EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The Contents and Significance of the Four Essays
The four essays contained in this book were among the very first of
Kant's writings to be translated into English. In 1798-99 John Richardson
published anonymously a two-volume collection, entitled Essays and
Treatises on Moral, Political, Religious and Various Philosophical
Subjects.1 This pioneering work, amazingly, was for nearly two centuries
the most inclusive collection of Kant's writings in English. Only now is it
finally in the process of being superseded, by The Cambridge Edition of the
Works of Immanuel Kant (14 volumes planned). Sadly, Richardson's
translation has passed into virtual oblivion in the intervening two centuries,
to the extent that many Kant-scholars are unaware of its existence, to say
nothing of having access to a copy.2 Fortunately, nearly all of the nineteen
works translated by Richardson have long since been re-translated, in some
cases numerous times;3 the only exceptions are the four essays reprinted in
the present volume. To the best of my knowledge these four essays,
spanning the most productive years of Kant's life (1756 to 1794), have not
appeared in print in English since Richardson's original publication.4
Richardson's massive, two-volume work includes the following
titles:
I.1-14: What Is Enlightening?
I.15-133: The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals
I.135-57: The False Subtilty of the Four Syllogistic Figures Evinced
I.159-223: On the Popular Judgment: That May Be Right in Theory, but
Does Not Hold Good in the Praxis
I.225-39: Of the Injustice of Counterfeiting Books
I.241-314: Eternal Peace
I.315-38: The Conjectural Beginning of the History of Mankind
I.339-83: An Inquiry concerning the Perspicuity of the Principles of
Natural Theology and of Moral
I.385-407: What Means, To Orient One's Self in Thinking?
I.409-32: An Idea of an Universal History in a Cosmopolitical View
II.1-78: Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime
II.79-91: Something on the Influence of the Moon on the Temperature
of the Air
II.93-142: History and Physiography of the Most Remarkable Cases of
the Earthquake of 1755
II.143-57: On the Volcanos in the Moon
II.159-87: Of a Gentle Ton Lately Assumed in Philosophy
II.189-215: On the Failure of all the Philosophical Essays in the TheodicŽe
II.217-366: The Only Possible Argument for the Demonstration of the
Existence of God
II.367-422: The Religion within the Sphere of Naked Reason
II.423-44: The End of All Things.
The four essays reprinted above are sufficiently straightforward so
as not to require a lengthy summary and/or analysis of their contents here.
Instead, on the assumption that readers will be able to understand Kant's
meaning without special guidance from the editor, I will merely state the
contents of each essay in a single sentence, along with a reference to the
details of its original publication. This suffices in my mind to introduce
these works. I shall then briefly draw attention to a general characteristic of
these essays that I have found particularly interesting and relevant to my
own study and interpretation of Kant's writings.
Essay One (Acta Facultat. Philos. 5 [Kšnigsberg: 1756],
pp.218ff.), as the second in a series of three essays on earthquakes,
compiles details from numerous historical reports (of varying degrees of
credibility), paying special attention to the great earthquake centred in
Lisbon in 1755, and attempts to explain the cause of all such earthquakes in
terms of fires burning deep underground. Essay Two (Berlinische
Monatsschrift 5 [1785], pp.199-213) distinguishes between the oldest
earthly craters, formed 'from atmospherical eruptions of [the earth's]
originally heated, chaotic-fluid mass', and those relatively recent craters
formed by volcanos, arguing that lunar craters visible from earth must be of
the former type. Essay Three (Berlinische Monatsschrift 5 [1785], pp.403-
17), certainly the most philosophical of the four essays, can be regarded as
an extended footnote to (or, given its date, a preview of) Kant's political
philosophy, as later expounded in the 'Doctrine of Right' section of his
Metaphysics of Morals: in it, he establishes some basic guidelines for
determining when and why copying a book constitutes 'counterfeiting', by
making several key distinctions, such as that between a book as an 'opus'
(creative work) and a book as an 'opera' (business). Essay Four
(Berlinische Monatsschrift 23 [1794], pp.392-407) attempts to resolve the
conflict between a positive and negative answer to the question of whether
the moon influences the weather on earth by arguing for the necessity of
assuming the existence of a mysterious, unknowable substance that
mediates between the two bodies.
Finally, let me briefly highlight what is for me the most interesting
aspect of these four essays: their confirmation of Kant's dependence on
what I have elsewhere called 'the principle of perspective'.5 In addition to
evincing his customary use of 'perspectival equivalents',6 all four essays
provide examples of Kant's life-long habit of solving philosophical
problems by thinking perspectivally. In Essay One, for instance, he
encourages us to recognize that, although we normally think of earthquakes
only from the perspective of the misfortune they bring to some individuals,
we should also be willing to view them from the equally valid perspective of
the joy they (or at least, their underlying causes) bring to others, and indeed
to the species as a whole (see above, pp.8, 25-30 [I.437, 455-61]).
Moreover, virtually the whole of Kant's argument in both Essay Three and
Essay Four revolves around essentially perspectival distinctions. In the
former the distinction between four basic perspectives--those of the author,
the publisher, the 'counterfeiter', and the buyer--forms the backbone of the
entire essay (see especially the final footnote); and in the latter, two
conflicting views concerning the moon's influence on the earth's weather
are resolved by claiming, in effect, that each is true from its own proper
perspective.
On top of all this, it is worth mentioning that Richardson himself
turns out to be one of the few translators in the past two centuries of Kant-
scholarship actually to use a form of the word 'perspective' in translating
Kant's terminology. Although he does not do this for any of the words or
phrases I have identified as typical perspectival equivalents (see notes 5 and
6), on a number of occasions he does translate words such as
'ein(zu)sehen' or 'sieht' as 'perspect(s)'.7 The former German word is the
verbal form of the noun, 'Einsichten', which Richardson translates as
'insight'. (In Essay One, p.29 [I.459], these two words actually appear in
the same sentence.) This etymological connection very accurately suggests
the fact that for Kant the task of gaining philosophical insight requires a
person to 'perspect'--i.e. to recognize and clearly distinguish between
different perspectives.
The Conventions Used to Edit the Texts
When I first decided to republish these four neglected essays, my
intention was to present them in their original form, with only a few minor
revisions. I have neither the taste nor the linguistic expertise to prepare an
entirely new translation. In any case, Richardson's English vocabulary is
very impressive, and his style both interesting and indicative of his (and
Kant's) era, so it seemed worthwhile to reproduce it for its historical value
alone: a glimpse of how Kant appeared to his first English readers is
interesting quite apart from any philosophical merit the essays may have.
However, the more I worked on fine tuning the texts, the more I felt the
need to revise various aspects of the original English. In the end, I have
tried to strike a balance between preserving the integrity of Richardson's
texts8 and insuring a translation that is both readable and faithful to Kant's
German. In other words, I have for the most part limited my revisions to
those that either improve outdated and/or misleading English or correct
departures from the sense of the German text; some prospective revisions
that seemed preferable for other reasons were therefore dropped in order to
preserve Richardson's (equally legitimate) way of conveying Kant's
meaning.
In spite of being impressed with Richardson's overall skills as a
translator, I have carefully compared his translation, word for word, with
Kant's original, as it is presented in Ak. (see note 6). In so doing, it became
abundantly clear that Richardson too was usually very careful to remain
faithful to the original text. Indeed, he describes his 'sole aim' in the Preface
to the first volume as follows: 'Faithfully to transfuse the sense of the
Author with as much perspicuity as the subject is susceptible of, and at the
same time to preserve the character of his style as far as is consistent with
the idiom of the English language' (p.vii). Whoever believes German
cannot be translated directly into English ought to have a good look at
Richardson's admirable, though flawed, attempt to approximate such an
ideal. More often than not, he follows not only Kant's sentence structure,
but even his punctuation. As a result, many of his sentences are admittedly
rather difficult to follow. The worst of these I have thoroughly revised.
There is something to be said, however, for giving English readers more of
an opportunity to think Kant's thoughts the way he thought them, even
though this requires more of a strain to follow the course of his argument.
Kant did not think or write in present-day English, so to render his text as if
he did can actually keep the reader further from the true Kant than if the text
is rendered in somewhat less accessible language. Though his sentence
structure seems awkward to us today, in most cases Richardson managed to
produce highly literal translations without sacrificing intelligibility, at least
for the patient reader. This approach to translating puts a greater burden of
interpretation upon the reader; but it also simplified my editorial task. It
enabled me to locate quickly those (usually relatively insignificant) places
where Richardson's text departs from the German.9 In response I have
usually either changed the English or simply specified the German in order
to assist readers in the task of understanding Kant's meaning.
To distinguish between the various types of additions and changes
made to the English and German texts, I have used brackets in four ways:
1. The use of {}. The numbers that appear in pointed brackets at the
top of the first page of each essay refer to the volume and page numbers of
the essay in Ak. Within the text itself, such brackets specify the position of
the beginning of the corresponding Ak. page. Because of differences in
word order between German and English, the position of the page break is
sometimes only approximate.
2. The uses of []. The original German is given in square brackets
when Richardson's word represents an acceptable translation, but involves
some interpretation or is in some other respect unusual.10 When
Richardson adds something that is not in the German, but in a way that
properly brings out what is clearly implied by Kant, the English text in
question is placed in square brackets. Occasionally I have simply omitted
such minor additions that seem to be unnecessary or inappropriate; but in
most cases I have stated this fact in an endnote (see below, pp.53-68).
3. The use of ě ü. Whenever Richardson overlooks something in Kant's
German, I have added my own translation and surrounded it with half
curved brackets.
4. The use of ě[]ü. When adding something that is present neither in the
German nor in Richardson's translation, but which is clearly implied by
Kant, I have placed the English text in square brackets surrounded by half
curved brackets.
Changes of any of the above types which require further comment or are too
long to be imbedded discretely in the text are placed in notes, all of which
are collected immediately after the fourth essay. Most of these notes,
however, serve to mark the significant revisions I have made to the text. In
such cases no brackets are used in the main text; instead, the note specifies
both Kant's original and Richardson's awkward or potentially misleading
translation. (In some places very minor revisions, such as tense changes,
the replacement of one preposition with another equally valid one, or the
modernisation of an obsolete English word, are made without
acknowledging them in this or any other way.) Richardson's own notes, as
well as those provided at the back of Ak. are also included (see above,
p.53). This means all the notes given at the foot of the page in the main text
are Kant's.
Nearly all the changes to Richardson's text that are not significant
enough to be marked in one of the above ways were made so that the text
would conform to the following guidelines:
1. Paragraph divisions and section dividers (triple asterisks) have been
added or taken away where required, in order to correspond to the Ak. text.
2. My use of commas differs in most sentences from both Kant's and
Richardson's usage, though all other punctuation (except where enclosed in
square brackets) is identical to that in the German text. Richardson usually
followed Kant's punctuation closely; but I have made a handful of changes
in order to bring his English text (aside from the commas) into complete
conformity with the German.
3. Changes have been made in various conventions, especially in the
use of capital letters and outdated spellings. In the first paragraph of Essay
One, for example, the word 'economy' was spelled 'oeconomy'; and
'chemistry' was spelled 'chymistry' in numerous places. The current
standard spelling in Britain was used throughout, inasmuch as Richardson
was British.
4. A number of typographical errors in Richardson's text have been
corrected.
5. Whenever Kant abbreviates a book title or a proper name (such as
the name of a month), I have spelled it out. But I have followed Kant in
using standard abbreviations such as 'i.e.' and 'e.g.' (for 'd. i.' and 'z.
E.'), even though Richardson often translates these into words, such as
'that is', and 'for instance'. Similarly, for Kant's 'nŠmlich', which
Richardson often either omits or translates as 'to wit', I have used 'namely'.
6. References to dates have been standardised, using Richardson's
standard form: e.g. 'the 1st November 1755'. I ignore Kant's occasional
practise of abbreviating the month. Both in dates and elsewhere, Richardson
sometimes spells out a numeral in Kant's text as a word (e.g. '1sten' as
'first'); in such cases I follow Kant's usage.
7. Some references to place names have been modernised. For
example, I have changed Richardson's 'Little Asia' to 'Asia Minor', as the
best translation for Kant's 'Kleinasien' (Essay One, p.19 [449]).
8. I have followed Kant's use of italics (expanded spacing in the
German), whereas Richardson departs from it in a number of places. The
only exception is that I have not italicised names, as Kant typically does.
These essays contain numerous references to people, places, and
events that cannot be counted as part of the general knowledge of even the
most informed scholars two centuries later. Where the Akademie editors
have supplied relevant information, I provide an endnote translating their
reference. Elsewhere, I sometimes provide my own brief description of
such obscurities. Unfortunately, there are still a number of these that I have
been unable to trace.
The Identity of the Original Translator
The title page of Essays and Treatises contains a little riddle (see
above, p.1). Instead of naming the translator, it states that the book was
translated
FROM THE GERMAN BY THE TRANSLATOR OF
THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Solving this riddle is not difficult. Or at least, it should not be difficult, once
we recognize that The Principles of Critical Philosophy is the title of a book
written by one of Kant's students, J.S. Beck (see below, note 25), and
translated into English in 1798 by a certain John Richardson. Yet on those
rare occasions when a Kant-scholar actually refers to Essays and Treatises,
the identity of the original translator is (in my experience) mistaken at least
as often as it is named correctly.
Stanley Jaki, for example, identifies the translator as A.F.M.
Willich.11 Jaki, who was re-translating a book first translated by William
Hastie, probably took this information from the brief reference to Willich in
a note on the first page of Hastie's 'Translator's Preface' to Kant's Science
of Right.12 Here Hastie says Willich translated Kant's Foundation for a
Metaphysic of Morals in 1798, when in fact this book is included in the first
volume of Richardson's 1798 collection. Jaki (or his source) could have
been misled by the fact that in 1798 T.N. Longman published a book by
Willich entitled Elements of the Critical Philosophy--a title that could be
carelessly confused with that of Richardson's translation of Beck's book.
Such an error could also have come from a misreading of the third footnote
in the Preface to Meiklejohn's translation of Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason. After mentioning Willich's book, Meiklejohn criticizes it, along
with the writings of Richardson and several other early Kant-scholars,
calling the writers 'merely translators'. However, Meiklejohn is here
referring to the poor quality of their commentaries, which often turned out
to be little more than paraphrases of Kant's writing, not to the actual
translations of Richardson and others.13
Another common error is to assume the person whose name appears
on the title page is actually the translator. Thus Lewis White Beck says
Essays and Treatises 'was published by William Richardson in London,
and probably is his own translation.'14 Likewise, T.D. Weldon's plea for
'belated justice [to] be done to poor Mr. Richardson' is indexed at the back
of the book as being a reference to William, not John!15 A similar, though
more serious, case of mistaken identity unfortunately results in a number of
incorrect references in David Walford's recent Cambridge edition of Kant's
early theoretical writings. Taking J.S. Beck himself to be the translator of
Essays and Treatises, Walford used 'Beck' as an abbreviation in all
references to the works translated therein.16 Walford apparently misread the
title page, assuming Essays and Treatises was translated by the author of
The Principles of Critical Philosophy (i.e. J.S. Beck) rather than its
translator (i.e. John Richardson).17
I know of only three works of English-speaking Kant-scholarship in
which John Richardson is correctly identified as the translator of Essays and
Treatises.18 William Wallace, in discussing the reception in England of the
earliest English-speaking Kant-scholars, mentions that Essays and Treatises
'was the performance of a young Englishman named John Richardson, who
had studied at Halle under Beck (a translation of whose Principles of the
Critical Philosophy he published at London in 1798).' Greene and Hudson
give only a passing reference to 'John Richardson, a Scot', as a previous
translator of part of Kant's Religion. And, after citing 'J. Richardson' as the
translator of Essays and Treatises, Zweig adds that Richardson 'kept [Kant]
informed on the progress of his philosophy in England'. As we shall see,
the former (though perhaps not the latter) is established beyond reasonable
doubt by several letters that appear in Ak.
John Richardson was, with one minor exception, the first person to
translate Kant's writing into English;19 yet a brief overview of his work
reveals that he remains to this day the most accomplished of Kant's
translators. While still relatively young, he published an English translation
of his mentor's book, in which Beck outlines the basic principles of Kant's
philosophy. Richardson also wrote a lengthy Preface. In the same and the
following year, he then published Essays and Treatises, containing his
translations of nineteen of Kant's books and essays (see above, pp.70-71),
four of which are reprinted here with revisions. In addition to all of this, he
published in 1799, again anonymously, a now virtually unknown two-
volume translation of Kant's Metaphysic of Morals.20 After an interval of
20 years,21 he set himself once again to the task of translating. In 1819 he
separately published Kant's Logic and Prolegomena. He reissued these in a
single volume in 1836, along with 'A Sketch of the Author's [Kant's] Life
and Writings' (see Appendix III)22 and a paraphrase of several Kantian
texts, called 'An Enquiry, Critical and Metaphysical, into the Grounds of
Proof for the Existence of God, and into the Theodicy'. At some point prior
to 1836 he had also written a book-length essay entitled The Elements of a
System of Education according to the Critical Philosophy.23
Despite expending a considerable amount of effort, I have been able
to locate only a few scanty details concerning John Richardson's life. He
shared his name with a number of better known individuals living at the
same time, so it is sometimes difficult to sort out which bibliographical
references (if any) are to John Richardson the translator of Kant.24 What
we do know from the citations quoted above, from the letters preserved in
the Akademie edition of Kant's works, and from comments Richardson
occasionally adds to his translations, can be summarized as follows.
John Richardson was a Scotsman who studied in Germany under
two young disciples of Kant in Halle, J.S. Beck and L.H. Jakob, both of
whom corresponded frequently with Kant.25 As far as Richardson's work
as a translator is concerned, Jakob seems to have been the major influence.
Before Richardson ever came on the scene, Jakob had encouraged Kant to
publish a collection of his minor writings, and had discussed Kant's ideas
for the construction of a Critical Metaphysics well before Kant ever wrote
the Metaphysics of Morals.26 In a postscript to his letter of 10 May 1797,
Jakob mentions Richardson to Kant, apparently for the first time: 'A
Scotlander, Mr. Richardson, who is in my house, occupied with translating
your Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Right, has sometimes
requested me to advise [him] on the sense of several passages. On the
following [two points] I have not been able to satisfy him ...'27 It appears,
then, that Richardson used a room in Jakob's house to work on a translation
of Kant's Metaphysics of Morals, and perhaps even lived there for a time.
The existence of this 1799 translation is acknowledged in Ak. XII.161,
197; yet it is virtually unknown today (see above, note 20).
Jakob's next letter to Kant, dated 8 Sept. 1797, is largely a follow-
up on issues relating to Richardson, and implies that Richardson had left
Halle, inasmuch as he had sent Jakob a letter to pass on to Kant. Jakob's
letter (Ak. XII.196-98) begins:
Concerning your last letter, which contained a correction of Mr.
Richardson's scruples, and of which I have informed him, I have received a
letter [from him, herein] enclosed, which contains a passage from Lord
Montmorres' works on the Irish Parliament, and by which Mr. R. intends
to correct a remark which you used in the passage on p.207 ...28
Jakob goes on to explain that Richardson had not returned Kant's reply with
his latest letter; consequently, he was unable to remember how the passage
he quotes would 'correct' anything in Kant's letter. In any case, he
encourages Kant, 'my paternal friend', to take the trouble to contact
Richardson directly 'with a few words' in order to arrange for 'the
forwarding of [a copy of] his English works' (i.e. his translations of Kant).
After some comments on Kant's Doctrine of Virtue, Jakob informs Kant of
Richardson's decision to translate 'the Beck book' before completing his
translation(s) of Kant. He closes his letter by saying:
This was in the meantime a good preparation. For he is now translating
your Doctrine of Right and Doctrine of Virtue into English; so I hope this
translation will turn out the better, and if both of these works appear
together in England; then it is certain to arouse attention on the Critique of
Pure Reason.
On 21 June 1798, Richardson sent the first volume of Essays and
Treatises to Kant, along with a separate letter. This letter, together with a
fragment of Kant's reply, is translated into English for the first time in
Appendix II, below (see pp.86-87). Richardson there confesses that he
initially wished to study philosophy under Fichte (who taught at the
University of Jena from 1794 to 1799), having been 'enticed by [his] great
reputation'. But he quickly adds that the spell was broken 'in less than ten
days'. The letter was sent from Altenburg (about 70 kilometres southeast of
Halle, via Leipzig), where he was staying 'at Baron von Mźhlen's [home]'.
In the introductions, appendices, and footnotes to his translations,
Richardson provides us with a few brief glimpses of his own life, revealing
a man who was clearly a seasoned traveller. For instance, he must have
lived in, or at least visited, America sometime between 1775 and 1783
(presumably as a child), for he tells us: 'During the American rebellion the
translator knew in South Carolina a Negro physician of reputation; and in
Antigua a heaven-born Negro preacher, without shoes and stockings.'29
Elsewhere, he mentions that for six consecutive years he enjoyed the
medicinal effects of the mineral water from Carlsbad in Bohemia (now
Karlovy Vary, in northwestern Czech).30 He was treated there by a Dr.
Damm, who apparently cured him of a rather severe digestive problem.
Karlovy Vary is today roughly 150 kilometres southeast of Halle on a direct
route, so unless he actually lived there for six years, Richardson must have
made regular visits while living in Halle and/or Altenburg. Likewise, he
must have either lived in or regularly visited Hamburg, inasmuch as at least
two of his books seem to have been printed there--'London' imprint
notwithstanding (see note 20). Hamburg (roughly 260 kilometres northwest
of Halle) was the closest port city, so it would make sense for Richardson
to have arranged for his books to be printed and shipped from there,
especially if he was himself already planning to pass through on his way to
and from Britain.
In another self-reference Richardson combines an allusion to his
own credentials with an accolade of Kant:31
When the reader shall have taken as much pains to penetrate this subtile
matter, when he shall have received as much pleasure and instruction from
this sublime science, as the translator has done, and when he shall have
sufficiently reflected on the weighty consequences of this nice and accurate
anatomy of the human mind in Kant's transcendental deduction of the
categories, he will not be apt to accuse the translator of either exaggerations
or enthusiasm, when he gives it as his opinion, That KANT is the only
founder of all true philosophy and the greatest mental anatomist that ever
lived.
On the title page of his last known publication (1836), Richardson describes
himself as 'many years a student of the Kantian philosophy'. Indeed, it
would be difficult to give this virtually unknown scholar a more appropriate
epithet. For the English-speaking world has perhaps never produced a more
devoted yet less acknowledged servant of Kant's philosophy.
Acknowledgements
Essays and Treatises seems to have been 'self-published', like many
books in those days (see e.g. p.98n, below). That means John Richardson
probably not only prepared the text, but also arranged for the printing (in
Hamburg [see above, note 20]) and distribution (in London, by William
Richardson). This is perhaps one of the reasons it was prepared with such
care. It is therefore quite appropriate that this republication also takes the
form of a self-published book. Philopsychy Press, a publisher that helps
self-publishers, stands for the ideals that drove both Kant and Richardson
into their commitment to philosophy: the love of the soul. These essays
themselves provide several glimpses of this tendency. (See especially the
last few pages of Essay One.)
This book is no exception to the rule that a so-called 'self'-
publication must actually be very much a shared effort, inasmuch as it
depends on the work of many people other than the author. A number of
people have assisted me in various ways in the preparation of this volume
for publication. Thanks to a research grant from Hong Kong Baptist
College, I was able to employ the following assistants at different stages in
the preparation of this book: Patricia Gillatt, Aster Li Sau Wai, Ida Ng Siu
Mei, and Siti Afendras. Others who helped uncover information of various
sorts, mostly by means of the wonders of e-mail, include Paul J.
Constantine, Jonathan P. Dancy, Hoke Robinson, and Wong Po Ming.
Gerhold Becker, Jšrn Boost, Paul McKechnie, and Hoke Robinson each
advised me on various points of German and/or Latin translation, though of
course they bear no responsibility for the errors that inevitably remain.
Dr. Boost was particularly gracious in undertaking to prepare an
original translation of a poem by the German poet Johann Heinrich Voss
(1751-1826), to which Kant refers in a footnote on p.394 of his essay, 'Of
a Gentle Ton ...' (see also Ak. XI.239, 247). Richardson appended the
German text of this poem to Kant's footnote, so I originally planned to add
an English translation. When I later eliminated that essay from the present
volume (see above, note 4), the poem naturally went along with it.
Although Fenves' new translation of Kant's essay cites the source of Voss'
poem (Berlinische Monatsschrift, November 1795, last page), it does not
include the text itself. Inasmuch as Kant refers to this poem as the best way
of 'present[ing] in its proper light' the phenomenon of adopting a 'gentle
ton' (or as Fenves translates it, a 'superior tone') and thus 'acting' the part
of the philosopher without truly philosophizing, and inasmuch as there are
not a few examples of the same phenomenon in the English-speaking world
today, it would be a shame to pass up this opportunity to make known a
poem that met with such hearty approval from Kant. I therefore append to
this Introduction the translation provided by Dr. Boost.
Hong Kong, 11 July 1994
The Small Owl32 and the Eagle
(Not a Fable)
A small owl brought up in the temple
By Grand Chief Owl's sublime example
In grey light of the early day
To great King Eagle made his way.
'Oh King, my loyalty me sent:
I charge that crowing propagator
Of ill-fated Enlightenment,
The cockerel, as an evil traitor --
'When your well-ruled state closed all eyes
To sleep, to dream, and to digest,
Whilst our song wake one edifies
This light-fanatic spoils our rest,
Calls up the sun's illumination
To cause our silent prayer's frustration.
Finch, swallow, lark's free intonation
Rebels all round in choir formation,
That our own words we cannot hear --
That light-crazed gang blasphemes indeed
Against our sacred mystic creed
In holy darkness taught sincere.
'O King! for punishment is reason:
Your reign will face revolt and treason!
Oh Majesty, our wishes heed:
(Owls of all size united plead)
The cockerel needs a tamer's whip,
His noisy crowd much censorship --
Please, let our Chief Owl take the lead!'
The Eagle heeded not his plight,
His eyes gazed on the morning's light.
NOTES:
1 As I shall argue in the third section of this Introduction, the title page (see
above, p.1) provides a crucial (and rather obvious, though misleading) clue
as to the true identity of the anonymous translator. An initial explanation of
that clue appears in my book, Kant's System of Perspectives (Lanham:
University Press of America, 1993), p.434n.
2 For example, Ralph Walker's useful, though now somewhat outdated,
reference work, A Selective Bibliography on Kant2 (Oxford: J. Hannon,
1978), makes no reference to the existence of Richardson's book; instead,
Walker gives only the German titles for many of the works translated
therein. On page 1 Walker explains: 'Where no translation is indicated for a
particular work, that is because I do not know of any.' Such neglect is not
surprising, because Essays and Treatises has never been reprinted, and only
a few copies of the original printing are known to exist. It is now available
on microfilm, however, from Research Publications International
(Woodbridge, CT), Reel 2083.
3 For an exhaustive listing of the complete works of Kant and all English
translations known to this editor, see the Bibliography at the end of this
book. Any reader who knows of an English translation of anything written
by Kant that is not included in the Bibliography is invited to notify me (via
Philopsychy Press) of the details. An earlier version of the Bibliography
appeared in Kant's System of Perspectives, pp.424-36.
4 When I first set out to publish these essays, there were actually five that fit
this description. As I was updating the Bibliography, I came across Fenves'
1993 translation of the longest and most interesting of the five, Kant's essay
'On a Newly Arisen Superior Tone in Philosophy'. The need for publishing
a revision of Richardson's translation (not mentioned by Fenves) was
thereby eliminated, and my task made considerably easier.
5 See Chapter II of Kant's System of Perspectives.
6 Expressions such as geschictspunkte (point of view), in dieser Art (in this
manner), and in diesen Zusammenhang (in this connection), are typical
examples that appear in these essays. See e.g. pp.10, 15 (I.439, 445). The
bracketed numbers refer here, as elsewhere in this Introduction, to the
volume and page numbers of the standard, Berlin Academy (or Akademie
[Ak.]) edition of Kant's text; see below, p.104.
7 Richardson appears to have coined this word, since it does not appear in
the Oxford English Dictionary. He uses it in one form or another on pp.2
[I.431], 3 [I.432], 20 [I.450], 29 [I.459], 37 [VIII.75], and 52 [VIII.323].
8 To help preserve the 'feel' of Richardson's translation, I have presented
the essay titles and section headings in formats and font sizes like those
used in the original edition.
9 Actually, some of these may well reflect minor differences between the
original edition of the German text and the Ak. edition. However, I did not
try to locate such differences.
10 In addition to coining the word 'perspect(s/ed)', Richardson employs
numerous other unusual words in these four essays, such as: 'abalienates',
'ampliation', 'deflux', 'deobstruents', 'everduring', 'globosity',
'irreprehensible', 'novity', 'opiniative', 'quakings', 'sinkings-in', and
'vacillancy'. All in all, Richardson's translations of Kant contain literally
hundreds of such archaic terms and/or innovative forms of more common
words.
11 Stanley L. Jaki, 'Notes' to his translation of Kant's Universal Natural
History and Theory of the Heavens (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press,
1981), p.232.
12 See Hastie's The Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental
Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of Right ... (Edinburgh: T.&T.
Clark, 1887), p.vn.
13 Richardson's primary scholarly contribution was indeed that of a
translator. Meiklejohn's criticism could well apply to Richardson's essay on
God and theodicy (see below, p.80), which merely paraphrases Kant's
ideas. But it does not apply to at least one of his essays, the one appended
to his 1819 translation of Kant's Logic, and published along with his
translation of Prolegomena, in Metaphysical Works of the Celebrated
Immanuel Kant (London: W. Simpkin & R. Marshall, 1836), pp.215-43.
This essay, called 'A Sketch of the Author's Life and Writings by the
Translator' and reprinted here as Appendix III (see below, note 22, for
details), is more than just a paraphrase of Kant's ideas.
Jaki's mistaken source for regarding Willich as the translator of
Essays and Treatises could also have been G.M. Duncan's 'English
Translations of Kant's Writings', Kant-Studien 2 (1898), pp.253-58, or
Friedrich Paulsen's Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine, tr. J.E.
Creighton and A. LefŹbvre (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902),
p.403. In any case, such an error is now even easier to make, because the
microfilm reproduction of Willich's Elements comes immediately before
Essays and Treatises on Research Publications International's Reel 2083
(see above, note 2).
14 Immanuel Kant: Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in
Moral Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949), p.vi.
Beck cites RenŽ Wellek, Immanuel Kant in England, 1793-1838 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1932). John T. Goldthwait, in his 'Note on the
Translation' of Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and
Sublime (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), pp.39-40,
considers all the options mentioned so far, and concludes 'it seems safest'
not to decide!
15 Introduction to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason2 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1958 [1945]), pp.67n, 330.
16 Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770, tr. and ed. by
David Walford in collaboration with Ralf Meerbote (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), see especially pp.xxx, 467-75.
17 Walford confirmed this in private correspondence, explaining that
someone had written 'by J.S. Beck' on the title page of the copy of Essays
and Treatises he used.
18 William Wallace, Kant (London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1901),
p.78. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson, 'Translators' Preface', in
their translation of Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason
Alone (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), pp.cxxxv-cxxxvi. Arnulf Zweig
(ed. and tr.), Kant: Philosophical Correspondence 1759-99 (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1967), p.31.
Several translators refer to John Richardson as the first translator of
Prolegomena, but without clearly attributing Essays and Treatises to him as
well. J.W. Semple (in The Metaphysic of Ethics3 [Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1886 (1836)], p.x) mentions both in the same sentence, but then
adds: 'The Essays are apparently rendered by a foreigner, and printed
abroad, although graced with a London title-page.' He then says he has
been able to find only one copy of the book--in 1836! In an 1889 Preface
J.P. Mahaffy (who does not mention Essays and Treatises) reveals that
Richardson's Prolegomena suffered the same fate: 'Richardson published a
translation in 1818, which is now so rare that Mr. Lewes [in The
Biographical History of Philosophy (1857), vol. II, p.441n], though his
knowledge of this sort of literature was exceedingly wide, seemed to be
unaware of its existence.' Mahaffy then confesses that he 'chanced to find a
copy of this book' and made some use of it in preparing his own translation
(see his Kant's Critical Philosophy for English Readers3 [London:
Macmillan, 1915 (1872)], p.v). Bax's biography of Kant, prefaced to his
1903 translation of Prolegomena and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural
Science (pp.xi-lxxi), devotes a short paragraph to Richardson (p.xli), but
refers only to his 'translation of the "Prolegomena," and some other short
pieces.' Earlier (p.i) Bax refers briefly to Richardson's 'very bad' 1818
translation of the former.
19 As Richardson says in his Preface to Essays and Treatises (vol. I, p.vi),
Kant's essay on 'Eternal Peace' was previously translated 'in 1796, from a
very erroneous french version ...'. None of the short extracts interspersed
throughout Willich's Elements of the Critical Philosophy (1798) amount to
anything like a full translation.
20 Ak. XIII.670. The May 1797 letter to Kant, quoted on pp.81-82, below,
indicates that Richardson started translating this work very soon after the
German version first appeared (1797). In that letter one of Richardson's
mentors asks two questions on Richardson's behalf about how certain
passages should be translated (see below, note 27). Moreover, Richardson
wrote in the 1798 Preface to Essays and Treatises (vol. I, p.vin) that his
initial translation of this 'masterpiece of human reason' was complete, but
still needed some revision before it would be ready to publish.
Richardson's translation of Metaphysic of Morals is also available
on microfilm from Research Publications International (see above, note 2),
on Reel 758. The British Library catalogue gives the following information:
'London [i.e. Hamburg]: printed for the translator; and sold by William
Richardson, 1799'; aside from the date, this is identical to the information
given for Essays and Treatises. The reference to Hamburg is explained in a
separate paragraph added to both listings, which reads as follows: 'The
imprint is false; printed for Hoffmann in Hamburg (Steinbrink, B.
"Hoffmann und Campe Bibliographie", 1799/52).' Richardson himself
confirms in a footnote to Essays and Treatises that his books have been
'printed in a remote part of Germany' (vol. I, p.vn). This fact, however,
does not mean it is necessarily 'false' that they were also distributed in
London by William Richardson, whose status as an established printer and
bookseller is easily verifiable, inasmuch as his name appears on the title
pages of numerous books published from 1778 to 1815. Moreover, William
Richardson (if not the publisher, then perhaps one of two authors by the
same name--a Shakespeare-scholar [1743-1814] and an expert on Irish
fiorin grass [1740-1820]) may well have been related to John, though I
have been unable to substantiate any such hypothesis.
21 I have been unable to discover what Richardson did during these years.
At first, he was apparently working on a translation of Kant's
Anthropology, which had just been published in German (1798). He says
in a footnote to his translation of Metaphysic of Morals (vol. I, p.111n) that
he is in the process of translating this work, and 'hopes to be able to present
it to [the public] soon.' Unfortunately, I have found no evidence that this
plan ever materialized. Something seems to have interrupted his brief but
highly productive career as a Kant-scholar for a full two decades.
22 Richardson's 1836 'Sketch' is reprinted on pp.88-103 without
alteration, aside from the correction of a few typographical errors.
(Although I have been unable to locate it, the 'Sketch' seems to have had at
least one earlier version. For as early as 1799, in the list of errata given after
the Table of Contents in volume I of Metaphysics of Morals, Richardson
includes one correction for 'A Sketch of Kant's Life'.) The reader will
quickly detect that it is a work of an almost worshipful follower, wholly
uncritical and in places inaccurate (see e.g. the note on p.88 regarding
Richardson's miscalculation of Kant's year of birth). Nevertheless, it has its
bright spots of insight and inspiration. The reference material I have added
appears either in the numbered footnotes or as supplementary text given in
square brackets. If nothing else, the Sketch gives us an idea of how far
English-speaking Kant-scholarship has progressed in the past 175 years!
23 Richardson refers to this essay, which may well contain a translation of
Kant's Lectures on Education, several times (pp.105n, 169n, 250n) in his
essay on God and theodicy. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate a
copy of the former.
24 In 1830, for instance, a John Richardson wrote a tract called 'A proposal
for a change in the poor laws: and the reduction of the poor's rate by the
beneficial employment of the labourers...', which was printed in London
and sold by Hatchard and Son. Another good example is the two volume
book entitled Recollections, Political, Literary, Dramatic, and
Miscellaneous, of the Last Half-Century... (London: Savill & Edwards,
1855). The John Richardson who wrote this book was a well educated
Londoner who became a minister. He recounts seemingly endless anecdotes
and descriptions of the many influential people with whom he became
acquainted during his long life. But, whereas certain aspects of the book
suggest a possible identification with our translator, others cast considerable
doubt. Not the least of the latter is the lack of any mention of Kant.
Moreover, this John Richardson commenced his studies at Trinity Hall,
Cambridge in 1809 (vol. I, p.112), when our John Richardson must have
been at least in his late 30's (see below, pp.82-83). In any case, the latter
book is a good resource for anyone who wishes to know what life in
London was like during the first half of the nineteenth century.
25 After studying under Kant in Kšnigsberg, Jacob Sigismund Beck (1761-
1840) taught at the Gymnasium in Halle from 1791 to 1796, when he
became Professor of Philosophy at the university (see Ak. XIII.607).
Under Kant's supervision, he edited a three-volume set of selections from
Kant's major works, published from 1793 to 1796. In 1799 he took up a
position as Professor of Metaphysics at the University of Rostock. Ludwig
Heinrich Jakob (1759-1827) was also Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Halle (see XIII.641). He published a journal, called Annalen
der Philosophie und philosophischen Geistes (Halle: 1796), and sent a copy
to Kant (see XII.27, 55). Ak. records 31 letters to or from Beck (starting
May 1789) and 21 to or from Jakob (starting March 1786), though some of
these are not extant. A number of the letters to or from Beck contain
references to Jakob, and vice versa (see e.g. XII.25-26, 120, 136).
26 See Jakob's letter of 28 July 1787 (Ak. X.490-93). Kant's reply (Sept.
1787) is translated in Arnulf Zweig's Kant: Philosophical Correspondence
1759-99 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp.124-25. In
it Kant suggests that Jakob himself might be able to write the Metaphysics.
He also says his 'Critique of Practical Reason is at Grunert's now.'
Friedrich Grunert was a printer in Halle who published a number of Kant's
books (see references in Ak. XIII.630). With the originals of Kant's
writings right there in Halle, it is no wonder that Kant's first English
translator resided there, nor that Kant's minor writings and Metaphysics
were the first two projects undertaken.
27 Jakob here refers to passages on p.207 and p.220 of the original text.
For details, see Ak. XII.161.
28 Richardson's letter is written in English, and can be found in Ak.
XII.196-97, so I have not reproduced it here. He asks Jakob to transmit it
'to our worthy master Kant'.
29 This note is appended to p.73 of Richardson's translation of
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, where Kant
refers to Hume's challenge to 'produce a single example where a Negro has
shown talents' (Ak. II.253). See also Essays and Treatises, vol. II, p.419n,
where Richardson appends to a note of Kant's (Ak. VI.188n) a telling
question concerning 'the poor slaves in the West-Indian colonies'.
30 See the note added to Essay One (pp.56-57, above). See also pp.232-
33n of Richardson's 'Sketch' (reprinted below, pp.97-98n), where he
alludes to his travels in Germany.
31 Essays and Treatises, vol. II, p.169n, at his translation of Ak. VIII.394.
32 Dr. Boost provides the following remark on word play: 'A "Kauz" is a
small species of owls, but also a description of something like an Oxbridge
don: a person of a particular personality, perhaps best identified as an
eccentric; and the "small owl's" nest in a hollow tree or dreaming spire
might well be equivalent to an ivory tower.' To this I would add that, just as
Kant seems to regard the owl as representing such ivory tower
philosophers, who are really just 'play-acting' as they ape the views of the
'Grand Chief Owl' (e.g. Plato or Aristotle, to whom Kant explicitly refers
in the footnote), so also the 'cockerel' represents the truly free-thinking
philosopher (in this case, Kant himself); the 'great King Eagle' represents
actual political power for the former group, but for the latter he personifies
reason itself.
33 As I have argued in 'Kant's Critique of Mysticism: (1) The Critical
Dreams', Philosophy & Theology 3.4 (Summer 1989), pp.355-60, this
threefold method of constructing philosophical arguments can be seen
operating throughout Kant's life, from his first publication to his last. For
this reason, the two periods into which his philosophical writings are
normally classified really ought to be called 'Copernican' and 'pre-
Copernican', rather than the usual (and quite misleading) 'Critical' and pre-
Critical'.