ABSTRACT
This is an inconvenient fact which used to be ignored by all, and is still not sufficiently recognised by the old. Almost all our institutions depend, for their success, upon capacity for feeling expected emotions. We expect religious emotions in church on Sunday morning, and feel ashamed if we find ourselves looking forward to Sunday dinner. If we are old-fashioned parents, we expect our children to feel gratitude to us for their existence and to combine admiration of our wisdom with perennial amusement at our stock jokes. When they do not feel these expected emotions, we regard them as unnatural monsters. In marrying, bride and bridegroom are informed that it will henceforth be their 'duty' to love one another, although, since love is an emotion, it is not subject to the control of the will and therefore cannot come within the scope of duty. Considerate behaviour may be a duty, but love is a gift from heaven: when the gift is withdrawn, the one who has lost it is to be pitied, not blamed.
