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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 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.
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 gender-terminations. Mr. Max Muller's whole system of mythology is based on reasoning analogous to this example.
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.
We explain it by the theory that man called lifeless things male or female by using gender-terminations as a result of his habit of regarding lifeless things as personal beings; that habit, again, being the result of his consciousness of himself as a living will. Mr. Max Muller takes the opposite view.
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