premises, implicitly, without conscious awareness of doing so. He would be in danger if he had no means of being
aware of their existence, if they affected his actions with no warning signs available to his conscious mind. But it is
via his emotions that man is given the evidence of such subconscious premises—so that he can revise or correct
them if necessary.
The motivational power and function of emotions is evident in the fact that every emotion contains an inherent
action tendency, i.e., an impetus to perform some action related to the particular emotion. Love, for example, is a
man's emotional response to that which he values highly; it entails the action tendency to achieve some form of
contact with the loved person, to seek the loved person's presence, to interact intellectually, emotionally, physically,
etc. The emotion of fear is a man's response to that which threatens his values; it entails the action tendency to
avoid or flee from the feared object. Values by their very nature entail action. So do value-responses, i.e., emotions.
The action involved is not always physical. For example, there are feelings of quiet happiness that invoke in a man
the desire only to remain still and contemplate the source of his happiness—or the beauty of the world around him;
his sought-for values have been achieved and all he wants is to dwell on and experience the reality of their
existence. But every emotion carries some implication for action. (This does not mean, of course, that the action
should necessarily be taken; it may not be possible or appropriate in a given context.)
The action implication of some emotions is negative, i.e., they tend specifically to retard or inhibit action. This is
evident in the case of acute depression. The person feels that nothing is worth doing, that action is futile, that he is
helpless to achieve happiness. The impulse is toward stillness, passivity, withdrawal.
Implicit in every emotional response is a dual value-judgment, both parts of which have action implications. Every
emotion reflects the judgment "for me" or "against me"—and also "to what extent." Thus, emotions differ
according to their content and according to their intensity. Strictly speaking, these are not two separate value-
judgments, they are integral aspects of the same value-judgment; they may be separated only by a process of
abstraction. They are experienced as one response. But the intensity aspect