Hope is independent of the apparatus of logic.

Cousins contrasts hope with strictly rational inference. “The apparatus of logic” suggests the tools by which we prove, calculate, and deduce; hope, by contrast, can persist even when evidence is thin or circumstances appear to argue against a favorable outcome. The line implies that hope is not a conclusion reached by syllogism but a human capacity—moral, psychological, even spiritual—that can motivate endurance and action. In Cousins’s broader outlook (often linking attitude, resilience, and healing), the claim also hints that hope may be pragmatically valuable: it can sustain effort and openness to possibility when logic alone would counsel resignation.