This being so, nothing can secure us from falling away
altogether from our ideas of duty, or maintain in the soul a
well-grounded respect for its law, but the clear conviction that
although there should never have been actions which really sprang from
such pure sources, yet whether this or that takes place is not at
all the question; but that reason of itself, independent on all
experience, ordains what ought to take place, that accordingly actions
of which perhaps the world has hitherto never given an example, the
feasibility even of which might be very much doubted by one who founds
everything on experience, are nevertheless inflexibly commanded by
reason; that, e.g., even though there might never yet have been a
sincere friend, yet not a whit the less is pure sincerity in
friendship required of every man, because, prior to all experience,
this duty is involved as duty in the idea of a reason determining
the will by a priori principles.
When we add further that, unless we deny that the notion of morality
has any truth or reference to any possible object, we must admit
that its law must be valid, not merely for men but for all rational
creatures generally, not merely under certain contingent conditions or
with exceptions but with absolute necessity, then it is clear that
no experience could enable us to infer even the possibility of such
apodeictic laws.
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