THE

RAMBLER.

NUMBER CIII.

LONDON, Tuesday, March 12. 1751.

Scire volunt fecreta domus, atque inde timeri.

Juv.

Uriofity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect, to which every advance into knowledge opens new profpects, and produces new incitements to farther progrefs. All the attainments poffible in our prefent ftate are evidently inadequate to our capacities of enjoyment. Conqueft ferves no other purpofe than that of kindling ambition; difVOL. IV. B b

covery

covery has no effect but of railing expectation; the gratification of one defire encourages another; and after all our labours, ftudies, and inquiries, we are always at the fame distance from the completion of our schemes, have ftill fome wifh importunate to be fatisfied, and fome faculty restless and mutinous for want of employment.

The defire of knowledge, though it is very of ten animated by extrinsic and adventitious motives, feems on many occafions to operate without fubordination to any other principle.

We are defirous of feeing and of hearing, without any intention of referring our obfervations to a farther end; we climb a mountain for a profpect of the plain; we run to the strand in a storm, that we may contemplate the agitations of the water; we range from city to city, without intending to learn architecture or fortification; we cross feas only to view nature in nakedness, or magnificence in ruins; we are equally allured by novelty of every kind, by a defart or a palace, a cataract or a cavern; by every thing rude and every thing polifhed, every thing great and every thing little; we do not fee a thicket without fome temptation to enter it, nor remark an infect flying before us, without an inclination to pursue it.

This paffion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers of the mind are elevated and enlarged. Lucan has therefore introduced Cefar, fpeaking with dignity suitable to the grandeur of his defigns, and the extent of his capacity, when he declares to the High Priest of Egypt, that he has no defire equally powerful with that of finding the origin of the Nile; and that he would

would quit all the projects of the civil war, for a fight of thofe fountains which had been fo long concealed. And Homer, when he would furnish the Sirens with a temptation, to which his hero, renowned for wifdom, might yield without difgrace, makes them declare, that none ever departed from them without increase of knowledge

There is indeed fearce any kind of ideal acquirement which may not be applied to fome ufe, or which may not at least gratify vanity with an appearance of fuperiority. But whoever attends the motions of his own mind, will find, that, upon the first appearance of an object, or the first flart of a question, his inclination to a nearer view, or more accurate difcuffion, precedes all thoughts of profit, or of competition; and that his defires take wing by inftantaneous impulfe, though their flight. may be invigorated, or their efforts renewed, by diftant confiderations. The gratification of curiofity father frees us from uneafinefs, than confers pleafure; we are more pained by ignorance, than delighted by inftruction. Curiofity is the thirst of the foul by which we are inflamed and tormented, and which makes us tafte every thing with joy, however otherwife infipid, by which it may be quenched.

It is evident, that the earliest fearchers after knowledge must have propofed knowledge only as their reward; and that Science, though perhaps the nurfeling of Intereft, was the daughter of Curiofity. It is not likely, that they who firft watched the courfe of the ftars, forefaw the use of their difcoveries to the facilitation of commerce, or the menfuration of time. They were delighted with Bb 2

the

the fplendour of the nocturnal skies; they found, that the lights changed their places; what they admired, they were anxious to understand, and in time traced their revolutions.

There are indeed beings in the form of men, who appear fatisfied with their intellectual poffef fions, and feem to live without defire of enlarging their conceptions; before whom the world paffes without notice, and who are equally unmoved by nature or by art.

This negligence is fometimes only the temporary effect of a predominant paffion. A lover finds no inclination to travel any path, but that which leads to the habitation of his mistress; a trader can spare little attention to common occurrences, when his fortune is endangered by a storm. It is frequently the confequence of a total immerfion in fenfuality, and of corporeal pleasures indulged till the memory of every other kind of happiness is obliterated. The mind long habituated to a lethargic and quiefcent ftate, is unwilling to wake to the toil of thinking; and though the may fometimes be disturbed by the obtrusion of new ideas, fhrinks back again to ignorance and rest.

But indeed, if we except them to whom the continual neceffity of procuring the fupports of life denies all opportunities of deviation from the track prefcribed them, the number of fuch as live without the ardour of inquiry, is very fmall; though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no import

ance.

There

There is no fnare more dangerous to bufy and excurfive minds, than the cobwebs of petty inquifitiveness; which entangle them in trivial employments and minute ftudies, and detain them in a middle state between the tedioufnefs of total inactivity, and the fatigue of laborious efforts; enchant them at once with eafe and novelty, and vitiate them with the luxury of learning. The ne

ceffity of doing fomething, and the fear of undertaking much, finks the hiftorian to a genealogist, the philofopher to a journalist of the weather, and the mathematician to a constructer of dials.

It is happy when those who cannot content themselves to be idle, nor refolve to be industrious, are at least employed without injury to others: but it feldom happens, that we can contain ourfelves long in a neutral ftate, or forbear to fink into vice, when we are no longer foaring towards virtue.

Nugaculus was diftinguished in his earlier years by an uncommon liveliness of imagination, quicknefs of fagacity, and extent of knowledge. Having paffed through the ufual methods of education, he entered into life, and applied himself with particular application to examine the various motives of human actions, the complicated influence of mingled affections, the different modifications of interest and ambition, and the various causes of miscarriage and fuccefs both in public and private affairs.

Though his friends did not discover to what purpofe all these observations were collected, or how Nugaculus would much improve his virtue or his

fortune,