CHAPTER XIV
In the psychical world as well as the physical we must meet and overcome inertia. Our lives must be compelled by motive forces strong enough to overcome this natural inertia, and enable us besides to make headway against many obstacles. The motive power that drives us consists chiefly of our feelings and emotions. Knowledge, cognition, supplies the rudder that guides our ship, but feeling and emotion supply the power.
To convince one's head is, therefore, not enough; his feelings must be stirred if you would be sure of moving him to action. Often have we known that a certain line of action was right, but failed to follow it because feeling led in a different direction. When decision has been hanging in the balance we have piled on one side obligation, duty, sense of right, and a dozen other reasons for action, only to have them all outweighed by the one single: It is disagreeable. Judgment, reason, and experience may unite to tell us that a contemplated course is unwise, and imagination may reveal to us its disastrous consequences, and yet its pleasures so appeal to us that we yield. Our feelings often prove a stronger motive than knowledge and will combined; they are a factor constantly to be reckoned with among our motives.
