if we had chosen another; and we know also that the difference would sometimes consist in the fact that what we chose would come to pass. It is certainly often true of the future, therefore, that whichever of two actions we were to choose, would actually be done, although it is quite certain that only one of the two will be done.
And the second instance, in which people are apt to speak and think, as if, because no man ever could have done anything but what he did do, it follows that he would not, even if he had chosen, is as follows. Many people seem, in fact, to conclude directly from the first of these two propositions, that we can never be justified in praising or blaming a man for anything that he does, or indeed for making any distinction between what is right or wrong, on the one hand, and what is lucky or unfortunate on the other. They conclude, for instance, that there is never any reason to treat or to regard the voluntary commission of a crime in any different way from that in which we treat or regard the involuntary catching of a disease. The man who committed the crime could not, they
