Preface to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics, remark. (2)

Virtue is always in progress, and yet always begins from the beginning. The former follows from the fact that, objectively considered, it is an ideal and unattainable, and yet it is a duty constantly to approximate to it. The second [characteristic] is founded subjectively on the nature of man which is affected by inclinations, under the influence of which virtue, with its maxims adopted once for all, can never settle in a position of rest; but if it is not rising, inevitably falls; because moral maxims cannot, like technical, be based on custom (for this belongs to the physical character of the determination of will); but even if the practice of them become a custom, the agent would thereby lose the freedom in the choice of his maxims, which freedom is the character of an action done from duty.

[The two remaining sections discuss the proper division of Ethics, and have no interest apart from the treatise to which they are introductory. They are therefore not translated. I add some remarks on Conscience, taken from the “Tugendlehre” itself.]