35.  It is not to be imagined, however, that our freedom consists in an indetermination or an indifference of equipoise, as if one must needs be inclined equally to the side of yes and of no and in the direction of different courses, when there are several of them to take.  This equipoise in all directions is impossible:  for if we were equally inclined towards the courses A, B and C, we could not be equally inclined towards A and towards not A. This equipoise is also absolutely contrary to experience, and in scrutinizing oneself one will find that there has always been some cause or reason inclining us towards the course taken, although very often we be not aware of that which prompts us:  just in the same way one is hardly aware why, on issuing from a door, one has placed the right foot before the left or the left before the right.

36.  But let us pass to the difficulties.  Philosophers agree to-day that the truth of contingent futurities is determinate, that is to say that contingent futurities are future, or that they will be, that they will happen:  for it is as sure that the future will be, as it is sure that the past has been.  It was true already a hundred years ago that I should write to-day, as it will be true after a hundred years that I have written.  Thus the contingent is not, because it is future, any the less contingent; and determination, which would be called certainty if it were known, is not incompatible with contingency.  Often the certain and the determinate are taken as one thing, because a determinate truth is capable of being [144] known:  thus it may be said that determination is an objective certainty.

37.  This determination comes from the very nature of truth, and cannot injure freedom:  but there are other determinations taken from elsewhere, and in the first place from the foreknowledge of God, which many have held to be contrary to freedom.  They say that what is foreseen cannot fail to exist, and they say so truly; but it follows not that what is foreseen is necessary, for necessary truth is that whereof the contrary is impossible or implies contradiction.  Now this truth which states that I shall write tomorrow is not of that nature, it is not necessary.  Yet supposing that God foresees it, it is necessary that it come to pass; that is, the consequence is necessary, namely, that it exist, since it has been foreseen; for God is infallible.  This is what is termed a hypothetical necessity.  But our concern is not this necessity:  it is an absolute necessity that is required, to be able to say that an action is necessary, that it is not contingent, that it is not the effect of a free choice.  Besides it is very easily seen that foreknowledge in itself adds nothing to the determination of the truth of contingent futurities, save that this determination is known:  and this does not augment the determination or the ‘futurition’ (as it is termed) of these events, that whereon we agreed at the outset.