Creativity, the Language of Culture: How Children Master It

“Who nailed the moon and glued the stars to the sky?”; “A river pumps its water into the ocean but who pumps water into the river?”; “Who moves the horizon?”... All this is of extraordinary interest to small children. The French anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl [not cited in the original.–Ed.] studied this phenomenon in the 1910s and 1920s from material related to the primitive mentality as one of its characteristic trait. Approximately at the same time the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget [not cited in the original.–Ed.] discovered this trait in the mentality of preschoolers. Both primitive people and children are convinced that everything around people has been created by the will and plan of some anonymous maker. They assess any fact as an “artifact”: they perceive that which is natural and not man-made as artificial and man-made. Science refers to this phenomenon by the term “artificialism.” However, the phenomenon itself is well known to everyone who continually communicates with preschool children... Stars are not only glued to the sky, but are also lit on fire. Therefore, someone needs this done?