THE FIRST and the simplest emotion which we
discover in the human mind, is Curiosity. By curiosity, I mean whatever
desire we have for, or whatever pleasure we take in, novelty. We see
children perpetually running from place to place, to hunt out something
new: they catch with great eagerness, and with very little choice, at
whatever comes before them; their attention is engaged by everything,
because everything has, in that stage of life, the charm of novelty to
recommend it.
But as those things, which engage us merely by their
novelty, cannot attach us for any length of time, curiosity is the most
superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually,
it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied; and
it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness, and anxiety.
Curiosity, from its nature, is a very active principle; it quickly runs
over the greatest part of its objects, and soon exhausts the variety
which is commonly to be met with in nature; the same things make
frequent returns, and they return with less and less of any agreeable
effect.
In short, the occurrences of life, by the time we come to know
it a little, would be incapable of affecting the mind with any other
sensations than those of loathing and weariness, if many things were
not adapted to affect the mind by means of other powers besides novelty
in them, and of other passions besides curiosity in ourselves. These
powers and passions shall be considered in their place. But whatever
these powers are, or upon what principle soever they affect the mind,
it is absolutely necessary that they should not be exerted in those
things which a daily and vulgar use have brought into a stale
unaffecting familiarity. Some degree of novelty must be one of the
materials in every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity
blends itself more or less with all our passions.
-- Edmund Burke
