We are reminded of the miser, who, after listening to a sermon on beneficence, exclaims:

“Wie gr�ndlich ausgef�hrt, wie schön! —

Fast möcht' ich betteln gehn.”

(How well thought out, how excellent! —

Almost I'd like to beg.)

This is the indispensable key to the direction in which Kant's leading principle of Ethics is embedded; nor can he help supplying it himself. Only he refrains from doing so at the moment of propounding his precept, lest we should feel shocked. It is found further on in the text, at a decent distance, so as to prevent the fact at once leaping to light, that here, after all, in spite of his grand a priori edifice, Egoism