CHAPTER III. Of the Motives of Pure Practical Reason.

What is essential in the moral worth of actions is that the 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 order that the 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 (elater animi) 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 no 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 the 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 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 co-operate along with the moral law; hence nothing is left us but

to determine carefully in what way the moral law becomes a motive, and

what effect this has upon the faculty of desire. For as to the

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 priori

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.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 5}

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 co-operation of sensible impulses, but

even to the rejection 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 priori 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 priori that the 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 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 their satisfaction is

called happiness) constitute self-regard (solipsismus). This is either

the self-love that consists in an excessive fondness for oneself

(philautia), or satisfaction with oneself (arrogantia). The former

is called particularly selfishness; the latter self-conceit. 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 this law, and then it is called rational

self-love. But self-conceit 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 the first condition of personal

worth (as we shall presently show more clearly), and prior to this

conformity any pretension to worth is false and unlawful. Now the

propensity to self-esteem is one of the inclinations which the moral

law checks, inasmuch as that esteem rests only on morality.

Therefore the moral law breaks down self-conceit. But as this law is

something positive in itself, namely, the form of an intellectual

causality, that is, of freedom, it must be an object of respect;

for, by opposing the subjective antagonism of the inclinations, it

weakens self-conceit; and since it even breaks down, that is,

humiliates, this conceit, it is an object of the highest respect

and, consequently, is the 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 the supreme condition of practical

reason, excluded from the determining principles of the will which

we have called the unconditionally good; and that the 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 as sensible

beings is such that the matter of desire (objects of inclination,

whether of hope or fear) first presents itself to us; and our

pathologically affected self, 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 the first and original. This propensity to make

ourselves in the 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 own 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 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 has necessarily, by this very circumstance, an

influence on feeling; hence we comprehend how it is possible to

perceive a priori that the moral law can produce an effect on feeling,

in that it excludes the inclinations and the propensity to make them

the supreme practical condition, i.e., 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 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 (unpleasantness) 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 supersensible 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 the 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

judgement of reason, esteemed equivalent to a positive help to its

causality. Therefore this feeling may also be called a 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 objects of action as

called good and evil, it is also a subjective determining principle,

that is, 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

the 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 the

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 counterpoise, it gives relatively greater weight to the

law in the judgement of reason (in the case of a will affected by

the aforesaid impulses). Thus the respect for the law is not a

motive to morality, but is morality itself subjectively considered

as a motive, inasmuch as pure practical reason, by rejecting all the

rival pretensions 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 this 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, this

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.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 10}

Respect applies always to persons only- not to things. The latter

may arouse inclination, and if they are animals (e.g., horses, dogs,

etc.), even love 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, e.g., lofty mountains, the magnitude, number, and

distance of the heavenly 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 admiration, even to astonishment, and yet

not be an object of respect. His jocose humour, his courage and

strength, his power from the rank he has amongst others, may inspire

me with sentiments of this kind, but still inner respect for him is

wanting. Fontenelle says, "I bow before a great man, but my mind

does not bow." I would add, before an humble plain man, in whom I

perceive uprightness 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 his example exhibits to me a law

that humbles my self-conceit when I compare it with my conduct: a law,

the practicability of obedience to which I see proved by fact before

my eyes. Now, I may even be conscious of a like degree of uprightness,

and yet the respect remains. For since in man all good is defective,

the law made visible by an example still humbles my pride, my standard

being furnished by a 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 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 way to it as regards a man. We try to find

out something that may lighten the burden of it, some fault

to compensate us for the humiliation which 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 it respect. 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

severity? Nevertheless, on the other hand, so little is there pain

in it that if once one has laid aside self-conceit and allowed

practical influence 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 proportioned

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 this

sentiment were 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-conceit, 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 we show 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 Voltaire's) 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 judgement 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 the activity of the

subject, so far as it is determined by inclinations, and hence

checks the opinion of his 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 the 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 pretensions of moral self-esteem, that is, humiliation on the

sensible side, is an elevation of the moral, i.e., practical, esteem

for the law itself on the intellectual side; in a word, it is

respect for the 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 the consciousness of an

activity of practical reason from objective principles, which only

fails to reveal its effect in actions because subjective

(pathological) causes hinder it. Respect for the moral law then must

be regarded as a positive, though indirect, effect of it on feeling,

inasmuch as 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 maxims of a life conformable to it. From the

notion of a 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

that of a maxim. 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

maxim, can be applied only to finite beings. For they all suppose a

limitation of the nature of the being, in that the subjective

character of his choice does not of itself agree with the objective

law of a practical reason; they suppose that the 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 unbounded 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 him 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. If this feeling of respect were

pathological, and therefore were a feeling of pleasure based on the

inner sense, 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 obligation 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. As 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 this constraint is exercised merely by the

legislation of our own reason, it also contains something elevating,

and this subjective effect on feeling, inasmuch as pure practical

reason is the sole cause of it, may be called in this respect

self-approbation, since we recognize 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 our 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.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 15}

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 rests the distinction between the

consciousness of having acted according to 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), moral 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, and 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 recurring,

regard which men in their judgement pay to the moral law.

It is of the greatest importance to attend with the utmost exactness

in all moral judgements to the subjective principle of all maxims,

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 constraint, 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 a command for us, as we could never be tempted to be

untrue to it).

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 20}

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 constraint, 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 a motive, else while the

action might chance to be such as the 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 maxims must not

forget our subjection to it, nor withdraw anything therefrom, or by an

egotistic presumption diminish aught 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 man to love anyone at

command; therefore it is only 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 practise

all duties towards him. But the command that makes this a rule

cannot command us to have this disposition in actions conformed 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 this respect the motive of our maxim would directly counteract

the disposition commanded. That law of all laws, therefore, like all

the moral precepts 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 there 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 constraint 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 he 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 will towards the law. Nevertheless, this

latter, namely, love to the law (which would then cease to be a

command, and then morality, which would have passed subjectively

into holiness, would cease to be virtue) must be the constant though

unattainable goal of his endeavours. For in 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.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 25}

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 infects many persons. The stage of morality on which man (and,

as far as we can see, every rational creature) stands is respect for

the moral law. The disposition that he ought to have in obeying this

is to obey it from duty, not from spontaneous inclination, or from

an endeavour taken up from liking 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,

respect for the law, whose yoke (an easy yoke indeed, because reason

itself imposes 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 would 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 motives pathological (seated in sympathy or

self-love), not moral (in the law), but they produce in this way a

vain, high-flying, fantastic way of thinking, flattering themselves

with a spontaneous goodness of heart that needs neither spur nor

bridle, for which no command is needed, and thereby forgetting their

obligation, which 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 there are traces which suggest that they were done wholly out

of respect for duty and not from excited feelings. If these,

however, are set before anyone as examples to be imitated, respect for

duty (which is the only true moral feeling) must be employed as the

motive- this severe holy precept which never allows our vain self-love

to dally with pathological impulses (however analogous they may be

to morality), and to take a pride in meritorious worth. Now if we

search we shall find for all actions that are worthy of praise a law

of duty which commands, and does not leave us to choose what may be

agreeable 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 over

stepping of the limits of human reason, then moral fanaticism is

such an over stepping of the bounds that practical pure reason sets to

mankind, in 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 maxims 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 they may be zealous opponents of

sentimentalism), but sometimes even philosophers, nay, 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, that of the former of an

insipid, effeminate character; and we may, without hypocrisy, say of

the moral teaching of the Gospel, that it first, by the purity of

its moral principle, and at the same time by its suitability to the

limitations 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 and mighty name that dost embrace nothing

charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not

to move the will by threatening aught that would arouse natural

aversion or terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself

finds entrance into the mind, and yet gains reluctant reverence

(though not always obedience), a law before which all inclinations are

dumb, even though they secretly counter-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?

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 30}

It can be nothing less than a power which elevates man 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 man in time, as well

as the sum total of all ends (which totality alone suits such

unconditional practical laws as the moral). This power is nothing

but personality, that is, freedom and independence on 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 [supersensible]

world. It is then not to be wondered at that man, 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 founded many expressions which designate the

worth of objects according to moral ideas. The moral law is holy

(inviolable). Man is indeed unholy enough, but he must regard humanity

in his own person as holy. In all creation every thing 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.

By 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 a 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 the

greatest distress, which he might have avoided if he could only have

disregarded 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

sight, or to dread the inward glance 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 circumstances. But he lives, and

he cannot endure that he should be in his own eyes unworthy 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 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, inasmuch as it makes us

conscious of the sublimity of our own supersensible existence and

subjectively produces respect for their 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 may be combined so many charms and satisfactions of life

that 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 even

be 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 vice 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 be never so well shaken

together to be given well mixed, like medicine, to the sick soul,

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, the moral life would fade away irrecoverably.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 35}

Critical Examination of the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason.

By the critical examination of a science, or of a portion of it,

which constitutes a system by itself, I understand the inquiry and

proof why it must have this and no other systematic form, when we

compare it with another system which is based on a similar faculty

of knowledge. Now practical and speculative reason are based on the

same faculty, so far as both are pure reason. Therefore the difference

in their systematic form must be determined by the comparison of both,

and the ground of this must be assigned.

The Analytic of pure theoretic reason had to do with the knowledge

of such objects as may have been given to the understanding, and was

obliged therefore to begin from intuition and consequently (as this is

always sensible) from sensibility; and only after that could advance

to concepts (of the objects of this intuition), and could only end

with principles after both these had preceded. On the contrary,

since practical reason has not to do with objects so as to know

them, but with its own faculty of realizing them (in accordance with

the knowledge of them), that is, with a will which is a causality,

inasmuch as reason contains its determining principle; since,

consequently, it has not to furnish an object of intuition, but as

practical reason has to furnish only a law (because the notion of

causality always implies the reference to a law which determines the

existence of the many in relation to one another); hence a critical

examination of the Analytic of reason, if this is to be practical

reason (and this is properly the problem), must begin with the

possibility of practical principles a priori. Only after that can it

proceed to concepts of the objects of a practical reason, namely,

those of absolute good and evil, in order to assign them in accordance

with those principles (for prior to those principles they cannot

possibly be given as good and evil by any faculty of knowledge), and

only then could the section be concluded with the last chapter,

that, namely, which treats of the relation of the pure practical

reason to the sensibility and of its necessary influence thereon,

which is a priori cognisable, that is, of the moral sentiment. Thus

the Analytic of the practical pure reason has the whole extent of

the conditions of its use in common with the theoretical, but in

reverse order. The Analytic of pure theoretic reason was divided

into transcendental Aesthetic and transcendental Logic, that of the

practical reversely into Logic and Aesthetic of pure practical

reason (if I may, for the sake of analogy merely, use these

designations, which are not quite suitable). This logic again was

there divided into the Analytic of concepts and that of principles:

here into that of principles and concepts. The Aesthetic also had in

the former case two parts, on account of the two kinds of sensible

intuition; here the sensibility is not considered as a capacity of

intuition at all, but merely as feeling (which can be a subjective

ground of desire), and in regard to it pure practical reason admits no

further division.

It is also easy to see the reason why this division into two parts

with its subdivision was not actually adopted here (as one might

have been induced to attempt by the example of the former critique).

For since it is pure reason that is here considered in its practical

use, and consequently as proceeding from a priori principles, and

not from empirical principles of determination, hence the division

of the analytic of pure practical reason must resemble that of a

syllogism; namely, proceeding from the universal in the major

premiss (the moral principle), through a minor premiss containing a

subsumption of possible actions (as good or evil) under the former, to

the conclusion, namely, the subjective determination of the will (an

interest in the possible practical good, and in the maxim founded on

it). He who has been able to convince himself of the truth of the

positions occurring in the Analytic will take pleasure in such

comparisons; for they justly suggest the expectation that we may

perhaps some day be able to discern the unity of the whole faculty

of reason (theoretical as well as practical) and be able to derive all

from one principle, which, is what human reason inevitably demands, as

it finds complete satisfaction only in a perfectly systematic unity of

its knowledge.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 40}

If now we consider also the contents of the knowledge that we can

have of a pure practical reason, and by means of it, as shown by the

Analytic, we find, along with a remarkable analogy between it and

the theoretical, no less remarkable differences. As regards the

theoretical, the faculty of a pure rational cognition a priori could

be easily and evidently proved by examples from sciences (in which, as

they put their principles to the test in so many ways by methodical

use, there is not so much reason as in common knowledge to fear a

secret mixture of empirical principles of cognition). But, that pure

reason without the admixture of any empirical principle is practical

of itself, this could only be shown from the commonest practical use

of reason, by verifying the fact, that every man's natural reason

acknowledges the supreme practical principle as the supreme law of his

will- a law completely a priori and not depending on any sensible

data. It was necessary first to establish and verify the purity of its

origin, even in the judgement of this common reason, before science

could take it in hand to make use of it, as a fact, that is, prior

to all disputation about its possibility, and all the consequences

that may be drawn from it. But this circumstance may be readily

explained from what has just been said; because practical pure

reason must necessarily begin with principles, which therefore must be

the first data, the foundation of all science, and cannot be derived

from it. It was possible to effect this verification of moral

principles as principles of a pure reason quite well, and with

sufficient certainty, by a single appeal to the judgement of common

sense, for this reason, that anything empirical which might slip

into our maxims as a determining principle of the will can be detected

at once by the feeling of pleasure or pain which necessarily

attaches to it as exciting desire; whereas pure practical reason

positively refuses to admit this feeling into its principle as a

condition. The heterogeneity of the determining principles (the

empirical and rational) is clearly detected by this resistance of a

practically legislating reason against every admixture of inclination,

and by a peculiar kind of sentiment, which, however, does not

precede the legislation of the practical reason, but, on the contrary,

is produced by this as a constraint, namely, by the feeling of a

respect such as no man has for inclinations of whatever kind but for

the law only; and it is detected in so marked and prominent a manner

that even the most uninstructed cannot fail to see at once in an

example presented to him, that empirical principles of volition may

indeed urge him to follow their attractions, but that he can never

be expected to obey anything but the pure practical law of reason

alone.

The distinction between the doctrine of happiness and the doctrine

of morality, in the former of which empirical principles constitute

the entire foundation, while in the second they do not form the

smallest part of it, is the first and most important office of the

Analytic of pure practical reason; and it must proceed in it with as

much exactness and, so to speak, scrupulousness, as any geometer in

his work. The philosopher, however, has greater difficulties to

contend with here (as always in rational cognition by means of

concepts merely without construction), because he cannot take any

intuition as a foundation (for a pure noumenon). He has, however, this

advantage that, like the chemist, he can at any time make an

experiment with every man's practical reason for the purpose of

distinguishing the moral (pure) principle of determination from the

empirical; namely, by adding the moral law (as a determining

principle) to the empirically affected will (e.g., that of the man who

would be ready to lie because he can gain something thereby). It is as

if the analyst added alkali to a solution of lime in hydrochloric

acid, the acid at once forsakes the lime, combines with the alkali,

and the lime is precipitated. Just in the same way, if to a man who is

otherwise honest (or who for this occasion places himself only in

thought in the position of an honest man), we present the moral law by

which he recognises the worthlessness of the liar, his practical

reason (in forming a judgement of what ought to be done) at once

forsakes the advantage, combines with that which maintains in him

respect for his own person (truthfulness), and the advantage after

it has been separated and washed from every particle of reason

(which is altogether on the side of duty) is easily weighed by

everyone, so that it can enter into combination with reason in other

cases, only not where it could be opposed to the moral law, which

reason never forsakes, but most closely unites itself with.

But it does not follow that this distinction between the principle

of happiness and that of morality is an opposition between them, and

pure practical reason does not require that we should renounce all

claim to happiness, but only that the moment duty is in question we

should take no account of happiness. It may even in certain respects

be a duty to provide for happiness; partly, because (including

skill, wealth, riches) it contains means for the fulfilment of our

duty; partly, because the absence of it (e.g., poverty) implies

temptations to transgress our duty. But it can never be an immediate

duty to promote our happiness, still less can it be the principle of

all duty. Now, as all determining principles of the will, except the

law of pure practical reason alone (the moral law), are all

empirical and, therefore, as such, belong to the principle of

happiness, they must all be kept apart from the supreme principle of

morality and never be incorporated with it as a condition; since

this would be to destroy all moral worth just as much as any empirical

admixture with geometrical principles would destroy the certainty of

mathematical evidence, which in Plato's opinion is the most

excellent thing in mathematics, even surpassing their utility.

Instead, however, of the deduction of the supreme principle of

pure practical reason, that is, the explanation of the possibility

of such a knowledge a priori, the utmost we were able to do was to

show that if we saw the possibility of the freedom of an efficient

cause, we should also see not merely the possibility, but even the

necessity, of the moral law as the supreme practical law of rational

beings, to whom we attribute freedom of causality of their will;

because both concepts are so inseparably united that we might define

practical freedom as independence of the will on anything but the

moral law. But we cannot perceive the possibility of the freedom of an

efficient cause, especially in the world of sense; we are fortunate if

only we can be sufficiently assured that there is no proof of its

impossibility, and are now, by the moral law which postulates it,

compelled and therefore authorized to assume it. However, there are

still many who think that they can explain this freedom on empirical

principles, like any other physical faculty, and treat it as a

psychological property, the explanation of which only requires a

more exact study of the nature of the soul and of the motives of the

will, and not as a transcendental predicate of the causality of a

being that belongs to the world of sense (which is really the

point). They thus deprive us of the grand revelation which we obtain

through practical reason by means of the moral law, the revelation,

namely, of a supersensible world by the realization of the otherwise

transcendent concept of freedom, and by this deprive us also of the

moral law itself, which admits no empirical principle of

determination. Therefore it will be necessary to add something here as

a protection against this delusion and to exhibit empiricism in its

naked superficiality.

The notion of causality as physical necessity, in opposition to

the same notion as freedom, concerns only the existence of things so

far as it is determinable in time, and, consequently, as phenomena, in

opposition to their causality as things in themselves. Now if we

take the attributes of existence of things in time for attributes of

things in themselves (which is the common view), then it is impossible

to reconcile the necessity of the causal relation with freedom; they

are contradictory. For from the former it follows that every event,

and consequently every action that takes place at a certain point of

time, is a necessary result of what existed in time preceding. Now

as time past is no longer in my power, hence every action that I

perform must be the necessary result of certain determining grounds

which are not in my power, that is, at the moment in which I am acting

I am never free. Nay, even if I assume that my whole existence is

independent on any foreign cause (for instance, God), so that the

determining principles of my causality, and even of my whole

existence, were not outside myself, yet this would not in the least

transform that physical necessity into freedom. For at every moment of

time I am still under the necessity of being determined to action by

that which is not in my power, and the series of events infinite a

parte priori, which I only continue according to a pre-determined

order and could never begin of myself, would be a continuous

physical chain, and therefore my causality would never be freedom.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 45}

If, then, we would attribute freedom to a being whose existence is

determined in time, we cannot except him from the law of necessity

as to all events in his existence and, consequently, as to his actions

also; for that would be to hand him over to blind chance. Now as

this law inevitably applies to all the causality of things, so far

as their existence is determinable in time, it follows that if this

were the mode in which we had also to conceive the existence of

these things in themselves, freedom must be rejected as a vain and

impossible conception. Consequently, if we would still save it, no

other way remains but to consider that the existence of a thing, so

far as it is determinable in time, and therefore its causality,

according to the law of physical necessity, belong to appearance,

and to attribute freedom to the same being as a thing in itself.

This is certainly inevitable, if we would retain both these

contradictory concepts together; but in application, when we try to

explain their combination in one and the same action, great

difficulties present themselves which seem to render such a

combination impracticable.

When I say of a man who commits a theft that, by the law of

causality, this deed is a necessary result of the determining causes

in preceding time, then it was impossible that it could not have

happened; how then can the judgement, according to the moral law, make

any change, and suppose that it could have been omitted, because the

law says that it ought to have been omitted; that is, how can a man be

called quite free at the same moment, and with respect to the same

action in which he is subject to an inevitable physical necessity?

Some try to evade this by saying that the causes that determine his

causality are of such a kind as to agree with a comparative notion

of freedom. According to this, that is sometimes called a free effect,

the determining physical cause of which lies within the acting thing

itself, e.g., that which a projectile performs when it is in free

motion, in which case we use the word freedom, because while it is

in flight it is not urged by anything external; or as we call the

motion of a clock a free motion, because it moves its hands itself,

which therefore do not require to be pushed by external force; so

although the actions of man are necessarily determined by causes which

precede in time, we yet call them free, because these causes are ideas

produced by our own faculties, whereby desires are evoked on

occasion of circumstances, and hence actions are wrought according

to our own pleasure. This is a wretched subterfuge with which some

persons still let themselves be put off, and so think they have

solved, with a petty word- jugglery, that difficult problem, at the

solution of which centuries have laboured in vain, and which can

therefore scarcely be found so completely on the surface. In fact,

in the question about the freedom which must be the foundation of

all moral laws and the consequent responsibility, it does not matter

whether the principles which necessarily determine causality by a

physical law reside within the subject or without him, or in the

former case whether these principles are instinctive or are

conceived by reason, if, as is admitted by these men themselves, these

determining ideas have the ground of their existence in time and in

the antecedent state, and this again in an antecedent, etc. Then it

matters not that these are internal; it matters not that they have a

psychological and not a mechanical causality, that is, produce actions

by means of ideas and not by bodily movements; they are still

determining principles of the causality of a being whose existence

is determinable in time, and therefore under the necessitation of

conditions of past time, which therefore, when the subject has to act,

are no longer in his power. This may imply psychological freedom (if

we choose to apply this term to a merely internal chain of ideas in

the mind), but it involves physical necessity and, therefore, leaves

no room for transcendental freedom, which must be conceived as

independence on everything empirical, and, consequently, on nature

generally, whether it is an object of the internal sense considered in

time only, or of the external in time and space. Without this

freedom (in the latter and true sense), which alone is practical a

priori, no moral law and no moral imputation are possible. Just for

this reason the necessity of events in time, according to the physical

law of causality, may be called the mechanism of nature, although we

do not mean by this that things which are subject to it must be really

material machines. We look here only to the necessity of the

connection of events in a time-series as it is developed according

to the physical law, whether the subject in which this development

takes place is called automaton materiale when the mechanical being is

moved by matter, or with Leibnitz spirituale when it is impelled by

ideas; and if the freedom of our will were no other than the latter

(say the psychological and comparative, not also transcendental,

that is, absolute), then it would at bottom be nothing better than the

freedom of a turnspit, which, when once it is wound up, accomplishes

its motions of itself.

Now, in order to remove in the supposed case the apparent

contradiction between freedom and the mechanism of nature in one and

the same action, we must remember what was said in the Critique of

Pure Reason, or what follows therefrom; viz., that the necessity of

nature, which cannot co-exist with the freedom of the subject,

appertains only to the attributes of the thing that is subject to

time-conditions, consequently only to those of the acting subject as a

phenomenon; that therefore in this respect the determining

principles of every action of the same reside in what belongs to

past time and is no longer in his power (in which must be included his

own past actions and the character that these may determine for him in

his own eyes as a phenomenon). But the very same subject, being on the

other side conscious of himself as a thing in himself, considers his

existence also in so far as it is not subject to time-conditions,

and regards himself as only determinable by laws which he gives

himself through reason; and in this his existence nothing is

antecedent to the determination of his will, but every action, and

in general every modification of his existence, varying according to

his internal sense, even the whole series of his existence as a

sensible being is in the consciousness of his supersensible

existence nothing but the result, and never to be regarded as the

determining principle, of his causality as a noumenon. In this view

now the rational being can justly say of every unlawful action that he

performs, that he could very well have left it undone; although as

appearance it is sufficiently determined in the past, and in this

respect is absolutely necessary; for it, with all the past which

determines it, belongs to the one single phenomenon of his character

which he makes for himself, in consequence of which he imputes the

causality of those appearances to himself as a cause independent on

sensibility.

With this agree perfectly the judicial sentences of that wonderful

faculty in us which we call conscience. A man may use as much art as

he likes in order to paint to himself an unlawful act, that he

remembers, as an unintentional error, a mere oversight, such as one

can never altogether avoid, and therefore as something in which he was

carried away by the stream of physical necessity, and thus to make

himself out innocent, yet he finds that the advocate who speaks in his

favour can by no means silence the accuser within, if only he is

conscious that at the time when he did this wrong he was in his

senses, that is, in possession of his freedom; and, nevertheless, he

accounts for his error from some bad habits, which by gradual

neglect of attention he has allowed to grow upon him to such a

degree that he can regard his error as its natural consequence,

although this cannot protect him from the blame and reproach which

he casts upon himself. This is also the ground of repentance for a

long past action at every recollection of it; a painful feeling

produced by the moral sentiment, and which is practically void in so

far as it cannot serve to undo what has been done. (Hence Priestley,

as a true and consistent fatalist, declares it absurd, and he deserves

to be commended for this candour more than those who, while they

maintain the mechanism of the will in fact, and its freedom in words

only, yet wish it to be thought that they include it in their system

of compromise, although they do not explain the possibility of such

moral imputation.) But the pain is quite legitimate, because when

the law of our intelligible [supersensible] existence (the moral

law) is in question, reason recognizes no distinction of time, and

only asks whether the event belongs to me, as my act, and then

always morally connects the same feeling with it, whether it has

happened just now or long ago. For in reference to the supersensible

consciousness of its existence (i.e., freedom) the life of sense is

but a single phenomenon, which, inasmuch as it contains merely

manifestations of the mental disposition with regard to the moral

law (i.e., of the character), must be judged not according to the

physical necessity that belongs to it as phenomenon, but according

to the absolute spontaneity of freedom. It may therefore be admitted

that, if it were possible to have so profound an insight into a

man's mental character as shown by internal as well as external

actions as to know all its motives, even the smallest, and likewise

all the external occasions that can influence them, we could calculate

a man's conduct for the future with as great certainty as a lunar or

solar eclipse; and nevertheless we may maintain that the man is

free. In fact, if we were capable of a further glance, namely, an

intellectual intuition of the same subject (which indeed is not

granted to us, and instead of it we have only the rational concept),

then we should perceive that this whole chain of appearances in regard

to all that concerns the moral laws depends on the spontaneity of

the subject as a thing in itself, of the determination of which no

physical explanation can be given. In default of this intuition, the

moral law assures us of this distinction between the relation of our

actions as appearance to our sensible nature, and the relation of this

sensible nature to the supersensible substratum in us. In this view,

which is natural to our reason, though inexplicable, we can also

justify some judgements which we passed with all conscientiousness,

and which yet at first sight seem quite opposed to all equity. There

are cases in which men, even with the same education which has been

profitable to others, yet show such early depravity, and so continue

to progress in it to years of manhood, that they are thought to be

born villains, and their character altogether incapable of

improvement; and nevertheless they are judged for what they do or

leave undone, they are reproached for their faults as guilty; nay,

they themselves (the children) regard these reproaches as well

founded, exactly as if in spite of the hopeless natural quality of

mind ascribed to them, they remained just as responsible as any

other man. This could not happen if we did not suppose that whatever

springs from a man's choice (as every action intentionally performed

undoubtedly does) has as its foundation a free causality, which from

early youth expresses its character in its manifestations (i.e.,

actions). These, on account of the uniformity of conduct, exhibit a

natural connection, which however does not make the vicious quality of

the will necessary, but on the contrary, is the consequence of the

evil principles voluntarily adopted and unchangeable, which only

make it so much the more culpable and deserving of punishment. There

still remains a difficulty in the combination of freedom with the

mechanism of nature in a being belonging to the world of sense; a

difficulty which, even after all the foregoing is admitted,

threatens freedom with complete destruction. But with this danger

there is also a circumstance that offers hope of an issue still

favourable to freedom; namely, that the same difficulty presses much

more strongly (in fact as we shall presently see, presses only) on the

system that holds the existence determinable in time and space to be

the existence of things in themselves; it does not therefore oblige us

to give up our capital supposition of the ideality of time as a mere

form of sensible intuition, and consequently as a mere manner of

representation which is proper to the subject as belonging to the

world of sense; and therefore it only requires that this view be

reconciled with this idea.

The difficulty is as follows: Even if it is admitted that the

supersensible subject can be free with respect to a given action,

although, as a subject also belonging to the world of sense, he is

under mechanical conditions with respect to the same action, still, as

soon as we allow that God as universal first cause is also the cause

of the existence of substance (a proposition which can never be

given up without at the same time giving up the notion of God as the

Being of all beings, and therewith giving up his all sufficiency, on

which everything in theology depends), it seems as if we must admit

that a man's actions have their determining principle in something

which is wholly out of his power- namely, in the causality of a

Supreme Being distinct from himself and on whom his own existence

and the whole determination of his causality are absolutely dependent.

In point of fact, if a man's actions as belonging to his modifications

in time were not merely modifications of him as appearance, but as a

thing in itself, freedom could not be saved. Man would be a marionette

or an automaton, like Vaucanson's, prepared and wound up by the

Supreme Artist. Self-consciousness would indeed make him a thinking

automaton; but the consciousness of his own spontaneity would be

mere delusion if this were mistaken for freedom, and it would

deserve this name only in a comparative sense, since, although the

proximate determining causes of its motion and a long series of

their determining causes are internal, yet the last and highest is

found in a foreign hand. Therefore I do not see how those who still

insist on regarding time and space as attributes belonging to the

existence of things in themselves, can avoid admitting the fatality of

actions; or if (like the otherwise acute Mendelssohn) they allow

them to be conditions necessarily belonging to the existence of finite

and derived beings, but not to that of the infinite Supreme Being, I

do not see on what ground they can justify such a distinction, or,

indeed, how they can avoid the contradiction that meets them, when

they hold that existence in time is an attribute necessarily belonging

to finite things in themselves, whereas God is the cause of this

existence, but cannot be the cause of time (or space) itself (since

this must be presupposed as a necessary a priori condition of the

existence of things); and consequently as regards the existence of

these things. His causality must be subject to conditions and even

to the condition of time; and this would inevitably bring in

everything contradictory to the notions of His infinity and

independence. On the other hand, it is quite easy for us to draw the

distinction between the attribute of the divine existence of being

independent on all time-conditions, and that of a being of the world

of sense, the distinction being that between the existence of a

being in itself and that of a thing in appearance. Hence, if this

ideality of time and space is not adopted, nothing remains but

Spinozism, in which space and time are essential attributes of the

Supreme Being Himself, and the things dependent on Him (ourselves,

therefore, included) are not substances, but merely accidents inhering

in Him; since, if these things as His effects exist in time only, this

being the condition of their existence in themselves, then the actions

of these beings must be simply His actions which He performs in some

place and time. Thus, Spinozism, in spite of the absurdity of its

fundamental idea, argues more consistently than the creation theory

can, when beings assumed to be substances, and beings in themselves

existing in time, are regarded as effects of a Supreme Cause, and

yet as not [belonging] to Him and His action, but as separate

substances.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 50}

The above-mentioned difficulty is resolved briefly and clearly as

follows: If existence in time is a mere sensible mode of

representation belonging to thinking beings in the world and

consequently does not apply to them as things in themselves, then

the creation of these beings is a creation of things in themselves,

since the notion of creation does not belong to the sensible form of

representation of existence or to causality, but can only be

referred to noumena. Consequently, when I say of beings in the world

of sense that they are created, I so far regard them as noumena. As it

would be a contradiction, therefore, to say that God is a creator of

appearances, so also it is a contradiction to say that as creator He

is the cause of actions in the world of sense, and therefore as

appearances, although He is the cause of the existence of the acting

beings (which are noumena). If now it is possible to affirm freedom in

spite of the natural mechanism of actions as appearances (by regarding

existence in time as something that belongs only to appearances, not

to things in themselves), then the circumstance that the acting beings

are creatures cannot make the slightest difference, since creation

concerns their supersensible and not their sensible existence, and,

therefore, cannot be regarded as the determining principle of the

appearances. It would be quite different if the beings in the world as

things in themselves existed in time, since in that case the creator

of substance would be at the same time the author of the whole

mechanism of this substance.

Of so great importance is the separation of time (as well as

space) from the existence of things in themselves which was effected

in the Critique of the Pure Speculative Reason.

It may be said that the solution here proposed involves great

difficulty in itself and is scarcely susceptible of a lucid

exposition. But is any other solution that has been attempted, or that

may be attempted, easier and more intelligible? Rather might we say

that the dogmatic teachers of metaphysics have shown more shrewdness

than candour in keeping this difficult point out of sight as much as

possible, in the hope that if they said nothing about it, probably

no one would think of it. If science is to be advanced, all

difficulties must be laid open, and we must even search for those that

are hidden, for every difficulty calls forth a remedy, which cannot be

discovered without science gaining either in extent or in exactness;

and thus even obstacles become means of increasing the thoroughness of

science. On the other hand, if the difficulties are intentionally

concealed, or merely removed by palliatives, then sooner or later they

burst out into incurable mischiefs, which bring science to ruin in

an absolute scepticism.

Since it is, properly speaking, the notion of freedom alone amongst all

the ideas of pure speculative reason that so greatly enlarges our

knowledge in the sphere of the supersensible, though only of our

practical knowledge, I ask myself why it exclusively possesses so great

fertility, whereas the others only designate the vacant space for

possible beings of the pure understanding, but are unable by any means

to define the concept of them. I presently find that as I cannot think

anything without a category, I must first look for a category for the

rational idea of freedom with which I am now concerned; and this is the

category of causality; and although freedom, a concept of the reason,

being a transcendent concept, cannot have any intuition corresponding to

it, yet the concept of the understanding- for the synthesis of which the

former demands the unconditioned- (namely, the concept of causality)

must have a sensible intuition given, by which first its objective

reality is assured. Now, the categories are all divided into two

classes- the mathematical, which concern the unity of synthesis in the

conception of objects, and the dynamical, which refer to the unity of

synthesis in the conception of the existence of objects. The former

(those of magnitude and quality) always contain a synthesis of the

homogeneous, and it is not possible to find in this the unconditioned

antecedent to what is given in sensible intuition as conditioned in

space and time, as this would itself have to belong to space and time,

and therefore be again still conditioned. Whence it resulted in the

Dialectic of Pure Theoretic Reason that the opposite methods of

attaining the unconditioned and the totality of the conditions were both

wrong. The categories of the second class (those of causality and of the

necessity of a thing) did not require this homogeneity (of the

conditioned and the condition in synthesis), since here what we have to

explain is not how the intuition is compounded from a manifold in it,

but only how the existence of the conditioned object corresponding to it

is added to the existence of the condition (added, namely, in the

understanding as connected therewith); and in that case it was allowable

to suppose in the supersensible world the unconditioned antecedent to

the altogether conditioned in the world of sense (both as regards the

causal connection and the contingent existence of things themselves),

although this unconditioned remained indeterminate, and to make the

synthesis transcendent. Hence, it was found in the Dialectic of the Pure

Speculative Reason that the two apparently opposite methods of obtaining

for the conditioned the unconditioned were not really contradictory,

e.g., in the synthesis of causality to conceive for the conditioned in

the series of causes and effects of the sensible world, a causality

which has no sensible condition, and that the same action which, as

belonging to the world of sense, is always sensibly conditioned, that

is, mechanically necessary, yet at the same time may be derived from a

causality not sensibly conditioned- being the causality of the acting

being as belonging to the supersensible world- and may consequently be

conceived as free. Now, the only point in question was to change this

may be into is; that is, that we should be able to show in an actual

case, as it were by a fact, that certain actions imply such a causality

(namely, the intellectual, sensibly unconditioned), whether they are

actual or only commanded, that is, objectively necessary in a practical

sense. We could not hope to find this connexion in actions actually

given in experience as events of the sensible world, since causality

with freedom must always be sought outside the world of sense in the

world of intelligence. But things of sense are the only things offered

to our perception and observation. Hence, nothing remained but to find

an incontestable objective principle of causality which excludes all

sensible conditions: that is, a principle in which reason does not

appeal further to something else as a determining ground of its

causality, but contains this determining ground itself by means of that

principle, and in which therefore it is itself as pure reason practical.

Now, this principle had not to be searched for or discovered; it had

long been in the reason of all men, and incorporated in their nature,

and is the principle of morality. Therefore, that unconditioned

causality, with the faculty of it, namely, freedom, is no longer merely

indefinitely and problematically thought (this speculative reason could

prove to be feasible), but is even as regards the law of its causality

definitely and assertorially known; and with it the fact that a being (I

myself), belonging to the world of sense, belongs also to the

supersensible world, this is also positively known, and thus the reality

of the supersensible world is established and in practical respects

definitely given, and this definiteness, which for theoretical purposes

would be transcendent, is for practical purposes immanent. We could not,

however, make a similar step as regards the second dynamical idea,

namely, that of a necessary being. We could not rise to it from the

sensible world without the aid of the first dynamical idea. For if we

attempted to do so, we should have ventured to leave at a bound all that

is given to us, and to leap to that of which nothing is given us that

can help us to effect the connection of such a supersensible being with

the world of sense (since the necessary being would have to be known as

given outside ourselves). On the other hand, it is now obvious that this

connection is quite possible in relation to our own subject, inasmuch as

I know myself to be on the one side as an intelligible [supersensible]

being determined by the moral law (by means of freedom), and on the

other side as acting in the world of sense. It is the concept of freedom

alone that enables us to find the unconditioned and intelligible for the

conditioned and sensible without going out of ourselves. For it is our

own reason that by means of the supreme and unconditional practical law

knows that itself and the being that is conscious of this law (our own

person) belong to the pure world of understanding, and moreover defines

the manner in which, as such, it can be active. In this way it can be

understood why in the whole faculty of reason it is the practical reason

only that can help us to pass beyond the world of sense and give us

knowledge of a supersensible order and connection, which, however, for

this very reason cannot be extended further than is necessary for pure

practical purposes.

Let me be permitted on this occasion to make one more remark,

namely, that every step that we make with pure reason, even in the

practical sphere where no attention is paid to subtle speculation,

nevertheless accords with all the material points of the Critique of

the Theoretical Reason as closely and directly as if each step had

been thought out with deliberate purpose to establish this

confirmation. Such a thorough agreement, wholly unsought for and quite

obvious (as anyone can convince himself, if he will only carry moral

inquiries up to their principles), between the most important

proposition of practical reason and the often seemingly too subtle and

needless remarks of the Critique of the Speculative Reason,

occasions surprise and astonishment, and confirms the maxim already

recognized and praised by others, namely, that in every scientific

inquiry we should pursue our way steadily with all possible

exactness and frankness, without caring for any objections that may be

raised from outside its sphere, but, as far as we can, to carry out

our inquiry truthfully and completely by itself. Frequent

observation has convinced me that, when such researches are concluded,

that which in one part of them appeared to me very questionable,

considered in relation to other extraneous doctrines, when I left this

doubtfulness out of sight for a time and only attended to the business

in hand until it was completed, at last was unexpectedly found to

agree perfectly with what had been discovered separately without the

least regard to those doctrines, and without any partiality or

prejudice for them. Authors would save themselves many errors and much

labour lost (because spent on a delusion) if they could only resolve

to go to work with more frankness.

BOOK_2|CHAPTER_1

BOOK II. Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason.

CHAPTER I. Of a Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason Generally.

Pure reason always has its dialetic, whether it is considered in its

speculative or its practical employment; for it requires the

absolute totality of the 'conditions of what is given conditioned, and

this can only be found in things in themselves. But as all conceptions

of things in themselves must be referred to intuitions, and with us

men these can never be other than sensible and hence can never

enable us to know objects as things in themselves but only as

appearances, and since the unconditioned can never be found in this

chain of appearances which consists only of conditioned and

conditions; thus from applying this rational idea of the totality of

the conditions (in other words of the unconditioned) to appearances,

there arises an inevitable illusion, as if these latter were things in

themselves (for in the absence of a warning critique they are always

regarded as such). This illusion would never be noticed as delusive if

it did not betray itself by a conflict of reason with itself, when

it applies to appearances its fundamental principle of presupposing

the unconditioned to everything conditioned. By this, however,

reason is compelled to trace this illusion to its source, and search

how it can be removed, and this can only be done by a complete

critical examination of the whole pure faculty of reason; so that

the antinomy of the pure reason which is manifest in its dialectic

is in fact the most beneficial error into which human reason could

ever have fallen, since it at last drives us to search for the key

to escape from this labyrinth; and when this key is found, it

further discovers that which we did not seek but yet had need of,

namely, a view into a higher and an immutable order of things, in

which we even now are, and in which we are thereby enabled by definite

precepts to continue to live according to the highest dictates of

reason.

It may be seen in detail in the Critique of Pure Reason how in its

speculative employment this natural dialectic is to be solved, and how

the error which arises from a very natural illusion may be guarded

against. But reason in its practical use is not a whit better off.

As pure practical reason, it likewise seeks to find the

unconditioned for the practically conditioned (which rests on

inclinations and natural wants), and this is not as the determining

principle of the will, but even when this is given (in the moral

law) it seeks the unconditioned totality of the object of pure

practical reason under the name of the summum bonum.

To define this idea practically, i.e., sufficiently for the maxims

of our rational conduct, is the business of practical wisdom, and this

again as a science is philosophy, in the sense in which the word was

understood by the ancients, with whom it meant instruction in the

conception in which the summum bonum was to be placed, and the conduct

by which it was to be obtained. It would be well to leave this word in

its ancient signification as a doctrine of the summum bonum, so far as

reason endeavours to make this into a science. For on the one hand the

restriction annexed would suit the Greek expression (which signifies

the love of wisdom), and yet at the same time would be sufficient to

embrace under the name of philosophy the love of science: that is to

say, of all speculative rational knowledge, so far as it is

serviceable to reason, both for that conception and also for the

practical principle determining our conduct, without letting out of

sight the main end, on account of which alone it can be called a

doctrine of practical wisdom. On the other hand, it would be no harm

to deter the self-conceit of one who ventures to claim the title of

philosopher by holding before him in the very definition a standard of

self-estimation which would very much lower his pretensions. For a

teacher of wisdom would mean something more than a scholar who has not

come so far as to guide himself, much less to guide others, with

certain expectation of attaining so high an end: it would mean a

master in the knowledge of wisdom, which implies more than a modest

man would claim for himself. Thus philosophy as well as wisdom would

always remain an ideal, which objectively is presented complete in

reason alone, while subjectively for the person it is only the goal of

his unceasing endeavours; and no one would be justified in

professing to be in possession of it so as to assume the name of

philosopher who could not also show its infallible effects in his

own person as an example (in his self-mastery and the unquestioned

interest that he takes pre-eminently in the general good), and this

the ancients also required as a condition of deserving that honourable

title.

{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 5}

We have another preliminary remark to make respecting the

dialectic of the pure practical reason, on the point of the definition

of the summum bonum (a successful solution of which dialectic would

lead us to expect, as in case of that of the theoretical reason, the

most beneficial effects, inasmuch as the self-contradictions of pure

practical reason honestly stated, and not concealed, force us to

undertake a complete critique of this faculty).

The moral law is the sole determining principle of a pure will.

But since this is merely formal (viz., as prescribing only the form of

the maxim as universally legislative), it abstracts as a determining

principle from all matter that is to say, from every object of

volition. Hence, though the summum bonum may be the whole object of

a pure practical reason, i.e., a pure will, yet it is not on that

account to be regarded as its determining principle; and the moral law

alone must be regarded as the principle on which that and its

realization or promotion are aimed at. This remark is important in

so delicate a case as the determination of moral principles, where the

slightest misinterpretation perverts men's minds. For it will have

been seen from the Analytic that, if we assume any object under the

name of a good as a determining principle of the will prior to the

moral law and then deduce from it the supreme practical principle,

this would always introduce heteronomy and crush out the moral

principle.

It is, however, evident that if the notion of the summum bonum

includes that of the moral law as its supreme condition, then the

summum bonum would not merely be an object, but the notion of it and

the conception of its existence as possible by our own practical

reason would likewise be the determining principle of the will,

since in that case the will is in fact determined by the moral law

which is already included in this conception, and by no other

object, as the principle of autonomy requires. This order of the

conceptions of determination of the will must not be lost sight of, as

otherwise we should misunderstand ourselves and think we had fallen

into a contradiction, while everything remains in perfect harmony.

BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2

CHAPTER II. Of the Dialectic of Pure Reason in defining the

Conception of the "Summum Bonum".

The conception of the summum itself contains an ambiguity which

might occasion needless disputes if we did not attend to it. The

summum may mean either the supreme (supremum) or the perfect

(consummatum). The former is that condition which is itself

unconditioned, i.e., is not subordinate to any other (originarium);

the second is that whole which is not a part of a greater whole of the

same kind (perfectissimum). It has been shown in the Analytic that

virtue (as worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of all

that can appear to us desirable, and consequently of all our pursuit

of happiness, and is therefore the supreme good. But it does not

follow that it is the whole and perfect good as the object of the

desires of rational finite beings; for this requires happiness also,

and that not merely in the partial eyes of the person who makes

himself an end, but even in the judgement of an impartial reason,

which regards persons in general as ends in themselves. For to need

happiness, to deserve it, and yet at the same time not to

participate in it, cannot be consistent with the perfect volition of a

rational being possessed at the same time of all power, if, for the

sake of experiment, we conceive such a being. Now inasmuch as virtue

and happiness together constitute the possession of the summum bonum

in a person, and the distribution of happiness in exact proportion

to morality (which is the worth of the person, and his worthiness to

be happy) constitutes the summum bonum of a possible world; hence this

summum bonum expresses the whole, the perfect good, in which, however,

virtue as the condition is always the supreme good, since it has no

condition above it; whereas happiness, while it is pleasant to the

possessor of it, is not of itself absolutely and in all respects good,

but always presupposes morally right behaviour as its condition.

When two elements are necessarily united in one concept, they must

be connected as reason and consequence, and this either so that

their unity is considered as analytical (logical connection), or as

synthetical (real connection) the former following the law of

identity, the latter that of causality. The connection of virtue and

happiness may therefore be understood in two ways: either the

endeavour to be virtuous and the rational pursuit of happiness are not

two distinct actions, but absolutely identical, in which case no maxim

need be made the principle of the former, other than what serves for

the latter; or the connection consists in this, that virtue produces

happiness as something distinct from the consciousness of virtue, as a

cause produces an effect.

The ancient Greek schools were, properly speaking, only two, and

in determining the conception of the summum bonum these followed in

fact one and the same method, inasmuch as they did not allow virtue

and happiness to be regarded as two distinct elements of the summum

bonum, and consequently sought the unity of the principle by the

rule of identity; but they differed as to which of the two was to be

taken as the fundamental notion. The Epicurean said: "To be

conscious that one's maxims lead to happiness is virtue"; the Stoic

said: "To be conscious of one's virtue is happiness." With the former,

Prudence was equivalent to morality; with the latter, who chose a

higher designation for virtue, morality alone was true wisdom.

While we must admire the men who in such early times tried all

imaginable ways of extending the domain of philosophy, we must at

the same time lament that their acuteness was unfortunately misapplied

in trying to trace out identity between two extremely heterogeneous

notions, those of happiness and virtue. But it agrees with the

dialectical spirit of their times (and subtle minds are even now

sometimes misled in the same way) to get rid of irreconcilable

differences in principle by seeking to change them into a mere contest

about words, and thus apparently working out the identity of the

notion under different names, and this usually occurs in cases where

the combination of heterogeneous principles lies so deep or so high,

or would require so complete a transformation of the doctrines assumed

in the rest of the philosophical system, that men are afraid to

penetrate deeply into the real difference and prefer treating it as

a difference in questions of form.

{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 5}

While both schools sought to trace out the identity of the practical

principles of virtue and happiness, they were not agreed as to the way

in which they tried to force this identity, but were separated

infinitely from one another, the one placing its principle on the side

of sense, the other on that of reason; the one in the consciousness of

sensible wants, the other in the independence of practical reason on

all sensible grounds of determination. According to the Epicurean, the

notion of virtue was already involved in the maxim: "To promote

one's own happiness"; according to the Stoics, on the other hand,

the feeling of happiness was already contained in the consciousness of

virtue. Now whatever is contained in another notion is identical

with part of the containing notion, but not with the whole, and

moreover two wholes may be specifically distinct, although they

consist of the same parts; namely if the parts are united into a whole

in totally different ways. The Stoic maintained that the virtue was

the whole summum bonum, and happiness only the consciousness of

possessing it, as making part of the state of the subject. The

Epicurean maintained that happiness was the whole summum bonum, and

virtue only the form of the maxim for its pursuit; viz., the

rational use of the means for attaining it.

Now it is clear from the Analytic that the maxims of virtue and

those of private happiness are quite heterogeneous as to their supreme

practical principle, and, although they belong to one summum bonum

which together they make possible, yet they are so far from coinciding

that they restrict and check one another very much in the same

subject. Thus the question: "How is the summum bonum practically

possible?" still remains an unsolved problem, notwithstanding all

the attempts at coalition that have hitherto been made. The Analytic

has, however, shown what it is that makes the problem difficult to

solve; namely, that happiness and morality are two specifically

distinct elements of the summum bonum and, therefore, their

combination cannot be analytically cognised (as if the man that

seeks his own happiness should find by mere analysis of his conception

that in so acting he is virtuous, or as if the man that follows virtue

should in the consciousness of such conduct find that he is already

happy ipso facto), but must be a synthesis of concepts. Now since this

combination is recognised as a priori, and therefore as practically

necessary, and consequently not as derived from experience, so that

the possibility of the summum bonum does not rest on any empirical

principle, it follows that the deduction [legitimation] of this

concept must be transcendental. It is a priori (morally) necessary

to produce the summum bonum by freedom of will: therefore the

condition of its possibility must rest solely on a priori principles

of cognition.

I. The Antinomy of Practical Reason.

{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 10}

In the summum bonum which is practical for us, i.e., to be

realized by our will, virtue and happiness are thought as

necessarily combined, so that the one cannot be assumed by pure

practical reason without the other also being attached to it. Now this

combination (like every other) is either analytical or synthetical. It

has been shown that it cannot be analytical; it must then be

synthetical and, more particularly, must be conceived as the

connection of cause and effect, since it concerns a practical good,

i.e., one that is possible by means of action; consequently either the

desire of happiness must be the motive to maxims of virtue, or the

maxim of virtue must be the efficient cause of happiness. The first is

absolutely impossible, because (as was proved in the Analytic)

maxims which place the determining principle of the will in the desire

of personal happiness are not moral at all, and no virtue can be

founded on them. But the second is also impossible, because the

practical connection of causes and effects in the world, as the result

of the determination of the will, does not depend upon the moral

dispositions of the will, but on the knowledge of the laws of nature

and the physical power to use them for one's purposes; consequently we

cannot expect in the world by the most punctilious observance of the

moral laws any necessary connection of happiness with virtue

adequate to the summum bonum. Now, as the promotion of this summum

bonum, the conception of which contains this connection, is a priori a

necessary object of our will and inseparably attached to the moral

law, the impossibility of the former must prove the falsity of the

latter. If then the supreme good is not possible by practical rules,

then the moral law also which commands us to promote it is directed to

vain imaginary ends and must consequently be false.

II. Critical Solution of the Antinomy of Practical Reason.

The antinomy of pure speculative reason exhibits a similar

conflict between freedom and physical necessity in the causality of

events in the world. It was solved by showing that there is no real

contradiction when the events and even the world in which they occur

are regarded (as they ought to be) merely as appearances; since one

and the same acting being, as an appearance (even to his own inner

sense), has a causality in the world of sense that always conforms

to the mechanism of nature, but with respect to the same events, so

far as the acting person regards himself at the same time as a

noumenon (as pure intelligence in an existence not dependent on the

condition of time), he can contain a principle by which that causality

acting according to laws of nature is determined, but which is

itself free from all laws of nature.

{BOOK_2|CHAPTER_2 ^paragraph 15}

It is just the same with the foregoing antinomy of pure practical

reason. The first of the two propositions, "That the endeavour after

happiness produces a virtuous mind," is absolutely false; but the

second, "That a virtuous mind necessarily produces happiness," is

not absolutely false, but only in so far as virtue is considered as

a form of causality in the sensible world, and consequently only if

I suppose existence in it to be the only sort of existence of a

rational being; it is then only conditionally false. But as I am not

only justified in thinking that I exist also as a noumenon in a

world of the understanding, but even have in the moral law a purely

intellectual determining principle of my causality (in the sensible

world), it is not impossible that morality of mind should have a

connection as cause with happiness (as an effect in the sensible

world) if not immediate yet mediate (viz., through an intelligent

author of nature), and moreover necessary; while in a system of nature

which is merely an object of the senses, this combination could

never occur except contingently and, therefore, could not suffice

for the summum bonum.

Thus, notwithstanding this seeming conflict of practical reason with

itself, the summum bonum, which is the necessary supreme end of a will

morally determined, is a true object thereof; for it is practically

possible, and the maxims of the will which as regards their matter

refer to it have objective reality, which at first was threatened by

the antinomy that appeared in the connection of morality with

happiness by a general law; but this was merely from a

misconception, because the relation between appearances was taken

for a relation of the things in themselves to these appearances.

When we find ourselves obliged to go so far, namely, to the

connection with an intelligible world, to find the possibility of

the summum bonum, which reason points out to all rational beings as

the goal of all their moral wishes, it must seem strange that,

nevertheless, the philosophers both of ancient and modern times have

been able to find happiness in accurate proportion to virtue even in

this life (in the sensible world), or have persuaded themselves that

they were conscious thereof. For Epicurus as well as the Stoics

extolled above everything the happiness that springs from the

consciousness of living virtuously; and the former was not so base

in his practical precepts as one might infer from the principles of

his theory, which he used for explanation and not for action, or as

they were interpreted by many who were misled by his using the term

pleasure for contentment; on the contrary, he reckoned the most

disinterested practice of good amongst the ways of enjoying the most

intimate delight, and his scheme of pleasure (by which he meant

constant cheerfulness of mind) included the moderation and control

of the inclinations, such as the strictest moral philosopher might

require. He differed from the Stoics chiefly in making this pleasure

the motive, which they very rightly refused to do. For, on the one

hand, the virtuous Epicurus, like many well-intentioned men of this

day who do not reflect deeply enough on their principles, fell into

the error of presupposing the virtuous disposition in the persons

for whom he wished to provide the springs to virtue (and indeed the

upright man cannot be happy if he is not first conscious of his

uprightness; since with such a character the reproach that his habit

of thought would oblige him to make against himself in case of

transgression and his moral self-condemnation would rob him of all

enjoyment of the pleasantness which his condition might otherwise

contain). But the question is: How is such a disposition possible in

the first instance, and such a habit of thought in estimating the

worth of one's existence, since prior to it there can be in the

subject no feeling at all for moral worth? If a man is virtuous

without being conscious of his integrity in every action, he will

certainly not enjoy life, however favourable fortune may be to him

in its physical circumstances; but can we make him virtuous in the

first instance, in other words, before he esteems the moral worth of

his existence so highly, by praising to him the peace of mind that

would result from the consciousness of an integrity for which he has

no sense?

On the other hand, however, there is here an occasion of a vitium

subreptionis, and as it were of an optical illusion, in the

self-consciousness of what one does as distinguished from what one

feels- an illusion which even the most experienced cannot altogether

avoid. The moral disposition of mind is necessarily combined with a

consciousness that the will is determined directly by the law. Now the

consciousness of a determination of the faculty of desire is always

the source of a satisfaction in the resulting action; but this

pleasure, this satisfaction in oneself, is not the determining

principle of the action; on the contrary, the determination of the

will directly by reason is the source of the feeling of pleasure,

and this remains a pure practical not sensible determination of the

faculty of desire. Now as this determination has exactly the same

effect within in impelling to activity, that a feeling of the pleasure

to be expected from the desired action would have had, we easily

look on what we ourselves do as something which we merely passively

feel, and take the moral spring for a sensible impulse, just as it

happens in the so-called illusion of the senses (in this case the

inner sense). It is a sublime thing in human nature to be determined

to actions immediately by a purely rational law; sublime even is the

illusion that regards the subjective side of this capacity of

intellectual determination as something sensible and the effect of a

special sensible feeling (for an intellectual feeling would be a

contradiction). It is also of great importance to attend to this

property of our personality and as much as possible to cultivate the

effect of reason on this feeling. But we must beware lest by falsely

extolling this moral determining principle as a spring, making its

source lie in particular feelings of pleasure (which are in fact

only results), we degrade and disfigure the true genuine spring, the

law itself, by putting as it were a false foil upon it. Respect, not

pleasure or enjoyment of happiness, is something for which it is not

possible that reason should have any antecedent feeling as its

foundation (for this would always be sensible and pathological); and

consciousness of immediate obligation of the will by the law is by

no means analogous to the feeling of pleasure, although in relation to

the faculty of desire it produces the same effect, but from

different sources: it is only by this mode of conception, however,

that we can attain what we are seeking, namely, that actions be done

not merely in accordance with duty (as a result of pleasant feelings),

but from duty, which must be the true end of all moral cultivation.