 CHAPTER I. OF THE PRINCIPLES OF PURE PRACTICAL REASON. OF THE RIGHT THAT PURE REASON IN ITS PRACTICAL USE HAS TO AN EXTENSION WHICH IS NOT POSSIBLE TO IT IN ITS SPECULATIVE USE. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. We have in the moral principle set forth a law of causality, the determining principle of which is set above all the conditions of the sensible world. We have it conceived how the will, as belonging to the intelligible world, is determinable, and therefore we therefore have its subject, man, not merely conceived as belonging to a world of pure understanding, and in this respect unknown, which the critique of speculative reason enabled us to do, but also defined as regards his causality by means of a law which cannot be reduced to any physical law of the sensible world, and therefore our knowledge is extended beyond the limits of that world, a pretension which the critique of pure reason declared to be futile in all speculation. Now, how is the practical use of pure reason here to be reconciled with the theoretical, as to the determination of the limits of its faculty? David Hume, of whom we may say that he commenced the assault on the claims of pure reason, which made a thorough investigation of it necessary, argued thus. The notion of a cause is a notion that involves the necessity of the connection of the existence of different things, and that insofar as they are different, so that, given A, I know that something quite distinct therefrom, namely, B, must necessarily also exist. Now, necessity can be attributed to a connection only insofar as it is known a priori, for experience would only enable us to know of such a connection that it exists, not that it necessarily exists. Now, it is impossible, says he, to know a priori and as necessary the connection between one thing and another, or between one attribute and another quite distinct, when they have not been given in experience. Therefore, the notion of a cause is fictitious and delusive, and to speak in the mildest way is an illusion, only excusable in as much as the custom, a subjective necessity of perceiving certain things, or their attributes, as often associated in existence, along with or in succession to one another, is insensibly taken for an objective necessity of supposing such a connection in the adjupts and cells, and thus the notion of a cause has been acquired surreptitiously and not legitimately. Nay, it can never be so acquired or authenticated, since it demands a connection in itself vane, chimerical, and untenable in presence of reason, and of which no object can ever correspond. In this way was empiricism first introduced as the sole source of principles, as far as all knowledge of the existence of things is concerned, mathematics, therefore remaining accepted, and with empiricism the most thorough skepticism, even with regard to the whole science of nature as philosophy. For on such principles we can never conclude from given attributes of things as existing to a consequence. For this would require the notion of cause, which involves the necessity of such a connection. We can only, guided by imagination, expect similar cases, an explanation which is never certain, however of ten it has been fulfilled. Of no event could we say a certain thing must have preceded it, on which it necessarily followed, that is, it must have a cause, and therefore however frequent the cases we have known in which there was such an antecedent, so that a rule could be derived from them, yet we never could suppose it as always and necessarily so happening. We should therefore be obliged to leave its share to blind chance, with which all use of reason comes to an end, and this firmly establishes skepticism in reference to arguments ascending from effects to causes, and makes it impregnable. Mathematics escaped well so far, because Hume thought that its propositions were analytical, that is, preceded from one property to another by virtue of identity, and consequently according to the principle of contradiction. This, however, is not the case, since on the contrary they are synthetical, and although geometry, for example, has not to do with the existence of things, but only with their a priori properties and a possible intuition, yet it precedes just as in the case of the causal notion, from one property, a, to another wholly distinct, b, as necessarily connected with the former. Nevertheless, mathematical science, so highly vaunted for its apodietic certainty, must at last fall under this empiricism for the same reason for which Hume put custom in the place of objective necessity in the notion of cause, and in spite of all its pride, must consent to lower its bold pretension of claiming ascent a priori, and depend for ascent to the universality of its propositions on the kindness of observers, who, when called as witnesses, would surely not hesitate to admit that what the geometer propounds as a theorem they have always perceived to be fact, and consequently, although it be not necessarily true, yet they would permit us to expect it to be true in the future. In this manner, Hume's empiricism leads inevitably to skepticism, even with regard to mathematics, and consequently in every scientific theoretical use of reason, for this belongs either to philosophy or mathematics. Whether, with such a terrible overthrow of the chief branches of knowledge, common reason will escape better, and will not rather become irrevocably involved in this destruction of all knowledge, so that from the same principles a universal skepticism should follow, affecting indeed only the learned, this I will leave everyone to judge for himself. As regards my own labours in the critical examination of pure reason, which were occasioned by Hume's skeptical teaching, but went much further and embraced the whole field of pure theoretical reason in its synthetic use, and consequently the field of what is called metaphysics in general, I proceeded in the following manner with respect to the doubts raised by the Scottish philosopher, touching the notion of causality. If Hume took the objects of experience for things in themselves, as is almost always done, he was quite right in declaring the notion of cause to be a deception and false illusion, for as to things in themselves and their attributes as such, it is impossible to see why, because A is given, B, which is different, must necessarily be also given, and therefore he could by no means admit such an a priori knowledge of things in themselves. Still less could this acute writer allow an empirical origin of this concept, since this is directly contradictory to the necessity of connection, which constitutes the essence of the notion of causality, hence the notion was prescribed and in its place was put custom in the observation of the course of perceptions. It resulted, however, from my inquiries, that the objects with which we have to do in experience are by no means things in themselves, but merely phenomena, and that although in the case of things in themselves it is impossible to see how, if A is supposed, it should be contradictory that B, which is quite different from A, should not also be supposed, i.e., to see the necessity of the connection between A as cause and B as effect, yet it can be very well conceived that, as phenomena, they may be necessarily connected in one experience in a certain way, e.g., with regard to time relations, so that they could not be separated without contradicting that connection, by means of which this experience is possible, in which they are objects, and in which alone they are cognizable by us. And so it was found to be fact, so that I was able not only to prove the objective reality of the concept of cause in regard to objects of experience, but also to deduce it as an a priori concept by reason of the necessity of the connection it implied, i.e., to show the possibility of its origin from pure understanding without any empirical sources. And thus, after removing the source of empiricism, I was able also to overthrow the inevitable consequence of this, namely, skepticism, first with regard to physical science, and then with regard to mathematics, in which empiricism has just the same grounds, both being sciences which have reference to objects of possible experience, herewith overthrowing the thorough doubt of whatever theoretic reason professes to discern. But how is it, with the application of this category of causality, and all the others, for without them there can be no knowledge of anything existing, to things which are not objects of possible experience, but lie beyond its bounds? For I was able to deduce the objective reality of these concepts only with regard to objects of possible experience. But even this very fact, that I have saved them, only in case I have proved that objects may, by means of them, be thought, not determined a priori, this it is that gives them a place in the pure understanding, by which they are referred to as objects in general, sensible or not sensible. If anything is still wanting, it is that which is the condition of the application of these categories, especially that of causality to objects, namely intuition, for where this is not given, the application with a view to theoretic knowledge of the object, as a numinon, is impossible, and therefore if any one ventures on it, as in the critique of pure reason, absolutely forbidden. Still, the objective reality of the concept of causality remains, and it can be used even of numinah, but without our being able in the least to define the concept theoretically so as to produce knowledge. For that this concept, even in reference to an object, contains nothing impossible, was shown by this, that even while applied to objects of sense, its seat was certainly fixed in the pure understanding, and although when referred to things in themselves, which cannot be objects of experience, it is not capable of being determined so as to represent a definite object, for the purpose of theoretic knowledge. Yet, for any other purpose, for instance, a practical, it might be capable of being determined so as to have such an application. This could not be the case if, as Hume maintained, this concept of causality contained something absolutely impossible to be thought. In order now to discover this condition of the application of the said concept to numinah, we need only recall why we are not content with its application to objects of experience, but desire also to apply it to things in themselves. It will appear then that it is not a theoretic but a practical purpose that makes this a necessity. In speculation, even if we were successful in it, we should not really gain anything in the knowledge of nature, or generally with regard to such objects as are given, but we should make a wide step from the sensibility conditioned, in which we have already enough to do to maintain ourselves and to follow carefully the chain of causes to the supersensible in order to complete our knowledge of principles and to fix its limits, whereas there always remains an infinite chasm unfilled between those limits and what we know, and we should have harkened to a vain curiosity rather than a sole desire of knowledge. But beside the relation in which the understanding stands to objects in theoretical knowledge, it has also a relation to the faculty of desire, which is therefore called the will, and the pure will in as much as pure understanding, in this case called reason, is practical through the mere conception of a law. The objective reality of a pure will, or what is the same thing of a pure practical reason, is given in the moral law a priori, as it were, by a fact, for so we may name a determination of the will which is inevitable, although it does not rest on empirical principles. Now, in the notion of a will, the notion of causality is already contained, and hence the notion of a pure will contains that of a causality accompanied with freedom—that is, one which is not determinable by physical laws, and consequently is not capable of any empirical intuition in proof of its reality—but nevertheless completely justifies its objective reality a priori in the pure practical law—not indeed, as is easily seen, for the purposes of the theoretical, but of the practical use of reason. Now, the notion of a being that has free will is the notion of a cause-anuminon, and that this notion involves no contradiction, we are already assured by the fact that in as much as the concept of cause has arisen wholly from pure understanding, and has its objective reality assured by the deduction, as it is moreover in its origin independent of any sensible conditions, it is therefore not restricted to phenomena, unless we wanted to make a definite theoretic use of it, but can be applied equally to things that are objects of pure understanding. But since this application cannot rest on any intuition, for intuition can only be sensible, therefore causanuminon, as regards the theoretic use of reason, although a possible and thinkable, is yet an empty notion. Now, I do not desire by means of this to understand theoretically the nature of a being insofar as it has a pure will. It is enough for me to have thereby designated it as such, and hence to combine the notion of causality without a freedom, and what is inseparable from it, the moral law, as a determining principle. Now, this right I certainly have by virtue of the pure, not empirical, origin of the notion of cause, since I do not consider myself entitled to make any use of it, except in reference to the moral law which determines its reality. That is, only a practical use. If with hum I had denied to the notion of causality all objective reality in its theoretic use, not merely with regards to things in themselves, the supersensible, but also with regard to the objects of the senses, it would have lost all significance, and being a theoretically impossible notion would have been declared to be quite useless, and since what is nothing cannot be made any use of, the practical use of a concept theoretically null would have been absurd. But as it is, the concept of a causality free from empirical conditions, although empty, i.e., without any appropriate intuition, is yet theoretically possible, and refers to an indeterminate object, but in compensation significance is given to it in the moral law, and consequently in a practical sense. I have indeed no intuition which should determine its objective theoretic reality, but not the less it has a real application which is exhibited in concerto in Intentions or Maxims, i.e., it has a practical reality which can be specified, and this is sufficient to justify it even with a view to Numina. Now, this objective reality of a pure concept of the understanding in the sphere of the supersensible, once brought in, gives an objective reality also to all the other categories, although only so far as they stand in necessary connection with the determining principle of the will, the moral law, a reality only of practical application which has not the least effect in enlarging our theoretical knowledge of these objects, or the discernment of their nature by pure reason. So we shall find also in the sequel that these categories refer only to beings as intelligences, and in them only to the relation of reason to the will. Consequently, always only to the practical, and beyond this cannot pretend to any knowledge of these beings, and whatever other properties belonging to the theoretical representation of supersensible things may be brought into connection with these categories, this is not to be reckoned as knowledge, but only as a right, in a practical point of view, however it is a necessity, to admit and assume such beings, even in the case where we conceive supersensible beings, e.g., God, according to analogy, that is, a purely rational relation, of which we make a practical use with reference to what is sensible, and thus the application to the supersensible, solely in a practical point of view does not give pure theoretic reason the least encouragement to run riot into the transcendent. By a concept of the practical reason I understand the idea of an object as an effect possible to be produced through freedom. To be an object of practical knowledge, such as, signifies, therefore, only the relation of the will to the action by which the object, or its opposite, would be realized, and to decide whether something is an object of pure practical reason, or not, is only to discern the possibility or impossibility of willing the action by which, if we had the required power, about which experience must decide, a certain object would be realized. If the object to be taken as the determining principle of our desire, it must first be known whether it is physically possible, by the free use of our powers, before we decide whether it is an object of practical reason or not. On the other hand, if the law can be considered a priori as the determining principle of the action, and the latter, therefore, as determined by pure practical reason, the judgment whether a thing is an object of pure practical reason or not, does not depend at all on the comparison with our physical power, and the question is only whether we should will an action that is directed to the existence of an object if the object were in our power. Hence, the previous question is only as the moral possibility of the action, for in this case it is not the object, but the law of the will, that is the determining principle of the action. The only objects of practical reason are therefore those of good and evil. For, by the former is meant an object necessarily desired according to a principle of reason, by the latter one necessarily shunned, also according to a principle of reason. If the notion of good is not to be derived from an antecedent practical law, but on the contrary is to serve as its foundation, it can only be the notion of something whose existence promises pleasure, and thus determines the causality of the subject to produce it, that is to say, determines the faculty of desire. Now, since it is possible to discern a priori what idea will be accompanied with pleasure and what with pain, it will depend on experience alone to find out what is primarily good or evil. The property of the subject, with reference to which alone this experiment can be made, is the feeling of pleasure and pain, a receptivity belonging to the internal sense, thus that only would be primarily good, with which the sensation of pleasure is immediately connected, and that simply evil which immediately excites pain. Since, however, this is opposed even to the usage of language, which distinguishes the pleasant from the good, the unpleasant from the evil, and requires that good and evil shall always be judged by reason, and therefore by concepts which can be communicated to everyone, and not by mere sensation, which is limited to individual subjects and their susceptibility, and since, nevertheless, pleasure or pain cannot be connected with any idea of an object a priori, the philosopher who thought himself obliged to make a feeling of pleasure the foundation of his practical judgments would call that good which is a means to the pleasant, and evil which is a cause of unpleasantness and pain, for the judgment on the relation of means to ends certainly belongs to reason. But although reason is alone capable of discerning the connection of means with their ends, so that the will might even be defined as the faculty of ends, since these are always determining principles of the desires, yet the practical maxims which would follow from the aforesaid principle of the good, being merely a means, would never contain as the object of the will anything good in itself, but only something good for something. The good would always be merely the useful, and that for which it is useful must always lie outside the will in sensation. Now, if this, as a pleasant sensation, were to be distinguished from the notion of good, then there would be nothing primarily good at all, but the good would have to be sought only in the means to something else, namely some pleasantness. It is an old formula of the schools, nihil apetimus nisi subration boni, nihil avarsamer nisi subration mali, and it is often used correctly, but often also in a manner injurious to philosophy, because the expressions boni and mali are ambiguous owing to the poverty of language, in consequence of which they admit a double sense, and therefore inevitably bring the practical laws into ambiguity, and philosophy, which in employing them becomes aware of the different meanings in the same word, but can find no special expressions for them, is driven to subtle distinctions about which there is subsequently no unanimity, because the distinction could not be directly marked by any suitable expression. The German language has the good fortune to possess expressions which do not allow this difference to be overlooked. It possesses two very distinct concepts, and especially distinct expressions, for that which the Latins express by a single word, bonim. For bonim it has das gut, good, and das vol, well, wheel, for malim, das bos, evil, and das ubil, ill, bad, or das val, wo, so that we express two quite distinct judgments when we consider in an action the good and evil of it, or our wheel and wo, ill. Hence it already follows that the above quoted psychological proposition is at least very doubtful if it is translated. We desire nothing except with a view to our wheel or wo, on the other hand if we render it thus, under the direction of reason we desire nothing except so far as we esteem it good or evil, it is indubitably certain and at the same time quite clearly expressed. Well or ill always implies only a reference to our condition, as pleasant or unpleasant, as one of pleasure or pain, and if we desire or avoid an object on this account, it is only so far as it is referenced to our sensibility and to the feeling of pleasure or pain that it produces. But good or evil always implies a reference to the will, as determined by the law of reason, to make something its object, for it is never determined directly by the object and the idea of it, but is a faculty of taking a rule of reason or motive of an action by which an object may be realized. Good and evil, therefore, are properly referred to actions, not to the sensations of the person, and if anything is to be good or evil absolutely, i.e., in every respect and without further condition, or is to be so esteemed, it can only be the manner of acting, the maxim of the will, and consequently the acting person himself, as a good or evil man, that can be so called and not a thing. However, then, men may laugh at the stoic, who in the severest paroxysms of gout cried out, Payne, however thou tormentest me, I will never admit that thou art an evil. He was right. A bad thing it certainly was, and his cry betrayed that, but that any evil attached to him thereby, this he had no reason whatever to admit, for Payne did not in the least diminish the worth of his person, but only that of his condition. If he had been conscious of a single lie it would have lowered his pride, but Payne served only to raise it, when he was conscious that he had not deserved it by any unrighteous action by which he had rendered himself worthy of punishment. What we call good must be an object of desire in the judgment of every rational man, and evil an object of aversion in the eyes of every one. Therefore, in addition to sense, this judgment requires action. So it is with truthfulness, as opposed to lying, so with justice, as opposed to violence, etc. But we may call a thing a bad or ill thing, which yet every one must at the same time acknowledge to be good, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. The man who submits to a surgical operation feels it no doubt as a bad thing, but by their reason he and every one acknowledge it to be good. If a man who delights in annoying and vexing peaceable people at last receives a right good beating, this is no doubt a bad thing, but every one approves it and regards it as a good thing, even though nothing else resulted from it. Nay, even the man who receives it must, in his reason, acknowledge that he has met justice, because he sees the proportion between good conduct and good fortune, which reason inevitably places before him, here put into practice. No doubt our will and woe are of very great importance in the estimation of our practical reason, and as far as our nature, as sensible beings, is concerned, our happiness is the only thing of consequence, provided it is estimated as reason especially requires, not by the transitory sensation but by the influence that this has on our whole existence, and on our satisfaction therewith. But it is not absolutely the only thing of consequence. Man is a being who, as belonging to the world of sense, has wants, and so far as his reason has an office which it cannot refuse, namely, to attend to the interest of his sensible nature, and to form practical maxims, even with a view to the happiness of this life, and, if possible, even to that of a future. But he is not so completely an animal as to be indifferent to what reason says on its own account, and to use it merely as an instrument for the satisfaction of his wants as a sensible being. For the possession of reason would not only raise his worth above that of the brutes, if it is to serve him only for the same purpose that instinct serves in them. It would, in that case, be only a particular method which nature had employed to equip men for the same ends for which it has qualified brutes, without qualifying him for any higher purpose. No doubt, once this arrangement of nature has been made for him, he requires reason in order to take into consideration his wheel and woe. But besides this he possesses it for a higher purpose also, namely, not only to take into consideration what is good or evil in itself, about which only pure reason, uninfluenced by any sensible interest, can judge, but also to distinguish this estimate thoroughly from the former, and to make it the supreme condition thereof. In estimating what is good or evil in itself, as distinguished from that which can be so-called only relatively, the following points are to be considered. Either a rational principle is already conceived, as of itself the determining principle of the will, without regard to possible objects of desire, and therefore by the more legislative form of the maxim, and in that case that principle is a practical a priori law, and pure reason is supposed to be practical of itself. The law, in that case, determines the will directly. The action conformed to it is good in itself, a will whose maxim always conforms to this law is good absolutely in every respect, and is the supreme condition of all good. Or the maxim of the will is consequent on a determining principle of desire which presupposes an object of pleasure or pain, something, therefore, that pleases or displeases, and the maxim of reason that we should pursue the former and avoid the latter determines our actions as good relatively to our inclination, that is, good indirectly, i.e., relatively to a different end to which they are means, and in that case these maxims can never be called laws, but may be called rational practical precepts. The end itself, the pleasure that we seek, is, in the latter case, not a good but a welfare, not a concept of reason, but an empirical concept of an object of sensation, but the use of the means there too, i.e., the action, is nevertheless called good, because rational deliberation is required for it. Not, however, good absolutely, but only relatively to our sensuous nature, with regard to its feelings of pleasure and displeasure, but the will whose maxim is affected thereby is not a pure will, that is directed only to that in which pure reason by itself can be practical. This is the proper place to explain the paradox of method in a critique of practical reason, namely, that the concept of good and evil must not be determined before the moral law, of which it seems as if it must be the foundation, but only after it and by means of it. In fact, even if we did not know that the principle of morality is a pure, a priori law determining the will, yet that we may not assume principles quite gratuitously, we must, at least at first, leave it undecided, whether the will has merely empirical principles of determination, or whether it has not also pure, a priori principles, for it is contrary to all rules of philosophical method to assume as decided that which is the very point in question. Supposing that we wish to begin with the concept of good, in order to deduce from it the laws of the will, then this concept of an object as good would, at the same time, assign to us this object as the sole determining principle of the will. Now, since this concept had not any practical, a priori law for its standard, the criterion of good or evil could not be placed in anything but the agreement of the object with our feeling of pleasure or pain, and the use of reason could only consist in determining, in the first place, this pleasure or pain in connection with all the sensations of my existence, and in the second place, the means of securing to myself the object of pleasure. Now, as experience alone can decide what conforms to the feeling of pleasure, and by hypothesis the practical law is to be based on this as a condition, it follows that the possibility of a priori practical laws would be at once excluded, because it was imagined to be necessary, first of all, to find an object, the concept of which, as a good, should constitute the universal, though empirical principle of determination of the will. By what it was necessary to inquire, first of all, was whether there was not an a priori determining principle of the will, and this could never be found anywhere but in a pure practical law, insofar as this law prescribes to maxims merely their form without regard to an object. Since, however, we laid the foundation of all practical law in an object determined by our conceptions of good and evil, whereas without a previous law that object could not be conceived by empirical concepts, we have deprived ourselves beforehand of the possibility of even conceiving a pure practical law. On the other hand, if we had first investigated the latter analytically, we should have found that it is not the concept of good as an object that determines the moral law and makes it possible, so far as it deserves the name of good absolutely. This remark, which only concerns the method of ultimate ethical inquiries, is of importance. It explains at once the occasion of all the mistakes of philosophers with respect to the supreme principle of morals, for they sought for an object of the will which they could make the matter and principle of a law, which consequently could not determine the will directly, but by means of that object referred to the feeling of pleasure or pain, whereas they first ought to have searched for a law that would determine the will a priori and directly, and afterwards determine the object in accordance with the will. Now, whether they placed this object of pleasure, which was to supply the supreme conception of goodness in happiness, in perfection, in moral feeling, or in the will of God, their principle in every case implied heteronomy, and they must inevitably come upon empirical conditions of a moral law, since their object, which was to be the immediate principle of the will, could not be called good or bad except in its immediate relation to feeling, which is always empirical. It is only a formal law, that is, one which prescribes to reason nothing more than the form of its universal legislation as the supreme condition of its maxims. That can be a priori, a determining principle of practical reason. The ancients avowed this error without concealment by directing all their moral inquiries to the determination of the notion of the sumum bonum, which they intended afterwards to make the determining principle of the will in the moral law, whereas it is only far later, when the moral law has been first established for itself, and shown to be the direct determining principle of the will, that this object can be presented to the will, whose form is now determined a priori, and this we shall undertake in the dialectic of the pure practical reason. The moderns, with whom the question of the sumum bonum has gone out of fashion, or at least seems to have become a secondary matter, hide the same error under vague expressions as in many other cases. It shows itself nevertheless in their systems, as it always produces heteronomy of practical reason, and from this can never be derived a moral law giving universal commands. Now, since the notions of good and evil, as consequences of the a priori determination of the will, imply also a pure practical principle, and therefore a causality of pure reason, hence they do not originally refer to objects, so as to be, for instance, special modes of the synthetic unity of the manifold of given intuitions in one consciousness, like the pure concepts of the understanding or categories of reason in its theoretic employment. On the contrary, they presuppose that objects are given, but they are all modes, modi, of a single category, namely, that of causality, the determining principle of which consists in the rational conception of a law, which as a law of freedom, reason gives to itself, thereby a priori proving itself practical. However, as the actions on the one side come under a law which is not a physical law, but a law of freedom, and consequently belong to the conduct of beings in the world of intelligence, yet on the other side, as events in the world of sense, they belong to phenomena, hence the determinations of a practical reason are only possible in reference to the latter, and therefore in accordance with the categories of the understanding, not indeed with a view to any theoretic employment of it, i.e., so as to bring the manifold of sensible intuition under one consciousness a priori, but only to subject the manifold of desires to the unity of consciousness of a practical reason, giving it commands in the moral law, i.e., to a pure will a priori. These categories of freedom, for so we choose to call them in contrast to those theoretic categories which are categories of physical nature, have an obvious advantage over the latter, in as much as the latter are only forms of thought which designate objects in an indefinite manner by means of universal concept of every possible intuition. The former, on the contrary, refer to the determination of a free elective will, to which indeed no exactly corresponding intuition can be assigned, but which has, as its foundation, a pure, practical a priori law, which is not the case with any concepts belonging to the theoretic use of our cognitive faculties. Hence, instead of the form of intuitions, space and time, which does not lie in reason itself, but has to be drawn from another source, namely the sensibility, these being elementary, practical concepts have as their foundation the form of a pure will, which is given in reason, and therefore in the thinking faculty itself. From this it happens that as all precepts of pure practical reason have to do only with the determination of the will, not with the physical conditions of practical ability, of the execution of one's purpose, the practical a priori principles in relation to the supreme principle of freedom are at once cognitions, and have not to wait for intuitions in order to acquire significance, and that for this remarkable reason, because they themselves produce the reality of that to which they refer, the intention of the will, which is not the case with theoretical concepts. Only we must be careful to observe that these categories only apply to the practical reason, and thus they proceed in order from those which are as yet subject to sensible conditions and morally indeterminate to those which are free from sensible conditions, and determined merely by the moral law. End of Section 7. Section 8 of the Critique of Practical Reason by Emanuel Kant, translated by Thomas King's Mill Abbott. First part. Elements of Pure Practical Reason, Book 1. The analytic of pure practical reason. Chapter 2. Of the concept of an object of pure practical reason. Table of the categories of freedom, relatively to the notions of good and evil. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Quantity. Subjective, according to Maxims. Practical opinions of the individual. Objective, according to principles, precepts, a priori both objective and subjective principles of freedom, laws. Two. Quality. Practical rules of action. Preceptive. Practical rules of omission. Perhibitative. Practical rules of exceptions. Acceptive. Three. Relation to personality to the condition of the person. Reciprocal of one person to the others of the others. Four. Modality. The permitted and the forbidden. Duty and the contrary to duty. Perfect and imperfect duty. It will at once be observed that in this table freedom is considered as a sort of causality, not subject to empirical principles of determination in regard to actions possible by it, which are phenomena in the world of sense, and that consequently it is referred to the categories which concern its physical possibility, whilst yet each category is taken so universally that the determining principle of that causality can be placed outside the world of sense in freedom as a property of a being in the world of intelligence. And finally the categories of modality introduce the transition from practical principles generally to those of morality, but only problematically. These can be established dogmatically only by the moral law. I add nothing further here in explanation of the present table since it is intelligible enough of itself. A division of this kind based on principles is very useful in any science, both for the sake of thoroughness and intelligibility. Thus, for instance, we know from the preceding table and its first number what we must begin from in practical inquiries, namely from the maxims which everyone founds on his own inclinations, the precepts which hold for a species of rational beings so far as they agree in certain inclinations, and finally the law which holds for all without regard to their inclinations, etc. In this way we survey the whole plan of what has to be done, every question of practical philosophy that has to be answered, and also the order that is to be followed of the tipic of the pure practical judgment. It is the notions of good and evil that first determine an object of the will. They themselves, however, are subject to a practical rule of reason which, if it is pure reason, determines the will a priori relatively to its object. Now, whether an action is possible to us in the world of sense, comes under the rule or not, is a question to be decided by the practical judgment by which it is said in the rule universally, in abstracto, is applied to an action in concreto. But since a practical rule of pure reason in the first place as practical concerns the existence of an object, and in the second place as a practical rule of pure reason implies a necessity as regards the existence of the action and, therefore, is a practical law, not a physical law depending on empirical principles of determination, but a law of freedom by which the will is to be determined independently on anything empirical merely by the conception of a law and its form, whereas all instances that can occur of possible actions can only be empirical, that is, belong to the experience of physical nature. Hence, it seems absurd to expect to find in the world of sense a case which, while as such it depends only on the law of nature, yet admits of the application to it of the law of freedom, and to which we can apply the supersensible idea of the morally good which is to be exhibited in it in concreto. Thus, the judgment of the pure practical reason is subject to the same difficulties as that of the pure theoretical reason. The latter, however, had means at hand of escaping from these difficulties which, in regard to the theoretical employment, intuitions were required to which pure concepts of the understanding could be applied, and such intuitions, though only of objects of the senses, can be given a priori, and, therefore, as far as regards the union of the manifold in them conforming to the pure a priori concepts of the understanding and schematii. On the other hand, the morally good is something whose object is supersensible, for which, therefore, nothing corresponding can be found in any sensible institution. Judgment, depending on laws of pure practical reason, seems, therefore, to be subject to special difficulties arising from this, that a law of freedom is to be applied to actions which are events taking place in the world of sense, and which, so far, belong to physical nature. But here again is open to favorable prospect for the pure practical judgment. When I subsume under a prior practical law and action possible to me in the world of sense, I am not concerned with the possibility of the action as an event in the world of sense. This is a matter that belongs to the decision of reason in its theoretic use according to the law of causality, which is a pure concept of the understanding, for which reason has a schema in the sensible intuition. Physical causality, or the condition under which it takes place, belongs to the physical concepts, the schema of which is sketched by transcendental imagination. We have to do not with the schema of a case that occurs according to laws, but with the schema of a law itself. If the word is allowable here, sense the fact that the will, not the action, relatively to its effect, is determined by the law alone without any other principle, connects the notion of causality with quite different conditions from those which constitute physical connection. The physical law, being a law to which the objects of sensible intuition, as such are subject, must have a schema corresponding to it, that is, a general procedure of the imagination by which it exhibits a priori to the senses, the pure concept of the understanding which the law determines. But the law of freedom, that is, of a causality not subject to sensible conditions, and consequently the concept of the unconditionally good, cannot have any intuition, nor consequently any schema supplied to it for the purpose of its application in concreto. Consequently the moral law has no faculty but the understanding to aid its application to physical objects, not the imagination, and the understanding for the purposes of the judgment can provide for an idea of the reason, not a schema of the sensibility, but a law, though only as to its form as law, such a law, however, can be exhibited in concreto in objects of the senses, and therefore a law of nature. We can therefore call this law the type of the moral law. The rule of the judgment according to laws of pure practical reason is this. Ask yourself whether, if the action you propose were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your own will. Everyone does, in fact, decide by this rule whether actions are morally good or evil. Thus people say, if everyone permitted himself to deceive, when he thought it to his advantage, or thought himself justified in shortening his life as soon as he was thoroughly weary of it, or looked with perfect indifference on the necessity of others, and if you belong to such an order of things, would you do so with the ascent of your own will? Now, everyone knows well that if he secretly allows himself to deceive, it does not follow that everyone else does so, or if, unobserved, he is destitute of compassion, others would not necessarily be so to him. Hence, this comparison of the maxim of his actions with a universal law of nature is not the determining principle of his will. Such a law is, nevertheless, a type of the estimation of the maxim on moral principles. If the maxim of the action is not such as to stand the test of the form of a universal law of nature, then it is morally impossible. This is the judgment even of common sense, for its ordinary judgments, even those of experience, are always based on the law of nature. It has it therefore always at hand, only that in cases where causality from freedom is to be criticized, it makes that law of nature only the type of a law of freedom. Because without something which it could use as an example in a case of experience, it could not give the law of a pure practical reason its proper use in practice. It is therefore allowable to use the system of the world of sense as the type of a supersensible system of things, provided I do not transfer to the latter the intuitions and what depends on them, but merely apply to it the form of law in general, the notion of which occurs even in the commonest use of reason, but cannot be definitely known a priori for any other purpose than the pure practical use of reason. For laws, as such, are so far identical, no matter from what they derive their determining principles. Further, sense of all the supersensible absolutely nothing is known except freedom through the moral law, and this only so far as it is inseparably implied in that law, and moreover all supersensible objects to which reason might lead us, following the guidance of that law, have still no reality for us, except for the purpose of that law, and for the use of mere practical reason. And as reason is authorized and even compelled to use physical nature in its pure form as an object of the understanding, as the type of judgment, hence the present remark will serve only to guard against reckoning amongst concepts themselves, that which belong only to the tipic of concepts. This, namely, as a tipic of the judgment, guards against the empiricism of practical reason, which founds the practical notions of good and evil on experienced consequences, so-called happiness. No doubt happiness and the infinite advantages which would result from a will determined by self-love, if this will at the same time erected itself into a universal law of nature, may certainly serve as perfectly suitable type of the morally good, but it is not identical with it. The same tipic guards also against the mysticism of practical reason, which turns what served only as a symbol into a schema, that is, proposes to provide for the moral concepts actual intuitions, which, however, are not sensible intuitions of an invisible kingdom of God, and thus plunges into the transcendent it. What is benefiting the use of moral concepts is only the rationalism of the judgment, which takes from the sensible system of nature only what pure reason can also conceive of itself, that is, conformity to law, and transfers into the supersensible nothing, nothing but what can conversely be actually exhibited by actions in the world of sense according to the formal rule of a law of nature. However, the caution against empiricism of practical reason is much more important, for mysticism is quite reconcilable with the purity and sublimity of the moral law, and besides it is not very natural or agreeable to common habits of thought to strain one's imagination to supersensible intuitions, and hence the danger on this side is not so general. Empiricism, on the contrary, cuts up at the roots the morality of intentions in which and not in actions only consists the high worth that men can and not to give to themselves, and substitutes for duty something quite different, namely an empirical interest with which the inclinations generally are secretly leaned, and empiricism more over being on this account allied with all the inclinations which, no matter what fashion they put on, degrade humanity when they are raised to the dignity of a supreme practical principle, and as these nevertheless are so favourable to every one's feelings, it is for that reason much more dangerous than mysticism, which can never constitute a lasting condition of any great number of persons. Recording by Juley van Malchem What is essential in the moral worth of actions is that a moral law should directly determine the will. If the determination of the will takes place in conformity indeed to the moral law, but only by means of a feeling no matter of what kind, which has to be presupposed in all that that law may be sufficient to determine the will, and therefore not for the sake of the law, then the action will possess legality, but not morality. Now, if we understand by motive, a later enemy, the subjective ground of determination of the will of a being whose reason does not necessarily conform to the objective law by virtue of its own nature, then it will follow, first, that not motives can be attributed to the divine will, and that the motives of the human will, as well as that of every created rational being, can never be anything else than the moral law, and consequently, that your objective principle of determination must always and alone be also the subjectively sufficient determining principle of the action, if this is not merely to fulfil the letter of the law without containing its spirit. We may say of every action that conforms to the law, but it is not done for the sake of the law, that it is morally good in the letter, not in the spirit, the intention. Since then, for the purpose of giving the moral law influence over the will, we must not seek for any other motives that might enable us to dispense with the motive of the law itself, because that would produce mere hypocrisy without consistency, and it is even dangerous to allow other motives, for instance, that of interest, even to cooperate along with the moral law. Hence, nothing is left us but to determine carefully in what way the moral law becomes motive, and what effect this has upon the faculty of desire. For us to question how a law can be directly and of itself a determining principle of the will, which is the essence of morality, this is, for human reason, an insoluble problem and identical with the question, how a free will is possible. Therefore, what we have to show, a prairie, is not why the moral law in itself supplies a motive, but what effect it, as such, produces, or, more correctly speaking, must produce on the mind. The essential point, in every determination of the will by the moral law, is that being a free will, it is determined simply by the moral law, not only without the cooperation of sensible impulses, but even to the reaction of all such, and to the checking of all inclinations, so far as they might be opposed to that law. So far, then, the effect of the moral law as a motive is only negative, and this motive can be known a prairie to be such. For all inclination, and every sensible impulse is founded on feeling, and the negative effect produced on feeling, by the check on the inclinations, is itself feeling. Consequently, we can see a prairie, that a moral law as a determining principle of the will, must, by thwarting all our inclinations, produce a feeling which may be called pain, and in this, we have the first, perhaps if the only instance in which we are able, from a priori considerations, to determine the relation of a cognition, in this case of pure practical reason, to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. All the inclinations together, which can be reduced to a tolerable system, in which case the satisfaction is called happiness, constitute self-regard, solipsismus. This is either the self-love that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself, felicia, or satisfaction with oneself, arrogantia. The former is called, particularly selfishness, the letter self-conceived. Pure practical reason only checks selfishness, looking on it as natural and active in us even prior to the moral law, so far as to limit it to the condition of agreement with its law, and then it is called rational self-love. But self-conceived reason strikes down altogether, since all claims to self-esteem which precede agreement with the moral law are vain and unjustifiable. For the certainty of a state of mind that coincides with this law, is a first condition of personal worth, as we shall presently show more clearly, and prior to this conformity, any pretensions to worth is false and unlawful. Now the propensity to self-esteem is one of the inclinations which if the moral law checks in as much as if that esteem rests only on morality, and therefore the moral law breaks down self-conceived. But as if this law is something positive in itself, namely the form of an intellectual casualty, that is a freedom, it must be an object of respect, for by opposing this subjective antagonism of the inclinations it weakens self-conceived, and since it even breaks down, that is humiliates this conceit, it is an object of the highest respect, and consequently, is a foundation of a positive feeling which is not of empirical origin, but is known a priori. Therefore, respect for the moral law is a feeling which is produced by an intellectual cause, and this feeling is the only one that we know quite a priori, and the necessity of which we can perceive. In the preceding chapter we have seen that everything that presents itself as an object of the will prior to the moral law is by that law itself, which is a supreme condition of practical reason excluded from the determining principles of the will which we have called the unconditionally good, and that a mere practical form which consists in the adaptation of the maxims to universal legislation first determines what is good in itself and absolutely, and is the basis of the maxims of a pure will which alone is good in every respect. However, we find that our nature is sensible beings, as such, that a matter of desire, objects of inclination, whether of hope or fear, first presents itself to us, and our pathologically effect itself, although it is in its maxims quite unfit for universal legislation, yet just as if it constituted our entire self, strives to put its pretensions forward first, and to have them acknowledged as a first and original. This propensity to make ourselves in subjective determining principles of our choice, serve as the objective determining principle of the will generally, may be called self-love, and if this pretends to be legislative as an unconditional practical principle, it may be called self-conceit. Now the moral law which alone is truly objective, namely in every respect, entirely excludes the influence of self-love on the supreme practical principle, and indefinitely checks the self-conceit that prescribes the subjective conditions of the former as laws. Now whatever checks our self-conceit in our judgement humiliates, therefore the moral law inevitably humbles every man when he compares with it the physical propensities of his nature, that the idea of which as a determining principle of our will humbles us in our self-consciousness awakes to respect for itself, so far as it is itself positive and a determining principle. Therefore the moral law is even subjectively a cause of respect. Now since everything that enters into self-love belongs to inclination, and all inclination rests on feelings, and consequently whatever checks all the feelings together in self-love, as necessarily by this very circumstance an influence on feeling, hence we comprehend how it is possible to perceive a priori that a moral law can produce an effect on feeling, and that it excludes the inclinations and the propensity to make them the supreme practical condition. It est self-love from all participation in the supreme legislation. This effect is on one side merely negative, but on the other side relatively to the restricting principle of pure practical reason, it is positive. No special kind of feeling need to be assumed for this under the name of a practical or moral feeling as antecedent to the moral law and serving as its foundation. The negative effect on feeling and pleasantness is pathological, like every influence on feeling, and like every feeling generally, but as an effect of the consciousness of the moral law, and consequently in relation to a super sensible cause, namely the subject of pure practical reason, which is the supreme lawgiver, this feeling of a rational being affected by inclinations is called humiliation, intellectual self-depreciation, but with reference to this positive source of this humiliation, the law, it is respect for it. There is indeed no feeling for this law, but inasmuch as it removes the resistance out of the way, this removal of an obstacle is, in the judgment of reason, esteemed equivalent to a positive help to its causality. Therefore this feeling may also be called the feeling of respect for the moral law, and for both reasons together a moral feeling. While the moral law, therefore, is a formal determining principle of action by practical pure reason, and is moreover a material, though only objective determining principle of the object of action is called good and evil, it is also a subjective determining principle, such as a motive to this action, inasmuch as it has influence on the morality of the subject, and produces a feeling conducive to the influence of the law on the will. There is here in the subject no antecedent feeling tending to morality, for this is impossible since every feeling is sensible, and the motive of moral intention must be free from all sensible conditions. On the contrary, while the sensible feeling which is at the bottom of all our inclinations is a condition of that impression which we call respect, the cause that determines it lies in the pure practical reason, and this impression therefore, on account of its origin, must be called not a pathological but a practical effect. For by the fact that conception of the moral law deprives self-love of its influence and self-conceit of its illusion, it lessens the obstacle to pure practical reason, and produces the conception of the superiority of its objective law to the impulses of the sensibility, and thus, by removing the counter-poise, it gives a relatively greater way to the law, in the judgment of reason, in the case of a will affected by the afforded impulses. Thus, the respect for the law is not a motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively considered as a motive, in as much as pure practical reason, by rejecting all the rife of pretentious of self-love, gives authority to the law, which now alone has influence. Now it is to be observed that as respect is an effect on feeling, and therefore on the sensibility of a rational being, it presupposes the sensibility, and therefore also the finiteness of such beings on whom the moral law imposes respect, and that respect for the law cannot be attributed to a supreme being, or to any being free from all sensibility, in whom, therefore, the sensibility cannot be an obstacle to practical reason. This feeling, which we call the moral feeling, is therefore produced simply by reason. It does not serve for the estimation of actions, nor for the foundation of the objective moral law itself, but merely as a motive to make this of itself a maxim. But what name could we more suitably apply to this singular feeling, which cannot be compared to any pathological feeling? It is of such a peculiar kind that it seems to be at the disposal of reason only, and that pure practical reason. Respect applies always to persons only, not to things. The latter may arouse inclination, and if there are animals, example horses, dogs, etc., even laugh or fear, like the sea, a volcano, a beast of prey, but never respect. Something that comes nearer to this feeling is admiration, and this, as an affection, astonishment, can apply to things also, example of the mountains, the magnitude, number, and distance of the happily bodies, the strength and swiftness of many animals, etc. But all this is not respect. A man also may be an object to me of love, fear, or reiteration, even to astonishment, and yet not be an object of respect. His jocos, humor, his courage, and strength, his power from the rank he has amongst others, may inspire me with the sentiments of this kind, but still in respect for him is wanting. Fontenelle says, I bow before a great man, but my mind is not bow. I would add, before an humble plain man, in whom I perceive a brightness of character in a higher degree than I am conscious of in myself. My mind bows whether I choose it or not, and though I bear my head never so high that he may not forget my superior rank. Why is this? Because this example exhibits to me a law that humbles myself conceit when I compare it with my conduct, a law, the practitability of obedience to which I see proved by fact before my eyes. Now I may even be conscious of a like degree of a brightness, and yet the respect remains. For since in man all good is effective, the law made visible by an example still humbles my pride, my standards being furnished by man whose imperfections, whatever they may be, are not known to me as my own are, and who, therefore, appears to me in a more favourable light. Respect is a tribute to which we cannot refuse to merit, whether we will or not. We may indeed outwardly withhold it, but we cannot help feeling it inwardly. Respect is so far from being a feeling of pleasure that we only reluctantly give away to it as regards a man. We try to find out something that may lighten the burden of it, some thought to compensate as for the humiliation which is such an example causes. Even the dead are not always secure from this criticism, especially if their example appears inimitable. Even the moral law itself in its solemn majesty is exposed to this endeavour to save oneself from yielding introspect. Can it be thought that it is for any other reason that we are so ready to reduce it to the level of our familiar inclination, or that it is for any other reason that we all take such trouble to make it out to be the chosen precept of our own interest well understood, but that we want to be free from the deterrent respect which shows us our own unworthiness with such a severity? Nevertheless, on the other hand, so letter is a pain in it that if once one had laid aside self-conceived and allowed practical inference to that respect, he can never be satisfied with contemplating the majesty of this law, and the soul believes itself elevated in proportion as it sees the holy law elevated above it and its frail nature. No doubt great talents and activity proportion to them may also occasion respect or an analogous feeling. It is very proper to yield it to them, and then it appears as if the sentiment was the same thing as admiration. But if we look closer, we shall observe that it is always uncertain how much of the ability is due to native talent and how much to diligence in cultivating it. Reason represents it to us as probably the fruit of cultivation, and therefore as meritorious, and this notably reduces our self-conceived and either casts a reproach on us, or urges us to follow such an example in the way that is suitable to us. This respect, then, which he showed to such a person properly speaking to the law that his example exhibits, is not mere admiration, and this is confirmed also by the fact that when the common run of admirers think they have learned from any source the badness of such a man's character, for instance for tears, they give up all respect for him, whereas the true scholar still feels it at least with regard to his talents, because he is himself engaged in a business and a vocation which make imitation of such a man in some degree a law. Respect for the moral law is, therefore, the only and the undoubted moral motive, and this feeling is directed to no object except on the ground of this law. The moral law first determines the will objectively and directly in the judgment of reason, and freedom, whose causality can be determined only by the law, consists just in this that it restricts all inclinations and consequently self-esteem by the condition of obedience to its pure law. This restriction now has an effect on feeling and produces the impression of displeasure, which can be known a priori from the moral law, since it is so far only a negative effect which, arising from the influence of pure practical reason, checks in the activity of this subject so far as it is determined by inclinations, and hence checks the opinion of its personal worth, which, in the absence of agreement with the moral law, is reduced to nothing, hence the effect of this law on feeling is merely humiliation. We can, therefore, perceive this a priori, but cannot know by it the force of the pure practical law as a motive, but only the resistance to motives of this sensibility. But since the same law is objectively, that is, in the conception of pure reason, an immediate principle of determination of the will, and consequently this humiliation takes place only relatively to the purity of the law, hence the lowering of the pretentious of moral self-esteem, such as humiliation on the sensible side, is an elevation of the moral, it is practical esteem, for the law itself on the intellectual side, in a word it is respectful to law, and therefore, as its cause is intellectual, a positive feeling which can be known a priori, for whatever diminishes the obstacles to an activity furthers this activity itself. Now the recognition of the moral law is a consciousness of an activity of practical reason from objective principles which only fails to reveal its effect in actions, because subjective, pathological causes hindered. Respect for the moral law then must be regarded as a positive, so indirect effect of it on feeling, inasmuch as in this respect weakens the impeding influence of inclinations by humiliating self-esteem, and hence also as a subjective principle of activity, that is, as a motive to obedience to the law, and as a principle of the magazines of life conformable to it. From the notion of motive arises that of an interest which can never be attributed to any being unless it possesses reason, and which signifies a motive of the will in so far as it is conceived by the reason. Since in a morally good will the law itself must be the motive, the moral interest is a pure interest of practical reason alone, independent of sense. On the notion of an interest is based on that of a magazine. This, therefore, is morally good only in case it rests simply on the interest taken in obedience to the law. All three notions, however, that of a motive, of an interest, and of a magazine, can be applied only to finite beings. For they all suppose the limitation of the nature of the being, that the subjective character of his choice does not of itself agree with the objective law of a practical reason. They suppose that being requires to be impelled to action by something, because an internal obstacle opposes itself. Therefore they cannot be applied to the divine will. There is something so singular in the embodied esteem for the pure moral law, apart from all advantage, as it is presented for our obedience by practical reason, the voice of which makes even the boldest sinner tremble and compels them to hide himself from it, that we cannot wonder, if we find this influence of a mere intellectual idea on the feelings, quite incomprehensible to speculative reason, and have to be satisfied with seeing so much of this a priori, that such a feeling is inseparably connected with the conception of the moral law in every finite rational being. This feeling of respect were pathological, and therefore were a feeling of pleasure based on the innocence, it would be in vain to try to discover a connection of it with any idea, a priori. But it is a feeling that applies merely to what is practical, and depends on the conception of a law simply as to its form, not on account of any object, and therefore cannot be reckoned either as pleasure or pain, and yet produces an interest in obedience to the law, which we call the moral interest, just as the capacity of taking such an interest in the law, or respect for the moral law itself, is properly the moral feeling. The consciousness of a free submission of the will to the law, yet combined with an inevitable constraint put upon all inclinations, though only by our own reason, is respect for the law. The law that demands this respect and inspires it, is clearly no other than the moral, for no other precludes all inclinations from exercising any direct influence on the will. An action which is objectively practical, according to this law, to the exclusion of every determining principle of inclination, is duty, and this by reason of that exclusion includes in its concept practical obligation, that is, a determination to actions, however reluctantly they may be done. The feeling that arises from the consciousness of this application is not pathological, as would be a feeling produced by an object of the senses, but practical only, that is, it is made possible by a preceding objective determination of the will and a causality of the reason. A submission to the law, therefore, that is, as a command, announcing constraint for the sensibly affected subject, it contains in it no pleasure, but on the contrary so far pain in the action. On the other hand, however, as is constrained its exercise merely by a legislation of our own reason, it also contains something elevating, and this subjective fact, I'm feeling, in as much as pure practical reason as the sole cause of it, may be called, in this respect, self-approbation, since we recognise ourselves as determined thereto solely by the law without any interest, and are now conscious of a quite different interest subjectively produced thereby, and which is purely practical and free, and are taking this interest in an action of duty is not suggested by any inclination, but is commanded, and actually brought about by reason through the practical law, whence this feeling obtains a special name, that of respect. The notion of duty, therefore, requires in the action objectively agreement with the law, and subjectively in its maxim, that respect for the law shall be the sole mode in which the will is determined thereby, and on this rest the distinction between the consciousness of having acted according to the duty, and from duty, that is, from respect for the law. The former, legality, is possible even if inclinations have been the determining principles of the will, but the latter, morality, while worth, can be placed only in this, that the action is done from duty, that is, simply for the sake of the law. If we examine accurately the notion of respect for persons, as it has been already laid down, we shall perceive that it always rests on the consciousness of a duty, which an example shows us, and that respect therefore, can never have any but a moral ground, that it is very good, and even, in a psychological point of view, very useful for the knowledge of mankind, that whenever we use this expression, we should attend to this secret and marvellous, yet often recur in regard, which men in their judgment pay to their moral law. It is of the greatest importance to attend with the utmost exactness in all moral judgments, to the subjective principle of all regimes, that all the morality of actions may be placed in the necessity of acting from duty, and from respect for the law, not from love and inclination for that which the actions are to produce. For men, and all created rational beings, moral necessity is constrained, that is, obligation, and every action based on it, is to be conceived as a duty, not as a proceeding previously pleasing, or likely to be pleasing to us of our own accord, as if indeed we could ever bring it about, that without respect for the law, which implies fear, or at least apprehension of transgression, we of ourselves, like the independent deity, could ever come into possession of holiness, of will, by the coincidence of our will, with the pure moral law becoming as it were part of our nature, never to be shaken, in which case the law would cease to be command for us, as we could never be tempted to be untrue to it. The moral law is in fact for the will of a perfect being, a law of holiness, but for the will of every finite rational being, a law of duty, of moral constrained, and of the determination of its actions by respect for this law, and reverence for its duty. No other subjective principle must be assumed as motive, else, while the action might chance to be such as law prescribes, yet as does not proceed from duty, the intention, which is the thing properly in question in this legislation, is not moral. It is a very beautiful thing to do good to men from love to them, and from sympathetic good will, or to be just from love of order. But this is not yet the true moral maxim of our conduct, which is suitable to our position amongst rational beings as men, when we pretend with fanciful pride to set ourselves above the thought of duty, like volunteers, and as if we were independent on the command to want to do, of our own good pleasure, what we think we need no command to do. We stand under a discipline of reason, and in all our regimes, must not forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an egotistic presumption, diminish ought of the authority of the law, although our own reason gives it, so as to set the determining principle of our will, even though the law be conformed to, anywhere else but in the law itself, and in respect for this law. Duty and obligation are the only names that we must give to our relation to the moral law. We are indeed legislative members of a moral kingdom rendered possible by freedom, and presented to us by reason as an object of respect, but yet we are subjects in it, not the sovereign, and to mistake our inferior position as creatures, and presumptuously to reject the authority of the moral law, is already to revolt from it in spirit, even though the letter of it is fulfilled. With this agrees very well the possibility of such a command as, love God above everything, and thy neighbour as thyself. For as a command, it requires respect for a law which commands love, and does not leave it to our own arbitrary choice to make this our principle. Love to God, however, considered as an inclination, pathological love, is impossible, for he is not an object of the senses. The same affection towards men is possible, no doubt, but cannot be commanded, for it is not in the power of any men to love anyone at command. Therefore, it is early practical love that is meant in that pith of all laws. To love God means, in this sense, to like to do his commandments. To love one's neighbour means to like to practice all duties towards him. But a command that makes this rule cannot command us to have this disposition in action to conform to duty, but only to endeavour after it. For a command to like to do a thing is in itself contradictory, because if we already know of ourselves what we are bound to do, and if further we are conscious of liking to do it, a command would be quite needless, and if we do it not willingly, but only out of respect for the law, a command that makes in this respect the motive of our maxim would directly counteract the disposition commanded. That law of all laws, therefore, like all the moral precept of the Gospel, exhibits the moral disposition in all its perfection, in which, viewed as an ideal of holiness, it is not attainable by any creature, but yet is the pattern which we should strive to approach, and in an uninterrupted but infinite progress, become like to. In fact, if a rational creature could ever reach this point, that he thoroughly likes to do all moral laws, this would mean that it does not exist in him even the possibility of a desire that would tempt him to deviate from them, for to overcome such a desire always costs the subject some sacrifice, and therefore requires self-compulsion, that is, inward constrain to something that one does not quite like to do, and no creature can ever reach this stage of moral disposition. For being a creature, and therefore always dependent with respect to what be requires, for complete satisfaction, he can never be quite free from desires and inclinations, and as these rest on physical causes, they can never of themselves coincide with the moral law, the sources of which are quite different, and therefore they make it necessary to found the mental disposition of one's maxims on moral obligation, not on ready inclination, but on respect, which demands obedience to the law, even though one may not like it, not on love, which apprehends no inward reluctance of the world towards the law. Nevertheless, this letter, namely love to the law, which would then cease to be a command, and the morality which would have passed subjectively into holiness, would cease to be virtue, must be the constant, though unattainable call of this endeavours, friend the case of what we highly esteem, but yet, on account of the consciousness of our weakness, dread, the increased facility of satisfying it, changes the most reverential awe into inclination, and respect into love. At least this would be the perfection of a disposition devoted to the law, if it were possible for a creature to attain it. This law is in striking contrast with the principle of private happiness, which some make the supreme principle of morality. This would be expressed thus, love thyself above everything, and God and thy neighbour, for thine own sake. This reflection is intended not so much to clear up the evangelical command just cited, in order to prevent religious fanaticism in regard to love of God, but to define accurately the moral disposition with regard directly to our duties towards men, and to check, or if possible prevent, a merely moral fanaticism which affects many persons. The stage of morality on which man, and as far as we can see every Russian creature stands, is respect for the moral law. The disposition that you ought to have in obeying this is to bear it from duty, not from spontaneous inclination, or from an endeavour taken up from lacking and unbidden. And this proper moral condition, in which he can always be, is virtue, that is moral disposition militant, and not holiness, in the fancied possession of a perfect purity of the disposition of the will. It is nothing but moral fanaticism, and exaggerated self-conceit, that is infused into the mind by exhortation to actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous, by which men are led into the delusion that it is not duty, that is to respect for the law, whose yoke, in easy yoke indeed, because reason itself opposes it on us, they must bear, whether they like it or not, that constitutes the determining principle of their actions, and which always humbles them while they obey it, fancying that those actions are expected from them, not from duty, but as pure merit. For not only was they in imitating such deeds from such a principle not have fulfilled the spirit of the law in the least, which consists not in the legality of the action, without regard to principle, but in the subjection of the mind to the law, not only do they make the motive pathological, seated in sympathy of self-love, not moral, in the law, but they produce in this way a vain, high-flying, fantastic way of thinking, flattering themselves with the spontaneous goodness of heart, that needs neither spurn or bridal, for which no command is needed, and thereby forgetting their obligation, which is they ought to think of rather than merit. Indeed, actions of others which are done with great sacrifice and merely for the sake of duty, may be praised as noble and sublime, but only so far as if there are traces which suggest that they were done wholly out of respect for duty, and not from excited feelings. If these, however, are said before anyone as examples to be imitated, respect for duty, which is the only true moral feeling, must be employed as a motive, this severe holy precept, which never allows our vain self-love to deli with the pathological impulses, however analogous they may be to morality. On to take a pride, a meritorious worth. Now, if we research, we shall find for all actions, such a worthy of praise, the law of duty which commands, and does not leave us to choose what may be greeble to our inclinations. This is the only way of representing things that can give a moral training to the soul, because it alone is capable of solid and accurately defined principles. If fanaticism, in its most general sense, is a deliberate overstepping of the limits of human reason, said moral fanaticism, is such an overstepping of the bounds, that practical pure reason sets to mankind, and that it forbids us to place the subjective determining principle of correct actions, that is, their moral motive, in anything but the law itself, or to place the disposition which is thereby brought into the maximed, in anything but respect for this law, and hence, commands us to take as the supreme vital principle of all morality in men, the thought of duty, which strikes down all arrogance, as well as vain self-love. If this is so, it is not only writers of romance, or sentimental educators, although there may be zealous opponents of sentimentalism, but sometimes even philosophers, may, even the severest of all, the stoics, that have brought in moral fanaticism instead of a sober, but wise moral discipline, although the fanaticism of the latter was more heroic, said of the form of an insipid, effeminate character. And we may, without hypocrisy, say of the moral teaching of the gospel, set it first, by the purity of its moral principle, and at the same time, by its suitability to the limitation of finite beings, brought all the good conduct of men, under the discipline of a duty, plainly set before their eyes, which does not permit them to indulge in dreams of imaginary moral perfections, and that it also set the bounds of humility, that is self-knowledge, to self-conceit, as well as to self-love, both which are ready to mistake their limits. Duty, thou sublime in mighty name, that dost embrace nothing charming or insinuating, but requires submission, and yet sieges not to move the will by threatening ought, said what arrives natural aversion or terror, but merely holdest force, a law which of itself finds entrance into the mind, and yet gains reluctant reverence, so not always obedience, a law before which all inclinations are dumb, even though they secretly can't work it. What origin is there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble descent, which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations, a root to be derived from which is the indispensable condition of the only worth which men can give themselves. It can be nothing less than a power which elevates men above himself, as a part of the world of sense, a power which connects him with an order of things that only the understanding can conceive, with a world which at the same time commands the whole sensible world, and with it the empirically determinable existence of men in time, as well as the sum total of all lends, which totality alone suits such unconditional practical laws as a moral. This power is nothing but personality, that is, freedom and independence of the mechanism of nature, yet regarded also as a faculty of a being which is subject to special laws, namely pure practical laws given by its own reason, so that the person, as belonging to the sensible world, is subject to his own personality as belonging to the intelligible, super sensible world. It is then not to be wondered at, that men, as belonging to both worlds, must regard his own nature in reference to its second and highest characteristic only with reverence, and its laws with the highest respect. On this origin are found at many expressions, which designate the worth of objects according to moral ideas. The moral law is holy and viable. Men is indeed only holy enough, but he must regard humanity in his own person as holy. In all creation everything one chooses, and over which one has any power, may be used merely as means. Man alone and with him every rational creature is an end in himself. My virtue of the autonomy of his freedom, he is the subject of the moral law, which is holy. Just for this reason every will, even every person's own individual will, in relation to itself, is restricted to the condition of agreement with the autonomy of the rational being. That is to say, that it is not to be subject to any purpose, which cannot accord with the law, which might arise from the will of the passive subject himself. The latter is, therefore, never to be employed merely as means, but as itself also, concurrently, an end. We justly attribute this condition even to the divine will, with regard to the rational beings in the world, which are his creatures, since it rests on their personality, by which alone they are ends in themselves. This respect-inspiring idea of personality, which sets before our eyes, the sublimity of our nature, in its higher aspect, while at the same time it shows us the want of accord of our conduct with it, and thereby strikes down self-conceit, is even natural to the commonest reason and easily observed. Has not every even moderately honourable man sometimes found that, where by an otherwise inoffensive lie he might either have withdrawn himself from an unpleasant business, or even have procured some advantages for a loved and well-deserving friend, he has avoided it, solely lest he should despise himself secretly in his own eyes. When an upright man is in him the greatest distress, which he might have avoided, if he could only have the sugared duty, is he not sustained by the consciousness that he has maintained humanity in its proper dignity in his own person, and honoured it, that he has no reason to be ashamed of himself in his own side, or to dread the inward clans of self-examination? This consolation is not happiness. It is not even the smallest part of it, for no one would wish to have occasion for it, or would perhaps even desire a life in such a circumstances. But he lives, and he cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes and worthy of life. This inward peace is, therefore, merely negative, as regards what can make life pleasant. It is, in fact, only the escaping the danger of sinking in personal worth, after everything else that is valuable has been lost. It is of the effect of a respect for something quite different from life, something in comparison and contrast with which life, with all its enjoyment, has no value. He still lives only because it is his duty, not because he finds anything pleasant in life. Such is the nature of the true motive of pure practical reason. It is no other than the pure moral law itself, in as much as it makes us conscious of the sublimity of our own super sensible existence, and subjectively produces respect for the higher nature in men, who are also conscious of their sensible existence, and of the consequent dependence of their pathologically very susceptible nature. Now, with this motive, maybe combined so many charms and satisfactions of life, said even on this account alone, the most prudent choice of a rational epicurean, reflecting on the greatest advantage of life, would declare itself on the side of moral conduct, and it may be even advisable to join this prospect of a cheerful enjoyment of life, with that supreme motive, which is already sufficient of itself, but only as a counterpoise to the attractions which advice does not fail to exhibit on the opposite side, and not so as, even in the smallest degree, to place in this the proper moving power when duty is in question, for that would be just the same as to wish to taint the purity of the moral disposition in its source. The majesty of duty has nothing to do with enjoyment of life. It has its special law, and its special tribunal, and though the two should never be so well shaken together to be given well-mixed like medicine to the sick sore, yet they will soon separate of themselves, and if they do not, the former will not act, and although physical life might gain somewhat in force, some moral life would fade away irrecoverably.