Our Free Will We ought then regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its previous state and the cause of the one which is to follow. An intelligence knowing at a given instant of time all the forces operating in nature, as well as the position at that instant of all things of which the universe consists, would be able to comprehend the motions of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the smallest atoms in a single formula - provided that it was sufficiently powerful to submit all these data analysis. To it nothing would be uncertain and the future would be present to its eyes as much as the past.