A Palingenesis and Its Consequences 173The same kind of sentiment can also be found in the "Essay on the Ill¬
nesses of the Head" of 1764, in which Kant is for the most part content
simply to classify the appearances of these illnesses, without trying to find
their roots. Yet, at the very end of the paper he does find it necessary to say
that their roots are probably to be found "in the body, and for the most part
in the digestive parts rather than in the brain." They are not caused by
thinking but have an origin in nonmental excesses. Thus Kant finds it
might be better for a doctor to prescribe a higher dose of a purgative to a
"learned loudmouth" than for a philosopher to refute him. Because, if
according to Swift's observation, a bad poem represents only a cleansing of the brain,
and if by means of it many harmful humors are expelled to make the sick poet more
comfortable, then why cannot an inferior and brooding book represent the same' And
in such a case it would be advisable to prescribe to nature another route of purification
so that the evil can be aborted thoroughly and in a quiet place, without troubling the
public with it^117
Mendelssohn did not appreciate this kind of humor. It appears that he was
a Victorian before his time, but he was correct about one thing, the passage
of the Dreams is uncharacteristic of Kant's writing as a whole — though
perhaps not of the sense of humor he would have had to suppress in mixed
company, or at least in some of the mixed company he was part of. The lit¬
erary circle of which he was part — for better or worse — was less prudish
than many of the other circles in Königsberg.
The Dreams seem to belong to the genre of satire. In the book Kant makes
fun of S wedenborg's visions of a spirit world as the effects of "hypochon-
driacal winds" that have taken a wrong direction. Yet to characterize the
book as a satire is not to do it justice. Its satirical elements are put into the
service of a theory or - at the very least — a certain view of how the world is.
In this way, it is not without similarity to Hamann's Socratic Memorabilia.
Hamann also used satirical elements to support a theory, which was held
in all seriousness. Yet whereas Hamann used philosophy to illustrate and
support his theory of faith, Kant used a certain kind of faith to illustrate
the shortcomings of philosophy. Though the full title reads "Dreams of a
Spmt-Seer, Illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics," he seemed to think that
the spirit-seer's dreams illustrate, or put into relief, the dreams of meta¬
physics. It was a book for everyone and for no one. It "will fully satisfy the
reader; for the main part he will not understand, another part he will not
believe, and the rest he will laugh at."^118
In the "practical conclusion" of the Dreams, Kant asserts that it is one
of the achievements of a wise man that he can "select from among the