ABSTRACT
A CHARACTERISTIC feature of the emotions is that they seek only to satisfy themselves. They tend to absorb consciousness wholly, excluding from it all reasoning as to their quality, and all considerations not immediately connected with their satisfaction. Hence contradictory emotions may influence our persuasions and conduct without our experiencing any sense of contradiction. This is sometimes expressed by saying that the principle of Non-Contradiction, which is one of the fundamental laws on which rational logic is based—is not applicable to emotional logic. According to the law of Non-Contradiction, a thing cannot both be and not be: for instance, in the law-courts it is taken for granted that a man cannot be both guilty and not-guilty. Apart from that principle, rational logic would have no purpose or value: when a proposition had been proved to be true, it would still be open to anyone to say that it might at the same time be not true: one of the basic conditions of reasoning thus removed, the whole fabric would fall to the ground. But to the emotions and sentiments as such this law is altogether foreign.
