172 Kant: A Biographypiece as it was printed.*^13 Since Borowski tells us that Kant usually sent only
the entire work at once, the Dreams appear to be exceptional even in that re¬
gard. There was a rush to judgment in this matter. Why, we do not know.
The Dreams is the only book for which Kant ever came close to apolo¬
gizing. Though it was published anonymously, he accepted responsibility
for it. Thus on April 6, 1766, he wrote to Mendelssohn:
The estrangement you express about the tone of my little work proves to me that you
have formed a good opinion of the sincerity of my character, and your very reluctance
to see that character ambiguously expressed is both precious and pleasing to me. In
fact, you will never have to change this opinion. For, though there may be flaws that
even the most steadfast determination cannot eradicate completely, I shall certainly
never become a fickle or fraudulent person, having, during what must have been the
largest part of my life, learned to do without as well as to scorn most of the things that
tend to corrupt one's character. The loss of self-respect, which originates from the
consciousness of an undisguised way of thinking, would thus be the greatest evil that
could befall me, but which most certainly never will befall me. Although I am person¬
ally convinced with the greatest clarity and satisfaction of many things which I will never
have the courage to say, I will never say anything that I do not mean (dencke).^114
Kant thus tried to downplay the tone, which Mendelssohn had found
troublesome. The book was not serious enough. Metaphysics was impor¬
tant and should not be made light of. Kant tried to reassure Mendelssohn.
Still, in affirming his steadfast character as a philosophical author, he in¬
directly apologizes for the ambiguous style or tone of the work. This tone is
perhaps best characterized by a passage from the end of the third chapter.
A Victorian translator of the work rendered it as follows:
Therefore, I do not at all blame the reader, if, instead of regarding the spirit-seers as
half-dwellers in another world, he, without further ceremony, despatches them as can¬
didates for the hospital, and thereby spares himself further investigation. But, if any¬
thing then is to be treated on such basis, the manner of such adepts of the spirit-world
must be very different from that based upon the ideas given above; and if, formerly, it
was found necessary at times to burn some of them, it will now suffice to give them a
purgative. Indeed, from this point of view, there was no need of going back as to meta¬
physics, - for hunting up secrets in the deluded brain of dreamers. The keen Hudibras
could alone have solved for us the riddle, for he thinks that visions and holy inspirations
are simply caused by a disordered stomach.m
The last sentence, whose scatological German outspokenness the bowdler¬
izing translator thought "hardly bearable in English," should read: "The
keen Hudibras would have been able to solve the riddle on his own, for his
opinion was: if a hypochondriacal wind should rage in the guts, what mat¬
ters is the direction it takes: if downwards, then the result is a f — ; if up¬
wards, an apparition or an heavenly inspiration."^116