conduct, but he finds distinctly moral conduct to be capable of real explanation only by reference to a mystical realm of self-renunciation, as little capable of being described in terms of concrete experience as Kant's own noumenal kingdom of ends. The distinction which Schopenhauer himself draws between his own ethics and the Kantian—namely, that his own ethics concerns actual experience, whereas the Kantian seeks an abstract a priori basis—is thus seen, on closer examination, to demand serious qualifications.
As a matter of fact, both Kant and Schopenhauer tend to regard the true sphere of morals as foreign to the everyday conduct of man. Kant, scorning any empirical basis, rejects all morality based on feelings and inclinations, and seeks his ethical realm in a supersensuous Kingdom of Ends, in the noumenal character of rational beings. This is the ground of his distinction between the empirical and the intelligible character of man. By virtue of the former man is tied down to the necessity of the world of phenomena; by virtue of the latter he is autonomous, a free member of the moral order. Schopenhauer's admiration for this "greatest of all the achievements of human sagacity,"[1] becomes easy to understand when one sees the way in which he interprets Kant's doctrine with reference to his own theory. The empirical character of man is dominated by the immutable necessity of motivation, and his various acts are necessarily determined by the character of his own being. Operari sequitur esse. The esse, however, is beyond the sphere of the causally connected multi- plicity of phenomena; as an intelligible character, man is metaphysically free.[2]
There are many problems arising from this shifting of freedom and responsibility from the 'empirical' to the 'intelligible' character, from the 'operari' to the 'esse.' The significance of Schopenhauer's prize-essay Ueber die Freiheit des Willens[3] in its relation to Kant's doctrine of Freedom cannot be justly estimated
