Duty! Thou sublime and mighty name that dost embrace nothing
charming or insinuating, but requirest submission, and yet seekest not
to move the will by threatening aught that would arouse natural
aversion or terror, but merely holdest forth a law which of itself
finds entrance into the mind, and yet gains reluctant reverence
(though not always obedience), a law before which all inclinations are
dumb, even though they secretly counter-work it; what origin is
there worthy of thee, and where is to be found the root of thy noble
descent which proudly rejects all kindred with the inclinations; a
root to be derived from which is the indispensable condition of the
only worth which men can give themselves?
{BOOK_1|CHAPTER_3 ^paragraph 30}
It can be nothing less than a power which elevates man above himself
(as a part of the world of sense), a power which connects him with
an order of things that only the understanding can conceive, with a
world which at the same time commands the whole sensible world, and
with it the empirically determinable existence of man in time, as well
as the sum total of all ends (which totality alone suits such
unconditional practical laws as the moral).
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