good as a principle of universal legislation.



{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_1 ^paragraph 70}

REMARK.



Pure geometry has postulates which are practical propositions, but
contain nothing further than the assumption that we can do something
if it is required that we should do it, and these are the only
geometrical propositions that concern actual existence. They are,
then, practical rules under a problematical condition of the will; but
here the rule says: We absolutely must proceed in a certain manner.
The practical rule is, therefore, unconditional, and hence it is
conceived a priori as a categorically practical proposition by which
the will is objectively determined absolutely and immediately (by
the practical rule itself, which thus is in this case a law); for pure
reason practical of itself is here directly legislative. The will is
thought as independent on empirical conditions, and, therefore, as
pure will determined by the mere form of the law, and this principle
of determination is regarded as the supreme condition of all maxims.
The thing is strange enough, and has no parallel in all the rest of
our practical knowledge. For the a priori thought of a possible
universal legislation which is therefore merely problematical, is
unconditionally commanded as a law without borrowing anything from
experience or from any external will. This, however, is not a
precept to do something by which some desired effect can be attained