Now that ethics is a doctrine of virtue (doctrina officiorum
virtutis) follows from the definition of virtue given above compared
with the obligation, the peculiarity of which has just been shown.
There is in fact no other determination of the elective will, except
that to an end, which in the very notion of it implies that I cannot
even physically be forced to it by the elective will of others.
Another may indeed force me to do something which is not my end (but
only means to the end of another), but he cannot force me to make it
my own end, and yet I can have no end except of my own making. The
latter supposition would be a contradiction- an act of freedom which
yet at the same time would not be free. But there is no
contradiction in setting before one's self an end which is also a
duty: for in this case I constrain myself, and this is quite
consistent with freedom. * But how is such an end possible? That is
now the question. For the possibility of the notion of the thing
(viz., that it is not self-contradictory) is not enough to prove the
possibility of the thing itself (the objective reality of the notion).



{INTRODUCTION ^paragraph 15}

* The less a man can be physically forced, and the more he can be
morally forced (by the mere idea of duty), so much the freer he is.
The man, for example, who is of sufficiently firm resolution and
strong mind not to give up an enjoyment which he has resolved on,
however much loss is shown as resulting therefrom, and who yet desists
from his purpose unhesitatingly, though very reluctantly, when he
finds that it would cause him to neglect an official duty or a sick