nonentity. In fact, when the thinking man has conquered the
temptations to vice, and is conscious of having done his (often
hard) duty, he finds himself in a state of peace and satisfaction
which may well be called happiness, in which virtue is her own reward.
Now, says the eudaemonist, this delight, this happiness, is the real
motive of his acting virtuously. The notion of duty, says be, does not
immediately determine his will; it is only by means of the happiness
in prospect that he is moved to his duty. Now, on the other hand,
since he can promise himself this reward of virtue only from the
consciousness of having done his duty, it is clear that the latter
must have preceded: that is, be must feel himself bound to do his duty
before he thinks, and without thinking, that happiness will be the
consequence of obedience to duty. He is thus involved in a circle in
his assignment of cause and effect. He can only hope to be happy if he
is conscious of his obedience to duty: and he can only be moved to
obedience to duty if be foresees that he will thereby become happy.
But in this reasoning there is also a contradiction. For, on the one
side, he must obey his duty, without asking what effect this will have
on his happiness, consequently, from a moral principle; on the other
side, he can only recognize something as his duty when he can reckon
on happiness which will accrue to him thereby, and consequently on a
pathological principle, which is the direct opposite of the former.

  I have in another place (the Berlin Monatsschrift), reduced, as I
believe, to the simplest expressions the distinction between
pathological and moral pleasure. The pleasure, namely, which must
precede the obedience to the law in order that one may act according
to the law is pathological, and the process follows the physical order
of nature; that which must be preceded by the law in order that it may
be felt is in the moral order. If this distinction is not observed; if
eudaemonism (the principle of happiness) is adopted as the principle
instead of eleutheronomy (the principle of freedom of the inner
legislation), the consequence is the euthanasia (quiet death) of all
morality.

  The cause of these mistakes is no other than the following: Those
who are accustomed only to physiological explanations will not admit
into their heads the categorical imperative from which these laws
dictatorially proceed, notwithstanding that they feel themselves
irresistibly forced by it. Dissatisfied at not being able to explain
what lies wholly beyond that sphere, namely, freedom of the elective
will, elevating as is this privilege, that man has of being capable of
such an idea. They are stirred up by the proud claims of speculative
reason, which feels its power so strongly in the fields, just as if
they were allies leagued in defence of the omnipotence of
theoretical reason and roused by a general call to arms to resist that
idea; and thus they are at present, and perhaps for a long time to
come, though ultimately in vain, to attack the moral concept of
freedom and if possible render it doubtful.
INTRODUCTION

      INTRODUCTION TO THE METAPHYSICAL ELEMENTS OF ETHICS

  Ethics in ancient times signified moral philosophy (philosophia
moral is) generally, which was also called the doctrine of duties.
Subsequently it was found advisable to confine this name to a part
of moral philosophy, namely, to the doctrine of duties which are not
subject to external laws (for which in German the name Tugendlehre was
found suitable). Thus the system of general deontology is divided into
that of jurisprudence (jurisprudentia), which is capable of external
laws, and of ethics, which is not thus capable, and we may let this
division stand.

  I. Exposition of the Conception of Ethics

  The notion of duty is in itself already the notion of a constraint
of the free elective will by the law; whether this constraint be an
external one or be self-constraint. The moral imperative, by its
categorical (the unconditional ought) announces this constraint, which
therefore does not apply to all rational beings (for there may also be
holy beings), but applies to men as rational physical beings who are
unholy enough to be seduced by pleasure to the transgression of the
moral law, although they themselves recognize its authority; and
when they do obey it, to obey it unwillingly (with resistance of their
inclination); and it is in this that the constraint properly
consists.* Now, as man is a free (moral) being, the notion of duty can
contain only self-constraint (by the idea of the law itself), when
we look to the internal determination of the will (the spring), for
thus only is it possible to combine that constraint (even if it were
external) with the freedom of the elective will. The notion of duty
then must be an ethical one.

  *Man, however, as at the same time a moral being, when he
considers himself objectively, which he is qualified to do by his pure
practical reason, (i.e., according to humanity in his own person).
finds himself holy enough to transgress the law only unwillingly;
for there is no man so depraved who in this transgression would not
feel a resistance and an abhorrence of himself, so that he must put
a force on himself. It is impossible to explain the phenomenon that at
this parting of the ways (where the beautiful fable places Hercules
between virtue and sensuality) man shows more propensity to obey
inclination than the law. For, we can only explain what happens by
tracing it to a cause according to physical laws; but then we should
not be able to conceive the elective will as free. Now this mutually
opposed self-constraint and the inevitability of it makes us recognize
the incomprehensible property of freedom.

  The impulses of nature, then, contain hindrances to the fulfilment
of duty in the mind of man, and resisting forces, some of them
powerful; and he must judge himself able to combat these and to