Categorical Imperative directly as a fact of consciousness. But in that case its origin would be anthropological, and, as resting on experience, although internal, it would have an empirical basis: a position which runs directly counter to the Kantian view, and which he repeatedly rejects. Thus on p. 48 (R., p. 44) he says: “It cannot be empirically determined whether any such Categorical Imperative exists everywhere”; and again, on p. 49 (R., p.

45): “The possibility of the Categorical Imperative must be investigated entirely on a priori grounds, because here we are not helped by any testimony of experience as to its reality.” Even Reinhold, his first pupil, missed this point; for in his Beitrage zur Uebersicht der Philosophie am Anfange des 19. Jahrhunderts, No. 2, p.