Founder of a Metaphysics of Morals 295that his books were beginning to sell better, and that they were therefore
candidates for counterfeit reprinting.
It may have been a purely theoretical interest as well. As Kant wrote to
Biester at the end of 1784, he was "constantly brooding over ideas, and so
I do not lack material, but only a particular reason to choose from it. There
is also a lack of time, since I am occupied with a pretty extensive project
(Entwurf), which I would really like to finish before the approaching in¬
capacity of old age." He also observed that in the popular essays
I always completely think through my subject but I also must always fight with a cer¬
tain disposition to being prolix. But I am, if you will, so bothered by the multitude of
things, which offer themselves for a complete treatment, that, though capable of it, I
fall short of perfecting the idea because I have to leave out some matters that seem nec¬
essary for it. In this case, I understand myself quite well, but cannot make it clear and
satisfactory for others. The suggestion of an understanding and honest friend can be
useful in this. I also would like to know sometimes which questions the public would most
like to see solved.^82
Kant had, of course, an "understanding and honest friend" in Königsberg,
namely the merchant Green. Some friends outside of Königsberg did not
understand.
The Controversy with Herder: Against Denying "Reason
That Prerogative which Makes It the Greatest Good on Earth"Herder reacted just as one would have expected. In a letter to Hamann
on February 14, 1785, apparently written before receiving the letter from
Hamann that revealed Kant as the author, he said:
In Jena they announced last year with great pomp a new literary magazine, and Kant was
mentioned as one of the first contributors. And behold, in the 4th and 5 th issue, one
finds a review of my Ideas, which is so malicious, distorting, metaphysical, and entirely
removed from the spirit of the book from beginning to end, that I was surprised. But
I would never have expected that Kant, my teacher, whom I never knowingly insulted
in any way, was capable of such a mean-spirited act. The reviewer teases me with my
profession, sets three or four fires, so that if there is no conflagration it won't be his
fault. I thought back and forth, who in Germany could write so completely outside of
the horizon of Germany and the book until finally it was first rumored and then openly
said: it was the great metaphysicus Kant in Königsberg, Prussia. At the same time I read
the "Idea for a Universal History of Mankind, but [which] is supposed to be from a
cosmopolitan understanding;" and as I read the essay I learn also about the reviewer,
but not about the character of the man. For how malicious and infantile it is to read