The stage of morality on which man (and,
as far as we can see, every rational creature) stands is respect for
the moral law. The disposition that he ought to have in obeying this
is to obey it from duty, not from spontaneous inclination, or from
an endeavour taken up from liking and unbidden; and this proper
moral condition in which he can always be is virtue, that is, moral
disposition militant, and not holiness in the fancied possession of
a perfect purity of the disposition of the will. It is nothing but
moral fanaticism and exaggerated self-conceit that is infused into the
mind by exhortation to actions as noble, sublime, and magnanimous,
by which men are led into the delusion that it is not duty, that is,
respect for the law, whose yoke (an easy yoke indeed, because reason
itself imposes it on us) they must bear, whether they like it or
not, that constitutes the determining principle of their actions,
and which always humbles them while they obey it; fancying that
those actions are expected from them, not from duty, but as pure
merit.
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