Kant: A Biography

300 Kant: A Biography

Before reason awoke, there were no commandments or prohibition, so that violations

of these were also impossible. But when reason began to function and, in all its weak¬

ness, came into conflict with animality in all its strength, evils necessarily ensued....

From the moral point of view, therefore, the first step... was a fall, and from the

physical point of view, this fall was a punishment that led to hitherto unknown evils.

Thus, the history of nature begins with goodness, for it is the work of God; but the his¬

tory of freedom begins with evil, for it is the work of man.^105

Kant argued that while this story shows that reason and freedom must look
like a loss to the individual who must blame himself, they also are a cause
for admiration and praise if we take the point of view of the species. For man's
destiny is the "progressive cultivation of its capacity for goodness."^106
In the concluding note Kant addresses a malaise to which thinking people
are subject and of which the unthinking are completely ignorant, namely
"discontent with that providence by which the course of the world as a
whole is governed."^107 Kant thinks that contentedness with destiny is ab¬
solutely necessary for progress in the cultivation of goodness. Blaming fate
interferes with working on oneself to get better. The malaise is expressed
in fear of war, dissatisfaction with the shortness of life, and the yearning
for a golden age in which all of our needs are met. Kant tried to show that
wars are necessary, that the shortness of life is beneficial, and that a golden
age is not really desirable. What appear to be undesirable features of the
world are in fact conditions of the possibility of progressive cultivation of
our capacity for goodness. Every individual therefore should realize that
he has "every justification for acknowledging the action of his first ances¬
tors as his own, and that he should hold himself responsible for all the evils
which spring from the misuse of reason."^108 We would have done precisely
the same as our ancestors did. Therefore we should be content. Things are
not going from good to evil, but from worse to better.

Herder disagreed, of course. For him, the "savage who loves himself, his
wife and his child ... and works for the good of his tribe as for his own ...
is ... more genuine than the human ghost, the citizen of the world, who,
burning with love for all his fellow ghosts, loves a chimera. The savage in
his hut has room for a stranger... the saturated heart of the idle cosmo¬
politan is a home for no one."^109 Herder might have started out as a stu¬
dent of Kant, but he had become an enemy. What one of them considered
progress, the other considered to be harmful and an impoverishment of
humanity. Further, Herder continued to view their conflict as merely per¬
sonal. Kant, however, believed he was fulfilling his duty. In the very last
sentence of his "Conjectures," he said, "Each individual is for his own part