inclination, and that the necessity of acting from pure respect for
the practical law is what constitutes duty, to which every other
motive must give place, because it is the condition of a will being
good in itself, and the worth of such a will is above everything.

Thus, then, without quitting the moral knowledge of common human
reason, we have arrived at its principle. And although, no doubt,
common men do not conceive it in such an abstract and universal
form, yet they always have it really before their eyes and use it as
the standard of their decision. Here it would be easy to show how,
with this compass in hand, men are well able to distinguish, in
every case that occurs, what is good, what bad, conformably to duty or
inconsistent with it, if, without in the least teaching them
anything new, we only, like Socrates, direct their attention to the
principle they themselves employ; and that, therefore, we do not
need science and philosophy to know what we should do to be honest and
good, yea, even wise and virtuous. Indeed we might well have
conjectured beforehand that the knowledge of what every man is bound
to do, and therefore also to know, would be within the reach of
every man, even the commonest. Here we cannot forbear admiration
when we see how great an advantage the practical judgement has over
the theoretical in the common understanding of men. In the latter,
if common reason ventures to depart from the laws of experience and
from the perceptions of the senses, it falls into mere
inconceivabilities and self-contradictions, at least into a chaos of
uncertainty, obscurity, and instability. But in the practical sphere
it is just when the common understanding excludes all sensible springs
from practical laws that its power of judgement begins to show
itself to advantage. It then becomes even subtle, whether it be that
it chicanes with its own conscience or with other claims respecting