THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.
WONDER, surprise, and admiration, are words which, though often confounded, denote, in our language, sentiments that are indeed allied, but that are in some respects different also, and distinct from one another. What is new and singular, excites that sentiment which, in strict propriety, is called Wonder; what is unexpected, Surprise; and what is great or beautiful, Admiration.
We wonder at all extraordinary and uncommon objects, at all the rarer phenomena of nature, at meteors, comets, eclipses, at singular plants and animals, and at every thing, in short, with which we have before been either little or not at all acquainted; and we still wonder, though forewarned of what we are to see.
We are surprised at those things which we have seen often, but which we least of all expected to meet with in the place where we find them; we are surprised at the sudden appearance of a friend, whom we have seen a thousand times, but whom we did not at all imagine we were to see then.
We admire the beauty of a plain or the greatness of a mountain, 326 though we have seen both often before, and though nothing appears to us in either, but what we had expected with certainty to see.
Whether this criticism upon the precise meaning of these words be just, is of little importance. I imagine it is just, though I acknowledge, that the best writers in our language have not always made use of them according to it. Milton, upon the appearance of Death to Satan, says, that
The Fiend what this might be admir’d,
Admir’d, not fear’d.———
But if this criticism be just, the proper expression should have been wonder’d. Dryden, upon the discovery of Iphigenia sleeping, says that
The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes,
And gaping mouth, that testified surprise.