(_b_) “His necessity is just such another, a necessity upon supposition, arising from the concourse of all the causes, including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures. The adequate cause and the effect are together in time, and when all the concurrent causes are determined, the effect is determined also, and is become so necessary that it is actually in being; but there is a great difference between determining, and being determined. If all the collateral causes concurring to the production of an effect, were antecedently determined what they must of necessity produce, and when they must produce it, then there is no doubt but the effect is necessary. (_c_) But if these causes did operate freely or contingently; if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence, or have concurred after another manner, then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary, but either free or contingent. This will be yet clearer by considering his own instance of _casting ambs-ace_, though it partake more of contingency than of freedom. Supposing the positure of the parties’ hand who did throw the dice, supposing the figure of the table and of the dice themselves, supposing the measure of force applied, and supposing all other things which did concur to the production of that cast, to be the very same they were, there is no doubt but in this case the cast is necessary. But still this is but a necessity of supposition; for if all these concurrent causes, or some of them, were contingent or free, then the cast was not absolutely necessary. To begin with the caster, he might have denied his concurrence, and not have cast at all; he might have suspended his concurrence, and not have cast so soon; he might have doubled or diminished his force in casting, if it had pleased him; he might have thrown the dice into the other table. In all these cases what becomes of his _ambs-ace_? The like uncertainties offer themselves for the maker of the tables, and for the maker of the dice, and for the keeper of the tables, and for the kind of wood, and I know not how many other circumstances. In such a mass of contingencies, it is impossible that the effect should be antecedently necessary. T. H. appeals to every man’s experience. I am contented. Let every one reflect upon himself, and he shall find no convincing, much less constraining reason, to necessitate him to any one of these particular acts more than another, but only his own will or arbitrary determination. So T. H.’s necessity is no absolute, no antecedent, extrinsical necessity, but merely a necessity upon supposition.