more than a point in space) from whence it came, after having been in some unknown way endowed with life for a brief space. The second point of view enhances my importance, makes me an intelligence, infinite and unconditioned through my personality, the moral law in which separates me from the animals and from the world of sense, removes me from the limits of time and space, and links me with infinity."
The secret of the critique of practical reason is that man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation.
He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone.
Thus he becomes one and all; he has the law in him, and so he himself is the law, and no mere changing caprice. The desire is in him to be only the law, to be the law that is himself, without afterthought or forethought. This is the awful conclusion, he has no longer the sense that there can be duty for him. Nothing is superior to him, to the isolated absolute unity. But there are no alternatives for him; he must respond to his own categorical imperatives, absolutely, impartially. "Freedom," he cries (for instance, Wagner, or Schopenhauer), "rest, peace from the enemy; peace, not this endless striving"; and he is terrified. Even in this wish for freedom there is cowardice; in the ignominious lament there is desertion as if he were too small for the fight. What is the use of it all, he cries to the universe; and is at once ashamed, for he is demanding happiness, and that his own burden should rest on other shoulders. Kant's lonely man does not dance or laugh; he neither brawls nor makes merry; he feels no need to make a noise, because the universe is so silent around him. To acquiesce in his loneliness is the splendid supremacy of the Kantian.
