SECTION VII.

Kant and other Metaphysicians of the new German School.

THE long reign of the Leibnitzian Philosophy in Germany was owing, in no inconsiderable degree, to the zeal and ability with which it was taught in that part of Europe, for nearly half a century, by his disciple Wolfius,† a man of little genius, originality, or taste, but whose extensive and various learning, seconded by a methodical head, and by an incredible industry and perseverance, seem to have been peculiarly fitted to command the admiration of his countrymen. Wolfius, indeed, did not

My ignorance of German would have prevented me from saying any thing of the philosophy of Kant, if the extraordinary pretensions with which it was at first brought forward in this island, contrasted with the total oblivion into which it soon after very suddenly fell, had not seemed to demand some attention to so wonderful a phenomenon in the literary history of the eighteenth century. My readers will perceive that I have taken some pains to atone for my inability to read Kant's works in the original, not only by availing myself of the Latin version of Born, but by consulting various comments on them which have appeared in the English, Freach, and Latin languages. As commentators, however, and even translators, are not always to be trusted to as unexceptionable interpreters of their authors' opinions, my chief reliance has been placed on one of Kant's own compositions in Latin; his Dissertation De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Formâ et Principiis, which he printed as the subject of a public disputation, when he was candidate for a Professorship in the University of Königsberg. It is far from being improbable, after all, that I may, in some instances, have misapprehended his meaning, but I hope I shall not be accused of wilfully misrepresenting it. Where my remarks are borrowed from other writers, I have been careful in referring to my authorities, that my reader may judge for himself of the fidelity of my statements. If no other purpose, therefore, should be answered by this part of my work, it may at least be of use by calling forth some person properly qualified to correct any mistakes into which I may involuntarily have fallen; and, in the meantime, may serve to direct those who are strangers to German literature, to some of the comments on this philosophy which have appeared in languages more generally understood in this country.

Born 1679. Died 1754.

The display of method, however, so conspicuous in all the works of Wolfius, will often be found to amount to little more than an awkward affectation of the phraseology and forms of mathematics, in sciences where they contribute nothing to the clearness of our ideas, or the correctness of our reasonings. This affectation, which seems to have been well adapted to the taste of Germany at the time when he wrote, is now one of the chief causes of the neglect into which his writings have fallen. Some of them may be still usefully consulted as dictionaries, but to read them is impossible. They amount to about forty quarto volumes, twenty-three of which are in Latin, the rest in German.

In his own country the reputation of Wolfius is not yet at an end. In the preface to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. he is called "Summus omnium dogmaticorum Philosophus." (Kantii Opera ad Philosophiam Criticam, Vol. I. Præf. Auctoris Posterior, p. xxxvi. Latine vertit Fred. Born. Lipsia, 1796.) And by one of Kant's commentators, his name is advantageously contrasted with that of David Hume: "Est autem scientifica methodus aut dogmatica, aut sceptica. Primi generis auctorem celeberrimum Wolfium, alterius Davidum Humium nominâsse sat est." (Expositio Philos, Critica. Auctore Conrado Friderico a Schmidt-Phiseldek, Hafnia, 1796.)

profess to follow implicitly the opinions of his master, and, on some points, laid claim to peculiar ideas of his own; but the spirit of his philosophy is essentially the same with that of Leibnitz,* and the particulars in which he dissented from him are too trifling to deserve any notice in the history of literature.†

The high reputation so long maintained by Wolfius in Germany suggested, at different times, to the book-makers at Paris, the idea of introducing into France the philosophy which he taught. Hence a number of French abridgments of his logical and metaphysical writings. But an attempt, which had failed in the hands of Madame du Chatelet, was not likely to succeed with the admirers and abridgers of Wolfius.‡

On the great question of Free-Will, Wolfius adopted implicitly the principles of the Theodicæa; considering man merely in the light of a machine; but (with the author of that work) dignifying this machine by the epithet spiritual. This language, which is still very prevalent among German philosophers, may be regarded as a relic of the doctrines of Leibnitz and of Wolfius; and affords an additional proof of the difficulty of eradicating errors sanctioned by illustrious and popular names.

When the system of Pre established Harmony was first introduced by Wolfius into the University of Halle, it excited an alarm which had very nearly been attended with fatal consequences to the professor. The following anecdote on the subject is told by Euler: "Lorsque du temps du feu Roi de Prusse, M. Wolf enseignoit à Halle le système de l'Harmonie Pré-établie, le Roi s'informa de cette doctrine, qui faisoit grand bruit alors; et un courtisan répondit à sa Majesté, que tous les soldats, selon cette doctrine, n'étoient que des machines; que quand il en désertoit c'étoit une suite nécessaire de leur structure, et qu'on avoit tort par conséquent de les punir, comme on l'auroit si on punissoit une machine pour avoir produit tel ou tel mouvement. Le Roi se facha si fort sur ce rapport, qu'il donna ordre de chasser M. Wolf de Halle sous peine d'être pendu s'il s'y trouvoit au bout de 24 heures. Le philosophe se refugia alors à Marbourg, où je lui ai parlé peu de temps après." (Lettres à une Princesse d'Allemagne, Lettre 84me.) We are informed by Condorcet, that some reparation was afterwards made for this injustice by Frederic the Great. "Le Roi de Prusse, qui ne croit pas pourtant à l'Harmonie Pré-établie, s'est empressé de rendre justice à Wolf dès le premier jour de son règne."

† Among other novelties affected by Wolfius, was a new modification of the Theory of the Monads. A slight outline of it, but quite sufficient, I should suppose, to gratify the curiosity of most readers, may be found in Euler's Letters to a German Princess.

To what was before remarked, of the opposition in matters of philosophy between the taste of the French and that of the Germans, I shall here add a short passage from an author intimately acquainted with the literature of both nations.

"L'école Allemande reconnoit Leibnitz pour chef. Son fameux disciple Wolf régna dans les universités pendant près d'un demi siècle avec une autorité non contestée. On connoit en France cette philosophie par un grand nombre d'abrégés dont quelques-uns sont faits par des auteurs qui seuls auroient suffi pour lui donner de la célébrité.

"Malgré l'appui de tous ces noms, jamais en France cette philosopie ne s'est soutenue même quelques instans. La profondeur apparente des idées, l'air d'ensemble et de système, n'ont jamais pu y suppléer à ce qui a paru lui manquer pour en faire une doctrine solide et digne d'être accueillie. Outre quelque défaut de clarté, qui probablement en a écarté des esprits pour qui cette qualité de style et de la pensée

From the time of Wolfius till the philosophy of Kant began to attract general notice, I know of no German metaphysician whose speculations seem to have acquired much celebrity, in the learned world.* Lambert † is perhaps the most illustrious name which occurs during this interval. As a mathematician and natural philosopher, his great merits are universally known and acknowledged, but the language in which his metaphysical and logical works were written, has confined their reputation within a comparatively narrow circle. I am sorry that I cannot speak of these from my own knowledge; but I have heard them mentioned in terms of the highest praise, by some very competent judges, to whose testimony I am disposed to give the greater credit, from the singular vein of originality which runs through all his mathematical and physical publications.‡

est devenue un heureux besoin, la forme sous laquelle elle se présente a rebuté bien des lecteurs. Quoiqu'aient pu faire les interprètes, il a toujours percé quelque chose de l'appareil incommode qui l'entoure à son origine. Condillac tourne plus d'une fois en ridicule ces formes et ce jargon scientifique, et s'applique à montrer qu'ils ne sont pas plus propres à satisfaire la raison que le goût. Il est au moins certain, que le lecteur Français les repousse par instinct, et qu'il y trouve un obstacle très difficile à surmonter. (Reflexions sur les Euvres Posthumes d'Adam Smith, par M. Prévost de Genève, à Paris, 1794.)

* Madame de Staël mentions Lessing, Hemsterhuis, and Jacobi, as precursors of Kant in his philosophical career. She adds, however, that they had no school, since none of them attempted to found any system; but they began the war against the doctrines of the Materialists. (Allemagne, Tome III. p. 98.) I am not acquainted with the metaphysical works of any of the three. Those of Hemsterhuis, who wrote wholly in French, were, I understand, first published in a collected form at Paris, in 1792. He was the son of the celebrated Greek scholar and critic, Tiberius Hemsterhusius, Professor of Latin Literature at Leyden.

Born at Mulhausen in Alsace in 1728. Died at Berlin in 1777.

The following particulars with respect to Lambert's literary history, are extracted from a Memoir annexed by M. Prévost to his translation of Mr. Smith's Posthumous Works: "Cet ingénieux et puissant Lambert, dont les mathématiques, qui lui doivent beaucoup, ne purent épuiser les forces, et qui ne toucha aucun sujet de physique ou de philosophie rationnelle, sans le couvrir de lumière. Ses lettres cosmologiques, qu'il écrivit par forme de délassement, sont pleines d'idées sublimes, entées sur la philosophie la plus saine et la plus savante tout-à-la fois. Il avoit aussi dressé sous la titre d'Architectonique un tableau des principes sur lesquels se fondent les connoissances humaines. Cet ouvrage, au jugement des hommes les plus versés dans l'étude de leur langue, n'est pas exempt d'obscurité. Elle peut tenir en partie à la nature du sujet. Il est à regretter que sa logique, intitulé Organon, ne soit traduite ni en Latin, ni en Français, ni je pense en aucune langue. Un extrait bien fait de cet ouvrage, duquel on écarteroit ce qui répugne au goût national, exciteroit l'attention des philosophes, et la porteroit sur une multitude d'objets qu'ils se sont accoutumés à regarder avec indifference" (Prévost, Tome II. pp. 267, 268.)

In the article Lambert, inserted in the twenty-third volume of the Biographie Universelle (Paris, 1819), the following account is given of Lambert's logic: "Wolf, d'après quelques indications de Leibnitz, avoit retiré de l'oubli la syllogistique d'Aristote, science que les scholastiques avoient tellement avilie que ni Bacon ni Locke n'avoient osé lui accorder un regard d'intérêt. Il étoit réservé à Lambert de la montrer sous le plus beau jour et dans la plus riche parure. C'est ce qu'il a fait dans

The Critique of Pure Reason (the most celebrated of Kant's metaphysical works) appeared in 1781.* The idea annexed to the title by the author, is thus explained by himself: "Criticam rationis puræ non dico censuram librorum et Systematum, sed facultatis rationalis in universum, respectu cognitionum omnium, ad quas, ab omni experientiâ libera, possit anniti, proinde dijudicationem possibilitatis aut impossibilitatis metaphysices in genere, constitutionemque tum fontium, tum ambitûs atque compagis, tum vero terminorum illius, sed cuncta hæc ex principiis." (Kantii, Opera ad Philosophiam Criticam, Vol. I. Præfatio Auctoris Prior, pp. xi, xii.) To render this somewhat more intelligible, I shall subjoin the comment of one of his intimate friends,† whose work, we are informed by Dr. Willich, had received the sanction of Kant himself. "The aim of Kant's Critique is no less than to lead Reason to the true knowledge of itself; to examine the titles upon which it founds the supposed possession of its metaphysical knowledge; and by means of this examination to mark the true limits, beyond which it cannot venture to speculate, without wandering into the empty region of pure fancy. The same author adds, "The whole Critique of Pure Reason is established upon this principle, that there is a free reason, independent of all experience and sensation."

When the Critique of Pure Reason first came out, it does not seem to have attracted much notice,‡ but such

son Novum Organon, ouvrage qui est un des principaux titres de gloire de son auteur. From the writer of this article (M. Servois) we farther learn, that the Novum Organon of Lambert was translated into Latin from the German original by a person of the name of Pfleiderer, and that this translation was in the hands of an English nobleman (the late Earl of Stanhope) as lately as 1782. I quote the words of M. Servois, in the hope that they may attract some attention to the manuscript, if it be still in existence. The publication of it would certainly be a most acceptable present to the learned world. "D'après le conseil de Le Sage de Genève, l'ouvrage fut traduit en Latin par Pfleiderer, aux frais d'un savant Italien; cette traduction passa, on ne sait comment, entre les mains de Milord Mahon qui la possédoit encore en 1782; on ignore quel est son sort ultérieur."

• Kant was born at Königsberg, in Prussia, in 1724. He died in 1804.

Mr. John Schulze, an eminent divine at Königsberg, author of the Synopsis of the Critical Philosophy, translated by Dr. Willich, and inserted in his Elementary View of Kant's Works. (See pp. 42, 43.)

"Il se passa quelque tems après la première publication de la Critique de la Pure Raison, sans qu'on fit beaucoup d'attention à ce livre, et sans que la plupart de philosophes, passionés pour l'eclectisme, soupçonassent seulement la grande révolution que cet ouvrage et les productions suivantes de son auteur devoient opérer dans la science." (Buhle, Hist. de la Phil. Mod. Tom. VI. p. 573. Paris, 1816.)

As early, however, as the year 1783, the philosophy of Kant appears to have been

has been its subsequent success, that it may be regarded (according to Madame de Staël)*"as having given the impulse to all that has been since done in Germany, both in literature and in philosophy." (Allemagne, Vol. III. pp. 68, 69.)

"At the epoch when this work was published," con

adopted in some of the German schools. The ingenious M. Trembley, in a memoir then read before the Academy of Berlin, thus speaks of it: "La Philosophie de Kant, qui, à la honte de l'esprit humain, paroit avoir acquis tant de faveur dans certaines écoles. (Essai sur les Préjugés. Reprinted at Neufchatel in 1790.)

We are farther told by Buhle, that the attention of the public to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was first attracted by an excellent analysis of the work, which appeared in the General Gazette of Literature, and by the Letters on Kant's Philosophy, which Reinhold inserted in the German Mercury. (Buhle, Tom. VI. p. 573.) Ŏf this last philosopher, who appears, in the first instance, to have entered with enthusiasm into Kant's views, and who afterwards contributed much to open the eyes of his countrymen to the radical defects of his system, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Dégérando, as well as Buhle, bestows high praise not only on his clearness, but on his eloquence, as a writer in his own language. "Il a traduit les oracles Kantiens dans une langue élégante, harmonieuse, et pure. Il a su exprimer

avec une langage éloquent, des idées jusqu'alors inintelligibles," &c. (Histoire Comparée, &c. Tom. II. p. 271.) That this praise is not undeserved I am very ready to believe, having lately had an opportunity (through the kindness of my learned and revered friend, Dr. Parr) of reading, in the Latin version of Fredericus Gottlob Born, Reinhold's principal work, entitled Periculum Nova Theoria Facultatis Repræsentative Humanæ. In point of perspicuity, he appears to me to be greatly superior to Kant; and of this I conceive myself to be not altogether incompetent to judge, as the Latin versions of both authors are by the same hand.

The following quotation, from the advertisement prefixed to Madame de Staël's posthumous work (Considérations sur la Révolution Française), will at once account to my readers for the confidence with which I appeal to her historical statements on the subject of German philosophy. Her own knowledge of the language was probably not so critically exact, as to enable her to enter into the more refined details of the different systems which she has described; but her extraordinary penetration, joined to the opportunities she enjoyed of conversing with all that was then most illustrious in Germany, qualified her in an eminent degree to seize and to delineate their great outlines. And if, in executing this task, any considerable mistakes could have been supposed to escape her, we may be fully assured, that the very accomplished person, to whose revision we learn that her literary labors at this period of her life were submitted, would prevent them from ever meeting the public eye. I except, of course, those mistakes into which she was betrayed by her admiration of the German school. Of some of the most important of these, I shall take notice as I proceed; a task which I feel incumbent on me, as it is through the medium of her book that the great majority of English readers have acquired all their knowledge of the new German philosophy, and as her name and talents have given it a temporary consequence in this country which it could not otherwise have acquired.

"Le travail des éditeurs s'est borné uniquement à la révision des épreuves, et à la correction de ces légères inexactitudes de style, qui échappent à la vue dans le manuscrit le plus soigne. Ce travail c'est fait sous les yeux de M. A. W. de Schlegel, dont le rare supériorité d'esprit et de savoir justifie la confiance avec laquelle Madame de Staël le consultoit dans tous ses travaux littéraires, autant que son honorable caractère mérite l'estime et l'amitié qu'elle n'a pas cessé d'avoir pour lui pendant une liaison de treize années."

If any farther apology be necessary for quoting a French lady as an authority on German metaphysics, an obvious one is suggested by the extraordinary and wellmerited popularity of her Allemagne in this country. I do not know, if, in any part of her works, her matchless powers have been displayed to greater advantage. Of this no stronger proof can be given, than the lively interest she inspires, even when discussing such systems as those of Kant and of Fichte.