tion of the nebula? into stars, and the probable discovery of new planets — scientific predictions fulfilled in much later years by Ilerschel and Leverrier. Tliis production occasioned a correspondence with Lambert (17G1), the singularly profound president of the Berlin Academy, who espoused similar opinions. For fifteen years (1755- 1770) Kant lectured to private classes in the university. His courses treated "panie de omni scibili," but were marked by a special addition to the physical sciences, and, after 1757, to physical geography, a novel branch r)f knowledge which he continued to expound annually till the close of his academical career. A life so retired as Kant's, and so exclusively occupied with study and the duties of instruction, scarcely offers any events for biography beyond the development of opinions, the jjub- lication of the treatises in which such opinions are set forth, and the academic distinctions attained. The chronicler finds little to report more exciting than Dr. Primrose's migrations "from the blue chamber to the brown," and hence is compelled to mark the critical mo- ments of his career by the notice of the principal wt)rks as they appeared. Such indications, however, have a value of their own, as they reveal the growth of spec- ulations which have moulded the intelligence of the ^^•orld, and mark the times and modes in wliich the rev- olutions of thought have been effected. In 1762 ap- peared Kant's criticism of the Aristotelian logic, in a trea- tise entitled Die falsche Spitzjindigkeit der vier syllogis- tischen Figuren {False Subtlety of the Syllogistic Figures'). The censors of Aristotle have usually misapprehended both his doctrines and his aims, and have imagined to be erroneous dogmas which the Stagyrite had medita- ted more profoundly, and had treated with a juster re- gard to practical convenience than themselves. In the course of the next year, 1763, Kant gave to the public his Der einzig mogliche Beweissgrund zu einer Demonstra- tion des Daseyns Gottes {Ontological Demonstration of the Being of God), in which he repudiated alike the deduc- tions a p)rion of Anselm, Des Cartes, and Clarke, and the inductions a posteriori of the natural theologians, and regarded the conception of the possibility of God as attesting the reality of his existence. This treatise still bears the imjiress of the dominant Wolfian philosophy, which he had imbibed from his early teacher Schultz. In this year he contended for the prize offered by the Berlin Academy, his treatise on the Principles of Nat- ural Theology and Morals {Unteisuchung iiher die Deut- lichkeit der Grundscitze der natiirlicheii Theologie vnd Morcd) receiving the second honors, while the first v.ere adjudged to IMoses IMendelssohn. Three years more elapsed before he received his first public appointment as underkeeper of the Royal Library, with the scant sal- ary of fifty dollars. In this year he exposed the pre- tensions of Swedenborgianism, being always ready to assail new-fangled delusions, whether stimulated by en- thusiasm or by imposture. At length, when ajiproach- ing the end of his forty-seventh year, he was promoted to the chair of logic and metaphj-sics in his own uni- versity, with a stipend of three hundred dollars. He had suffered two previous disappointments. He had failed to obtain the professorship extraordinary of logic in 1756, and the ordinary professorship in 1758, and had declined the professorship of poetry in 17G4,froin distrust of his aptitudes and acquirements. He had refused in- vitations from Erlangen and Jena, from reluctance to abandon his people and his native home.
Custom demanded an inaugural dissertation from the professor elect. Kant's subject was De 3/undi AS'ensibi/is atqne Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis. This essay con- tained the first distinct anticipations of his characteristic system, though his philosophj- did not receive form or coherent development for many ensuing years. The re- mainder of his life was, however, consecrated to its defi- nite constitution and exposition. It early began to as- sume shape, for in 1772 he smoothed the way for a full- er discussion by his Scheme of Transcendental Philoso- phy. No desire of change, no temptation of worldly ad-
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vancement and honor could seduce him from his calm lu- cubrations. He refused to go to Halle, though a double salary was offered him. After eleven years of patient meditation he produced in 1781 his Critique oftkePure Reason {Kritik dev reiiien Vernunft), which proclaimed a ne^v philosophy, and ushered in a new cycle of specu- lation— norm ordo Sicclorum metaphysicoruin. The work was modified in a second edition in 1787, to obviate the imputation of idealism and idealistic infidelity objected to it as to the previous system of Wolf. It long seemed as if this remarkable production — a revolution itself, and the parent of revolutions — woidd never reach a second edition. For six years it lay so unheeded on the jnib- lisher's shelves that he contemplated disposing of it as waste paper, when a sudden demand relieved his anxie- ties, and rendered a republication expedient. This time- ly uiterest in the book was scarcely due to Kant's Pro- legomena to Metaphysics {Prolegomena zu eiiier jeden kiinflvjen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird aiiflre- ten Iconnen, 1783), but may be attributed to striking no- tices of the doctrine in prominent German magazines. In 1785 the practical side of his system was exposed in his Metaphysics of Ethics {Grmidler/ung zur Metaphysik der Sitten), and in the following year its extension to physical speculation was attempted in his Metaphysics of Natural Science (^Metaphysische A ufanr/sgriiiule der Naturwissenschaft). In 1788 the positive aspect of his philosophy was presented in the Critique of the Practical Reason {Kritik der praktischenVei-nunf), which treats of the principles and objects of the moral law, and con- structs ethics on the formula, Act so that your principle of action may serve as a universal law. The foimdation is narrow, and has the cold rigidity of Stoical pretension, but it was a stern and strict rule in the conception of its propounder, and was borrowed from his own line of conduct, and from the austere virtues of his parental home, as much as from the dictates of his reason. The defects of this canon will be indicated hereafter. The outline of the new philosophy was completed in 1790 by the Critique of the Practical Judgment {Kritik der Ur- tkeikkraft), which is in some respects the most satis- factory work of the series. It is designed to unit j the practical with the theoretical reason, the freedom of the wUl witii the law of existence, by regarding the whole order of creation as a system of means effectually adapt- ed to the attainment of benelicent aims. It is thus a tractate of teleology or of final causes. It is principally occupied with the theory of the beautiful and the sub- lime, and is in great measure a development of the Ob- servations on the Beautiful and the Sublime {Beobach- tunrjen iiber das Gefiihl des Schonen und Erhabenen, 17C4), and the Metaphysics of Ethics (1785).