A Palingenesis and Its Consequences 155[Kant] is now constantly in England, because Rousseau and Hume are
there, of whom his friend Mr. Green sometimes writes to him."^38 Two weeks
later he related a number of anecdotes concerning Hume and Rousseau to
Herder, which obviously come from the letters of Green to Kant. It has
been said that Green and Kant first met each other at the time of the Amer¬
ican Revolution, and that their relationship started with a heated dispute
about it. Kant took up the side of the Americans and Green that of the
English.^39 This cannot be true, of course, though it may well be that their
dispute was about an earlier episode that ultimately led to the American
Revolution, namely the Stamp Act of 1765. It led to riots in Boston and
elsewhere in August of that year, which forced the British Parliament to
revoke the act later that very same year.^40 This would mean that Kant's
friendship with Green dates back to the summer of 1765. This much is sure,
that by 1766 they were close friends; and at least from that time on Kant was
a constant and very regular visitor at Green's house. Kant's regularity was
probably - at least at first - due more to Green's punctuality than to that
of Kant, for it was said that the neighbors could set their clocks in accor¬
dance with the time at which Kant left Green's house in the evening: at
seven o'clock the visit was over.
A number of anecdotes illustrate how strictly Green adhered to his rules
and promises. Kant and Green were said to have once agreed to take a
leisurely trip in a horse-drawn carriage to the country at 8:00 A.M. the next
day. Green, who was already waiting for Kant at 7:45, left precisely at 8:00
even though Kant was nowhere to be seen, and when he passed Kant a little
later on the road, he just drove past him, with Kant vigorously signaling
for him to stop. It was against Green's maxim to do so. The character of
Hippel's comedy who corresponds to Green mocks his future son-in-law
because he "gets up whenever it occurs to him — at 7:00, at 8:00, at 9:00 -
for he does not have, like other honest people, his coffee and tea days. No!
He hardly knows half an hour beforehand whether he will drink tea or
coffee. His lunch is dictated by his hunger ..." He praised himself: "I do
not get up because I have slept enough, but because it is 6:00 A.M. I go to
eat not because I am hungry, but because the clock has struck 12:00.1 go
to bed, not because I am tired, but because it is 10:00 P.M."^41
A Magister, who plays a role in the play, objects that it is a mistake to
think "that learned works follow the same rules as the letters of merchants,
which must be written because it is the day for the mail. A dissertation -
by the hangman! — is not a bank draft. With such works one cannot keep
hours."^42 Kant probably still would have agreed with the Magister at this