ABSTRACT
In studying the explanations which children give of the origin of night (C.W., Chap. IX, § 2), we drew attention to the substantialism which makes the child “reify” phenomena (as Sully said long ago). In this particular case it consisted in conceiving of night as a great black cloud which filled the atmosphere, or which sent out its dark rays from the sky. This particular mental orientation deserves further study, and in more concrete conditions. The prediction and explanation of shadows supply first-rate material for analysis in this respect. For it is very easy to ask on which side the shadow of an object will fall when the object is placed on a table opposite a window. It is easy to produce a play of shadows on a screen with the help of lamps or lighted matches and to make the child say in what direction these shadows will fall. It is easy again to question the child as to the “why” of these predictions and, after the experiment, as to the “why” of the observed phenomenon. This enquiry will enable us to study afresh the relation between prediction and explanation; and this will be all the more useful for our purpose since the explanation of shadows presupposes a necessary “interference” between child logic (especially the logic of relations) and child physics.
