positive influences to function easily.

One of these is what I would call "sympathetic curiosity," which may
encompass all images of life. Things which, if met with in life, would
certainly repel, when presented in image, simply excite our curiosity
to know. Of course some are impelled by the same interest to get into
contact with all experience--_Homo sum: humani nihil alienum a me
puto_--yet with the great majority the impulses to withdraw are too
strong. But all have a desire for further knowledge when a mere idea
of human life, however repellent, is presented; for the instinct of
gregariousness, which creates a special interest in our kind, works
with full force in the mind to strengthen curiosity. There is no part
of human experience which it does not embrace. We can well forego
knowledge of stars and trees, but we cannot remain ignorant of anything
human. As the moth to the flame, we are led, even against our will,
into all of life, even the most unpleasant. The charm possessed by the
novel and unplumbed, by such stories as _Jude the Obscure_, or by the
weird imaginings of a Baudelaire, comes from this source. It is no mere
scientific curiosity, because it includes that "consciousness of kind,"
which makes us feel akin to all we know.

Sympathetic curiosity, however, seldom works alone, for other interests,
less worthy and therefore often unavowed, usually cooperate to overcome
our repugnances towards the unpleasant. Many of our repugnances are
not simple and original like those felt towards death, darkness, and
deformity, but highly complex products of education, which may be
dissolved by a strong appeal to the more primitive instincts which
they seek to repress. An artist may, for example, through a vivid
portrayal, so excite the animal lust and cruelty which lurk hidden in
all of us as to make the most morally reprehensible objects acceptable.