It is also easy to see the reason why this division into two parts
with its subdivision was not actually adopted here (as one might
have been induced to attempt by the example of the former critique).
For since it is pure reason that is here considered in its practical
use, and consequently as proceeding from a priori principles, and
not from empirical principles of determination, hence the division
of the analytic of pure practical reason must resemble that of a
syllogism; namely, proceeding from the universal in the major
premiss (the moral principle), through a minor premiss containing a
subsumption of possible actions (as good or evil) under the former, to
the conclusion, namely, the subjective determination of the will (an
interest in the possible practical good, and in the maxim founded on
it). He who has been able to convince himself of the truth of the
positions occurring in the Analytic will take pleasure in such
comparisons; for they justly suggest the expectation that we may
perhaps some day be able to discern the unity of the whole faculty
of reason (theoretical as well as practical) and be able to derive all
from one principle, which, is what human reason inevitably demands, as
it finds complete satisfaction only in a perfectly systematic unity of
its knowledge.
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 40}
If now we consider also the contents of the knowledge that we can
have of a pure practical reason, and by means of it, as shown by the
Analytic, we find, along with a remarkable analogy between it and
the theoretical, no less remarkable differences. As regards the
theoretical, the faculty of a pure rational cognition a priori could
be easily and evidently proved by examples from sciences (in which, as
they put their principles to the test in so many ways by methodical
use, there is not so much reason as in common knowledge to fear a
secret mixture of empirical principles of cognition). But, that pure
reason without the admixture of any empirical principle is practical
of itself, this could only be shown from the commonest practical use
of reason, by verifying the fact, that every man's natural reason
acknowledges the supreme practical principle as the supreme law of his
will- a law completely a priori and not depending on any sensible
data. It was necessary first to establish and verify the purity of its
origin, even in the judgement of this common reason, before science
could take it in hand to make use of it, as a fact, that is, prior
to all disputation about its possibility, and all the consequences
that may be drawn from it. But this circumstance may be readily
explained from what has just been said; because practical pure
reason must necessarily begin with principles, which therefore must be
the first data, the foundation of all science, and cannot be derived
from it. It was possible to effect this verification of moral
principles as principles of a pure reason quite well, and with