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Untitled Article
ignofance is as incapable of wonder , ( distinguished from gs fcwisho ^ ent , the one being circulating or rotatory , the , other stationary surprise ) as perfect knowledge would be abore it . Everything in the world is new to the child , yet earliest childhood is the age of surprise and of avidity for a constant succession of novelty to feed the excitement . Not until ideas ppur in and are marshalled and bound by association , does the
period of wonder , of sustained mental excitement by the action of a single occurrence , coramence-Surprise and its varieties ipay be either pleasurable or pain * ful , and to a greater or less degree . The sudden interruption of an agreeable course of feeling , whether by simple cessation or by the intrusion or substitution of one less congenial , is of course immediately displeasing . The sudden interruption of a painful train b y a pleasing , is immediately more or less grateful ; while degrees of suddenness , of interruptions of trains , more or less vivid and more or less opposed , introduce farther
varieties . Where the contrast of the emotional associations of colliding ideas is very great—when the surprising circumstance comes charged with the power of turning triumph tb despair , or even when it heralds relief from sorrow to revulsive joy—violent .
even fatal effects may ensue . And the same result is sometimes consequent on a sudden shock , a startling impulse on the nervous system by external accident . * When strong sensation and passionate ideas are not concerned , or when they a ^ e of trifling intensity , and when the hour is engrossed by the figments of imagination , bright and bodyless , the excitement of surprise is chiefly coloured by pleasure . When in such a state , quick contrasts and resolutions of light emotions and ideas occur , the ludicrous is developed , the gay surprise appears ; and as nobler trains are borne along , surprise and wonder become admiration , and admiration includes the feelings both of beauty and sublimity .
The feeling of wonder is frequently replaced by curiosity , ancf this is its Euthanasia . Wonder introduces curiosity , curiosity inquiry , and inquiry determines in the joy of diacQvery . The generation of this sequence is very simple ; the occurrence of the ideas composing these states of mind , and thqir order , result directly by the law of association from the order of previous courses of experience .
To a well-furnished &nc | well-practised mind , an obvious surprise , at once sets off a whole train Of thoughts in the direction which , by the circumstances , is indicated as most promising of the secret * The same incident presented to another mind fails to rowse attention at all , or not in the degree which its
Untitled Article
Ehifowphkdl Analysis of Harmonies and Contra * fa 341
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 1, 1837, page 341, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1832/page/23/
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