there are but two genders, masculine and feminine.'

The Printer's Register states our theory in its own words. First came
the childlike and savage belief in universal personality. Thence arose
the genders, masculine and feminine, in early languages. These ideas are
the precise reverse of Mr. Max Muller's ideas. In his opinion, genders
in language caused the belief in the universal personality even of
inanimate things. The Printer's Register holds that the belief in
universal personality, on the other hand, caused the genders. Yet for
thirty years, since 1868, Mr. Max Muller has been citing his direct
adversary, in the Printer's Register, as a supporter of his opinion! We,
then, hold that man thought all things animated, and expressed his belief
in gender-terminations. Mr. Max Muller holds that, because man used
gender-terminations, therefore he thought all things animated, and so he
became mythopoeic. In the passage cited, Mr. Max Muller does not say
_why_ 'in ancient languages every one of these words had _necessarily_
terminations expressive of gender.' He merely quotes the hypothesis of
the Printer's Register. If he accepts that hypothesis, it destroys his
own theory--that gender-terminations caused all things to be regarded as
personal; for, ex hypothesi, it was just because they were regarded as
personal that they received names with gender-terminations. Somewhere--I
cannot find the reference--Mr. Max Muller seems to admit that
personalising thought caused gender-terminations, but these later
'reacted' on thought, an hypothesis which multiplies causes praeter
necessitatem.

Here, then, at the very threshold of the science of mythology we find Mr.
Max Muller at once maintaining that a feature of language,
gender-terminations, caused the mythopoeic state of thought, and quoting
with approval the statement that the mythopoeic state of thought caused