Immanuel Kant - A Study and a Comparison With Goethe, Leonardo Da Vinci, Bruno, Plato and Descartes #265285

If there be one defect more peculiarly English than another it is the tendency to sneer at everything foreign, at everything that is not familiar, everything outside the daily experience of our narrow life. Talking the other day with a man of acknowledged ability and great public worth, I happened to mention the name of Kant. "Of one thing I can assure you," said my friend, "I am too old to have anything to do with German philosophy." Coming from such a man these words set me wondering. Does there, after all, exist such a thing as German philosophy? Surely philosophy is the common possession of all mankind, not the monopoly of any one race or language. There can be few men in the world, whatever their nationality may be, who do not sometimes "think about thought." The famous misunderstood "Cogito ergo sum" of Descartes, concerning which Chamberlain has much to say, must often come into the least thoughtful minds. Why am I? What am I? What are the relations between me and the world?<br><br>The investigation of the laws of human thought, its objects, methods, and results, belong to all humanity, otherwise it is nothing. And in the case of Kant, that great Lord of Thought, how far can he be called German? Have we Britons, too, not some small heredity share in the legacy which he has left to the world?