Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/882

846 KANT and winter at five o clock ; and, on being appealed to on one occasion, testified that Kant had not once failed in thirty years to respond to the call. After rising he studied for two hours, then lectured other two, and spent the rest of the forenoon, till one, at his desk. He then dined at a restaurant, which* he frequently changed, to avoid the influx of strangers, who crowded to see and hear him till in later years his growing means enabled him to invite a friend or two daily to his own home. This was his only regular meal ; and, as he loved the ducere ccenam of the Romans, he often prolonged the conversation till late in the afternoon. He then walked out for at least an hour in all weathers, and spent the evening in lighter reading, except an hour or two devoted to the preparation of his next day s lectures, after which he retired between nine and ten to rest. The furniture of his house was of the simplest character ; and, though he left a considerable sum, the produce of his writings, to his relatives, he indulged in no luxury, and was a pattern of that superiority to fashion and appearance so often met with in the literary life of Germany. In his earlier years he often spent his evenings in general society, where his overflowing know ledge and conversational talents made him the life of every party. He was especially intimate with the families of two English merchants of the name of Green and Motherby, where he found many opportunities of meeting ship-captains, and other travelled persons, and thus gratifying his passion for physical geography. This social circle included also the celebrated Hamann the Magus or Wizard of the North the friend of Herder and Jacobi, who was thus a mediator between Kant and these philosophical adversaries. Kant s reading was of the most extensive and miscel laneous kind. He cared comparatively little for the history of speculation, being in this department more a discoverer than a scholar. But his acquaintance with books of science, general history, travels, and belles lettres was boundless. He was well versed in English literature, chiefly of the age of Queen Anne, and had read English philosophy from Locke to Hume, and the Scottish school. He was at home in Voltaire and Rousseau, but had little or no acquaintance with the French sensational philosophy. He was familiar with all German literature up to the date of his Kritik, but ceased to follow it in its great development by Goethe and Schiller. It was his habit to obtain books in sheets from his publishers Kanter and Nicolovius ; and he read over for many years all the new works in their catalogue, in order to keep abreast of universal knowledge. He was excessively fond of newspapers and works on politics ; artel this was the only kind of reading that could interrupt his studies in philosophy. As a lecturer, Kant avoided altogether that rigid style in which his books were written, and which was only meant for thinkers by profession. He sat behind a low desk, with a few jottings on slips of paper, or text-books marked on the margin, before him, and delivered an extemporaneous address, opening up the subject by partial glimpses, and with many digressions and interspersed anecdotes or familiar illustrations, till a complete idea of it was presented. His voice was extremely weak, but sometimes rose into eloquence, and always commanded perfect silence. Like Adam Smith, he fixed his eye on one student, and marked by his countenance whether the lecture was understood. The least irregularity in the appearance or dress of this selected hearer disconcerted him ; and the story is well known of _ the missing button, which defeated a lecture. Though kind to his students, he refused on principle to remit their fees, as this, he thought, would discourage independence. It was another principle that his chief exertions should be bestowed on the intermediate class of talent, as the geniuses would help themselves, and the dunces were beyond remedy. Hence he never delivered his deeper doctrines, such as are found in his Kritik, from the chair. His other avocations allowed him little personal intercourse with his numerous hearers, and he often complained of the want of lively sympathy and ascertained progress inseparable from such a system. Simple, honourable, truthful, kind-hearted, and high- minded as Kant was in all moral respects, he was somewhat deficient in the region of sentiment. He had little enthusiasm for the beauties of nature, and indeed never sailed out into the Baltic, or travelled more than 40 miles from Konigsberg. Music he disregarded, and all poetry that was more than sententious prose. His ethics have been reproached with some justice as setting up too low an ideal for the female sex. Though faithful in a high degree to the duties of friendship, he could not bear to visit his friends in sickness, and after their death he repressed all allusion to their memory. His engrossing intellectual labours no doubt tended somewhat to harden his character ; and in his zeal for rectitude of purpose he forgot the part which affection and sentiment must ever play in the human constitution. Those who count these defects most grave will yet find much to admire in the lofty tone of his character, and in the benevolence which could thus express itself : " Whoever will suggest to me a good action left undone, him will I thank, though he suggest it even in my last hour ! " This brief notice of his life may appropriately close with Herder s beautiful sketch of Kant s character, all the more interesting that it was written in 1795, after their quarrel: " I have had the good fortune to know a philosopher who was my teacher. In the vigour of life he had the same youthful gaiety of heart that now follows him I believe into old age. His open forehead, built for thought, was the seat of imperturbable cheerfulness and joy ; the most pregnant discourse flowed from his lips ; wit, humour, and raillery came to him at will, and his instructions had all the charm of an entertainment. With the same easy mastery with which he tested the doctrines of Leibnitz, Wolf, Baumgarten, Crusius, and Hume, or pursued the discoveries of Newton, Kepler, and other lights of science, he also took up the current writings of Rousseau, such as the Emile or Heloise, or any new phenomenon of the natural world, and from the criticism of each came back to the impartial study of nature, and to the enforcement of the dignity of man. History in all its branches, natural science, physics, mathematics, and experience were the materials that gave interest to his lectures and his conversation; nothing worthy of study was to him indifferent ; no faction or sect, no selfishness or vanity, had for him the least attraction, compared with the extension and elucidation of truth. He excited and pleasantly impelled us to mental independence ; despotism was foreign to his nature. This man, whom I name with the deepest gratitude and respect, is Immanuel Kant ; his image rises before me surrounded with pleasing recollections ! " The Writings of Kant. From the preceding sketch of Kant s academic activity it must be evident that he combined in a quite unusual degree knowledge of physical science with speculative acuteness and devotion to the special work of philosophy. No other thinker of modern times has been throughout his work so penetrated with the fundamental conceptions of physical science ; no other has been able to hold with such firmness the balance between empirical and speculative ideas. Beyond all question much of the influence which the critical philosophy has exercised and continues to exercise must be ascribed to this characteristic feature in the training of its great author.