Necessity [Lat. necessitas]: Ger. Nothwendigkeit; Fr. nécessité; Ital. necessità. (1) The state or condition that cannot be otherwise than it is; that must be just as it is.
(2) The principle in virtue of which the condition of the universe as a whole, or any particular part of it, is rendered, both as to its existence and quality, inevitable. Opposed to both freedom and chance, but especially, in its strictly philosophical use, to chance […] or contingency. That which has the property of necessity is said to be necessary.
