The aim of every living process is, at each step, to increase the deep feeling of the whole

I assert, simply, that all living process hinges on the production of deep feeling. And I assert that this one idea encapsulates all the other ideas, and covers all the other aspects of living process. It may also be said that this vision of living process is, or if true may turn out to be, in the end, of the greatest importance for the future of mankind.
Yet perhaps there is no other place in this book where the intellectual paradigm I offer is more at odds — at least on the surface — with the Cartesian paradigm. At first sight it would almost seem absurd to claim that every living process may be recognized, or measured in its degree of efficacy, according to the depth of its capacity to produce deep feeling. Yet I believe this is so.

#book/The Nature of Order/2 The process of creating life/14 Deep feeling#