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 defining the means to a proposed end; but they do
not concern the principle, the act of the will, but the object and its
realization. E.g., 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