After theology it was the turn of metaphysics.

Kant's moral imperative marked the next stage in the conflict of the two opposite tendencies which seek natural and ultra-natural sanctions for morality.
Hence the idea of progress had a different significance for Kant and for its French exponents, though his particular view of the future possibly in store for the human species coincided in some essential points with theirs.

But his theory of life gives a different atmosphere to the idea.
In France the atmosphere is emphatically eudaemonic; happiness is the goal.

Kant is an uncompromising opponent of eudaemonism.

"If we take enjoyment or happiness as the measure, it is easy," he says, "to evaluate life.