The heart has it reasons of which reason knows nothing," wrote Blaise Pascal. When people speak of cognition and emotion, or of reason and passion, they are usually referring to two distinct mental faculties. Just because the heart works independently of reason does not mean it lacks reason. On the contrary, the things that emotions do - for example, making us flee from danger, prompting us to court attractive people, concentrating on our moods, and influencing our judgments - all have their reasons. Sometimes these reasons are very good ones. As Evans (2001) put it "Not only are there passion with reason, but there are reasons with passion" (p.177).
CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING OF EMOTIONS
Let us briefly look at certain theories of emotion and see how they evolved in the course of time. Even the most far fetched theory may have a grain of truth and bring out something that the other theories underplay or overlook.