all the question; but that reason of itself, independent on all
experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions
of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the
feasibility even of which might be very much doubted by one who founds
everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by
reason; that, e.g., even though there might never yet have been a
sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in
friendship required of every man, because, prior to all experience,
this duty is involved as duty in the idea of a reason determining
the will by a priori principles.

When we add further that, unless we deny that the notion of morality
has any truth or reference to any possible object, we must admit
that its law must be valid, not merely for men but for all rational
creatures generally, not merely under certain contingent conditions or
with exceptions but with absolute necessity, then it is clear that
no experience could enable us to infer even the possibility of such
apodeictic laws. For with what right could we bring into unbounded
respect as a universal precept for every rational nature that which
perhaps holds only under the contingent conditions of humanity? Or how
could laws of the determination of our will be regarded as laws of the
determination of the will of rational beings generally, and for us
only as such, if they were merely empirical and did not take their
origin wholly a priori from pure but practical reason?

Nor could anything be more fatal to morality than that we should
wish to derive it from examples. For every example of it that is set
before me must be first itself tested by principles of morality,
whether it is worthy to serve as an original example, i.e., as a
pattern; but by no means can it authoritatively furnish the conception