IMMANUEL, a very eminent metaphysician, and the author of that theory which has been distinguished by the name of the Critical or Transcendental Philosophy, was born at Königsberg, in Prussia, on the 22d of April 1724. Of his paternal ancestors little is known with certainty; but tradition represents them as having sprung from an emigrant Scotchman of the name of Cant; and the philosopher himself, who frequently alluded to this traditional extraction, is said to have been the first of his family who changed the initial letter of his name to K, with a view to adapt it to the German pronunciation.
The father of Kant, who exercised the humble profession of a saddler or harness-maker, in the suburbs of Königsberg, was distinguished rather for his integrity and respectability than for his wealth. His mother appears to have been a woman of considerable talent, and of a more decided character. She was exceedingly pious, and much attached to the strict religious tenets and discipline of Dr Schultz, a divine who at that period enjoyed a high reputation for learning, eloquence, and piety. Kant uniformly spoke of both his parents, but especially of his mother, with feelings of the warmest affection.
Although far from being in affluent circumstances, his parents resolved to bestow upon their son Immanuel every advantage that could result from a liberal education. Accordingly, after having been taught to read and write at the charity school of the suburbs, he was sent, in the year 1732, to the Collegium Fridericianum, at the suggestion, it is believed, of Dr Schultz, who, even at that early period, had the penetration to discover the talents of the boy. At this school he contracted an intimate friendship with Ruhnkenius, afterwards so celebrated for his philological attainments, which was maintained by occasional correspondence during the remainder of their lives, and which, in their early years, may naturally be supposed to have had a salutary influence on the studies of both. They were both indefatigable students; and they not only mutually assisted each other in their school exercises, but read together, during their leisure hours, whatever books their inclination led them to peruse, or their circumstances permitted them to purchase. It is rather a remarkable circumstance, however, that at this early period Kant devoted his attention principally to philological studies; whilst his friend Ruhnkenius seemed to be attracted, by an apparently natural tendency of disposition, to the cultivation of philosophy. In their maturer years, as is well known, these early predilections were precisely reversed.
Having completed his preliminary education, he repaired, in the year 1740, to the university of his native town, where he applied himself with great ardour to the study of the mathematical, philosophical, and theological sciences. Amongst the professors of Königsberg, several of whom were men of considerable talents and attainments, he appears to have attached himself particularly to Professor Martin Knutzen, well known, at that period, as the author of several useful works, to whose instructions in mathematics and philosophy Kant acknowledged himself to have been greatly indebted. To the great diligence and success with which he prosecuted his studies at this period, his early writings bear ample testimony. The youth who, at the age of twenty-two, could boldly and successfully impugn the doctrines of Leibnitz and Wolf, and skilfully wield the weapons of dialectics against the authority of the most eminent metaphysicians of his day, must have bestowed no common pains in the acquisition of scientific knowledge, and in cultivating the powers of his understanding. From the earliest period of his career, too, he was left almost entirely to the resources of his own talents and prudence, and compelled, at every step, to struggle against the depressing influence of poverty. When scarcely arrived at manhood, he had the misfortune to lose both his parents, who had not the satisfaction of living to witness the fruits of their son's talents and industry. They, indeed, had never been able to afford him much pecuniary assistance; but he was fortunate in meeting with some relations of his family, who were in more affluent circumstances, and by whose liberality, combined with his own exertions and economy, he was enabled to continue the prosecution of his studies.
After a residence of about three years at the university, he acted in the capacity of private tutor in several families, and lived about nine years with the Count de Hüllesen at Arnstadt. During this period he embraced the opportunities which his retirement afforded him, of collecting a vast store of general knowledge in almost every department of science and literature, and of sketching the outlines of several of those philosophical treatises, which were soon afterwards published in rapid succession.
It is rather unfortunate that no record seems to have been preserved of the course of his studies during this most interesting period of his life; nor has he himself, so far as we know, left any memorials which might enable us to trace the gradual progress of his mind in the acquisition of knowledge. It is certain, however, that he both read and thought much. According to his own confession, he was not particularly well qualified to discharge the duties of a tutor; being always too deeply engaged in acquiring and digesting knowledge in his own mind, to be capable of communicating the rudiments of it to others. His mind seems to have originally entertained a strong bias towards mathematical and physical researches; and
He was professor of theology at the university of Königsberg, and the author of several works which were much esteemed in their day; amongst others, of a work on the Elements of Metaphysical Science.
1 Kant had several sisters, and an only brother several years younger than himself; who took orders, and had a living in Courland, where he continued to reside until his death.
2 Throughout every period of his life, however, Kant retained a great fondness for classical literature. He was particularly partial to the study of the Roman writers; and, even in his old age, he delighted to have an opportunity of reciting and applying passages from the works of his favourite authors.
3 Knutzen died in the year 1736, as extraordinary professor of philosophy at Königsberg. Kant exhibited some specimens of knowledge, acuteness, and originality of investigation, in the latter branch of science, from which much eminence might have resulted had his views been exclusively confined to that department.
It was probably during the period of his retirement at Arnstorf that he was led to engage in a laborious investigation of the various metaphysical theories of ancient and modern times. With this view, he made himself master of the living languages, especially the French and English, the latter of which he acquired without the aid of a master, in order to enable him to examine into the merits of the British philosophers, particularly Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. To the sceptical conclusions of the last-mentioned writer, according to Kant's own confession, the world is indebted for the Critical Theory.
Having attained his thirtieth year, and already distinguished himself as the author of several tracts, exhibiting great originality of thought, Kant resolved to devote himself to the profession of public teacher. With this view, he returned to the university of Königsberg, and took his degree of master of arts, according to the usual forms, in the year 1755. It was upon this occasion that he produced, in the form of an inaugural dissertation, his tract entitled Principiorum primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicae nova dilucidatio; the first of his works, it is believed, which contained any hints respecting his peculiar views of metaphysical science. In the same year he published his celebrated treatise on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens; or an Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Structure of the whole Globe, according to the Newtonian System. In this treatise, by following out the principles of Newton, he was led to anticipate, in theory, some of the subsequent discoveries of the great practical astronomer Herschel.
Soon after he had taken his degree, he began to avail himself of the privilege attached to the character of a Doctor docens, by delivering lectures publicly on logic, metaphysics, mathematics, and natural philosophy; to which, at a subsequent period, he added the law of nature, moral philosophy, natural theology, and physical geography. He had not long commenced the discharge of his duties as a public teacher, when the concourse of students, whom the reputation of his profound and extensive learning attracted, was so great, that his auditorium, or lecture-room, although large and commodious, could scarcely contain the numbers who eagerly flocked to hear him. His affable manners and social talents, at the same time, rendered him a most acceptable guest at the tables of the most respectable inhabitants of Königsberg, with several of whom he lived on habits of intimate friendship.
But notwithstanding his acknowledged talents as a philosopher, and his popularity as a lecturer on scientific subjects, it was long before Kant obtained any preferment. With a mind constantly and intensely engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, he appears to have possessed no ambition beyond that of being useful in the sphere he had chosen for the exercise of his abilities; and he had too much simplicity of character to resort to any of those arts by which other men, more emulous of distinction, frequently endeavour to advance their worldly interests. Upon the death of Knutzen, in the month of April 1756, he solicited the vacant extraordinary professorship of philosophy, but without success. The ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics having died in 1758, Dr Schultz, who, as we have already observed, discovered at an early period the talents of Kant, and continued to patronise him so long as he lived, exerted all his influence to obtain that situation for his protege. But Kant was again disappointed. Not discouraged, however, by the repeated failure of his attempts to attain independence, he continued to deliver his lectures, and to meditate his writings. In the month of February 1766 he accepted the unsolicited situation of second keeper of the royal library, to which a small salary was attached; and at the same time he undertook the management of a private cabinet of curiosities. But these offices he resigned in 1772, on account of the interruptions to which he was exposed in showing the books and rarities to strangers.
In the year 1770, Kant at length attained the highest object of his ambition, on his advancement to the ordinary professorship of logic and metaphysics in the university of Königsberg; a situation which, while it placed him far above the fear of want, afforded him, at the same time, the best opportunity of employing his talents in a manner satisfactory to himself and advantageous to his country. Upon this occasion, he produced his celebrated inaugural dissertation, De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis, in which he propounded some of the fundamental principles of that metaphysical theory to which he was afterwards indebted for his great reputation.
From this period, the life of Kant affords no very remarkable incidents for the pen of the biographer. His time appears to have been chiefly occupied in the faithful and zealous discharge of the duties of his office; in the composition of those philosophical works, by which he hoped to accomplish an important and beneficial reform in metaphysical science; and in cultivating the society of a select number of friends. At this time, too, he maintained a philosophical correspondence with several of the first literary characters of the age, and particularly with the celebrated Lambert, then president of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, whose views of philosophy were, in some respects, coincident with his own. His letters to Lambert, indeed, are peculiarly interesting, as they contain frequent allusions to the gradual development of his metaphysical ideas.
In the year 1780, he became a member of the Senatus Academicus; and in 1787 he was admitted a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Never, perhaps, did there exist a mind so ardently and so entirely devoted to the cultivation of science, and so utterly divested of all interested motives in the pursuit of knowledge. Having once attained independence, his ambition, as to worldly objects, seems to have aspired no higher. Although he received, at different times, various invitations, with most advantageous proposals, to induce him to transfer his talents and his reputation to other universities, he could never be prevailed upon to leave his native town; being perfectly satisfied with the advantages he already enjoyed, and with the sphere of usefulness which had been assigned him. For many years previous to his death, he was the senior professor of Königsberg; and he enjoyed that high degree of respect and veneration which was due alike to his advanced age, his eminent talents, and conspicuous virtues. He died, by a gradual decay of nature, on the 12th of February 1804, in the eightieth year of his age. His funeral was attended by the most respectable inhabitants of Königsberg, and by a numerous train of his friends and disciples; and, to express the public regret for the loss of so distinguished a character, the whole city put on mourning. On his coffin there was placed a sepulchral urn, with the inscription, Cineres mortales immortales Kantii. A beautiful commemorative medal was also executed upon this occasion, by M. Abramson of Berlin. On one side is a striking likeness of the philosopher, with the inscription, Immanuel Kant, nat. 1724. On the reverse, the artist has attempted to express the services of Kant in assigning limits to the province of speculative philosophy, by representing a Minerva seated, and holding an owl in her right hand, which she prevents from flying, with the inscription, Altius volatem arcuit.
In his person, Kant was rather below the middle stature, of a slender and delicate form, and with a very narrow and flat chest. His bodily frame, indeed, did not seem to promise longevity; nor would he, in all probability, have attained so great an age, had not his constitution been preserved by his regular and temperate mode of living. In his external appearance, strangers found nothing prepossessing, or indicative of any uncommon talents; on the contrary, his features are represented by a gentleman who visited him at Königsberg, as "a reproach to physiognomy." Others, however, describe his countenance as full of dignity, and expressive of benevolence. His natural disposition was cheerful and social, and his manners were polite and affable. He exhibited none of that awkwardness or reserve which is frequently generated or increased by habits of recluse meditation, and which is often thought to be characteristic of the scholar and man of science. He loved company, and was both inquisitive himself, and fond of communicating his own knowledge and opinions upon all subjects. There was nothing, however trifling it might appear at first sight, which did not suggest to his mind some interesting reflections; and he could talk as fluently with a lady on the minutiae of female dress, the mysteries of the kitchen, or the common occurrences of the day, as he could with a philosopher on the most abstruse points of science. He was very regular in his habits. He rose early, and his mornings were generally devoted to study and professional duties, his evenings to society. As he never entered into the married state, he was not encumbered with the cares of a family. He used to say, that when he would have married, he had not fortune sufficient to maintain a wife; and when he possessed the requisite fortune, he had no inclination to marry. It has been remarked that he was fond of society; and during the earlier part of his life, when otherwise disengaged, he used to dine at the ordinary of the principal tavern, by which means he had an opportunity of acquiring an extensive knowledge of human character, and, at the same time, of gratifying his inquisitive disposition, by eliciting from travellers of different countries many curious and valuable observations on the manners, habits, and literature of various nations. He possessed an intimate knowledge of geography, and even of minute topography, probably in a great measure derived from this last-mentioned source, as well as from his private reading of books of travels, to which he was always extremely partial; and he frequently entered into local details with a degree of correctness which could not fail to astonish those who learned that he had never moved fifty miles from his native town. At a later period of his life, when more easy in his circumstances, he generally invited a few of his friends to dinner, with whom he relaxed from his graver studies, frequently enlivening his discourse with sallies of wit and humour, of which he possessed no small share, and occasional irony and satire, of that good-natured species which inflicts no wound on the object against whom it is directed.
Kant's intellectual faculties were of a high order. He had a wonderful power of reflection, which enabled him to unfold the most abstruse principles, and to pursue, in his own mind, a long train of conclusions. He possessed great quickness of observation, and clearness of conception; insomuch that, in conversation, he could describe any object which he had seen, or of which he had read, with admirable precision and accuracy. His memory was exceedingly retentive. He kept no library, but made a contract with a bookseller to send him all new publications, which he perused, and afterwards returned; and the knowledge thus acquired he had always at his command. The most remarkable feature in the moral character of Kant was an utter abhorrence of every species of falsehood, however innocent, and a love of perfect honesty and sincerity in word and action, flowing no less from his natural disposition, than from those high principles which he had early imbibed, of the value of truth, and the dignity of man. In this respect he was ever consistent with himself; and the whole tenor of his long life may be regarded as a practical commentary on his writings, and an exemplification of his moral maxims.
The peculiar doctrines of the critical or transcendental philosophy were not the offspring of impressions accidentally received, and hastily adopted, but the fruit of long, patient, and systematic investigation. Kant, indeed, was well advanced in years before he attempted that reform in metaphysical science which he seems to have long meditated. In several of his earlier productions, and in his letters to Lambert, he evidently appears to have been dissatisfied with the prevailing theories; and his inaugural dissertations, as already mentioned, exhibited some of those peculiar views, which were afterwards more fully developed in his great work, the Critik der reinen Vernunft. This work was published in 1781. For several years it appears to have attracted little or no attention; and the publisher, it is said, was on the point of destroying the sheets as waste paper, when a sudden demand rapidly carried off several impressions. From that period, the Transcendental Theory began to excite an extraordinary sensation, and to be regarded as a new and wonderful discovery in metaphysical science; the philosophers of Germany were divided into professed partisans and determined antagonists of the doctrines of Kant; and a multitude of publications issued yearly from the press, for the purpose of confirming or refuting the new principles.
It was not long, however, before the Critical Philosophy bore down all opposition, and obtained a complete ascendancy over the theories inculcated by its adversaries. It was publicly taught in the schools, to the almost total exclusion of the doctrines of Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Leibnitz, and Wolf; it gave a fresh impulse to the spirit of metaphysical inquiry; and men of the first note in the scientific world felt a conscious pride in being able to comprehend, to explain, to illustrate, to apply, or to extend its principles. It not only effected an entire revolution in German metaphysics, but exerted a powerful influence on works of taste, and the lighter literature of the country. It is impossible, indeed, to comprehend, or to relish, many passages in the works of the more recent poets, novelists, and fugitivewriters of Germany, without some previous acquaintance with the doctrines of Kant.
Owing to what has been already said upon the subject in another part of this work, we shall avoid entering into any discussion respecting the merits of the Critical Philosophy in the present article; but we shall present our readers with a very concise abstract of its objects and results.
Mr Hume proved very satisfactorily, that our ideas of cause and effect are not derived from experience; but he rashly concluded, as Kant observes, "that they are the spurious offspring of the imagination impregnated by custom." Kant discovered that Hume had been led to this hasty inference in consequence of having taken too limited a view of the great problem which he had thus partially attempted to solve. He perceived that the idea of cause and effect is by no means the only one which the mind makes use of with the consciousness of its necessity, yet without being derived from experience; but that the science of metaphysics is altogether founded on ideas of a similar nature. He endeavoured, therefore, to ascertain the precise number of these abstract or transcendental ideas; and having succeeded in this to his own satisfaction, he
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1 See Dissertation First, Part Second, Section Seventh. found himself in possession of the whole of those connecting acts of the mind, which constitute the very elements of the understanding itself, which are indispensable to its exercise, and without which the whole of our experience would exhibit nothing but a number of insulated facts, without order or consistency.
The three original faculties, through the medium of which we acquire knowledge, are, sense, understanding, and reason. Sense is a passive or receptive faculty. In the objects presented to our senses, we distinguish matter and form. The forms or conditions of sense are space and time; the former of the external, the latter of the internal sense. All our knowledge is limited by space and time; for we can perceive nothing that does not exist under these conditions.
Understanding is an active or spontaneous faculty, and consists in the power of forming conceptions. In every conception of the understanding, also, we distinguish the matter and the form. The matter is the sensible intuition; the form is the unity, or connection, established by means of the synthetic powers of the understanding, or the categories. Kant was at great pains in endeavouring to ascertain the number of these synthetic powers or categories; and he found them to be all comprehended under the four classes of quantity, quality, relation, and modality. The categories themselves are twelve in number. Under the first head are comprised unity, multitude, totality; under the second, reality, negation, limitation; under the third, substance and accident, cause and effect, action and reaction; under the fourth, possibility, existence, necessity.
This synthetic power of the understanding is called, in the critical philosophy, its original use. The logical use, both of understanding and reason, is to be found in the faculty of judgment. Logic, however, has only to do with the form of our conceptions, and not with their matter; which last inquiry belongs to transcendental philosophy, or metaphysics.
Reason is the third or highest degree of mental spontaneity, and consists in the power of forming ideas. As it is the province of the understanding to form the intuitions of sense into conceptions, so it is the business of reason to form conceptions into ideas. The ideas of reason are absolute and unconditional, and totally independent of space or time; consequently, we can neither obtain nor extend our knowledge by means of reason alone. For these ideas are nothing more than certain representations of the unconditional, that is, of the highest unity and totality, which spring from the essential constitution of our reason, which serve to render the field of experience a comprehensible whole, and which, therefore, are merely conditions of the exercise of our reason, and not real external objects of which it is possible to acquire any knowledge by intuition.
The results of the critical theory may be stated, we conceive, in a very few words. The first principles, or conditions, of our speculative knowledge, are mere subjective forms, or forms derived from the constitution of the thinking being: First, the forms of sense, or pure intuitions (space and time); and, secondly, the forms or notions of the understanding (the categories). These intellectual forms or notions, however, only acquire reality by their application to our perceptions, with reference to possible experience, and therefore we can have no speculative knowledge of things beyond the sphere of experience.
Besides the critical investigation of pure reason in its speculative exercise, Kant instituted a similar inquiry into the nature and laws of our practical reason, and of the faculty of judgment; and, in the spirit of his own theory, he published the Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy, of Law, and of Ethics. His Logic, Physical Geography, and some other works, were published by his friends, from his papers, and the marginal notes to his texts-books. Towards the latter end of his life, he meditated a work, which was intended to be the key-stone of his whole system, and which was to have been entitled The Transition from Metaphysics to Physics; in which he proposed to demonstrate the general application of the principles of the transcendental theory. The decline of his faculties, however, prevented the execution of this projected work.
We shall close this article with a list of Kant's publications.
Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte, &c. (Thoughts on the true estimation of the animal powers, with strictures on the proofs advanced by Leibnitz and others.) Königsberg, 1746.
Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels, &c. (Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, &c.) Ibid. 1755.
Principiorum primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicæ nova dilucidatio. A Dissertation on taking his master's degree, in 1755.
Betrachtungen über den Optimism. (Reflections on Optimism.) Königsberg, 1759.
Von der falschen Spitzzündigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren. (On the sophistical subtilty of the four syllogistic figures.) 1763.
Einzig möglicher Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseyns Gottes. (The only possible evidence for demonstrating the existence of the Deity.) Königsberg, 1763.
Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen. (Observations on the feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime.) 1764. This tract is remarkable on account of the spirit of humour and pleasantry which pervades it.
Träume eines Geisterschers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik. (Dreams of a Ghost-seer, illustrated by the dreams of Metaphysics.) Riga, 1766. This publication was occasioned by the visions of the famous Emanuel Swedenborg.
De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis. Königsberg, 1770. An inaugural dissertation on obtaining his professorship.
These, along with a number of other tracts, in which the author displayed an intimate acquaintance with the principles of the sciences, remarkable quickness of observation, great depth of thought and acuteness of reasoning, will be found incorporated in the following collections.
Kant's Sämtliche kleine Schriften. (Kant's Smaller Tracts collected.) 3 vols. Svo. Königsberg and Leipzig, 1797.
Kant's Vermischte Schriften, mit Anmerkungen, von Tieftrunk. (Kant's Miscellaneous Writings, with Notes, published by Tieftrunk.) 3 vols. Svo. Halle, 1799. A fourth volume was added, Königsberg, 1807.
The early and anonymous essays of Kant were collected and published by F. T. Rink, Königsberg, 1800. In the following works, his peculiar views of metaphysical science, as constituting what has been called the Critical Philosophy, are more fully and systematically developed.
Critik der Reinen Vernunft. (Critical inquiry into the Nature of Pure Reason.) Riga, 1781; 3d ed. 1791, Svo.
Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, &c. (Prolegomena to every Future System of Metaphysics, &c.) 1783. In the Critik der reinen Vernunft, the author had proceeded synthetically; in this other work he adopts the analytical method, with the view of rendering his theory more intelligible to students.
Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. (Metaphysical Elements of Natural Philosophy,) 1786. This is a systematic text-book on pure physics, in which the author treats of those principles in natural philosophy of whose truth we are conscious a priori, i.e. independently of experience. The subject is treated under the four