whether conduct accords with duty or not, turns wholly on this, such
an account is of no use as a definition.

  Thirdly. Ethical virtue must not be estimated by the power we
attribute to man of fulfilling the law; but, conversely, the moral
power must be estimated by the law, which commands categorically; not,
therefore, by the empirical knowledge that we have of men as they are,
but by the rational knowledge how, according to the ideas of humanity,
they ought to be. These three maxims of the scientific treatment of
ethics are opposed to the older apophthegms:

  1. There is only one virtue and only one vice.

  2. Virtue is the observance of the mean path between two opposite
vices.

  3. Virtue (like prudence) must be learned from experience.

  XIV. Of Virtue in General

  Virtue signifies a moral strength of will. But this does not exhaust
the notion; for such strength might also belong to a holy (superhuman)
being, in whom no opposing impulse counteracts the law of his rational
will; who therefore willingly does everything in accordance with the
law. Virtue then is the moral strength of a man's will in his
obedience to duty; and this is a moral necessitation by his own law
giving reason, inasmuch as this constitutes itself a power executing
the law. It is not itself a duty, nor is it a duty to possess it
(otherwise we should be in duty bound to have a duty), but it
commands, and accompanies its command with a moral constraint (one
possible by laws of internal freedom). But since this should be
irresistible, strength is requisite, and the degree of this strength
can be estimated only by the magnitude of the hindrances which man
creates for himself, by his inclinations. Vices, the brood of unlawful
dispositions, are the monsters that he has to combat; wherefore this
moral strength as fortitude (fortitudo moral is) constitutes the
greatest and only true martial glory of man; it is also called the
true wisdom, namely, the practical, because it makes the ultimate
end of the existence of man on earth its own end. Its possession alone
makes man free, healthy, rich, a king, etc., nor either chance or fate
deprive him of this, since he possesses himself, and the virtuous
cannot lose his virtue.

  All the encomiums bestowed on the ideal of humanity in its moral
perfection can lose nothing of their practical reality by the examples
of what men now are, have been, or will probably be hereafter;
anthropology which proceeds from mere empirical knowledge cannot
impair anthroponomy which is erected by the unconditionally
legislating reason; and although virtue may now and then be called
meritorious (in relation to men, not to the law), and be worthy of
reward, yet in itself, as it is its own end, so also it must be
regarded as its own reward.

  Virtue considered in its complete perfection is, therefore, regarded
not as if man possessed virtue, but as if virtue possessed the man,
since in the former case it would appear as though he had still had
the choice (for which he would then require another virtue, in order
to select virtue from all other wares offered to him). To conceive a
plurality of virtues (as we unavoidably must) is nothing else but to
conceive various moral objects to which the (rational) will is led
by the single principle of virtue; and it is the same with the
opposite vices. The expression which personifies both is a contrivance
for affecting the sensibility, pointing, however, to a moral sense.
Hence it follows that an aesthetic of morals is not a part, but a
subjective exposition of the Metaphysic of Morals; in which the
emotions that accompany the force of the moral law make the that force
to be felt; for example: disgust, horror, etc., which gives a sensible
moral aversion in order to gain the precedence from the merely
sensible incitement.

  XV. Of the Principle on which Ethics is separated from

                     Jurisprudence

  This separation on which the subdivision of moral philosophy in
general rests, is founded on this: that the notion of freedom, which
is common to both, makes it necessary to divide duties into those of
external and those of internal freedom; the latter of which alone
are ethical. Hence this internal freedom which is the condition of all
ethical duty must be discussed as a preliminary (discursus
praeliminaris), just as above the doctrine of conscience was discussed
as the condition of all duty.

                         REMARKS

  Of the Doctrine of Virtue on the Principle Of Internal Freedom.

  Habit (habitus) is a facility of action and a subjective
perfection of the elective will. But not every such facility is a free
habit (habitus libertatis); for if it is custom (assuetudo), that
is, a uniformity of action which, by frequent repetition, has become a
necessity, then it is not a habit proceeding from freedom, and
therefore not a moral habit. Virtue therefore cannot be defined as a
habit of free law-abiding actions, unless indeed we add "determining
itself in its action by the idea of the law"; and then this habit is
not a property of the elective will, but of the rational will, which
is a faculty that in adopting a rule also declares it to be a
universal law, and it is only such a habit that can be reckoned as
virtue. Two things are required for internal freedom: to be master
of oneself in a given case (animus sui compos) and to have command