I read the whole of this book (it includes a not-bad essay on Rousseau's Émile), but nothing in it seems to me as eloquent and wonderful as this footnote:
Syncretism refers to that characteristic of child thought which tends to juxtapose logically unrelated pieces of information when the child is asked for causal explanations. A simple example would be: 'Why does the sun not fall down?' 'Because it is hot. The sun stops there.' 'How?' 'Because it is yellow.' [23]I mean, of course, not the definition of 'syncretism', but the unnamed child's wonderful explanations.
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