2. In metaphysical or philosophical use, necessity is not a _relative_, but an _absolute term_. In this use necessity applies "in cases wherein no insufficient will is supposed, or can be supposed; but the very nature of the supposed case itself excludes any opposition, will, or endeavour." (ibid.) Thus it is used "with respect to God's existence before the creation of the world, when there was no other being." "_Metaphysical_ or _philosophical_ necessity is nothing different from certainty,--not the certainty of knowledge, but the certainty of things in themselves, which is the foundation of the certainty of knowledge, or that wherein lies the ground of the infallibility of the proposition which affirms them. Philosophical necessity is really nothing else than the full and fixed connexion between the things signified by the subject and predicate of a proposition which affirms something to be true; and in this sense I use the word necessity, in the following discourse, when I endeavour to prove _that necessity is not inconsistent with liberty_." (p. 27, 28, 29.) "The subject and predicate of a proposition which affirms the existence of something, may have a full, fixed, and certain connexion, in several ways." "1. They, may have a full and perfect connexion _in and of themselves_. So God's infinity and other attributes are necessary. So it is necessary, _in its own nature_, that two and two should be four." 2. The subject and predicate of a proposition, affirming the existence of something which is already come to pass, are fixed and certain. 3. The subject and predicate of a proposition may be fixed and certain _consequentially_,--and so the existence of the things affirmed may be "consequentially necessary." "Things which are _perfectly connected_ with the things that are necessary, are necessary themselves, by a necessity of consequence." This is logical necessity. "And here it may be observed, that all things which are future, or which will hereafter begin to be, which can be said to be necessary, are necessary only in this last way,"--that is, "by a connexion with something that is necessary in its own nature, or something that already is or has been. This is the necessity which especially belongs to controversies about acts of the will." (p. 30.) Philosophical necessity is _general_ and _particular._ 1. "The existence of a thing may be said to be necessary with a _general_ necessity, when all things considered there is a foundation for the certainty of its existence." This is unconditional necessity in the strictest sense.