IMAGINATION 



go no further — then, whether by taking thought or from luck, 

 discovers a new track that leads him on a little till at length 

 when he reaches the summit he finds to his shame that there is 

 a royal road, by which he might have ascended, had he only had 

 the wits to find the right approach to it. In my works, I naturally 

 said nothing about my mistake to the reader, but only described 

 the made track by which he may now reach the same heights 

 without difiiculty." 



Curiosity as an incentive to thinking 



In common with other animals we are bom with an instinct 

 of curiosity. It provides the incentive for the young to discover 

 the world in which they live — what is hard or soft, movable or 

 fixed, that things fall downwards, that water has the property we 

 call wetness, and all other knowledge required to enable us to 

 accommodate ourselves to our environment. Infants whose 

 mental reflexes have not yet been conditioned are said not to 

 exhibit the " attack-escape " reaction as do adults, but to show 

 rather the opposite type of behaviour. By school age we have 

 usually passed this stage of development, and most of our 

 acquisition of new knowledge is then made by learning from 

 others, either by observing them or being told or reading. We 

 have gained a working knowledge of our environment and our 

 curiosity tends to become blunted unless it is successfully trans- 

 ferred to intellectual interests. 



The curiosity of the scientist is usually directed toward seeking 

 an understanding of things or relationships which he notices 

 have no satisfactory explanation. Explanations usually consist 

 in connecting new observations or ideas to accepted facts or 

 ideas. An explanation may be a generalisation which ties together 

 a bundle of data into an orderly whole that can be connected 

 up with current knowledge and beliefs. That strong desire 

 scientists usually have to seek underlying principles in masses of 

 data not obviously related may be regarded as an adult form or 

 sublimation of curiosity. The student attracted to research is 

 usually one who retains more curiosity than usual. 



We have seen that the stimulus to the production of ideas is 

 the awareness of a difificulty or problem, which may be the 

 realisation of the present unsatisfactory state of knowledge. 

 People with no curiosity seldom get this stimulus, for one usually 



6i 



