sacrifice of every inclination. The conception of Law-in-itself alone determining the will, is, then, the surpassing good that is called moral, which exists already in a man before his action has any result. Conformity to Law in general, all special motive to follow any single law being excluded, remains as the one principle of Volition: I am never to act otherwise, than so as to be able also to wish that my maxim (_i.e._, my subjective principle of volition) should become a universal law. This is what he finds implied in the common notions of Duty. Having illustrated at length this reading, in regard to the duty of keeping a promise, he contrasts, at the close of the section, the all but infallibility of common human reason in practice with its helplessness in speculation. Notwithstanding, it finds itself unable to settle the contending claims of Reason and Inclination, and so is driven to devise a practical philosophy, owing to the rise of a 'Natural Dialectic' or tendency to refine upon the strict laws of duty in order to make them more pleasant. But, as in the speculative region, the Dialectic cannot be properly got rid of without a complete Critique of Reason. In Section II. the passage is made from the popular moral philosophy thus arising to the metaphysic of morals. He denies that the notion of duty that has been taken above from common sage is empirical. It is proved not to be such from the very assertions of philosophers that men always act from more or less refined self-love; assertions that are founded upon the difficulty of proving that acts most apparently conformed to duty are really such. The fact is, no act _can_ be proved by experience to be absolutely moral, _i.e._, done solely from regard to duty, to the exclusion of all inclination; and therefore to concede that morality and duty are ideas to be had from experience, is the surest way to get rid of them altogether. Duty, and respect for its law, are not to be preserved at all, unless Reason is allowed to lay _absolute_ injunctions on the will, whatever experience says of their non-execution. How, indeed, is experience to disclose a moral law, that, in applying to all rational beings as well as men, and to men only as rational, must originate _à priori_ in pure (practical) Reason? Instead of yielding the principles of morality, empirical examples of moral conduct have rather to be judged by these.