The Old Man 389Jachmann had reason to believe that Kant had such an influence on Hippel
because he had obtained a scholarship through Kant's intervention.^15
Much of the controversy around Hippel centered on the publication of
his Lebensläufe. Hippel had made much use of notebooks from Kant's lec¬
tures on anthropology and metaphysics in the first volume. Not long after
Hippel's death, a certain G. Flemming in Göttingen promised to prove, on
the basis of their similarities to Kant's published writings, that Kant was
the author of the anonymous Lebensläufe as well as of two other books.^16
Somewhat later, a J. A. Bergk weakened that claim, arguing that Kant had
only written the philosophical parts. Kant felt he had to respond. Late that
year he wrote a "Declaration Concerning Hippel's Authorship," pointing
out that he was neither the author nor the coauthor of the book.^17 The sim¬
ilarity between Hippel's text and his own work was to be explained by the
fact that Hippel had used notes taken by his students. This did not mean
that Hippel had committed plagiarism. His lectures were public wares, and
anyone who found them useful could use them in any way he saw fit. "And
so my friend, who never explicitly studied philosophy, used the materials
he obtained as spice for the taste of his readers, without being allowed to
tell them whether they came from his neighbor's garden or from India."^18
Kant knew that Hippel was the author of the Lebensläufe almost im¬
mediately after the publication of the book, although in a draft of his dec¬
laration he claims that he never broached the subject of these books in
conversation or writing, and this because he was sensitive to Hippel's needs.
Since Hippel never said anything to him about the books, and since he felt
that someone who wanted to remain incognito should not be forced to re¬
veal himself in polite society, he respected Hippel. He knew how many of
his own thoughts had entered into the Lebensläufe and the book On Mar¬
riage even before he himself had published them. Hippel was his "former
student, later a lively (aufgeweckter) acquaintance and, during the last ten
years, his intimate (vertrauter) friend," and he did not want to harm him.
On the other hand, however, he also did not want to seem to be a collabo¬
rator in Hippel's literary work.^19
Hippel had used in the Lebenlsäufe Kant's claim that "in reading a book
it is necessary to seek out the soul of the book and to try to investigate the
idea, which the author had; only then do we know the book entirely." This
means that the identity of the author is not as important as what the author
had to say. The idea of the author that makes up the soul of the book is
someone's idea, and the two cannot be entirely separated. We may be sure
that Kant had better insight into the idea of the book and the identity of