Note 1740 — Chapter II · THE CANON[1711] OF PURE REASON

Cf. Kant’s Preface to the Critique of Practical Reason, W. v. p. 8 n.; Abbott’s trans. p. 93 n. “A reviewer who wanted to find some fault with this work—[the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals]—has hit the truth better, perhaps, than he thought, when he says that no new principle of morality is set forth in it, but only a new formula. But who would think of introducing a new principle of all morality, and making himself as it were the first inventor of it, just as if all the world before him were ignorant what duty was, or had been in thorough-going error? But whoever knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula is, which defines accurately what is to be done to work out a problem, will not think that a formula is insignificant and useless which does the same for all duty in general.” Cf. Fortschritte, Werke (Hartenstein), viii. p. 563.