operating in individuals of the past, to mislead us into supposing that there is any moral freedom, or anything of intrinsic value, in the life of conventional morality as governed by 'interested motives,' by the desire, directly or indirectly, to obtain pleasure. There can be no real determination of the will by reason unless both reason and will are operating in one and the same person. A will is not really anything except as the will of a person, and, as we have seen, a will is not really determinable by anything foreign to itself: it is only determinable by an object which the person willing makes his own. As little is reason really anything apart from a self-conscious subject, or as other than an idea of perfection to be realised in and by such a subject. The determination of will by reason, then, which constitutes moral freedom or autonomy, must mean its determination by an object which a person willing, in virtue of his reason, presents to himself, that object consisting in the realisation of an idea of perfection in and by himself. Kant's view that the action which is merely 'pflichtmässig,' not done 'aus Pflicht,' [1] is of no moral value in itself, whatever may be its possible value as a means to the production of the will which does act 'aus Pflicht,' is once for all true, though he may have taken too narrow a view of the conditions of actions done 'aus Pflicht,' especially in supposing (as he seems to do) that it is necessary to them to be done painfully. There is no determination of will by reason, no moral freedom, in conformity of action to rules of which the establishment is due to the operation of reason or the idea of perfection in men, unless the principle of conformity in the persons conforming is that idea itself in some form or other. [1] [German aus Pflicht = from duty, pflichtmässig = consistent with duty--Tr.] LECTURES ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION. Note of the Editor. These lectures, which are partly critical and partly expository, treat of the moral grounds upon which the state is based and upon which obedience to the law of the state is justified. They were delivered in 1879-80, following upon the course from which the discussion of Kant's moral theory in this volume is taken. The two courses are directly connected, civil institutions being throughout regarded as the external expression of the moral progress of mankind, and as supplying the material through which the idea of perfection must be realised. As is implied in section 5, the inquiry into the nature of political obligation forms part of a wider inquiry into the concrete forms of morality in general, 'the detail of goodness.' The lecturer had intended to complete the course by a consideration of 'social virtues' and 'moral sentiments'; but this intention was not carried out. (See section 251.) LECTURES ON THE PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION. A. _THE GROUNDS OF POLITICAL OBLIGATION._