Kant's Prolegomena : and Metaphysical foundations of natural science / translated from the original, with a biography and introduction, by Ernest Belfort Bax.

  • Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Kant's Prolegomena : and Metaphysical foundations of natural science / translated from the original, with a biography and introduction, by Ernest Belfort Bax. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Great many years later, and consequent resignation of his minister, which not long after followed, for his successor was a man of very different mould; it was nnder his administration that Kant, as we shall presently see, was first made to feel the existence of a press censorship. Throughont the tenure of his office of professor, every morning, summer and winter, during the terms, saw Kant at his desk in thelecture-room atseven o’cloek pnnctnally, the lecture lasting two hours. His special lectures he was now ohliged to give np, owing to the pressure of literary work. ßut hesides those on logic and metaphysics, he had to deliver regulär courses on etliics, natural theology, anthropology and physical geography, all of which were attended byliterally “ overflowing” audiences not alone consisting of students, hut eomposed of men of mature years, from among all classes of the outside public. As time went on, the bulky manuscript originally employed grew smaller and smaller, tili at last it dwindled to a piece of note paper, on which were jotted a few memoranda. His delivery is described as much more readily comprehensible, even on subjects in them- selves obscnre, than the literary style of the later works. Kant, when reproached with the clumsiness and obscurity of the latter, used to excuse himself by the reply, that they were only written for professional thinkers; that a special terminology had the advantage of brevity, and that, b< sides this, he liked to flatter the vanity of the reader nowand again wilh obscurities and misunderstandings to give Mm the opportunity of exercising his wits upon them ; it was otlierwise in oral discourse, the object of which was to introduce the hearer to the subject. Kant’s logic lectures were less designed to expound a completed Science than to teach his hearers how to think for thern- selves. With him formal logic was a means rather than the end it is with many academical exponents of the subject. c 2