19 September, 2012: Curiosity

As I started reading the Daston piece, “Wonders and the Order of Nature”, I found the Descartes idea of “wonder as the first of the passions...useful in small doses to stimulate scientific inquiry” (304) particularly in line with my thoughts on Fantomina.  Fantomina, or the lady who acted Fantomina, was originally simply curious as to what it would be like to be a prostitute.  Where she got into trouble was in her insistence on continuing to explore past the point where she could stay safely within her station/life.  In other words, she used a small dose to stimulate her inquiry, but then kept adding to it, leading her down her own path of destruction.

                I used ‘curious’ where Descartes used ‘wonder’.  In the Daston article, she articulates the history of each term.  Wonder, then, may be used by Descartes in a similar way Haywood would have understood Curiosity.  One thing that seemed to be especially relevant was the connection of curiosity to desire or lust.  We can see that quite strongly in Fantomina.  Her curiosity led her to explore, but her desire, then, to have what her experiment had shown her possible overtook her better judgment.  I am curious/wondering, then, how Fantomina the novel means to explore, if at all, the ideas behind scientific inquiry?  That is, after all, how Fantomina’s tricks and deception started.

                In this case, I don’t think we can just take the evidence that Fantomina ended up alone in a convent with a ruined reputation and no lover for her life as a full commentary on the outcome of scientific exploration.  There was not much procedurally wrong with her original experiment.  She dressed, acted, and spoke in the ways of a prostitute, yet had sense enough to know when to cut off her interaction for that night.  Her mistake was in leaving an opening for the next night.  This made it hard for her to stop the charade.  Yet, is this a mistake/flaw in the scientific way she went about it, or a flaw in her character with her experiment simply the vehicle through which we see her flaws?