214 Kant: A Biography
More important for the spread of Kant's philosophy was perhaps An¬
ton Willich, who studied medicine at Königsberg beginning in March of
- He also attended Kant's lectures between 1778 and 1781. In 1792,
after graduating as a medical doctor, he went to Edinburgh, where he soon
became part of a friendship circle around Walter Scott.^95 His Elements of
Critical Philosophy of 1798 was one of the first books on Kant in Britain.
Though Willich was not an important philosophical mind in his own right,
he testified to the powerful influence Kant had on his students during this
period.^96
One student, who did not — or perhaps better, could not — attend Kant's
lectures was Salomon Maimon (1754-1800). He came to Königsberg dur¬
ing 1779. His account makes clear why:
When I arrived there, I went to the Jewish doctor, explained to him my proposal to
study medicine, and begged for advice and support ... he referred me to some stu¬
dents who lodged in his house. As soon as I showed myself to these young gentlemen,
and told them what I wanted, they burst out into loud laughter. Certainly, they were not
to be blamed for this. Imagine a man from Polish Lithuania, of about twenty-five, with
a stiff beard, tattered dirty clothes, whose language is a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish,
Polish and Russian, with grammatical inaccuracies, who claims that he understands
the German language, and that he has attained some knowledge of the sciences. What
were the young gentlemen to think?
They began to poke fun at me, and gave me to read Mendelssohn's Phaedo, which by
chance lay on the table. I read in the most pitiful style, both on account of the peculiar
manner in which I had learned the German language, and on account of my bad pro¬
nunciation. Again, they burst into laughter; but they said I must explain to them what I
read. This I did in my own fashion; but as they did not understand me, they demanded
that I should translate what I read into Hebrew. This I did on the spot. The students,
who understood Hebrew well, fell into no slight astonishment, when they saw that I
had not only grasped correctly the meaning of this celebrated author, but also ex¬
pressed it felicitously into Hebrew.^97
The students advised Maimon to go to Berlin. He followed their advice,
met Herz and Mendelssohn there, came under their influence, and became
a philosopher of sorts. Much later, he read Kant's first Critique and became
one of the most important early followers of Kant.^98 We can only speculate
about what might have become of him had he been able to attend Kant's
lectures in 1779.
Kant not only lectured to many students and attracted at least one
promising follower during the seventies, he succeeded on another front as
well. In December 1775 the ministry in Berlin sent a warning to the Uni¬
versity of Königsberg, in which it requested that the lectures be made more