MOTHER-AGE CIVILISATION 97 



form. The development of the child after birth seems 

 to me to represent in a similar manner many features of 

 the growth of primitive man from barbarism to civilisa- 

 tion. Adopting the analogy, we may say that all that the 

 child in microcosm learns from its mother, that humanity 

 in macrocosm gained from the early civilisation of woman, 

 from the mother-age. The elements of social conduct 

 with regard to the family and its group of friends, 

 hardly with regard to the state the round of household 

 duties and domestic foresight, the beginnings of religious 

 faith and the elements of human knowledge, above all, in 

 a still earlier stage the use of language, these the child 

 acquires from its mother, and these mankind acquired 

 largely I will not say wholly from a civilisation in 

 which the female element was predominant. If our 

 analogy be a true one, and if a mother-age preceding the 

 father-age be admitted, then we should expect primitive 

 language, above all the early words of relationship and 

 sex, to throw much light on woman's civilisation. The 

 object of this essay is to follow up this idea within the 

 range of the Teutonic languages. 



The writer is far from unconscious of the hardi- 

 hood of his enterprise. He is fully aware of the 

 danger, and the outcry, which ever arises when the un- 

 licensed poacher raids the preserves of the specialists. 

 He is quite prepared to be told that not only is he a 

 trespasser, but that he has committed diverse offences 

 against established laws. Some of these he may be 

 prepared to admit ; the more readily if the professional 

 philologist will recognise, in turn, the importance of folk- 

 lore and primitive custom in the interpretation of words ;, 

 VOL. II H 



