134 Kant: A Biographyhim the "German Shaftesbury."^168 Again, Herder exaggerated, but his
exaggeration nevertheless adds a facet to our understanding of Kant's in¬
tellectual temperament. He was not the dry physicist and metaphysician
that one might expect from reading his Latin dissertations. Kant was def¬
initely European in outlook. He not only read and appreciated the current
German, French, and English authors, but he tried to put their theories
into praxis. Furthermore, there was a definite literary flavor to his life. He
strove to be a man of letters, not just a scholar, and that set him apart from
most of his colleagues at the university.
Herder, on the other hand, was shy, withdrawn, and without social
graces. He did not have many friends, though he was close to Hamann and
learned from him literature, theology, and English. Hippel, who had been
on an extended journey to Russia, returned to Königsberg at about the
time that Herder first arrived there. The journey had convinced Hippel that
he was not cut out for theology, and he had become much worldlier. He
disliked Herder — or at least he could not take him seriously. He made
constant fun of this student of Kant's and friend of Hamann's, and he dis¬
paraged Herder's first literary efforts.^169 Like Kant, Hamann, and Herder,
Hippel also had literary ambitions, and, very much like them, he inclined
toward sentimentalism. But Herder's gushy, emotional, and exaggerated
style was not to his taste. Kant was more forgiving, hoping that Herder's
enthusiasm would diminish with age.
Kant also had reservations about Herder's approach to life. When Herder
left Königsberg, Kant told him not to "brood so much over his books, but
follow his own example. He [said that he himself] was very social, and only
in the world can one educate oneself. (And really, Magister Kant was then
the ''most elegant' {galanteste) man of the world, wore bordered clothes, a
postillion d'amour, and visited all the coteries)."^170 Hamann reported about
the same period:
... swept along by a whirlpool of societal diversions, he [Kant] has many works in his
head: Morality, an Essay on a new metaphysics, an excerpt of his physical geography,
and a great number of small ideas, from which I also hope to profit. Whether the least
of it will come to pass is still in doubt.^171
Kant spent "perhaps most afternoons and evenings in society... not in¬
frequently participating in a suite of playing cards, and often returning
home only past midnight. If he was not invited to a meal, he would eat in
a restaurant, together with several educated persons. It was there that he
met... von Hippel and that the two got to know each other better, and