However, we find that our nature as sensible
beings is such that the matter of desire (objects of inclination,
whether of hope or fear) first presents itself to us; and our
pathologically affected self, although it is in its maxims quite unfit
for universal legislation; yet, just as if it constituted our entire
self, strives to put its pretensions forward first, and to have them
acknowledged as the first and original. This propensity to make
ourselves in the subjective determining principles of our choice serve
as the objective determining principle of the will generally may be
called self-love; and if this pretends to be legislative as an
unconditional practical principle it may be called self-conceit. Now
the moral law, which alone is truly objective (namely, in every
respect), entirely excludes the influence of self-love on the
supreme practical principle, and indefinitely checks the
self-conceit that prescribes the subjective conditions of the former
as laws. Now whatever checks our self-conceit in our own judgement
humiliates; therefore the moral law inevitably humbles every man
when he compares with it the physical propensities of his nature.
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