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 neither of which did happen, distinguish between them by saying that whereas the one was possible, though it didn’t happen, the other was impossible. And it is surely quite plain that what we mean by this (whatever it may be) is something which is often perfectly true. But, if so, then anybody who asserts, without qualification, “Nothing ever could have happened, except what did happen,” is simply asserting what is false.

It is, therefore, quite certain that we often could (in some sense) have done what we did not do. And now let us see how this fact is related to the argument by which people try to persuade us that it is not a fact.

The argument is well known: it is simply this. It is assumed (for reasons which I need not discuss) that absolutely everything that happens has a cause in what precedes it. But to say this is to say that it follows necessarily from something that preceded it; or, in other words, that, once the preceding events which are its cause had happened, it was absolutely bound to happen. But to say that it was bound to happen, is to say that nothing else could have happened