ABSTRACT
Thoughts and Feelings Influence Action.—The function of thoughts and feelings,—i.e., the work they do, the service they perform, their share in the business of life,—is to influence actions. In some wider, freer world than that of this present life, mental states may count of themselves directly. But as things are here, we help or harm our fellow men only by what we do. Only when a man’s ideas and emotions issue in effects on his deeds, words, gestures, facial expression or other bodily acts, do they make any difference to anyone else. And in truth, though it would be a long task to explain why, it is only when they influence such acts of body or at least of brain, that they make any permanent difference to him. Unless mental states resulted in acts that altered the physical world or the bodies and minds of men they would be of no service, and would as well not be. In § 27 it will be shown that sooner or later, directly or indirectly, every mental state is expressed or worked off in causing or inhibiting bodily movements or brain changes. That we now see to be their reason for being. We feel the outside world in order that we may react to it. We remember and learn and reason in order that we may modify our reactions to it. The great majority or our feelings have as their function to change our behavior.
