It is now customary with the advocates of the doctrine of necessity to
express it by a different word, and call it the doctrine of determinism.
The purpose of changing the word is to get rid of all associations with
the idea of compulsion; just so in Science it is thought better to get
rid of the words cause and effect, and substitute invariable sequence,
in order to get rid of the notion of some compulsion recognisable by us
in the cause to produce the effect. Determinism does not say to a man
'you will be forced to act in a particular way;' but 'you will assuredly
do so.' There will be no compulsion; but the action is absolutely
certain. Just as on a given day the moon will eclipse the sun, so in
given circumstances you will do the precise thing which it is your
character in such circumstances to do. And your sense of freedom is
simply the sense that the action proceeds from yourself and not from any
force put upon you from without.

But this too does not solve the problem. It is true that in regard to a
very large proportion of our actions the sense of freedom seems to be no
more than negative. We do what it is our custom, our inclination, our
character to do. We are not conscious of any force being put upon us;
but neither are we conscious of using any force ourselves. We float as
it were down the stream, or hurry along with a determined aim, but
having no desire nor purpose to the contrary, the question of freedom or
necessity never seems to arise. It is even possible and common for us
not to know ourselves as well as others know us, and to do many things
which an observer would predict as sure to be our actions, but which we
ourselves fancy to be by no means certain. Even in these cases we
sometimes awake to the fact that what we are thus allowing in our lives
is not consistent with the law of duty, and, do what we may, we cannot
then escape the conviction that we are to blame, and that we had power