I proceed to explain my meaning. A very refined æsthetical education accustoms the imagination to _direct itself according to laws, even in its free exercise_, and leads the sensuous not to have any enjoyments without the concurrence of reason; but it soon follows that reason, in its turn, is required to be directed, even in the most _serious operations of its legislative power, according to the interests of imagination_, and to give no more orders to the will without the consent of the sensuous instincts. The moral obligation of the will, which is, however, an absolute and unconditional law, takes unperceived the character of a simple contract, which only binds each of the contracting parties when the other fulfils its engagement. The purely _accidental_ agreement of duty with inclination ends by being considered a _necessary_ condition, and thus the principle of all morality is quenched in its source. How does the character become thus gradually depraved? The process may be explained thus: So long as man is only a savage, and his instincts only bear on material things and a coarse egotism determines his actions, sensuousness can only become a danger to morality by its _blind strength_, and does not oppose reason except as a _force_. The voice of justice, moderation, and humanity is stifled by the appetites, which make a stronger appeal. Man is then terrible in his vengeance, because he is terribly sensitive to insults. He robs, he kills, because his desires are still too powerful for the feeble guidance of reason. He is towards others like a wild beast, because the instinct of nature still rules him after the fashion of animals. But when to the savage state, to that of nature, succeeds civilization; when taste ennobles the instincts, and holds out to them more worthy objects taken from the moral order; when culture moderates the brutal outbursts of the appetites and brings them back under the discipline of the beautiful, it may happen that these same instincts, which were only dangerous before by their _blind power_, coming to assume an air of _dignity_ and a certain _assumed authority_, may become more dangerous than before to the morality of the character; and that, under the guise of innocence, nobleness, and purity, they may exercise over the will a tyranny a hundred times worse than the other. The man of taste willingly escapes the gross thraldom of the appetites. He submits to reason the instinct which impels him to pleasure, and he is willing to take counsel from his spiritual and thinking nature for the choice of the objects he ought to desire. Now, reason is very apt to mistake a _spiritualized_ instinct for one of its _own_ instincts, and at length to give up to it the guidance of the will, and this in proportion as moral judgment and æsthetic judgment, the sense of the good and the sense of the beautiful, meet in the same object and in the same decision.