Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/26

16 necessary that all the characteristics of a living being be present in our consciousness, and that in each case we think of the objects accordingly as male or female. Language itself shows us, with its epicene nouns already mentioned, with its words like Greek, Latin lupus, German wolf, used alike for male or female, that often enough no notice is taken of distinction of sex.

One fact stands out clearly as the conclusion to all this: Grimm's theory ascribes to the Indo-Europeans a mental condition which we cannot harmonize with what we actually know of the mental life of man and of races. It may find a parallel, at best, in certain pathological states of the human intellect. But, you may ask, does not one thing argue very strongly in favor of Grimm's theory,—the fact, namely, that in the mythology and poetry of the Indo-European people, where lifeless concepts are personified, the sex of the mythological personage corresponds regularly to the grammatical gender of the words concerned? The Greeks thought of, 'Sleep', and , 'Death', as male deities, not as female, and , ' Earth ', and , 'Folly ', as goddesses, not as gods. In the old Germanic mythology der Tag (New High German der tag) appears only as a god, die Nacht