 The real leads us back to the aforementioned concept of “necessity”, for reality—essentially determinate, limited, contingent, and conditional—is itself a “network of necessity” (Vetö 1971 [1994: 90]), such that necessity is a reflection of reality. Moreover, like “power” in her early period and “force” in her middle period, Weil’s concept of necessity includes not only the physical forces of the created world, but also the social forces of human life. Through necessity a sense of slavery remains in her thought, for humans are ineluctably subject to necessity. In this way, enslavement to forces outside our control is essentially woven into the human condition.