Founder of a Metaphysics of Morals 293structure, with no recourse to metaphysics. For this purpose, spiritual forces, a certain
invisible domain of creation, are assumed for which matter constitutes only the frame¬
work. This realm contains the animating principle which organizes everything in such
a way that the schema of the perfection of this organic system is to be man. All earthly
creatures, from the lowest level on, approximate him until finally, through nothing else
than this perfected organic system, of which the essential condition is the upright gait
of the animal, man emerged. His death can never more terminate the progress and en¬
hancement of the structure already shown before copiously in other creatures. Rather
a transcendence of nature is expected to still more refined operations in order to fur¬
ther him thereby to yet higher grades of life, and so continuously to promote and ele¬
vate him into infinitude.^76
As Herder had claimed, "the current condition of man is probably the in¬
termediate stage between two worlds. .. the middle link between two in¬
terlinking systems of creation.... He represents two worlds in one to us
and that accounts for the apparent duality of his essence.... Life is a battle,
the flower of pure, immortal humanity a painfully acquired crown."^77
Kant did not understand. He did not understand the argument by anal¬
ogy, because what Herder stated as an analogy is a disanalogy. How can the
similarity between man and all other creatures prove that man is immortal,
or the middle link between mortality and immortality, when all other crea¬
tures decompose? Individuals are completely destroyed — or so it would
seem. Herder's idea of a self-constituting organic system is an idea that lies
entirely outside of the sphere of empirical investigation. It is mere specu¬
lation. The author may be praised for having thought for himself, and for a
preacher, this took courage, but his "execution is only partially success¬
ful."^78 Kant closed by expressing his hope that philosophy would help
Herder in "pruning... superfluous growth." Flighty imagination,
"whether metaphysical or sentimental," will not get us anywhere.
Hartknoch had told Herder on a visit in 1783 that Kant believed the lack
of attention to his first Critique was the result of Herder's influence.^79 Was
the review therefore a personal reaction? Probably not — at least not en¬
tirely. For Kant, the champion of the Enlightenment as the destiny of
mankind, had deep philosophical reasons to oppose what seemed to him
only unprincipled flights of imagination that obfuscated what was really im¬
portant. Herder's book was not just a "superfluous growth," but a weed
that needed to be rooted out. Furthermore, Kant himself did not seem
to think the review was a devastating one. Nor did Hamann. He wrote to
Herder just before the issue of the journal containing Kant's review ap¬
peared, and he revealed that Kant was the author: "It will perhaps not be