or that as part of his happiness; the categorical imperative, on the contrary, is not limited by any condition, and as being absolutely, although practically, necessary, may be quite properly called a command.  We might also call the first kind of imperatives technical (belonging to art), the second pragmatic (to welfare), [It seems to me that the proper signification of the word pragmatic may be most accurately defined in this way.  For sanctions [see Cr. of Pract.  Reas., p. 271] are called pragmatic which flow properly, not from the law of the states as necessary enactments, but from precaution for the general welfare.  A history is composed pragmatically when it teaches prudence, i. e. instructs the world how it can provide for its interests better, or at least as well as the men of former time.]; the third moral (belonging to free conduct generally, that is, to morals).

Now arises the question, how are all these imperatives possible?  This question does not seek to know how we can conceive the accomplishment of the action which the imperative ordains, but merely how we can conceive the obligation of the will which the imperative expresses.  No special explanation is needed to show how an imperative of skill is possible.  Whoever wills the end, wills also (so far as reason decides his conduct) the means in his power which are indispensably necessary thereto.  This proposition is, as regards the volition, analytical; for, in willing an object as my effect, there is already thought the causality of myself as an acting cause, that is to say, the use of the means; and the imperative educes from the conception of volition of an end the conception of actions necessary to this end.  Synthetical propositions must no doubt be employed in denning the means to a proposed end; but they do not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and its realization.  Ex. gr., that in order to bisect a line on an unerring principle I must draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs; this no doubt is taught by mathematics only in synthetical propositions; but if I know that it is only by this process that the intended operation can be performed, then to say that if I fully will the operation, I also will the action required for it, is an analytical proposition; for it is one and the same thing to conceive something as an effect which I can produce in a certain way, and to conceive myself as acting in this way.

If it were only equally easy to give a definite conception of happiness, the imperatives of prudence would correspond exactly with those of skill, and would likewise be analytical.  For in this case as in that, it could be said, whoever wills the end, wills also (according to the dictate of reason necessarily) the indispensable means thereto which are in his power.  But, unfortunately, the notion of happiness is so indefinite that although every man wishes to attain it, yet he never can say definitely and consistently what it is that he really