Kant: A Biography

The Old Man 415

his feet hit the ground by a perpendicular motion; he began to stomp. His

reason was the belief that walking in a flat-footed way would maximize re¬

sistance and thus prevent him from falling. But he fell anyway. To an un¬

known women who once helped him up, he gave a rose he was carrying in

his hand. Soon after, he gave up his walks altogether.^125 He could no longer

take care of even minor monetary transactions, since he was no longer able

to recognize the coins properly. Accordingly, he was taken advantage of

more than once. Wasianski had to see to it that the smallest details of his

life were taken care of.

Kant's short-term memory went first. He began to forget many of the

ordinary things that needed to be done, and told the same stories several

times a day. His long-term memory was still good. Like many old people,

he began to live in the past, but he was still alert enough to notice that he

was repeating himself and incessantly forgetting things. So he began to write

things down. Jachmann, who visited him, wrote

Four years ago he began to use note papers (Gedankenzettel), on which he marked the

travelers who would visit him. In the end he wrote down every little detail that others

told him or that came to him.^126

So, in 1800 Kant's memory was so bad that he no longer remembered what
he had done a few hours before and what he had to do within a few hours.
He no longer answered letters. Rink wrote: "I almost want to say that he is
incapable of answering them."^127
By 1801, his memory had deteriorated even further. It appears that now
even his working memory, that is, the kind of memory that allows us to
concentrate on a given task, was affected. Still, it was not entirely gone.
Jachmann found:

Three years ago [1801] I had to inform him about the impending changes in my office

and place of residence, but he found it already so difficult to remember... that I had

slowly to dictate everything to him. He noticed during this time, that he could not think

at times, and he excused himself, saying that thinking and comprehending were diffi¬

cult for him, and that [at times] he had to give up on pursuing an intended line of

thought. This gave him then perhaps more discomfort than it did during his greater

weakness later on.^128

The content of the notes Kant made was varied, but it manifests nothing

of Kant's former acuity. Wasianski gives the following sample:

Leaving out what has to do with his kitchen or what does not belong in a text for the

public, I provide the following short, abrupt sentences:... clerics and lay persons. The

former are regulars, the latter seculars. About my former instruction to students that