As will by now be obvious to the reader, the present book is not organized as a systematic treatise. The individual chapters could, to some extent, stand on their own. At the same time, the numerous cross-references across chapters do make for greater coherence than a mere collection of essays. I now try to pull these cross-references together, by singling out for separate discussion a number of themes that have been recurrent strands throughout the book. I shall also go beyond mere summing up, indicating where more work might be needed or where emphasis might most usefully be placed.

WHY EMOTIONS MATTER

Most simply, emotions matter because if we did not have them nothing else would matter. Creatures without emotion would have no reason for living nor, for that matter, for committing suicide. Emotions are the stuff of life.

Subjectively, emotions matter because we feel them so strongly, and because they can be intensely pleasant as well as intensely unpleasant. Because of these properties, emotions can have a compelling urgency that is lacking in most other aspects of human life. To be sure, the euphoria or dysphoria induced by cocaine or abstention from it, and the aversiveness of intense thirst or pain, are as overwhelmingly urgent as any emotional experience can be. Yet these visceral experiences are not to the same degree part of the fabric of social life. Emotions are the most important bond or glue that links us to others.