preme
principle, Heteronomy is the source of all ungenuine principles, of
Morality. Heteronomy is whenever the Will does not give itself laws,
but some object, in relation to the Will, gives them. There is then
never more than a hypothetical Imperative: I am to do something because
I wish something else.

There follows a division and criticism of the various possible
principles of morality that can be set up on the assumption of
Heteronomy, and that have been put forward by human Reason in default
of the required Critique of its pure use. Such, are either _Empirical_
or _Rational_. The Empirical, embodying the principle of _Happiness_,
are founded on (1) _physical_ or (2) _moral feeling_; the Rational,
embodying the principle of _perfection_, on (1) the rational conception
of it as a possible result, or (2) the conception of an independent
perfection (the Will of God), as the determining cause of the will. The
Empirical principles are altogether to be rejected, because they can
give no universal law for all rational beings; of the Rational
principles, the first, though setting up an empty and indefinite
conception, has the merit of at least making an appeal from sense to
pure reason. But the fatal objection to all four is their implying
Heteronomy; no imperative founded on them can utter moral, _i.e._,
categorical commands.

That the absolutely good Will must be autonomous--_i.e._, without any
kind of motive or interest, lay Commands on itself that are at the same
time fit to be laws for all rational beings, appears, then, from a
deeper consideration of even the popular conceptions of morality. But
now the question can no longer be put off: Is Morality, of which this
is the only conception, a reality or a phantom? All the different
expressions given to the Categorical Imperatives are synthetic
practical propositions _a priori_; they postulate a possible synthetic
use of the pure practical reason. Is there, and how is there, such a
possible synthetic use? This is the question (the same as the other)
that Kant proceeds to answer in the Third Section, by giving, in
default of a complete Critique of the faculty, as much as is necessary
for the purpose. But here, since he afterwards undertook the full
Critique, it is better to stop the analysis of the earlier work, and
summarily draw upon both for the remainder of the argument, and the
rather because some important points have to be added that occur only
in the later trea