e., practical, esteem
for the law itself on the intellectual side; in a word, it is
respect for the law, and therefore, as its cause is intellectual, a
positive feeling which can be known a priori. For whatever
diminishes the obstacles to an activity furthers this activity itself.
Now the recognition of the moral law is the consciousness of an
activity of practical reason from objective principles, which only
fails to reveal its effect in actions because subjective
(pathological) causes hinder it. Respect for the moral law then must
be regarded as a positive, though indirect, effect of it on feeling,
inasmuch as this respect weakens the impeding influence of
inclinations by humiliating selfesteem; and hence also as a subjective
principle of activity, that is, as a motive to obedience to the law,
and as a principle of the maxims of a life conformable to it. From the
notion of a motive arises that of an interest, which can never be
attributed to any being unless it possesses reason, and which
signifies a motive of the will in so far as it is conceived by the
reason.
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