  (Prior n.d.a), in which a transitional soft determinism is propounded. This early typescript—which cites William James on freewill and determinism—probably dates from around 1941. According to determinism, the ‘causal chain’ is ‘all-embracing’, Prior said, but even though we are ‘part of the causal chain’, we are not ‘pure effect’. The ‘chain of causation’ runs ‘within’ us ‘as well as outside’: we ourselves are causes. He continued: ‘The only kind of universe in which general freedom is conceivable is one which we might call “loosely packed”’, and he emphasized that determinism ‘is compatible with a relatively loose packing of the things in the world’. In a loosely packed universe, ‘Causes and effects may not form a single chain; events may run in a number of chains which are partly independent of one another’. He explained: