Therefore the moral law breaks down self-conceit. But as this law is
something positive in itself, namely, the form of an intellectual
causality, that is, of freedom, it must be an object of respect;
for, by opposing the subjective antagonism of the inclinations, it
weakens self-conceit; and since it even breaks down, that is,
humiliates, this conceit, it is an object of the highest respect
and, consequently, is the foundation of a positive feeling which is
not of empirical origin, but is known a priori. Therefore respect
for the moral law is a feeling which is produced by an intellectual
cause, and this feeling is the only one that we know quite a priori
and the necessity of which we can perceive.
In the preceding chapter we have seen that everything that
presents itself as an object of the will prior to the moral law is
by that law itself, which is the supreme condition of practical
reason, excluded from the determining principles of the will which
we have called the unconditionally good; and that the mere practical
form which consists in the adaptation of the maxims to universal
legislation first determines what is good in itself and absolutely,
and is the basis of the maxims of a pure will, which alone is good
in every respect.
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