the question of how far mental differences between men and women are innate and fundamental, and how far they are due to artificial causes.

THEODATE L. SMITH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Binet, Alfred. L'Étude experimentale de l'intelligence. Schleicher frères, Paris, 1903. 309 pages.

2. Binet, Alfred and V. Henri. La fatigue intellectuelle. Schleicher frères, Paris, 1898. 338 pages.

3. Deutsch, Leo. Sixteen Years in Siberia (translated by H. Chisholm). Murray, London, 1903. 338 pages.

4. Fechner, G. T. Elemente der Psychophysik, 2d ed., Vol. I, p. 440. Breitkopf, Leipzig, 1889.

5. Galton, Francis. Inquiries into Human Faculty. Macmillan, London, 1883. 387 pages.

6. Hall, G. Stanley, and Smith, Theodate L. "Reactions to Light and Darkness," American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XIV, pp. 21–83, January, 1903.

7. James, William. Psychology: Briefer Course, pp. 302-311, 301-369. H. Holt & Co., New York, 1904. 478 pages.

8. Learoyd, Mabel W. "The Continued Story," American Journal of Psychology, Vol. VII, pp. 86-90, October, 1895.

9. Le Conte, J. Sight (International Scientific Series). D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1881.

10. Lindley, E. H. “Motor Phenomena of Mental Effort,” American Journal of Psychology, pp. 491–517, Vol. VII, July, 1896.

11. Moody, Helen Waterson. “A Child's Letters to her Husband,” McClure's Magazine, Vol. XIV, p. 55, 1899.

12. Mosso, Angelo. Fatigue (translated by M. and W. B. Drummond). S. Sonnenschein, London, 1904. 334 pages.

13. Spencer, Herbert. An Autobiography. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1904. 2 vols.

CURIOSITY AND INTEREST1

In the study of the emotions as compared with other activities of the soul, psychology has as yet made little progress. In the older works of the Scotch school and in the Herbartian literature we find elaborate systems of classifying emotions, but of the study of the living emotions in their genesis, development, and relation to other psychic factors, little or nothing. Since the publication of the theories of Lange and James, in 1890, we have had abundant discussion of the theories of emotion and some excellent introspective work, especially upon those emotions which have the greatest bodily resonance. In the study of the expression of emotion Darwin stands almost alone. Experimentally there have been since 1880 various attempts to study the emotions by observation of changes in blood pressure and circulation. The work of Mosso stands foremost in this field, but the plethysmograph has not yet added greatly to our knowledge here. A few monographs on special emotions have been published during the last decade, and there is a considerable body of literature on the pathology of the emotions, but the field to be investigated is wide, and as yet the laborers have been few.

In studying the development of the mental attitude which we call curiosity, we are confronted by difficulties of both definition and analysis. In its fully developed form it is sufficiently easy of recognition, but to determine where and when reflex activities become merged into psychic reactions, which may properly be termed stages in the development of curiosity,

1 Reprinted in abridged form from Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. X, pp. 315-358, September, 1903.

involves us at once in the intricacies of the problems of active and passive attention and the development of the will.

The material for the present study was gathered partly in reply to a group of topics contained in a syllabus on "Some Common Traits and Habits," issued in 1895, and partly by a supplementary syllabus of the present year. The data asked for was as follows:

Curiosity and wonder. Prying, spying, inquiring, asking why, what for, or how, persisting in troublesome questions. Describe the first sign of curiosity or wonder in the infant; sample the growth of the instinct by instances up toward maturity, whether manifested toward natural phenomena, facts, or persons seen or read of, mechanisms, motives, religious teaching, treatment by parents and teachers, etc. Cases of breaking open toys to see what is inside, or experimenting" to see what it will do." Later promptings to see the world, know life, travel, read, explore, investigate, etc. What excites chief wonder. Secrecy as a provocative of curiosity. Age of culmination of the chief classes of interest. Utilization and dangers.

Curiosity and interest. I. Give cases of early curiosity or interest shown by infants. State in detail how this was manifested.

II. Give cases of interest or curiosity in children, shown by active observation or experiment.

III. Give instances of destructive curiosity, - toys, etc., destroyed to find out how they were made.

IV. Give cases of interest or curiosity shown by asking questions. V. Give instances of strong desire to travel. Did the interest in these cases extend to reading books of travel, etc.?

The total number of cases of curiosity received in answer to the syllabi was 1247. These were distributed as follows:

To these were added the material furnished by the individual child biographies and records kept by mothers. Helen Keller's Story of My Life has also furnished some valuable material, and a few facts for comparison have been gleaned from animal psychology. All the material collected is readily classified into the groups given above, with the addition of a group, which for convenience has been called inquisitiveness, and includes the various forms of aimless and misdirected curiosity, peeking, prying, etc.

Ribot distinguishes three stages of curiosity or primitive craving for knowledge, - surprise, wonder, and curiosity; the first consisting of mere shock, a disadaptation. The second stage, or wonder, is distinguished from the first in that, while surprise is momentary and fleeting, wonder is stable and may persist until worn away by familiarity. The third stage, or attitude of investigation, is that of curiosity proper. But there are indications that a fourth stage, preceding these three, should be recognized in the psychic accompaniment of some early reflexes. Preyer records this first stage of Ribot's as occurring in the fifth week, Mrs. Moore on the 26th day; Mrs. Hall notes it in the fifth week, and Miss Shinn on the 25th day. It is in each case a light reaction, the first active looking as compared with passive staring, and is described as accompanied by a "dim rudimentary eagerness." But Miss Shinn also records that at about the end of the second week "the baby's gaze no longer wandered altogether helplessly, but rested with a long, contented gaze on bright surfaces which it happened to encounter. It was not active looking, with any power to direct the eyes, but mere staring." In the material collected for the present study 163 cases of this infant staring are reported, nearly one half of which occurred under the age of three months. The earlier ones are all of the same type. Some bright or moving object seems to catch and hold the baby's gaze. There is no turning towards the object, no active

looking; the eyes in their wandering, uncoördinated movements are simply arrested, and in many instances it is stated that there is a "contented" or "pleased " look on the baby's face. Light and darkness are distinguished, and moderate light appears to be for normal children a pleasurable sensation. Professor Sully suggests in regard to this first passive staring that "it is conceivable that the eyes, happening to be coördinated opposite some patch of brightness, might maintain this attitude under the stimulus of pleasure." Out of the dim, confused mass of light and shade something, probably a mere patch of brightness, has detached itself, and the physical mechanism of attention is called into play, a mere reflex, but a reflex whose psychic affective accompaniment, though rudimentary, has in it the germ of future development, the first movement of that intellectual craving which, more than any other endowment, differentiates one man from another in intellectual ability. In this connection a paragraph of Miss Shinn's is so significant that it is here quoted: "It is an important moment that marks the beginning of even a passive power to control the movement of the eyes, and when my grandmother handed down the rule that you should never needlessly interrupt a baby's staring lest you hinder the development of power of attention, she seems to have been psychologically sound." It is now a recognized principle in the education of defective and feeble-minded children that the training of the motor apparatus of attention is the first and fundamental requisite for reaching the dormant psychic activities. Until a certain degree of muscular coördination has been attained, attention cannot be fixed long enough to produce any lasting psychic impressions.

While the infant is acquiring the power to converge the two eyes and move the lid its eye falls a victim to any patch of light upon which it chances to rest. Often the body, or the eye itself, or more frequently the head, gives an involuntary