmiths of Benvenuto Cellini's family.” This he elaborated in a letter which he wrote in reply to my request for information. “I meant,” he said, “that the goldsmith's art, which is closely connected with the name of Cellini, slowly vanished, and that Leopold Weininger was one of the last—in Austria perhaps the last—masters of this noble art” (Letter VII).
Because of his artistic skill as a goldsmith, Leopold Weininger's works were valued through Europe and America. A great many of his creations—statuettes and ornate cups of gold, platinum, and enamel—were sought by museums. He himself year after year was