ABSTRACT
The experiments we have been describing throw a certain amount of light on the development of the notion of air. To the child, air is simply impetus or movement substantified, or, as Sully puts it, “reified.” Only the substantification is of a peculiar kind, for it completely eludes any principle of conservation: the air exists only while it is blowing, and goes into nothingness immediately afterwards. Air, Bor (9) tells us, “is the current of the box when it goes round,” and such definitions abound. It is true that the younger children seem to postulate a very rigid principle of conservation, more rigid even than ours, since they regard all the “currents” of air as participating with one another, the current of the box coming from the wind outside, etc. But this participation is purely dynamic, and does not involve any rational notion of conservation; it identifies only actions or intentions and establishes only occult relations between substances separated by time and space. Participation may therefore be described in terms of conservation, but only on the condition of noting very clearly the following threefold rhythm. First, all the currents are conceived in solidarity with each other. Secondly, each one acts on its own account, emerging out of nothingness and returning to it immediately afterwards. Thirdly, the currents of air are thought of as independent vibrations of a single all-pervading substance. The initial identification and the final identification are therefore not on the same plane. The one is not derived from the other. The elaboration of the second presupposes the annihilation of the first.
