arded, but
their relation is always one of inverse proportion.

A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother
exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained
to discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless
man--seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of
necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were
placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself
drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks,
and so on. Similarly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and
has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems less guilty
and his action more due to the law of inevitability, to someone who
considers his action after twenty years have elapsed than to one who
examined it the day after it was committed. And in the same way every
action of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less
free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him
who committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one
who does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom
is increased or diminished and the conception of compulsion is
correspondingly decreased or increased, according to the point of view
from which the action is regarded. So that the greater the conception of
necessity the smaller the conception of freedom and vice versa.

Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence,
and history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and
freedom.

All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and
necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:

(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds.

(2) His relation to time.

(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.

The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's
relation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness
of our understanding of the definite position occupied by the man
in relation to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it
evident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity
than one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man
closely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one
bound by family, official, or business duties, seem certai