There is one end, however, which may be assumed to be actually such to all rational beings (so far as imperatives apply to them, viz. as dependent beings), and therefore, one purpose which they not merely may have, but which we may with certainty assume that they all actually have by a natural necessity, and this is happiness.  The hypothetical imperative which expresses the practical necessity of an action as means to the advancement of happiness is Assertorial.  We are not to present it as necessary for an uncertain and merely possible purpose, but for a purpose which we may presuppose with certainty and a priori in every man, because it belongs to his being.  Now skill in the choice of means to his own greatest well-being may be called prudence [The word prudence is taken in two senses; in the one it may bear the name of knowledge of the world, in the other that of private prudence.  The former is a man’s ability to influence others so as to use them for his own purposes.  The latter is the sagacity to combine all these purposes for his own lasting benefit.  This latter is properly that to which the value even of the former is reduced, and when a man is prudent in the former sense, but not in the latter, we might better say of him that he is clever and cunning, but, on the whole, imprudent.  Compare on the difference between klug and gescheu here alluded to, Anthropologie, 45, ed.  Schubert, p. no.] in the narrowest sense.  And thus the imperative which refers to the choice of means to one’s own happiness, i. e., the precept of prudence, is still always hypothetical; the action is not commanded absolutely, but only as means to another purpose.

Finally, there is an imperative which commands a certain conduct immediately, without having as its condition any other purpose to be attained by it.  This imperative is Categorical.  It concerns not the matter of the action, or its intended result, but its form and the principle of which it is itself a result, and what is essentially good in it consists in the mental disposition, let the consequence be what it may.  This imperative may be called that of Morality.

There is a marked distinction also between the volitions on these three sorts of principles in the dissimilarity of the obligation of the will.  In order to mark this difference more clearly, I think they would be most suitably named in their order if we said they are either rules of skill, or counsels of prudence, or commands (laws) of morality.  For it is law only that involves the conception of an unconditional and objective necessity, which is consequently universally valid; and commands are laws which must be obeyed, that is, must be followed, even in opposition to inclination.  Counsels, indeed, involve necessity, but one which can only hold under a contingent subjective condition, viz. they depend on whether this or that man reckons this