Wonder Among Cartesians and Natural Magicians

In the late Renaissance, the power and presence of wonder couldn't be denied; the hundred years prior to Descartes' youth might well have been labeled an Age of Wonders.¹ Europe had been inundated with wonders: the New World was plentiful with peoples and civilizations, exotic animals, and wonderful new simples, none of which was mentioned in the Bible, neither by the ancients. Indeed, the rhetoric of wonder appears in a large number of books in the 16th and 17th centuries— texts often purporting to be of practical use, divulging secrets of old, and experiments and observations of the new.² Wonder was found in the newly recovered ancients, perhaps as much as in the encounter with the New World; the old had become novel, so that it too would uncover its secrets. And then there were the recent marvels of technology—the mechanical clock, the telescope, the microscope, the camera obscura, and the experiments with the loadstone. By the late17th century Europeans had become amazed b y their own works—such as the self-moving clocks and “speaking” fountains—and there were plenty of people eager to contribute to this practical knowledge and its wonderful display.³

But Descartes and Malebranche are not enthusiastic about wonder, despite its obvious attractions. For although wonder's power and presence couldn't be denied, it was also a distraction, and could be quite misleading, encouraging the wrong kind of science. Wonder has its place as an incentive to inquiry, and for the embodied soul is perhaps a necessary requirement for inquiry. As a passion, used correctly, it will contribute to the moral and intellectual health of the individual. But just as any passion might, it could mislead by being misused. Wonder is important to Descartes' picture of the intellectual, especially in that generosity (or magnanimity) is derived from wonder, and it is generosity that is the key to the good life, i.e., to the proper control of the passions. Examining the idea of wonder thus reveals how Descartes and Malebranche differ from their contemporaries regarding the role of wonder in inquiry and, I shall suggest, religious devotion.