Page:Nature and Origin of the Noun Genders of the Indo-European Languages.djvu/41

Rh and feminine without ascribing to our Indo-European ancestors a mental state that has no analogy in those periods that are familiar to us from historical tradition. The solution which I have presented to you can unfortunately never be absolutely proved; for we have to do with a period in the history of language in which we cannot go a step further than simple hypothesis. It can be said, however, of our explanation, and it is indeed its strongest claim over the theory of Adelung and Grimm, that it keeps within the limits of phenomena which are among the best substantiated in the history of the Indo-European language family, and which may be observed in the very latest phases of its development.

And so I return, in my conclusion, to that statement with which I began. I said that the different attempts which have been made to explain the problem of grammatical gender in the Indo-European speech illustrate well the difference between the methods of investigation employed by the older generation of linguistic students, and those of the generation at work in the present. In the time of Grimm and Bopp and their immediate successors, it was the custom to devote attention preferably to the prehistoric times, and to explain the peculiarities of