patient, for instance, can choose to enjoy what he likes, and to suffer what he may, since, according to his calculation, on this occasion at least, he has [only] not sacrificed the enjoyment of the present moment to a possibly mistaken expectation of a happiness which is supposed to be found in health.  But even in this case, if the general desire for happiness did not influence his will, and supposing that in his particular case health was not a necessary element in this calculation, there yet remains in this, sas in all other cases, this law, namely, that he should promote his happiness not from inclination but from duty, land by this would his conduct first acquire true moral worth.

It is in this manner, undoubtedly, that we are to understand those passages of Scripture also in which we are commanded to love our neighbour, even our enemy.  For love, as an affection, cannot be commanded, but beneficence for duty’s sake may; even though we are not impelled to it by any inclination—­nay, are even repelled by a natural and unconquerable aversion.  This is practical love, and not pathological—­a love which is seated in the will, and not in the propensions of sense—­in principles of action and not of tender sympathy; and it is this love alone which can be commanded.

The second [Footnote:  The first proposition was that to have moral worth an action must be done from duty.] proposition is:  That an action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire.  It is clear from what precedes that the purposes which we may have in view in our actions, or their effects regarded as ends and springs of the will, cannot give to actions any unconditional or moral worth.  In what, then, can their worth lie, if it is not to consist in the will and in reference to its expected effect?  It cannot lie anywhere but in the principle of the will without regard to the ends which can be attained by the action.  For the will stands between its a priori principle, which is formal, and its a posteriori spring, which is material, as between two roads, and as it must be determined by something, it follows that it must be determined by the formal principle of volition when an action is done from duty, in which case every material principle has been withdrawn from it.

The third proposition, which is a consequence of the two preceding, I would express thus:  Duty is the necessity “of acting from respect for the law.”  I may have inclination for an object as the effect of my proposed action, but I cannot have respect for it, just for this reason, that it is an effect and not an energy of will.  Similarly, I cannot have respect for inclination, whether my own or another’s; I can at most, if my own,