flocked in from various sides, from Poland and the Baltic districts on the one hand, and from Pomerania, Silesia, and East Prussia generally, on the other. Several important municipal schools were, moreover, opened about this time.

The state of general culture in Germany during the first half of the century was very much what the close of the preceding century had left it. The era of modern. German literature had not commenced. The seventhmagnitude poets and dramatists whose names are preserved in the pages of Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit were the oracles of public taste; an array of equally obscure philosophasters dominated the universities, while philosophy, together with all the more solid branches of literature, was conducted in Latin, according to true mediæval fashion. Some few jurists and philologists alone, belonging to this period, attained to a more than ephemeral reputation. Germany had not as yet recovered from the blighting results of the Thirty Years' War, which effectually destroyed the germs of the awakening culture of the Reformation period. But in spite of this unpromising state of affairs, signs of an imminent revival were not wanting. The brilliant and cosmopolitan genius of Leibnitz had prepared the way for the first essentially German philosopher, Christian Wolff. Wolff, besides being the first thinker to write in German, has the credit of having staunchly, and at times to his own cost, adhered to his master's resistance to the claims of authority, as such, and this fact may be set against the intrinsic worthlessness of his philosophy. The most interesting point in connection with Wolff, is, however, his having been the forerunner of Kant. In general literature, towards the middle of the century, a similar revival is noticeable, the glow of dawn before the rising of the sun of Goethe and his congeners. The time

will perhaps be best appreciated in its intellectual as pect when we recall the fact that the popular essayist Thomasius, the precursor of the later Aufklärung writers, died as late as 1728, and that he was a main instrument in exploding the belief in witchcraft among the educated classes, and in abolishing the laws directed against it, as well as a determined, and, to a large extent, successful opponent of the practice of judicial torture.

But the most important influence at this period dominant in North Germany, was not so much embodied in literature as in the social life of the people. We refer to the "Pietism" which then reigned, to a greater or less extent, in well-nigh every German home, and which formed such a marked feature in the early life of the subject of the present biographical sketch.

Such were the social conditions of Germany when the worthy saddler, Johann Georg Cant, was carrying on his handicraft in the Sadlergasse of Königsberg, learning to labour and to wait for those better days which, alas! he was never destined to see reward his labour. Johann Georg, in fact, though an upright and excellent man, appears to have been more esteemed by his fellow townsmen for his personal character than his saddle-making abilities. In spite of rigid economy, he never compassed more than very "moderate" circumstances, even according to the standard of the German Kleinbürger-and he not the Kleinbürger of to-day, but of the 18th century—while at times, it seems, he had a difficulty in making the proverbial two ends meet. Though originally of Scotch extraction, the Cant family had been settled for some generations in the Baltic province, at the time of which we speak. It was on November 13th, 1715, that Johann Georg Cant was united, in the cathedral church of the city, to Anna Regina Reuter, if we may judge by the name, a genuine daughter of the Baltic shores. As is not

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unusual with persons in the position of the elder Cant, a large family was the issue of this marriage, eleven children in all, four sons and seven daughters. Of these six died in infancy.

Immanuel, the fourth child and third but eldest surviving son, was born on April 22nd, 1724. His only brother, Johann Heinrich Cant, the youngest child, and eleven years his junior, after passing many years as private tutor in various aristocratic families, ultimately obtained the rectorate of Mitau and afterwards of Rahden, two country districts, the latter of which he held till his death a few years before that of his elder brother. Of the three sisters, Regina Dorothea, Maria Elisabeth, and Catherina Barbara, the eldest died unmarried, while the two younger developed into excellent housewives and mothers of families of the true German Bürgerin type, the youngest of all outliving Immanuel. Kant, throughout his life, acted as the benefactor of his relations and their children, who inherited the bulk of his property.

Frau Cant died when her son Immanuel was thirteen years old. It is related that her death was caused by a circumstance aptly illustrating her goodness of heart. A female friend to whom she was much attached, having been deserted by her betrothed, was attacked by a fever induced by mental excitement. Frau Cant, who zealously watched by her bedside, on one occasion endeavoured vainly to induce her to take her medicine, which she refused, even when the spoon containing it was pressed to her lips. As a last resource, her friend, thinking to overcome her repugnance by example, swallowed the mixture herself. No sooner had she done this than she was seized with a nervous horror, intensified by the fancy that she saw on the patient's body symptoms of spotted typhus. She at once gave herself up for lost, fell ill of a similar fever the same day, and in a few days after

expired. Kant, who was devotedly attached to his mother, could never speak of her, even in his later years, without betraying the deepest emotion.

Pietism reigned supreme in the house in the Sadlergasse, and Kant's mother was especially addicted to it. Kant spoke of her as possessed of an inward peace and cheerfulness, capable of being disturbed by no outward circumstances. He was fond of relating how, in a trade dispute, in which his father was engaged, and had suffered considerable loss, she would speak with the greatest consideration of the opponent party, and express the most implicit trust in Providence. In later life the impression of his mother seems to have been more vivid than of his father. He would tell how he used to accompany her in long country walks, of her zeal in directing his attention to the various phenomena of Nature, and in offering such explanations as lay within her reach, with their invariable epilogue on the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. It would appear as though Immanuel had been her favourite child. Besides receiving his general instruction in an institution famed for the pietism of its management, and diligently attending the church in connection with it, he had to be present at the prayer meetings of Professor Schultz, his mother's chief spiritual adviser, who pressed these devotional exercises with emphasis on the attention of the "spiritually minded" among his congregation. These meetings led to a more intimate connection with Schultz, which resulted in bringing about the first epoch in the young Immanuel's career. Schultz had been always well disposed towards the Kants, supporting them in various ways; such as sending them firewood in the winter carriage paid, etc. He was also a frequent guest at their house. In this way various occasions for observing the rising abilities of the elder son presented themselves, and in consequence he earnestly advised his being allowed to

devote himself to studious pursuits. This was readily agreed to, his mother joyfully anticipating the realisation of her long cherished wish that he should enter the church. She, however, died under the circumstances narrated, before he had completed his school education.

The irony of fate is certainly in few cases more strikingly manifested than in Kant's. Nurtured in the straitest sect of the orthodox creed of his day, trained doubtless at great sacrifices on the part of his parents that he might become an adequate exponent of that creed, he was yet destined to prove the most tremendous disintegrating force of modern times, springing intellectual mines, causing old creeds and formulas to fall in (so to speak) of their own weight. In Kant, philosophy and science became definitely emancipated from theology. A parallel involuntarily suggests itself between the respective attitudes towards religious beliefs of Kant and his elder contemporary, Voltaire, the one the subject, and the other the friend, of Frederick the Great. In the first we have the type of 19th century, in the second of 18th century thought. Both were alike in the immense range of their culture and interests; both were alike in the revolutionary character of their work. But, besides the difference which, of necessity, distinguishes the mere man of letters from the philosopher in his mode of thought and treatment, they differ as representing two diverse phases of the great intellectual movement of modern times. The attitude of 18th century thought towards current beliefs, where it was not one of ironical servility, was one of direct and uncompromising hostility; in fact, paradoxical as it may sound, we not unfrequently see the two attitudes combined as in the famous 15th and 16th chapters of Gibbon. What is now known as the historical point of view is, of course, conspicuous by its absence. In no writer is this more