resolved this would contradict itself, inasmuch as many cases might
occur in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others,
and in which, by such a law of nature, sprung from his own will, he
would deprive himself of all hope of the aid he desires.

These are a few of the many actual duties, or at least what we
regard as such, which obviously fall into two classes on the one
principle that we have laid down. We must be able to will that a maxim
of our action should be a universal law. This is the canon of the
moral appreciation of the action generally. Some actions are of such a
character that their maxim cannot without contradiction be even
conceived as a universal law of nature, far from it being possible
that we should will that it should be so. In others this intrinsic
impossibility is not found, but still it is impossible to will that
their maxim should be raised to the universality of a law of nature,
since such a will would contradict itself It is easily seen that the
former violate strict or rigorous (inflexible) duty; the latter only
laxer (meritorious) duty. Thus it has been completely shown how all
duties depend as regards the nature of the obligation (not the
object of the action) on the same principle.

If now we attend to ourselves on occasion of any transgression of
duty, we shall find that we in fact do not will that our maxim
should be a universal law, for that is impossible for us; on the
contrary, we will that the opposite should remain a universal law,
only we assume the liberty of making an exception in our own favour or
(just for this time only) in favour of our inclination. Consequently
if we considered all cases from one and the same point of view,
namely, that of reason, we should find a contradiction in our own
will, namely, that a certain principle should be objectively necessary