6-22 K A 
fully conformable to Reafon. Hence, imperatives are but 
formulae to exprefs the relation of objective laws in gene¬ 
ral to the I'ubj'ectiye imperfection of the will of man. 
All imperatives command either -hypothetically or catego¬ 
rically. When an aCtion.is only good for fomething elfe, as 
a mean to obtain a pofiible objeCt of the Will, the impe¬ 
rative is conditional or hypothetical; but, when an action 
is good in itfelf, that is, ftricfly conformable to Reafon with¬ 
out reference to any other purpofe whatever, it is, as a 
Principle of the Will of all Rational Beings, objeElively nccef- 
fary, and is an unconditional or Categorical Impera¬ 
tive, that is, uni verfally valid and neceflary. For the com¬ 
mandments of Reafon are laws which muft be kept, even at the 
expence of all. our appetites and inclinations. 
In the Kingdom of Ends, every thing has either a Price 
or a Dignity. A thing has a Price, when fomething 
elfe can be put in its place as an equivalent ; but that which 
is above all price, that is, which admits of no equivalent, 
poflefies a Dignity. It is the felf-legijlation of every mem¬ 
ber of the pofiible Kingdom of Ends that procures him 
this dignity. For there is no dignity or fublimity in his 
being subjected to the moral law. His dignity lies 
in his being the author of the law, and only on that ac¬ 
count bound to obey it. There requires therefore neither 
love nor fear to induce obedience ; but merely reverencefor 
the law, which can alone be the Ip ring of all moral actions. 
The principle of the Will to be a law to itfelf, is named 
Autonomy, and is the chief and only principle of all 
morality. Therefore, when the Will leeks the law' that 
is to determine it to action any where elfe than in the har¬ 
mony of its maxims with its own univerfal legislation, no¬ 
thing refults but Heteronomy. The Autonomy of the 
Will fays, I ought not to lie, (though ip fliould not be pro¬ 
ductive of the fnialleft difgrace to me;) for morality forbids 
it. The Heteronomy fays, l ought not to lie if 7 zuifh to pre- 
Je.rve my credit. Heteronomy is the fource of all fpurious 
principles of Morality. All rational beings as things in 
themfelves are connected into a whole by the laws of Rea- 
lon,.in the fame manner as the Phenomena are united into 
a Kingdom of Nature by the Laws of Underltanding. 
When we aft morally, we are under the influence of the 
Principle of Autonomy, and thoroughly independent of 
every determination of Nature ; that is, we contemplate 
ourfelves as Intelligences. But, when we allow fo¬ 
reign incentives to influence our free will, we aCt in con¬ 
formity to the principle of Heteronomy, as beings of 
the fenfible world under the laws of the Phenomena of 
Nature. Now, Realon muft be the author of its own prin¬ 
ciples ; and it muft be thoroughly confcious that it receives 
no direction from any thing elfe, for then the determina¬ 
tion could not be aferibed to Reafon, but to fomething fo¬ 
reign to it, which is precifely Heteronomy of the will, and 
takes place in all irrational animals, as beings of nature. 
It is no wonder that all former efforts to dilcover the 
true principles of Morality failed. For how could they 
do otherwile ? Man was conlidered as hound to laws by 
his duty, but it never occurred that he was fu’ojeCted to no 
other laws but thofe which arife from his own le'giflative 
will, which is direClly the principle of Autonomy and of all 
true morality; (and here nothing is required to induce 
obedience but reverence-for the law.) Whereas, if he were 
bound but to one law that did not arife from himfelf,this 
•would require fome foreign incentive to induce obedience 
to it. But this is preciiely the Heteronomy of the Will, 
which is the true foundation of all fpurious Principles of 
Morality, and from which Duty never refulted, but only 
the necellity of an aCtion from a certain intereft, the love 
of God, the fear of his difpleafure, See. It is now, how¬ 
ever, plucecf beyond doubt, that the true foundation for 
Morals exifts no-where elle than in the Original Ufe of 
PraElical Reafon, i.e. in the Category Moral Liberty, which 
takes man out of the fpbere of Nature, and places him as 
an Intelligence in another order of things, whereby he is 
perfectly free from all the determining caufes of Nqture; 
ahat.is, actually free, Apd. although this is not tlte- 
N T. 
oretically explicable, it is neverthelefs convincingly true, 
and praCtically pofiible. For, were we to exert our ra¬ 
tional activity according to the perfect deftination of our 
Rational Nature, we fliould in this manner render that 
aCtual which is at prefent only poffible, or, in other words, 
we fiould realize a perfcEt moral world. 
Till now, the ablolutely impregnable argument of the 
Neceflitarians always obtruded itfelf, and actually defied 
refutation. They ftate, and with great truth, that “All 
human actions are events in time, that every event mult 
have a caufe, but that a caufe in time muft be an event 
alfo ; that is, it muft have arifen in time, and not have 
exifted from eternity ; that therefore this caufe muft have 
had another caufe, and fo on ad infinitum. Now, on fo 
long a feries of caufes and efteCis, the human will can 
make no imprefiion ; therefore it is not free." Nothing is 
more eafy than to refute this argument, and to point out 
exaftly where its error lies. It originates entirely in 
making a Dogmatical inftead of an Original ufe of Pure 
Reafon. It is perfectly true, that every event muft have 
a caufe, and this caufe another caufe, ad infinitum ; for this 
is an original law of the Underltanding, i. e. a Category 
under which all phenomena muft (land in order to be ex¬ 
perience ; but the laws of Caufe and EffeCt can have place 
only where time is; fertile Caufe nuift precede the Effect, 
.and the EffeCt follow the Caufe. This lticceflion requires 
Time ; but Time is not a property of the things indepen¬ 
dent of the mind ; it is merely a form of our intuitive fa¬ 
culty, and is imprefl’ed on the things upon their entering 
the mind. Therefore, the Neceflitarians evidently con¬ 
found in their argument the laws by which our intuitions 
are arranged with the laws by which the things in them* 
felves (of which we know nothing) are arranged. It does 
not follow, that', becaufe our intuitions of things are in 
Time and Space, the aftive fubltance called Man muft be 
in time and fpace alfo. He certainly is, when he is confi- 
dered by our underftanding as a Phenomenon. But he cer¬ 
tainly is not, when he is contemplated by Reafon as a 
Noumcnon ; that is, as a thing in itfelf. Time and Space 
are the forms of the Perceiving Faculty. They conftituta 
that medium through which alone we are allowed, and 
neceflarily compelled, to view every thing that falls un¬ 
der our attention. But that medium is inherent in man, 
fo far only as he has a perceiving faculty, and not fo far 
as lie is a fubltance. For take away that medium ; and, 
though Time and Space are no more, Man and the World 
will fill remain. 
But what can the laws of the Phenomena have to do 
with the Noumena, which have laws of their own arifing 
from Practical Reafon, that is, from the Category Liberty, 
which implies a total independence of the laws of Nature, 
or of our Intuitions ? Thus is the argument of the Ne¬ 
ceflitarians completely refuted, and the Freedom of 
the Human Will established for ever. But how 
could all this be done before a “Critic” of the Faculties 
of the Human Mind was difcovered ? This however com¬ 
pletely limits each faculty to its own proper field, and 
thus effectually prevents the confulion that has fo long 
prevailed in all the departments of fpeculative fcience. 
Morality is then the Relation of Actions to the Au¬ 
tonomy of the Will; that is, the rational being muft aCl as 
if he were always by his maxims a legiflative member of the 
univerfal Kingdom of Ends ; or, in other words, that the 
maxim of his a Elion Jhall always Jcrve as a univerfal law for all 
rational beings. That aCtion which harmonizes with the 
autonomy of the will is licit; that which contradicts this 
autonomy is illicit. That Will, whofe maxims necef¬ 
larily harmonize with the laws of Autonomy, is a sacred, 
ablolutely good, will. The dependence of a Will, not 
abfolutely good, upon the laws of Autonomy (the moral 
neceflitation), is Obligation. But this cannot be ap¬ 
plied to a facred being. The objective neceflity of an ac¬ 
tion from obligation is Duty ; and the only poffible mo¬ 
ral incentive to the fulfiling of all our Duties is rever¬ 
ence for that law of which we are ourfelves the authors, and 
■ ' . .which 
