4. There must, however, be some application of this motive of law in general to particular motives or acts. This is secured as follows: The idea of law carries with it the idea of universality or self-identity. To act from the idea of law is then so to act that the motive of action can be generalized--made a motive for all conduct. The good will is the _legislative_ will; the will whose motive can be made a law for conduct universally. The question in a specific case is then: Can your motive here be made universal, _i. e._, a law? If the action is bad, determined by an object of desire, it will be contingent and variable, since pleasures are different to different persons and to the same person from moment to moment. The will is good, then, when its motive (or maxim) is to be found solely in the _legislative form_ of the action, or in its fitness to be generalized into a universal principle of conduct, and the law of the good will is: "Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation" (Abbott's Trans., p. 119; also p. 55). 5. The application may be illustrated by the following cases: (_a_) Some one, wearied by what he conceives to be the entire misery of life proposes to commit suicide, but he asks himself whether this maxim based on the principle of self-love could become a universal law of nature; and "we see at once that a system of nature in which the very feeling, whose office is to compel men to the preservation of life, should lead men by a universal law to death, cannot be conceived without contradiction". That is to say, the principle of the motive which would lead a man to suicide cannot be generalized without becoming contradictory--it cannot be made a law universal. (_b_) An individual wishes to borrow money which he knows that he cannot repay. Can the maxim of this act be universalized? Evidently not: "a system of nature in which it should be a universal law to promise without performing, for the sake of private good, would contradict itself, for then no one would believe the promise--the promise itself would become impossible as well as the end it had in view." (_c_) A man finds that he has certain powers, but is disinclined to develop them. Can he make the maxim of such conduct a universal law? He cannot _will_ that it should become universal. "As a rational being, he must will that his faculties be developed." (_d_) A prosperous individual is disinclined to relieve the misery of others. Can his maxim be generalized? "It is impossible to _will_ that such a principle should have the universal validity of a law of nature. For a will which resolved this would contradict itself, in as much as many cases might occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others, and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires."