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 not merely on what we can do, if we choose; and because (2) it is very difficult to be sure in what sense it is true that we ever could have done anything different from what we actually did do. I do not profess to be sure about either of these points. And all that I can hope to do is to point out certain facts which do seem to me to be clear, though they are often overlooked; and thus to isolate clearly for the reader’s decision, those questions which seem to me to be really doubtful and difficult.

Let us begin with the question: Is it ever true that a man could have done anything else, except what he actually did do? And, first of all, I think I had better explain exactly how this question seems to me to be related to the question of Free Will. For it is a fact that, in many discussions about Free Will, this precise question is never mentioned at all; so that it might be thought that the two have really nothing whatever to do with one another. And indeed some philosophers do, I think, definitely imply that they have nothing to do with one another: they seem to hold that our wills can properly be said to be free