To every duty corresponds a right of action (facultas moral is
generatim), but all duties do not imply a corresponding right
(facultas juridica) of another to compel any one, but only the
duties called legal duties. Similarly to all ethical obligation
corresponds the notion of virtue, but it does not follow that all
ethical duties are duties of virtue. Those, in fact, are not so
which do not concern so much a certain end (matter, object of the
elective will), but merely that which is formal in the moral
determination of the will (e.g., that the dutiful action must also
be done from duty). It is only an end which is also duty that can be
called a duty of virtue. Hence there are several of the latter kind
(and thus there are distinct virtues); on the contrary, there is
only one duty of the former kind, but it is one which is valid for all
actions (only one virtuous disposition).

  The duty of virtue is essentially distinguished from the duty of
justice in this respect; that it is morally possible to be
externally compelled to the latter, whereas the former rests on free
self-constraint only. For finite holy beings (which cannot even be
tempted to the violation of duty) there is no doctrine of virtue,
but only moral philosophy, the latter being an autonomy of practical
reason, whereas the former is also an autocracy of it. That is, it
includes a consciousness- not indeed immediately perceived, but
rightly concluded, from the moral categorical imperative- of the power
to become master of one's inclinations which resist the law; so that
human morality in its highest stage can yet be nothing more than
virtue; even if it were quite pure (perfectly free from the
influence of a spring foreign to duty), a state which is poetically
personified under the name of the wise man (as an ideal to which one
should continually approximate).

  Virtue, however, is not to be defined and esteemed merely as
habit, and (as it is expressed in the prize essay of Cochius) as a
long custom acquired by practice of morally good actions. For, if this
is not an effect of well-resolved and firm principles ever more and
more purified, then, like any other mechanical arrangement brought
about by technical practical reason, it is neither armed for all
circumstances nor adequately secured against the change that may be
wrought by new allurements.

                         REMARK

  To virtue = + a is opposed as its logical contradictory
(contradictorie oppositum) the negative lack of virtue (moral
weakness) = o; but vice = a is its contrary (contrarie s. realiter
oppositum); and it is not merely a needless question but an
offensive one to ask whether great crimes do not perhaps demand more
strength of mind than great virtues. For by strength of mind we
understand the strength of purpose of a man, as a being endowed with
freedom, and consequently so far as he is master of himself (in his
senses) and therefore in a healthy condition of mind. But great crimes
are paroxysms, the very sight of which makes the man of healthy mind
shudder. The question would therefore be something like this:
whether a man in a fit of madness can have more physical strength than
if he is in his senses; and we may admit this without on that
account ascribing to him more strength of mind, if by mind we
understand the vital principle of man in the free use of his powers.
For since those crimes have their ground merely in the power of the
inclinations that weaken reason, which does not prove strength of
mind, this question would be nearly the same as the question whether a
man in a fit of illness can show more strength than in a healthy
condition; and this may be directly denied, since the want of
health, which consists in the proper balance of all the bodily
forces of the man, is a weakness in the system of these forces, by
which system alone we can estimate absolute health.

  III. Of the Reason for conceiving an End which is also a Duty

  An end is an object of the free elective will, the idea of which
determines this will to an action by which the object is produced.
Accordingly every action has its end, and as no one can have an end
without himself making the object of his elective will his end,
hence to have some end of actions is an act of the freedom of the
agent, not an affect of physical nature. Now, since this act which
determines an end is a practical principle which commands not the
means (therefore not conditionally) but the end itself (therefore
unconditionally), hence it is a categorical imperative of pure
practical reason and one, therefore, which combines a concept of
duty with that of an end in general.

  Now there must be such an end and a categorical imperative
corresponding to it. For since there are free actions, there must also
be ends to which as an object those actions are directed. Amongst
these ends there must also be some which are at the same time (that
is, by their very notion) duties. For if there were none such, then
since no actions can be without an end, all ends which practical
reason might have would be valid only as means to other ends, and a
categorical imperative would be impossible; a supposition which
destroys all moral philosophy.

  Here, therefore, we treat not of ends which man actually makes to
himself in accordance with the sensible impulses of his nature, but of
objects of the free elective will under its own laws- objects which he
ought to make his end. We may call the former technical
(subjective), properly pragmatical, including the rules of prudence in
the choice of its ends; but the latter we must call the moral
(objective) doctrine of ends. This distinction is, however,
superfluous here, since moral philosophy already by its very notion is
clearly separated from the doctrine of physical nature (in the present
instance, anthropology). The latter resting on empirical principles,