When I had finished this work, I showed it to Marcus Herz.[63] He acknowledged that he was reckoned among the most eminent disciples of Kant, and that he had given the most assiduous application while attending Kant's philosophical lectures, as may indeed be seen from his writings, but that yet he was not in a position to pass a judgment on the Kritik itself or on any other work relating to it. He advised me, however, to send my manuscript directly to Kant himself, and submit it to his judgment, while he promised to accompany it with a letter to the great philosopher. Accordingly I wrote to Kant, sending him my work, and enclosing the letter from Herz. A good while passed, however, before an answer came. At length Herz received a reply, in which, among other things, Kant said:—
"But what were you thinking about, my dear friend, when you sent me a big packet containing the most subtle researches, not only to read through, but to think out thoroughly, while I am still, in my sixty-sixth year, burdened with a vast amount of labour in completion of my plan! Part of this labour is to furnish the last part of the Kritik,—that, namely, on the Faculty of Judgment,—which is soon to appear; part is to work out my system of the Metaphysic of Nature, as well as the Metaphysic of Ethics, in accordance with the requirements of the Kritik. Moreover, I am kept incessantly busy with a multitude of letters requiring special explanations on particular points; and, in addition to all this, my health is frail. I had already made up my mind to send back the manuscript with an excuse so well justified on all these grounds; but a glance at it soon enabled me to recognise its merits, and to show, not only that none of my opponents had understood me and the main problem so well, but that very few could claim so much penetration as Herr Maimon in profound inquiries of this sort. This induced me...," and so on.
In another passage of the letter Kant says:—"Herr Maimon's work contains moreover so many acute observations, that he cannot give it to the public without its producing an impression strongly in his favour." In a letter to myself he said:—"Your esteemed request I have endeavoured to comply with as far as was possible for me; and if I have not gone the length of passing a judgment on the whole of your treatise, you will gather the reason from my letter to Herr Herz. Certainly it arises from no feeling of disparagement, which I entertain for no earnest effort in rational inquiries that interest mankind, and least of all for such an effort as yours, which, in point of fact, betrays no common talent for the profounder sciences."
It may easily be imagined how important and agreeable to me the approbation of this great thinker must have been, and especially his testimony that I had understood him well. For there are some arrogant Kantians, who believe themselves to be sole proprietors of the Critical Philosophy, and therefore dispose of every objection, even though intended, not exactly as a refutation, but as a fuller elaboration of this philosophy, by the mere assertion without proof, that the author has failed to understand Kant. Now these gentlemen were no longer in a position to bring this charge against my book, inasmuch as, by the testimony of the founder himself of the Critical Philosophy, I have a better right than they to make use of this argument.
At this time I was living in Potsdam with a gentleman who was a leather-manufacturer. When Kant's letters arrived, I went to Berlin, and devoted my time to the publication of my Transcendental Philosophy. As a native of Poland I dedicated this work to the king, and carried a copy to the Polish Resident; but it was never sent, and I was put off from time to time with various excuses. Sapienti sat!
A copy of the work was also sent, as is usually done, to the editor of the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung. After waiting a good while without any notice appearing, I wrote to the editor, and received the following answer:—"You know yourself how small is the number of those who are competent to understand and judge philosophical works. Three of the best speculative thinkers have declined to undertake the review of your book, because they are unable to penetrate into the depths of your researches. An application has been made to a fourth, from whom a favourable reply was expected; but a review from him has not yet been received."
I also began to work at this time for the Journal für Aufklärung. My first article was on Truth, and was in the form of a letter to a friend[64] in Berlin. The article was occasioned by a letter which I had received from this friend during my stay in Potsdam, and in which he wrote to me in a humorous vein, that philosophy was no longer a marketable commodity, and that therefore I ought to take advantage of the opportunity which I was enjoying to learn tanning. I replied, that philosophy is not a coinage subject to the vicissitudes of the exchange; and this proposition I afterwards developed in my article. Another article in the same periodical was on Tropes, in which I show that these imply the transference of a word not from one object to another that is analogous, but from a relative to its correlate. I wrote also an article on Bacon and Kant, in which I institute a comparison between these two reformers of philosophy. The Soul of the World was the subject of another discussion in this journal, in which I endeavoured to make out, that the doctrine of one universal soul common to all animated beings has not only as much in its favour as the opposite doctrine, but that the arguments for it outweigh those on the other side. My last article in the journal referred to the plan of my Transcendental Philosophy; and I explain in it that, while I hold the Kantian philosophy to be irrefutable from the side of the Dogmatist, on the other hand I believe that it is exposed to all attacks from the side of the Scepticism of Hume.
A number of young Jews from all parts of Germany had, during Mendelssohn's lifetime, united to form a society under the designation, Society for Research into the Hebrew Language. They observed with truth, that the evil condition of our people, morally as well as politically, has its source in their religious prejudices, in their want of a rational exposition of the Holy Scriptures, and in the arbitrary exposition to which the rabbis are led by their ignorance of the Hebrew language. Accordingly the object of their society was to remove these deficiencies, to study the Hebrew language in its sources, and by that means to introduce a rational exegesis. For this purpose they resolved to publish a monthly periodical in Hebrew under the title of [Hebrew:** ], The Collector, which was to give expositions of difficult passages in Scripture, Hebrew poems, prose essays, translations from useful works, etc.
The intention of all this was certainly good; but that the end would scarcely be reached by any such means, I saw from the very beginning. I was too familiar with the principles of the rabbis and their style of thought to believe that such means would bring about any change. The Jewish nation is, without reference to accidental modifications, a perpetual aristocracy under the appearance of a theocracy. The learned men, who form the nobility in the nation, have been able, for many centuries, to maintain their position as the legislative body with so much authority among the common people, that they can do with them whatever they please. This high authority is a natural tribute which weakness owes to strength. For since the nation is divided into such unequal classes as the common people and the learned, and since the former, owing to the unfortunate political condition of the nation, are profoundly ignorant, not only of all useful arts and sciences, but even of the laws of their religion, on which their eternal welfare is supposed to depend, it follows that the exposition of Scripture, the deduction of religious laws from it, and the application of these to particular cases, must be surrendered wholly to the learned class which the other undertakes the cost of maintaining. The learned class seek to make up for their want of linguistic science and rational exegetics by their own ingenuity, wit and acuteness. To form an idea of the degree in which these talents are displayed, it is necessary to read the Talmud along with the commentary called Tosaphoth, that is, the additions to the first commentary of Rabbi Solomon Isaac.[65]