SECOND EPILOGUE
9. CHAPTER IX
(continued)
(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 certainly 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.
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