A Palingenesis and Its Consequences 175birth, and perhaps that is precisely what they are. However, it would be
easy to exaggerate the importance of the work. It does not represent a rev¬
olutionary break with the past. His theory remains essentially the same as
before. Just as in his earlier works, he holds that "spiritual essence is mostly
present in matter, and that it does not act upon those forces which deter¬
mine the mutual relations of elements, but upon the inner principle of their
state."^124 He defends the Leibnizian view that there must be an internal
reason for external efficiency. As for those "half-dwellers in another world,"
that is, those who believe in a separate spirit world, they belong in the
hospital.
Kant's Philosophical Development between 1755 and 1769:
"Seeking the Honor of Fabius Cunctator"There are many different accounts of the various positions Kant is sup¬
posed to have held during his precritical period. I believe most of these to
be mistaken. Kant did not so much have an all-inclusive metaphysical po¬
sition as he was searching for one. The reminder Kant wrote for himself in
his copy of the Observations is characteristic of the whole period:
Everything goes past like a river and the changing taste and the various shapes of men
make the whole game uncertain and delusive. Where do I find fixed points in nature,
which cannot be moved by man, and where I can indicate the markers by the shore to
which I ought to adhere?^125
Kant was searching more than he was expounding fixed positions during
most of the sixties, and the nature of this search was more important than
the sequence of different positions he held during that period.
The word "nature" presents the fundamental outlook of Kant's position
at that particular time. It was in nature that he tried to find fixed points
and criteria for judging human action, not in reason; and Rousseau loomed
large in the background of this view. Indeed, Kant was a naturalist in the
way in which most of his contemporaries were naturalists. This problem
still occupied Kant during 1765—66, as his "Announcement of the Char¬
acter of His Lectures during the Winter Semester of 1765—1766" shows.
Kant points out that ethics might seem to be more secure than metaphysics
but in fact is not. It seems scientific and thorough, but is neither.
The cause of this is that the distinction between good and bad in actions and the judg¬
ment concerning moral justice can easily and correctly be recognized immediately
by the human heart and what is called sentiment [Sentiment] and without the detour