asis of
universal legislation. To discover any law which would bring all men
into harmony is absolutely impossible.

One of the problems of practical reason is to find the law which can
necessarily determine the will, assuming that the will is free. The
solution of this problem is to be found in action according to the moral
law. We should so act that the maxim of our will can always be valid as
a principle of universal legislation. Experience shows how the moral
consciousness determines freedom of the will.

Suppose that someone affirms of his inclination for sensual pleasure
that he cannot possibly resist temptation to indulgence. If a gallows
were erected at the place where he is tempted, on which he should be
hanged immediately after satiating his passions, would he not be able to
control his inclination? We need not long doubt what would be his
answer.

But ask him, if his sovereign commanded him to bear false witness
against an honourable man, under penalty of death, whether he would hold
it possible to conquer his love of life. He might not venture to say
what he would choose, but he would certainly admit that it is possible
to make choice. Thus, he judges that he can choose to do a thing because
he is conscious of moral obligation, and he thus recognises for himself
a freedom of will of which, but for the moral law, he would never have
been conscious.

We obtain the exact opposite of the principle of morality if we adopt
the principle of personal private happiness as the determining motive of
the will. This contradiction is not only logical, but also practical.
For morality would be totally destroyed were not the voice of reason as
clear and penetrating in relation to the will, even to the most ordinary
men.

If one of your friends, after bearing false witness against you,
attempted to justify his base conduct by enumerating the advantages
which he had thus secured for himself and the happiness he had gained,
and by declaring that thus he performed a true human duty, you would
either laugh him to scorn or turn from him in horror. And yet, if a man
acts for his own selfish ends, you have not the slightest objection to
such behaviour.

MORALITY AND HAPPINESS

The maxim of self-love simply advises; the law of morality commands.
There is a vast difference between what we are advised and what we are
obliged to do. No practical laws can be based on the principle of
happiness, even on that of universal happ