connection with other things, so that regarded in any of its aspects it is seen to be completely determined by other existing things, in the form of conditions or causes, and cannot be separated from them or come into being of itself, nor can there be any condition, cause, or fact of connection by means of which it can be so separated, nor any such instance of connection as can contradict the other which qualifies the thing. In accordance with this description we place the contingency of a thing in its isolation, in the want of perfect connection with other things. This is the first point.
Conversely, again, since an existing thing thus stands in a relation of perfect connection, it is in all its aspects conditioned and dependent, is in fact perfectly wanting in independence. It is, on the other hand, in necessity alone that we find the independence of a thing. What is necessary must be. This fact that it must be, expresses its independence by suggesting that what is necessary is, because it is. This is the other point.
We thus see that the necessity of anything requires two sorts of opposed characteristics: on the one hand, its independence, in which, however, it is isolated, and which makes its existence or non-existence a matter of indifference; and, on the other, its being based upon and contained in a complete relation to everything else whereby it is surrounded, and by the connection involved in which, it is kept in existence; this means that it is not independent. The necessary element is a recognised fact quite as much as the contingent element. Regarded from the point of view of the first of these ideas, everything exists in an orderly connection. The contingent is separated from the necessary, and points beyond it to a necessary something, which, however, when we look at it more closely, is itself included in contingency, just because, being posited by another, it is dependent. When, however, it is taken out of any such connection it is isolated, and is consequently directly
