Although they came about independently of one another in response to external occasions, these two essays mutually complement one another to form a system of the fundamental truths of ethics, in which, it is to be hoped, people will not fail to discern some progress in this science, which has been on holiday for half a century. Yet neither of them was allowed to refer to the other, nor to my previous writings, because each was written for a different academy and strict incognito is the familiar condition in such circumstances. So it also could not be avoided that some points were touched on in both, as nothing could be presupposed and everywhere a start had to be made from the very beginning. They are really separate expositions of two doctrines that can be found, in their fundamentals, in the Fourth Book of The World as Will and Representation, although there they were derived from my metaphysics, hence synthetically and a priori, and here, where as a matter of course no presuppositions were allowed, they appear instead grounded analytically and a posteriori: so what was first there is last here. Yet precisely in virtue of their starting from the standpoint that is common to all, and also in virtue of the separate exposition, both doctrines gained greatly here in graspability, persuasive power and the unfolding of their significance.