ng without hinderance my own will, it is
probable, ultimately, that I am indebted to a principle beyond or
distinct from myself immediately it is admitted that this principle would
hamper my will. The same also with regard to the possibility of
accomplishing such action in conformity with duty--it may be that I owe
it, ultimately, to a principle distinct from my reason; that is possible,
the moment the idea of this principle is recognized as a force which
could have constrained my independence. Thus the same as we can say of a
man, that he holds his liberty from another man, although liberty in its
proper sense consists in not being forced to be regulated by another--in
like manner we can also say that taste here obeys virtue, although virtue
herself expressly carries this idea, that in the practice of virtue she
makes use of no other foreign help. An action does not in any degree
cease to be free, because he who could hamper its accomplishment should
fortunately abstain from putting any obstacle in the way; it suffices to
know that this agent has been moved by his own will without any
consideration of another will. In the same way, an action of the moral
order does not lose its right to be qualified as a moral action, because
the temptations which might have turned it in another direction did not
present themselves; it suffices to admit that the agent obeyed solely the
decree of his reason to the exclusion of all foreign springs of action.
The liberty of an external act is established as soon as it directly
proceeds from the will of a person; the morality of an interior action is
established from the moment that the will of the agent is at once
determined to it by the laws of reason.

It may be rendered easier or more difficult to act as free men according
as we meet or not in our path forces adverse to our will that must be
overcome. In this sense liberty is more or less susceptible. It is
greater, or at least more visible, when we enable it to prevail over the
opposing forces, however energetic their opposition; but it is not
suspended because our will should have met with no resistance, or that a
foreign succor coming to our aid should have destroyed this resistance,
without any help from ourselves.

The same with respect to morality; we might have more or less resistance
to offer in order on the instant to obey our reason, according as it
awakens or not in us those instincts which struggle against its precepts,
an