Silent Years 20gand Kant, in spite of the great number of students in his lectures, had not failed to no¬
tice Kraus's exemplary attentiveness and lively interest. Because Kraus never went to
lectures simply in order to have been there, but because he wanted to obtain new ma¬
terials for thinking and research, he formulated many questions, reservations, doubts,
obscurities and other thoughts, which disturbed him and almost made him insane. Yet
in part because of his bashful and shy nature and in part because of the stark distance
between the academic teacher and the students that still existed then and which made
a friendly exchange between them very rare, he did not dare to visit Kant. But he ob¬
tained his wish in another way. He became a member of Kant's disputation class and
once he offered such deep objections to the great philosopher and betrayed such an
ability for philosophical thought {Speculation) that Kant began to wonder about the
young man and asked him to stay after the lecture so that he could get to know him
better. It almost appears as if Kant sought out his student. For the student this was an
event of the greatest importance... without Kant, who became his one and only, Kraus
would perhaps never have become what he became.^80
Kraus liked Kant and Kant liked Kraus - and the professor of philosophy
looked out for his student. When Kraus's uncle died in 1773, he was with¬
out any support. His parents had died before he came to Königsberg. Kant
began to support Kraus. In 1774 he recommended him to supervise a
young baron in his studies at the university. Kraus obtained the position
and received a substantial salary. He lived with the young baron at Kanter's
house, close to Kant.
After having attended all of Kant's lectures, Kraus turned toward other
studies in 1774. He learned English and mathematics on his own. He
read widely, appreciating especially Butler's Hudibras, all of Shakespeare,
Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, "to form his mood {Laune) and wit,"
Rousseau and Spinoza, "to educate his understanding," and "Tindal, Mor¬
gans, Hobbes, and all the anti-religious wits, which teach me to doubt and
to accept the true claim that the Bible is not meant for speculation." He
also read Voltaire and, as a teacher in "speculation," that is, metaphysics,
Hume. Kraus may have been influenced as much by these readings as he
was by Kant's lectures. Though Kant looked at Kraus as his student, Kraus
was not willing to follow Kant's new critical philosophy.
Indeed, after 1775, Kraus, like Herder before him, cam&more and more
under the influence of Hamann, who on August 14 ofthat year told Herder
that Kraus "is a great genius, both in philosophy and mathematics. He
broods over problems... He is the teacher of my son and his father."^81
But a year later (August 10, 1776) he wrote: "Kraus has become a com¬
plete stranger to me and is translating, on Green's recommendation, Young's