"All-Crushing" Critic of Metaphysics 275to put greater effort into making it better understood, while at the same
time pushing it forward into moral philosophy.
Kant still had an effect on some of his students. In 1782, one of Kant's
"best students," a young Jew named Elkana, went insane, and people blamed
Kant for having "fed the undisciplined industriousness, or rather con-
ceitedness, of this unhappy young man."^103 Hamann thought that Kant's
"mathematico-metaphysical" worries were probably not the only thing that
was to blame, but he did not seem to find Kant entirely blameless either.^104
Elkana ran away from Königsberg, eventually made it to England, and re¬
turned to Königsberg after having been introduced to Priestley. Upon his
return, he was more interested in how to desalinate saltwater than in phi¬
losophy, but he did not improve otherwise. The court chaplain Schulz,
"Kant's first apostle" and "exegete," together with his wife, took him into
their care. Whether this caused his wish to convert to Christianity is not
clear, but he did become a proselyte.^105 Kant's difficult philosophical the¬
ories were not the healthiest fare for young students.
Another important student was Daniel Jenisch (1762—1804), who be¬
gan his studies in the summer semester of 1780. He was close not only to
Kant, but also to Schulz and Hamann. Hamann considered him "one of
our best heads."^106 Jenisch left Königsberg in 1786 with a letter of recom¬
mendation from Kant, addressed to Biester, and he later translated George
Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric into German. In the Preface he tried to
show that Kant's philosophy was close to that of the Scottish commonsense
philosophers, and he praised Kant so much that one of the reviewers found
it necessary to criticize him for his uncritical adoration of the Königsberg
philosopher.^107
Kant's most important student during this period was Jacob Sigismund
Beck (1761—1840). He began his studies at the University of Königsberg
in August of 1783, and he continued them first in Halle in 1789, and then
in Leipzig. Since he disliked Leipzig - and especially Platner, one of Kant's
more famous opponents — he returned to Halle again, to study with such
Kantians as Ludwig Heinrich Jakob (1759—1827).
While studying in Königsberg, he was, like many of Kant's students, more
of a friend to Kraus than to Kant - and he was always independent.^108 He
wrote later to Kant: "I have had a great deal of trust in you, but I also con¬
fess that, in the difficulties, which pre-occupied me a long time, I often
wavered between trusting you and trusting myself."^109 In other words,
Beck did not succumb in Königsberg to the force of Kant's philosophy.
Rather, this happened when he was away from Königsberg. It took him