Wonder is an imagination of a thing in which the Mind remains fixed because this singular imagination has no connection with the others. (See P52 and P52 S.)

Exp.: In IIP18 S we showed the cause why the Mind, from considering one thing, immediately passes to the thought of another—because the images of these things are connected with one another, and so ordered that one follows the other. This, of course, cannot be conceived when the image of the thing is new. Rather the Mind will be detained in regarding the same thing until it is determined by other causes to think of other things.

So the imagination of a new thing, considered in itself, is of the same nature as the other {imaginations}, and for this reason I do not number Wonder among the affects. Nor do I see why I should, since this distraction of the Mind does not arise from any positive cause which distracts the Mind from other things, but only from the fact that there is no cause determining the Mind to pass from regarding one thing to thinking of others.

So as I pointed out in P11 S, I recognize only three primitive, or primary, affects: Joy, Sadness, and Desire. I have spoken of Wonder only because it has become customary for some40 to indicate the affects derived from these three by other names when they are related to objects we wonder at. For the same reason I shall also add the definition of Disdain to these.