ernal world is well known, where the time between the action and
its examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most
accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a
minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external
conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes of
whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of
inevitability and a maximum of freedom.

In neither case--however we may change our point of view, however plain
we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external
world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the
period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes
of the action may be--can we ever conceive either complete freedom or
complete necessity.

(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the
influence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom
in space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds
him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems
to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every
direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was
least obstruction to that action either from things around me or from
the construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the possible
directions because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action
to be free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To
conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is
evidently impossible.

(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the
deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine
an action committed a second ago I must still recognize it as not
being free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was
committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have
abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? To
convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am
not now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the
question. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then
lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting,
nor is the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The
moment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at th