Silent Years 223the ideal member of the guild, Kant was "troubled by neither nagging
fears nor delusive hopes about the future; he enjoyfed] the present with a
pure and perfect joy, and expect[ed] tomorrow to be exactly like today....
He [was] happy with his own lot in life, and suspectfed]... that the up¬
per classes [were] less so with theirs."^131 His father had never achieved
this goal, but Kant had done so. That this state also had similarities to the
ideal life as described by the Stoics and the Epicureans is, of course, no
accident either.
Kant did not have to worry about money. Though the merchants in
Königsberg went during the seventies through a severe crisis during which
forty-seven firms went bankrupt because of the partition of Poland (just
when the economy was improving in the rest of Prussia), Kant was finan¬
cially secure.^132 The firm of Green, Motherby & Co., with whom Kant had
invested most of his money, was not among the firms that had to fear bank¬
ruptcy. Having more dealings with England and Holland, they were not
as much affected by these national developments.
Nor did Kant have to deal with the unexpected vagaries of business or
family life. He was engaged in precisely the kind of activities that he en¬
joyed most. His servant Lampe took care of all practical matters. He saw
to it that Kant had clean clothes, that he woke up on time, that he had the
needed supplies. He took care of Kant's rooms, and did all the errands,
but he did not live with Kant. Having his own quarters, he was less satis¬
fied with his bachelor life. Indeed, at some time during his employment
he took a wife — against Kant's wishes. Kant had indeed a legal say in such
matters. He could have prohibited it, and probably would have done so if
Lampe had given him a chance, but he married secretly and thus created
an additional expense for Kant, if only because Lampe now "needed more"
by way of support.^133
If Kant was conservative in the particulars of his relation to his servant,
he was more liberal in his broader social concerns. Clearly, his religious
views were less than orthodox. This is shown by an incident that had to do
with one of his former students, namely Herder, who had already become
famous in his own right by the middle of the seventies. He had published in
1768 and 1769 works on literature and aesthetics, which got him noticed.^134
In 1774 he published a work On the Oldest Document of the Human Race.
Kant was obviously interested in this work of a former student and close
friend of Hamann's, for on April 6, 1774, he wrote to Hamann for help in
understanding the work, which concerned the book of Genesis and its
precedents in Egypt. He was not sure he understood what Herder was up