idea of freedom. This latter, however, we could not prove to be
actually a property of ourselves or of human nature; only we saw
that it must be presupposed if we would conceive a being as rational
and conscious of its causality in respect of its actions, i.e., as
endowed with a will; and so we find that on just the same grounds we
must ascribe to every being endowed with reason and will this
attribute of determining itself to action under the idea of its
freedom.

Now it resulted also from the presupposition of these ideas that
we became aware of a law that the subjective principles of action,
i.e., maxims, must always be so assumed that they can also hold as
objective, that is, universal principles, and so serve as universal
laws of our own dictation. But why then should I subject myself to
this principle and that simply as a rational being, thus also
subjecting to it all other being endowed with reason? I will allow
that no interest urges me to this, for that would not give a
categorical imperative, but I must take an interest in it and
discern how this comes to pass; for this properly an "I ought" is
properly an "I would," valid for every rational being, provided only
that reason determined his actions without any hindrance. But for
beings that are in addition affected as we are by springs of a
different kind, namely, sensibility, and in whose case that is not
always done which reason alone would do, for these that necessity is
expressed only as an "ought," and the subjective necessity is
different from the objective.

It seems then as if the moral law, that is, the principle of
autonomy of the will, were properly speaking only presupposed in the
idea of freedom, and as if we could not prove its reality and