ABSTRACT
If you decide to catch a certain train at a certain time on a certain day, you can do so, unless some accident intervenes. But if you decide to feel some specific emotion at some predetermined moment, you are very likely to fail. You say to yourself (we will suppose): ‘At 6:23 p.m. next Saturday I will be overwhelmed by the beauty of Gray’s Elegy.’ But when the time comes you think this poem tiresome, and no exercise of willpower will make you feel otherwise.
