Kant: A Biography

162 Kant: A Biography

of the "largest, most significant, and most enlightened Jewish communities

in Northern Europe."^69 Supported by Friedländer and others, he matric¬

ulated at the university. He was inscribed in the register of the university

on April 4, 1766. This was not a matter of course. Rules that allowed Jews

to study at the university without special permission were instituted only

by the end of the sixties. No Jew ever obtained a professorship during

Kant's lifetime. Catholics had the same problem. Interestingly, though,

Kant later supported another Jewish student of his in trying to obtain a

position in the faculty of medicine, but ultimately had to give up.^70 Herz

attended the lectures Kant gave in the semester immediately following his

"Announcement."^71 What he heard in 1766 would not have been very dif¬

ferent from what Kant had taught during the previous semester. Herz is

said to have made "many a good poem between Kant's lectures."^72 He

himself claimed that his studies "of languages and philosophy" in Königs¬

berg were accompanied by "constant and uninterrupted pain, which I might

call torture." He succeeded only by "the greatest effort."^73 He became a

good friend of Kant's, probably serving as one of his most intimate part¬

ners in philosophical discussions during this period. Thanking Kant, he

later wrote:

It is you alone whom I have to thank for the happy change in my circumstances, to

whom I am indebted for my entire self. Had it not been for you I would even now, like

so many of my brethren drag a burden of prejudice, lead a life inferior to that of a beast

... I would be nothing.^74

We get many hints about how well acquainted Herz was with Kant's views
from the later correspondence between the two.
Herz also had an effect on the Jewish community in Königsberg, since
he encouraged others to learn modern languages and acquaint themselves
with non-Jewish literature. He appears even to have been able to convince
"Jewish beauties" that it was elegant to have a copy of Baumgarten's Meta¬
physics on their make-up tables.^75 After moving to Berlin, he actively pop¬
ularized Kant's philosophy there in the late seventies. He thus became one
of the most important early followers of Kant.^76 Nonetheless, like Herder
and several other early students of Kant, he never could appreciate Kant's
mature philosophical position.
By the end of 1769, Kant received "a call" from the University of Er¬
langen, a small Prussian institution far away from Königsberg. He was
offered the first chair of theoretical philosophy (logic and metaphysics). The
position was well funded. Kant provisionally said yes. On December 13,