Early Adulthood Philosophy:
The young Lincoln was a free thinker and somewhat a skeptic. He believed in the "doctrine of necessity," "That is the human mind is impelled to action, or held in rest by some power over which the mind itself has no power." After he became president, in later life, he developed a profound sense of religion. He more and more personalized the "necessity" as God. He came to view all history as God's enterprise and he viewed himself humbly as an "instrument of Providence."