386 KANT. bestow warmer praise and encouragement on him whom ambition impels to industry, kind feeling to beneficence, and pity to render assistance. But he alone earns our esteem who does his duty for duty's sake. Only in this third case, where not merely the external action, nor merely the impulse of a happy disposition, but the will itself, the maxim, is in harmony with the moral law, where the good is done for the sake of the good, do we find true morality, that unconditioned, self-grounded worth. The man who does that which is in accordance with duty out of reflection on its advantages, and he who does it from immediate — always unreliable — inclination, acts legally ; he alone acts morally who, without listening to advantage and inclination, takes up the law into his disposition, and does his duty because it is duty. The sole moral motive is the consciousness of duty, respect for the moral law. '^ Here Kant is threatened by a danger which he does not succeed in escaping. The moral law demands perfect purity in our maxims ; only the idea of duty, not an inclina- tion, is to determine the will. Quite right. Further, the one judging is himself never absolutely certain, even when his own volition is concerned, that no motives of pleasure have mingled with the feeling of duty in contributing to the right action, unless that which was morally demanded has been contrary to all his inclinations. When a person who is not in need and who is free from cupidity leaves the money- box intrusted to his care untouched, or when a man who loves life overcomes thoughts of suicide, I may assume that the former was sufficiently protected against the tempta- tion by his moderation, and the other by his cheerful dis- position, and I rate their behavior as merely legal. When, .
- The respecter reverence which the law, and, derivatively, the person in
whom it is realized, compel from us, is, as self-produced through a concept of reason and as the only feeling which can be known a priori, specifically dif- ferent from all feelings of inclination or fear awakened by sensuous influences. As it strengthens and raises our rational nature, the consciousness of our freedom and of our high destination, but, at the same time, humbles our sensibility, there is mingled with the joy of exaltation a certain pain, which permits no intimate affection for the stern and sublime law. It is not quite willingly that we pay our respect — just because of the depressing; effect which this feeling exerts on our self-love. 1
