Everyone is familiar, in general terms, with the part played by the idea of freedom in Kant’s philosophy. It may, however, be of interest to point out how definitely it comes to him in the form given it by Rousseau. Omitting the whole subject of Kant’s educational interest, [1] I will refer to two passages from Kant’s early notes [2] in connection with the tract on the Feelings of the Sublime and the Beautiful, and two from the Philosophy of Right, which first appeared in the autumn of 1796.
[1] See Duproix, Loc. cit. [2] Between 1765 and 1775.
First, then, to establish the definite impulse communicated to Kant in his earlier years by Rousseau in particular.
“I am myself,” he writes, [1] “a student by inclination. I feel the whole thirst for knowledge, and the covetous restlessness that demands to advance in it, and again the satisfaction of every {242} step of progress. There was a time when I believed that all this might constitute the honour of humanity, and I despised the crowd that knows nothing. It was Rousseau who set me right. That dazzling privilege disappeared; and I should think myself far less useful than common artisans if I did not believe that my line of study might impart value to all others in the way of establishing the rights of humanity.”
[1] Kant’s Werke (Rosenkrantz), xi., p. 240. Cf. p. 218.
Kant seems, from the context, to be foreshadowing the idea of his critical philosophy, as putting man in his place in the order of creation.
“If there is any science,” he says just below, “which man really needs, it is that which I teach, to fill properly that place which is assigned to man in creation; a science from which he can learn what one must be in order to be human.”
This throws light on the curious passage in the same set of notes, [1] where, in a discussion of the idea of Providence, Kant first refers to Newton’s discovery of order in the multiplicity of the planetary motions, and then proceeds,
“Rousseau first discovered, beneath the multiplicity of the forms assumed by man, the deeply latent nature of humanity, and the hidden law, according to which Providence is justified by his observations. Before that the objection of Alphonsus and of Manes [2] held the field. After Newton and Rousseau, God is justified, and henceforwards Pope’s doctrine is true.”
[1] Ib, p. 248.