3io Kant: A Biographyof the journal to review it.^151 He liked the book. After a short and com¬
plimentary summary, he focused on what he took to be one of the author's
principal points, namely, his view that "principles which concern only the
form of the free will without regard for any object" are insufficient for
"practical law and thus also for the derivation of obligatoriness."^152 Hufe-
land argued that this deficiency could be supplied by the principle that
enjoins human beings to seek the perfection of all rational beings. Kant
then went on to report that the main characteristic of the author's system
was the claim that all natural rights are founded in a prior natural obliga¬
tion. Yet Hufeland also claimed that the doctrine of obligation does not re¬
ally belong to that of natural right, something with which Kant disagreed.
It should be clear that Kant could not agree to most of what Hufeland had
to say. Nevertheless, he was content simply to summarize his views, say¬
ing it would be "inappropriate" for him to object on the basis of his own
views - something that, curiously enough, did not hold him back in most
of his other reviews and essays from this period.^153
Another project that occupied Kant during this time was the second
edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, which appeared in 1787. As early as
April 7, 1786, Kant had written that the book, "against all expectations,"
was entirely sold out and that a new edition might appear within half a
year. It would be "new and much revised," in order to clear up some of the
misunderstandings that had arisen. "Much will be shortened, some new
materials, which will serve a better explanation will be added." But "changes
in the essential I will not have to make because I thought about these mat¬
ter long enough before I put them on paper. Furthermore, I also repeatedly
reviewed and examined all the claims that belong to the system, and I always
found them to be confirmed in their relation to the whole."^154 He also told
the correspondent that he would have to wait to work out his system of
metaphysics in order to win time for the system of moral philosophy, a sis¬
ter project, and one far easier to complete than the first.
The work on the revisions of the first Critique was more difficult than
Kant had imagined. In any case, he complained to Hamann about how dif¬
ficult (schwer) they were in early January of 1787, only to send them off to
the publisher two weeks later.^155 The new Preface, dated April 1787, was
written later — probably after the proofs had arrived. But, despite the dif¬
ficulties (or perhaps because of them), the revisions of the first Critique
turned out to be less extensive than Kant himself had envisioned eight
months earlier. There was a new motto, a new Preface, a partially revised
Introduction, a new version of the Transcendental Deduction, a Refuta-