It is scarcely possible, however, to lay down rules for determining which of two alternatives is to be preferred; for there are many differences in the particular cases.

It might, perhaps, be urged that acts whose motive is something pleasant or something noble are compulsory, for here we are constrained by something outside us.

But if this were so, 38 all our acts would be compulsory; for these are the motives of every act of every man. 39

Again, acting under compulsion and against one’s will is painful, but action whose motive is something pleasant or noble involves pleasure. 40 It is absurd, then, to blame things outside us instead of our own readiness to yield to their allurements, and, while we claim our noble acts as our own, to set down our disgraceful actions to “pleasant things outside us.”