nly less free
and more subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and
seclusion.

If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything around
him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his relation
to anything around him, if we see his connection with anything
whatever--with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on
which he is engaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that
falls on the things about him--we see that each of these circumstances
has an influence on him and controls at least some side of his activity.
And the more we perceive of these influences the more our conception of
his freedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity that
weighs on him increases.

The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of
the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place
the man's action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the
fall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race,
appear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. It is
the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago
and are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life
of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.

The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this
respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance
of the action and our judgment of it.

If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the same
circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me undoubtedly
free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then being in
different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had
not been committed much that resulted from it--good, agreeable, and even
essential--would not have taken place. If I reflect on an action still
more remote, ten years ago or more, then the consequences of my action
are still plainer to me and I find it hard to imagine what would have
happened had that action not been performed. The farther I go back
in memory, or what is the same thing the farther I go forward in my
judgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my
action.

In history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning
the part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A
contemporary event seems to us to be