, that nothing from a stone to a
star is shaped or moved without the intervention of eternal laws; that
the lispings of children no less than the meditations of a philosopher
must conform to law, and that the will of man, whereby he makes himself
to be what he is, shapes his character, influences his surroundings, and
fixes his destiny--do you venture to say that that is lawless in a world
where all is law? No," he proclaims in words which burn conviction into
his soul: "it, too, has its laws, the highest, holiest thing in all this
universe, the law of laws which confronts man wherever he goes, fills all
his sublimest thoughts, subdues his soul to the most reverent worship,
and is the holiest inspiration of his religion. It is the moral law, the
supreme concern of the will of man, a revelation to man alone of his own
unspeakable dignity, the norm or standard whereby he is to regulate his
life--this it is which is the law of his will. As gravitation rules the
stars, so the moral law, the sanction of the eternal distinction between
right and wrong, controls the will, not compulsorily, not arbitrarily, as
though it could by any possibility be otherwise, but freely. So
sovereign is its power, so authentic are its claims, that if it had might
as it has right, it would rule the world." It is, therefore, to use
Kant's own language, a _categorical imperative_, that is, an
unconditional command. "Thou canst, and therefore thou must." By the
very manhood you possess you are bound wholly to surrender yourself in
submission to what you know to be the right for the right's sake alone.
You must make it your own law, and obey it as inflexibly as the stars
keep their courses in the everlasting way.

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

We may see now how Kant bases his whole system upon the indestructible
fact of ethical law, the primeval intuition of the awakened spirit of man
into the eternal distinction between good and evil. Standing on that
foundation, he is able to descry the world of transcendental
realities--"the land which is very far off"--which the pure and critical
reason could never behold. But though the eyes of the mind were holden,
the intuition of the will enables him to gaze direct into the unseen and
discern freedom, soul, immortality and God as eternal facts. For whence
this sublime law of life unless we conceive mind, not blind c