On the hypothesis, however, that the
will of an intelligence is free, its autonomy, as the essential formal
condition of its determination, is a necessary consequence.
Moreover, this freedom of will is not merely quite possible as a
hypothesis (not involving any contradiction to the principle of
physical necessity in the connexion of the phenomena of the sensible
world) as speculative philosophy can show: but further, a rational
being who is conscious of causality through reason, that is to say, of
a will (distinct from desires), must of necessity make it practically,
that is, in idea, the condition of all his voluntary actions. But to
explain how pure reason can be of itself practical without the aid
of any spring of action that could be derived from any other source,
i.e., how the mere principle of the universal validity of all its
maxims as laws (which would certainly be the form of a pure
practical reason) can of itself supply a spring, without any matter
(object) of the will in which one could antecedently take any
interest; and how it can produce an interest which would be called
purely moral; or in other words, how pure reason can be practical-
to explain this is beyond the power of human reason, and all the
labour and pains of seeking an explanation of it are lost an
It is just the same as if I sought to find out how freedom itself is
possible as the causality of a will.
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