e all
experience possible.

(2) Instinct, or the rule by which an object promoting the life of the
senses may, though unknown, be attained.

(3) The Moral Law, or the rule by which an action takes place without
any object.

Accordingly rational or intelligent action proceeds by a rule laid
down in accordance with the object as it is understood. Instinctive
action proceeds by a rule without an understanding of the object of
it. Moral action proceeds by a rule without any object at all.

_Theoretical Reason_ is the aggregate of rules in accordance
with which all my knowledge--that is to say, the whole world of
experience--necessarily proceeds. In the same manner _Instinct_ is the
aggregate of rules in accordance with which all my action necessarily
proceeds if it meets with no obstruction. Hence it seems to me that
Instinct may most appropriately be called _practical reason_, for like
theoretical reason it determines the _must_ of all experience.

The so-called moral law, on the other hand, is only one aspect of _the
better consciousness_, the aspect which it presents from the point of
view of instinct. This better consciousness is something lying beyond
all experience, that is, beyond all reason, whether of the theoretical
or the practical kind, and has nothing to do with it; whilst it is in
virtue of the mysterious union of it and reason in the same individual
that the better consciousness comes into conflict with reason, leaving
the individual to choose between the two.

In any conflict between the better consciousness and reason, if the
individual decides for reason, should it be theoretical reason, he
becomes a narrow, pedantic philistine; should it be practical, a
rascal.

If he decides for the better consciousness, we can make no further
positive affirmation about him, for if we were to do so, we should
find ourselves in the realm of reason; and as it is only what takes
place within this realm that we can speak of at all it follows that we
cannot speak of the better consciousness except in negative terms.

This shows us how it is that reason is hindered and obstructed;
that _theoretical reason_ is suppressed in favour of _genius_, and
_practical reason_ in favour of _virtue_. Now the better consciousness
is neither theoretical nor practical; for these are distinctions that
only apply to reason. But if the individual is in the act of choosing,
the better consciousness appears to him in the aspect which it