chair .. My own belief is that the king had private information of Kant's ultimate tendencies, as revealed in his table talk"; or again, "He had no instincts of creation or restoration within his Apollyon mind; for he had no love, no faith, no self-distrust, no humility, no childlike docility". It is on such expressions as these, taken for the most part from a single essay, that Mr. Stirling's criticism is based. But that is not De Quincey's final opinion; for in 1830 he writes: "I will never believe that Kant was capable (as some have represented him) of ridiculing in conversation the hopes of immortality; for that is both incredible for itself and in contradiction to many passages in his writings"." 3 There are other expressions against Kant's sincerity and honorable character which we cannot account for except as a yielding to that sudden caprice of judgment, to his mere whim and humor, which mars so much of De Quincey's work. "Not content with the privilege of speaking in an infidel tone, and with philosophic liberty, he manifestly thinks of Christianity with enmitynay, with spite". "That he was mean and little-minded in his hatred to Christianity is certain. He is compelled to do unwilling homage to the greatness of Christian morals". A note of Kant's on a remarkable numeral cabala in connection with Biblical chronology (K's. Werke X, 319 f., note), and a remark on Catholicism (ib. X, 318-19, note) are for De Quincey other examples of Kant's hostility to Christianity. It is unnecessary to quote at length these remarks of Kant. Suffice it to say that 1 Works II, 155; written in 1834. 2 Ib. VIII, 95. 3 Works VIII, 95. cf. also II, 155. De Quincey's treatment of them is pedantic and petty, and is based on the most scattered and isolated references. He must have known what Kant's real opinion was; he could not have read so widely as he had done without noticing that Kant's veneration for Christianity "in some cardinal points" did not arise from his hostility to it, a kind of "unwilling homage". It is inconceivable that he should ever have given expression to such false opinions, except under the supposition that he was expressing his own personal disappointment and grudge against Kant; for he knew much better Kant's real position. The most bitter illustration of this spirit of criticism appears in connection with Kant's famous letter to the King of Prussia: "Surely grey hairs and irreligion make a monstrous union; and the spirit of proselytism carried into the service of infidelity, youthful zeal put forth by a tottering decrepit old man to withdraw from poor desponding and suffering human nature, its most essential props, whether for action or for suffering, for conscience or for hope, is a spectacle too disgusting to leave much sympathy with merit of another kind."2 Or further, "Kant must have been animated by spite or vanity in disseminating his views. . . . And melancholy it is to record that Kant, the upright, stern, stoical Kant, — in his answer to the King shuffled, juggled, equivocated, in fact it must be avowed, lied." Kant's defence, that the letter was not written for the public, but for scholars, De Quincey calls "shameless falsehood". Kant concealed his real purpose by a mere artifice. It was "neither good faith nor plain dealing." He promised as "his Majesty's most faithful subject" not 1 Works VIII, 95. 9 Ib. VIII, 103. to give any offence, a phrase, which he explains himself in his note as "limiting the engagement only to the King's life". It is possible to speak unfavorably of the last remark, but not with a knowledge of the real Kant in all his relations.1 But Kant shocked not only De Quincey's beliefs, but also his tastes and imagination. He calls Kant a pedant and something of a brute. He alludes to Kant's pretences to a knowledge of the world, literature, society and art; but "under all these disguises it is very evident that Kant's original determination was to a coarse, masculine pursuit of science, and that literature in its finer departments, whose essence is power, not knowledge, was to him, at all parts of his life an object of secret contempt"." Here the fine literary and poetic sense of De Quincey influenced his judgement; the opinion is totally false. Such criticism is the more remarkable, because De Quincey shows on the whole a thorough appreciation of Kant's character, and an understanding of at least a part of the Critical Philosophy. We find De Quincey's serious opinion, when he calls Kant "the most sincere, honourable and truthful of human beings";3 when he speaks of “the stern integrity of Kant", "the direct and simple-minded Kant". 1 cf. K.'s Werke X, 251 ff. cf. also Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1. 1867, p. 378, and an article by J. P. Nichol reprinted in De Quincey Memorials, Vol. II, Appendix 259 ff. This appeared originally in the Glasgow University Album for 1854, calling De Quincey's attention. to the statements and asking him to give his grounds for them in the edition of the collected works. But the statements were not changed and De Quincey made no explanation. The article in Blackwood's Magazine in which these charges occur was not republished; but there is no evidence that De Quincey's intention was to withdraw them. 2 Works VIII, 91. We shall look in vain in De Quincey for any complete sketch of the Transcendental Philosophy. Much of what he says is little better than magazine gossip of a clever and personal kind. He is never through with laughing over Kant's style;' certain anecdotes always amuse him; there are bits of interesting information; for example, Kant's opinion of the partition of Poland; the fine quality of Kant's Latin style", etc. One may laugh with De Quincey but there is little in such remarks as the following: "Were it not that veneration and gratitude cause us to suspend harsh words with regard to such a man, who has upon the greatest question affecting our human reason almost, we might say, revealed the truth (viz., in his theory of the categories), we should describe him, and continually we are tempted to describe him as the most superhuman of recorded blockheads." (This in connection with Kant's style of exposition.) Most of these essays are more valuable as affording insight into De Quincey's manner of thinking and writing than as a criticism of Kant. The logical faculty, the mastery of materials, is one of the qualities for which De Quincey has often been praised. Here it is totally absent. His mind springs from one idea to another; one thing reminds him of something else; there is no development whatever; before the end of the paper he has forgotten his original plan. What would a close analysis of the article in Blackwood's (August 1830) leave? His subject is Kant in his Miscellaneous Essays. He chooses these, he says, because the more visionary Transcendental Philosophy 1 Works II, 83; X, 122, 160 ff., 259, 262, note. 2 cf. e. g. De Quincey and his Friends, 177 f. 3 Works IV, 33 f., note; V, 143; VI, 102. 4 Posth. Works II, 182. might not be interesting; from this remark he turns with good-natured ridicule to Kant's style and German pedantic terminology; then to Kant's contempt for art and literature; his lack of reading; his attitude to Christianity and his relations with the King. A note of Kant's on the Cabala connects itself naturally with this part of the essay; a note by Kant on the preceding page occasions the long discussion of a point raised by him in connection with the Catholics. De Quincey then takes up the essay on Theory and Practice, but in the most fragmentary way; he translates certain parts of it until a remark of Kant's on the English constitution rouses his wrath, and with a discussion of that point the treatment of the essay ends; then with a translation of the chief propositions in the essay Zum ewigen Frieden, the paper is ready for the press. De Quincey's only attempt to give a connected exposition of even a part of Kant's philosophy is found in the essay already mentioned, German Studies and Kant in Particular, written in 1836. He sketches Kant's development from the dogmatism of Wolf to the skepticism of Hume; to his sense of the weakness of the empirical philosophy and the necessity of the a priori character of causation; to the derivation of the other categories and the necessity of them as forms of the mind itself. "Without going one step further, the reader will find grounds enough for reflection, and for reverence towards Kant in these two great results: 1st., that an order of ideas has been established, which all deep philosophy has demanded, even when it could not make good its claim; 2ndly., The postulate is fulfilled without mysticism or Platonic reveries". He then states briefly the 1 Works II, 99. |