CHAPTER XVII

CURIOSITY AND WONDER

1. The Impulse of Curiosity.

IF Curiosity is one of the primary emotions its constitution is the simplest of all of them :—a single impulse to know, instinctively governing and sustaining the attention, and evoking those bodily movements which will enable us to gain a fuller acquaintance with its object; this includes most, if not all, of the essential facts of its nature. Where is there anything comparable to the wonderful structure of Fear and Anger with their variety of alternative instincts? Here there seems to be only one instinct, and one impulse corresponding to it in consciousness, and ordinarily no emotion.

What is this instinct, or, rather, what is the peculiar character of the instinctive behaviour in which it is expressed? Curiosity is so widely distributed that we ought to find little difficulty in describing its instinctive forms of behaviour in different groups of animals. The curiosity of monkeys is known to be one of their conspicuous traits. In an often-quoted case, Darwin relates how, in spite of their "instinctive dread " of snakes, when he had placed a stuffed specimen in one of their compartments they "collected round it in a large circle, and staring intently." But fear restrained them from handling it. When he substituted for it a" dead fish, a mouse, a living turtle, and other new objects," although frightened at first," they soon approached, handled and examined them." 1 The second case was a fuller

1 'Descent of Man,' pt. i. ch. iii.

expression of their curiosity than the first, because less restrained by fear. With dogs, curiosity is also shown by intently looking at the object, and approaching it, and snuffing at it. "The curiosity of a dog is very ludicrous when a beetle runs before him; evidently he is a little afraid of the tiny creature, but he cannot rest until he has smelled it all over."1 "Curiosity is shown by fish in the readiness, or even eagerness, with which fish will approach to examine any unfamiliar object." 2

Thus each animal under the influence of its curiosity employs its own mode of locomotion for approaching nearer to the object, and exploring it on different sides, and also those means of knowledge provided by its sense-organs. In this employment and co-ordination of different means of knowledge consists the behaviour of curiosity. That this behaviour in animals is instinctive in whole or great part is generally acknowledged: a very small part of it is instinctive in human beings. In great part the child has to learn to walk; only a part of the process of grasping an object and holding it in the hand as a condition of examining it is instinctive; it cannot at first co-ordinate movements of the eyes, head, and body for keeping an object in the centre of the visual field, and it only gradually acquires this power. The impulse of its curiosity requires it to learn to do all these things as means to its end.

When curiosity is declared to be an instinct,3 we require to know in what sense it is an instinct. If its end is innately determined, it does not follow that the behaviour which is instrumental to this end is also innately determined. And even if walking, and grasping and continuing to hold something, and following the direction of a sound or something moving in the visual field, were as much instinctive as acquired, yet it is not by these movements severally considered that the behaviour of curiosity is distinguished, but by the way in which they are combined. For we may grasp and hold fast to something to eat it; we turn our eyes and

1 K. Groos, The Play of Animals,' iii. 8.

2 Romanes, Animal Intelligence,' quoted by Groos, op. cit. iii. 8. See W. McDougall, Social Psychology,' ch. iii. p. 57.

body to keep an object before us because it delights us; we approach an object to injure it, as well as in all these cases to satisfy our curiosity. In so far as the impulse of curiosity requires us to combine movements of the head and body with the exercise of the sense-organs about an object, its behaviour in the child is not instinctive but acquired, though instinctive in many animals.

There are, however, simpler and earlier forms which are more purely instinctive. We can sometimes satisfy our curiosity in part by merely looking at a person and observing his expression. And the way young children stare at people, so long and fixedly as sometimes to embarrass them, seems to show that they employ this simpler method of satisfying curiosity before they learn the more complex; and they may begin to do this before they are able to follow an object with movements of the eyes and head. Yet this sustained sensory accommodation and attention to the same object does not serve to distinguish curiosity. For we do the same thing when we feel joy in the presence of someone and when we love him. But when another person looks steadily at us, we can distinguish the expression of curiosity from that of enjoyment or of love. There is something in the watchful scrutiny of the former which, as soon as we notice it, is apt to offend us and put us upon our guard.

The simplest behaviour of curiosity, then, includes a sustained attention and accommodation of some sense-organ in reference to its object, as does also the earliest form of joy ; and this behaviour is, if not wholly, in great part instinctive and unlearnt. And if there is little to distinguish it from that of joy in the beginning, having a different end it becomes progressively differentiated. When curiosity is called an instinct the thought of this end is included in the meaning. It is meant that curiosity is pre-organised to pursue this end of knowledge by means that are in some degree unlearnt, and that it is also instinctively excited by certain sensory stimuli. This system is the instinct of curiosity. The impulse connected with it will sometimes exercise one sense-organ, sometimes another, according to differences of the situation, or of the nature of the animal, but still pursues the same end.

The dog listens from curiosity, or looks intently, or looks and approaches, or snuffs at something, or touches it with his paw; and its instinctive behaviour is different in each case.

Passing next to that side of the system which is present in consciousness, the impulse, if it is also an emotion, is lacking in distinctive, emotional quality. What it is clearly and conspicuously is an impulse rather than an emotion; but which, like all impulses, when it is checked is susceptible of a considerable degree of excitement. But, unlike fear and anger, we do not feel it to be as much an emotion as an impulse. The eagerness of curiosity on some occasions which makes it feel like an emotion is the eagerness of any other impulse or desire when it is strong and obstructed. All impulses have this common character, and, apart from the appetites and organic needs, have little to distinguish them from one another. Most desires feel substantially the same at the same intensity.

While impulses and desires have a common and relatively undifferentiated character in comparison with emotions, we can recognise their difference from one another by the difference of their ends, and of the means appropriate to them. From this point of view we cannot confuse the difference between desiring fame, desiring power, and desiring money, however alike they are in respect of their impulses.

Curiosity then seems to be rather one of our primary impulses than one of our primary emotions, to be classed with the impulses of flight, of concealment, of shrinking, of pretending death belonging to the emotion of fear, or with the impulses of threat, of revenge, of destruction belonging to the emotion of anger, rather than with the more comprehensive systems of these emotions. And we obtain further confirmation of this conclusion when we notice that curiosity may be organised in many of the systems of primary emotion. All of them involve at least attention; and attention is essentially expectant,' and expectancy is often an unexpressed interrogation. Sudden fear is not merely expectant, but includes a dreadful curiosity: "What is it?" What can it mean? " "What will happen next?" we think :-a ship struck in the ocean, a house rocking in a still night, give rise to such startled

questions; and according to the answers we give to them, will the fear be either allayed or intensified. And so also when anger is provoked, angry questions may surge around the principal event: "Why did he do it?" Why should he have acted in this way?"" How shall I punish him?" or "revenge myself?"

It is this functional difference between impulse and emotion which makes it important to distinguish them; just as it is a functional difference that makes it important to distinguish emotions from sentiments. The one is a less complex system than the other. Sentiments can contain emotions; but not emotions sentiments. Likewise, emotions can contain impulses, but not impulses emotions.

2. The Nature of Wonder.

While curiosity is only an impulse, with its connected instinct and behaviour, wonder is at all events an emotion. If it is never violent, as are anger and fear sometimes; if it is often cold and intellectual, it is yet capable of considerable intensity. It has an emotional distinctness that we might think comparable to that of fear and anger on the one side, and joy and sorrow on the other, did we not remember that in some cases it shades into mere curiosity, and in others into astonishment. Is not, then, wonder the primary emotion to which the impulse of curiosity normally belongs ;1 for does not wonder always contain curiosity? Further, if we examine this curiosity of wonder, it seems to be of an arrested or baffled kind. When the impulse of curiosity can be satisfied at once, as in so many of the cases of surprise previously noticed, wonder is not elicited. The central condition on which emotions are sometimes dependent must then be present here-arrested impulse. If curiosity is not an emotion, it may give rise to one, where its instinctive tendency is obstructed. But is the emotion of wonder, which is aroused under this condition, a true primary emotion, or is it secondary and derivative ?

Wonder appears very early in child-life. When an infant is brought into a room, we often see it plainly expressed.

1 See W. McDougall, op. cit. part i. ch. iii.