Note 1107 — Chapter VII · THE EARLIEST DIFFERENTIATIONS OF POETRY

“It hurts me; it makes me cry,” says the child, pointing to the seat of affliction; this “it” corresponds with savage and primitive animism. It is not personification, as one is often told. Human beings do not crawl into other human beings and hurt them; not he or she, but “it” hurts. One remembers the remark of J. Grimm, that the neuter gender means not lack of sex, but the undeveloped, initial stage. Deutsche Grammatik, III. 315.