x VOLITION: LIBERTY AND NECESSITY 225 



necessarily connected together. The advocate 

 who should attempt to get the man off on the 

 plea that his client need not necessarily have had 

 a felonious intent, would hardly waste his time 

 more, if he tried to prove that the sum of all the 

 angles of a triangle is not two right angles, hut 

 three. 



A man's moral responsibility for his acts has, in 

 fact, nothing to do with the causation of these 

 acts, hut depends on the frame of mind which 

 accompanies them. Common language tells us 

 this, when it uses " well disposed " as the equiva- 

 lent of "good," and "evil-minded" as that of 

 " wicked." If A does something which puts B in 

 a violent passion, it is quite possible to admit that 

 B's passion is the necessary consequence of A's 

 act, and yet to believe that B's fury is morally 

 wrong, or that he ought to control it. In fact, a 

 calm bystander would reason with both on the 

 assumption of moral necessity. He would say to 

 A, " You were wrong in doing a thing which you 

 knew (that is, of the necessity of which you were 

 convinced) would irritate B." And he would 

 say to B, "You are wrong to give way to pas- 

 sion, for you know its evil effects" that is the 

 necessary connection between yielding to passion 

 and evil. 



So far, therefore, from necessity destroying 

 moral responsibility, it is the foundation of all 

 praise and blame; and moral admiration reaches 



