preponderance. To discover a law which would govern them all under
this condition, namely, bringing them all into harmony, is quite
impossible.



V. PROBLEM I.



Supposing that the mere legislative form of maxims is alone the
sufficient determining principle of a will, to find the nature of
the will which can be determined by it alone.

{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 55}

Since the bare form of the law can only be conceived by reason, and
is, therefore, not an object of the senses, and consequently does
not belong to the class of phenomena, it follows that the idea of
it, which determines the will, is distinct from all the principles
that determine events in nature according to the law of causality,
because in their case the determining principles must themselves be
phenomena. Now, if no other determining principle can serve as a law
for the will except that universal legislative form, such a will
must be conceived as quite independent of the natural law of phenomena
in their mutual relation, namely, the law of causality; such
independence is called freedom in the strictest, that is, in the
transcendental, sense; consequently, a will which can have its law
in nothing but the mere legislative form of the maxim is a free will.