We are conditioned beings; and if the conditions are changed, the result may be pain or death or greater joy. We can only live within certain degrees of heat. If the weather were a few degrees colder, we could not exist. We need food and roof and raiment. Life and happiness depend on these conditions. We do not certainly know what is to happen, and consequently our hopes and fears are constantly active –- that is to say, we are emotional beings. The generalization of Tolstoi, that emotion never goes hand in hand with duty, is almost the opposite of the truth. The idea of duty could not exist without emotion. Think of men and women without love, without desires, without passions! Think of a world without art or music –- a world without beauty, without emotion.
(Quoted from pages 166-167 of The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought, by Susan Jacoby. Yale University Press, 2013.)
For a brief biography of Robert G. Ingersoll, click here. For images of or relating to Robert Ingersoll, click here.
For a brief biography of Susan Jacoby, click here. For images of or relating to Susan Jacoby, click here.
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