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Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers, Vol. II.

T >> Thomas De Quincey >> Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers, Vol. II.




Kant never perspired, [Footnote: This appears less extraordinary,
considering the description of Kant's person, given originally by
Reichardt, about eight years after his death. 'Kant,' says this writer,
'was drier than dust both in body and mind. His person was small; and
possibly a more meagre, arid, parched anatomy of a man, has not
appeared upon this earth. The upper part of his face was grand;
forehead lofty and serene, nose elegantly turned, eyes brilliant and
penetrating; but below it expressed powerfully the coarsest sensuality,
which in him displayed itself by immoderate addiction to eating and
drinking.' This last feature of his temperament is here expressed much
too harshly.] night or day. Yet it was astonishing how much heat he
supported habitually in his study, and in fact was not easy if it
wanted but one degree of this heat. Seventy-five degrees of Fahrenheit
was the invariable temperature of this room in which he chiefly lived;
and if it fell below that point, no matter at what season of the year,
he had it raised artificially to the usual standard. In the heats of
summer he went thinly dressed, and invariably in silk stockings; yet,
as even this dress could not always secure him against perspiring when
engaged in active exercise, he had a singular remedy in reserve.
Retiring to some shady place, he stood still and motionless--with the
air and attitude of a person listening, or in suspense--until his usual
_aridity_ was restored. Even in the most sultry summer night, if
the slightest trace of perspiration had sullied his night-dress, he
spoke of it with emphasis, as of an accident that perfectly shocked
him.

On this occasion, whilst illustrating Kant's notions of the animal
economy, it may be as well to add one other particular, which is, that
for fear of obstructing the circulation of the blood, he never would
wear garters; yet, as he found it difficult to keep up his stockings
without them, he had invented for himself a most elaborate substitute,
which I shall describe. In a little pocket, somewhat smaller than a
watch-pocket, but occupying pretty nearly the same situation as a
watch-pocket on each thigh, there was placed a small box, something
like a watch-case, but smaller; into this box was introduced a watch-
spring in a wheel, round about which wheel was wound an elastic cord,
for regulating the force of which there was a separate contrivance. To
the two ends of this cord were attached hooks, which hooks were carried
through a small aperture in the pockets, and so passing down the inner
and the outer side of the thigh, caught hold of two loops which were
fixed on the off side and the near side of each stocking. As might be
expected, so complex an apparatus was liable, like the Ptolemaic system
of the heavens, to occasional derangements; however, by good luck, I
was able to apply an easy remedy to these disorders which sometimes
threatened to disturb the comfort, and even the serenity, of the great
man.

Precisely at five minutes before five o'clock, winter or summer, Lampe,
Kant's servant, who had formerly served in the army, marched into his
master's room with the air of a sentinel on duty, and cried aloud in a
military tone,--'Mr. Professor, the time is come.' This summons Kant
invariably obeyed without one moment's delay, as a soldier does the
word of command--never, under any circumstances, allowing himself a
respite, not even under the rare accident of having passed a sleepless
night. As the clock struck five, Kant was seated at the breakfast-
table, where he drank what he called _one_ cup of tea; and no
doubt he thought it such; but the fact was, that in part from his habit
of reverie, and in part also for the purpose of refreshing its warmth,
he filled up his cup so often, that in general he is supposed to have
drunk two, three, or some unknown number. Immediately after he smoked a
pipe of tobacco, (the only one which he allowed himself through the
entire day,) but so rapidly, that a pile of glowing embers remained
unsmoked. During this operation he thought over his arrangements for
the day, as he had done the evening before during the twilight. About
seven he usually went to his lecture-room, and from that he returned to
his writing-table. Precisely at three quarters before one he rose from
his chair, and called aloud to the cook,--'It has struck three
quarters.' The meaning of which summons was this:--Immediately after
taking soup, it was his constant practice to swallow what he called a
dram, which consisted either of Hungarian wine, of Rhenish, of a
cordial, or (in default of these) of Bishop. A flask of this was
brought up by the cook on the proclamation of the three quarters. Kant
hurried with it to the eating-room, poured out his _quantum_, left
it standing in readiness, covered, however, with paper, to prevent its
becoming vapid, and then went back to his study, and awaited the
arrival of his guests, whom to the latest period of his life he never
received but in full dress.

Thus we come round again to dinner, and the reader has now an accurate
picture of the course of Kant's day; the rigid monotony of which was
not burthensome to him; and probably contributed, with the uniformity
of his diet, and other habits of the same regularity, to lengthen his
life. On this consideration, indeed, he had come to regard his health
and his old age as in a great measure the product of his own exertions.
He spoke of himself often under the figure of a gymnastic artist, who
had continued for nearly fourscore years to support his balance upon
the slack-rope of life, without once swerving to the right or to the
left. In spite of every illness to which his constitutional tendencies
had exposed him, he still kept his position in life triumphantly.
However, he would sometimes observe sportively, that it was really
absurd, and a sort of insult to the next generation for a man to live
so long, because he thus interfered with the prospects of younger
people.

This anxious attention to his health accounts for the great interest
which he attached to all new discoveries in medicine, or to new ways of
theorizing on the old ones. As a work of great pretension in both
classes, he set the highest value upon the theory of the Scotch
physician Brown, or (as it is usually called, from the Latin name of
its author,) the Brunonian Theory. No sooner had Weikard adopted
[Footnote: This theory was afterwards greatly modified in Germany; and,
judging from the random glances which I throw on these subjects, I
believe that in this recast it still keeps its ground in that country.]
and made it known in Germany, than Kant became familiar with it. He
considered it not only as a great step taken for medicine, but even for
the general interests of man, and fancied that in this he saw something
analogous to the course which human nature has held in still more
important inquiries, viz.: first of all, a continual ascent towards the
more and more elaborately complex, and then a treading back, on its own
steps, towards the simple and elementary. Dr. Beddoes's Essays, also,
for producing by art and curing pulmonary consumption, and the method
of Reich for curing fevers, made a powerful impression upon him; which,
however, declined as those novelties (especially the last) began to
sink in credit. As to Dr. Jenner's discovery of vaccination, he was
less favorably disposed to it; he apprehended dangerous consequences
from the absorption of a brutal miasma into the human blood, or at
least into the lymph; and at any rate he thought, that, as a guarantee
against the variolous infection, it required a much longer probation.
Groundless as all these views were, it was exceedingly entertaining to
hear the fertility of argument and analogy which he brought forward to
support them. One of the subjects which occupied him at the latter end
of his life, was the theory and phenomena of galvanism, which, however,
he never satisfactorily mastered. Augustin's book upon this subject was
about the last that he read, and his copy still retains on the margin
his, pencil-marks of doubts, queries and suggestions.

The infirmities of age now began to steal upon Kant, and betrayed
themselves in more shapes than one. Connected with Kant's prodigious
memory for all things that had any intellectual bearings, he had from
youth labored under an unusual weakness of this faculty in relation to
the common affairs of daily life. Some remarkable instances of this are
on record, from the period of his childish days; and now, when his
second childhood was commencing, this infirmity increased upon him very
sensibly. One of the first signs was, that he began to repeat the same
stories more than once on the same day. Indeed, the decay of his memory
was too palpable to escape his own notice; and, to provide against it,
and secure himself from all apprehension of inflicting tedium upon his
guests, he began to write a syllabus, or list of themes, for each day's
conversation, on cards, or the covers of letters, or any chance scrap
of paper. But these memoranda accumulated so fast upon him, and were so
easily lost, or not forthcoming at the proper moment, that I prevailed
on him to substitute a blank-paper book, which I had directed to be
made, and which still remains, with some affecting memorials of his own
conscious weakness. As often happens, however, in such cases, he had a
perfect memory for the remote events of his life, and could repeat with
great readiness, and without once stumbling, very long passages from
German or Latin poems, especially from the AEneid, whilst the very
words that had been uttered but a moment before dropped away from his
remembrance. The past came forward with the distinctness and liveliness
of an immediate existence, whilst the present faded away into the
obscurity of infinite distance.

Another sign of his mental decay was the weakness with which he now
began to theorize. He accounted for everything by electricity. A
singular mortality at this time prevailed amongst the cats of Vienna,
Basle, Copenhagen, and other places. Cats being so eminently an
electric animal, of course he attributed this epizootic to electricity.
During the same period, he persuaded himself that a peculiar
configuration of clouds prevailed; this he took as a collateral proof
of his electrical hypothesis. His own headaches, too, which in all
probability were a mere remote effect of old age, and a direct one of
an inability [Footnote: Mr. Wasianski is quite in the wrong here. If
the hindrances which nature presented to the act of thinking were now
on the increase, on the other hand, the disposition to think, by his
own acknowledgment, was on the wane. The power and the habit altering
in proportion, there is no case made out of that disturbed equilibrium
to which apparently he would attribute the headaches. But the fact is,
that, if he had been as well acquainted with Kant's writings as with
Kant personally, he would have known, that some affection of the head
of a spasmodic kind was complained of by Kant at a time when nobody
could suspect him of being in a decaying state.] to think as easily and
as severely as formerly, he explained upon the same principle. And this
was a notion of which his friends were not anxious to disabuse him,
because, as something of the same character of weather (and therefore
probably the same general tendency of the electric power) is found to
prevail for whole cycles of years, entrance upon another cycle held out
to him some prospect of relief. A delusion which secured the comforts
of hope was the next best thing to an actual remedy; and a man who, in
such circumstances, is cured of his delusion, '_cui demptus per vim
mentis gratissimus error_,' might reasonably have exclaimed,
'_Pol, me occidistis, amici._'

Possibly the reader may suppose, that, in this particular instance of
charging his own decays upon the state of the atmosphere, Kant was
actuated by the weakness of vanity, or some unwillingness to face the
real fact that his powers were decaying. But this was not the case. He
was perfectly aware of his own condition, and, as early as 1799, he
said, in my presence, to a party of his friends--'Gentlemen, I am old,
and weak, and childish, and you must treat me as a child.' Or perhaps
it may be thought that he shrank from the contemplation of death,
which, as apoplexy seemed to be threatened by the pains in his head,
might have happened any day. But neither was this the case. He now
lived in a continual state of resignation, and prepared to meet any
dispensation of Providence. 'Gentlemen,' said he one day to his guests,
'I do not fear to die. I assure you, as in the presence of God, that if
I were this night to be made suddenly aware that I was on the point of
being summoned, I would raise my hands to heaven, fold them, and say,
Blessed be God! If indeed it were possible that a whisper such as this
could reach my ear--Fourscore years thou hast lived, in which time thou
hast inflicted much evil upon thy fellow-men, the case would be
otherwise.' Whosoever has heard Kant speak of his own death, will bear
witness to the tone of earnest sincerity which, on such occasions,
marked his manner and utterance.

A third sign of his decaying faculties was, that he now lost all
accurate measure of time. One minute, nay, without exaggeration, a much
less space of time, stretched out in his apprehension of things to a
wearisome duration. Of this I can give one rather amusing instance,
which was of constant recurrence. At the beginning of the last year of
his life, he fell into a custom of taking immediately after dinner a
cup of coffee, especially on those days when it happened that I was of
his party. And such was the importance he attached to this little
pleasure, that he would even make a memorandum beforehand, in the
blank-paper book I had given him, that on the next day I was to dine
with him, and consequently that there was to be coffee. Sometimes it
would happen, that the interest of conversation carried him past the
time at which he felt the craving for it; and this I was not sorry to
observe, as I feared that coffee, which he had never been accustomed
to, [Footnote: How this happened to be the case in Germany, Mr.
Wasianski has not explained. Perhaps the English merchants at
Königsberg, being amongst Kant's oldest and most intimate friends, had
early familiarized him to the practice of drinking tea, and to other
English tastes. However, Jachmann tells us, (p. 164,) that Kant was
extravagantly fond of coffee, but forced himself to abstain from it
under a notion that it was very unwholesome.] might disturb his rest at
night. But, if this did not happen, then commenced a scene of some
interest. Coffee must be brought 'upon the spot,' (a word he had
constantly in his mouth during his latter days,) 'in a moment.' And the
expressions of his impatience, though from old habit still gentle, were
so lively, and had so much of infantine naïveté about them, that none
of us could forbear smiling. Knowing what would happen, I had taken
care that all the preparations should be made beforehand; the coffee
was ground; the water was boiling; and the very moment the word was
given, his servant shot in like an arrow, and plunged the coffee into
the water. All that remained, therefore, was to give it time to boil
up. But this trifling delay seemed unendurable to Kant. All
consolations were thrown away upon him: vary the formula as we might,
he was never at a loss for a reply. If it was said--'Dear Professor,
the coffee will be brought up in a moment.'--'_Will_ be!' he would
say, 'but there's the rub, that it only _will_ be:

Man never _is_, but always _to be_ blest.'

If another cried out--'The coffee is coming immediately.'--'Yes,' he
would retort, 'and so is the next hour: and, by the way, it's about
that length of time that I have waited for it.' Then he would collect
himself with a stoical air, and say--'Well, one can die after all: it
is but dying; and in the next world, thank God! there is no drinking of
coffee, and consequently no--waiting for it.' Sometimes he would rise
from his chair, open the door, and cry out with a feeble querulousness
--'Coffee! coffee!' And when at length he heard the servant's step upon
the stairs, he would turn round to us, and, as joyfully as ever sailor
from the mast-head, he would call out--'Land, land! my dear friends, I
see land.'

This general decline in Kant's powers, active and passive, gradually
brought about a revolution in his habits of life. Heretofore, as I have
already mentioned, he went to bed at ten, and rose a little before
five. The latter practice he still observed, but not the other. In 1802
he retired as early as nine, and afterwards still earlier. He found
himself so much refreshed by this addition to his rest, that at first
he was disposed to utter a _Euraeka_, as over some great discovery
in the art of restoring exhausted nature: but afterwards, on pushing it
still farther, he did not find the success answer his expectations. His
walks he now limited to a few turns in the King's gardens, which were
at no great distance from his own house. In order to walk more firmly,
he adopted a peculiar method of stepping; he carried his foot to the
ground, not forward, and obliquely, but perpendicularly, and with a
kind of stamp, so as to secure a larger basis, by setting down the
entire sole at once. Notwithstanding this precaution, upon one occasion
he fell in the street. He was quite unable to raise himself; and two
young ladies, who saw the accident, ran to his assistance. With his
usual graciousness of manner he thanked them fervently for their
assistance, and presented one of them with a rose which he happened to
have in his hand. This lady was not personally known to Kant; but she
was greatly delighted with his little present, and still keeps the rose
as a frail memorial of her transitory interview with the great
philosopher.

This accident, as I have reason to think, was the cause of his
henceforth renouncing exercise altogether. All labors, even that of
reading, were now performed slowly, and with manifest effort; and those
which cost him any bodily exertion became very exhausting to him. His
feet refused to do their office more and more; he fell continually,
both when moving across the room, and even when standing still: yet he
seldom suffered from these falls; and he constantly laughed at them,
maintaining that it was impossible he could hurt himself, from the
extreme lightness of his person, which was indeed by this time the
merest skeleton. Very often, especially in the morning, he dropped
asleep in his chair from pure weariness: on these occasions he fell
forward upon the floor, and lay there unable to raise himself up, until
accident brought one of his servants or his friends into the room.
Afterwards these falls were prevented, by substituting a chair with
circular supports, that met and clasped in front.

These unseasonable dozings exposed him to another danger. He fell
repeatedly, whilst reading, with his head into the candles; a cotton
night-cap which he wore was instantly in a blaze, and flaming about his
head. Whenever this happened, Kant behaved with great presence of mind.
Disregarding the pain, he seized the blazing cap, drew it from his
head, laid it quietly on the floor, and trod out the flames with his
feet. Yet, as this last act brought his dressing-gown into a dangerous
neighborhood to the flames, I changed the form of his cap, persuaded
him to arrange the candles differently, and had a decanter of water
placed constantly by his side; and in this way I applied a remedy to a
danger, which would else probably have been fatal to him.

From the sallies of impatience, which I have described in the case of
the coffee, there was reason to fear that, with the increasing
infirmities of Kant, would grow up a general waywardness and obstinacy
of temper. For my own sake, therefore, and not less for his, I now laid
down one rule for my future conduct in his house; which was, that I
would, on no occasion, allow my reverence for him to interfere with the
firmest expression of my opinion on subjects relating to his own
health; and in cases of great importance, that I would make no
compromise with his particular humors, but insist, not only on my view
of the case, but also on the practical adoption of my views; or, if
this were refused me, that I would take my departure at once, and not
be made responsible for the comfort of a person whom I had no power to
influence. And this behavior on my part it was that won Kant's
confidence; for there was nothing which disgusted him so much as any
approach to fawning or sycophancy. As his imbecility increased, he
became daily more liable to mental delusions; and, in particular, he
fell into many fantastic notions about the conduct of his servants,
and, in consequence, into a peevish mode of treating them. Upon these
occasions I generally observed a deep silence. But sometimes he would
ask me for my opinion; and when this happened, I did not scruple to
say, 'Ingenuously, then, Mr. Professor, I think that you are in the
wrong.'--'You think so?' he would reply calmly, at the same time asking
for my reasons, which he would listen to with great patience, and
openness to conviction. Indeed, it was evident that the firmest
opposition, so long as it rested upon assignable grounds and
principles, won upon his regard; whilst his own nobleness of character
still moved him to habitual contempt for timorous and partial
acquiescence in his opinions, even when his infirmities made him most
anxious for such acquiescence.

Earlier in life Kant had been little used to contradiction. His superb
understanding, his brilliancy in conversation, founded in part upon his
ready and sometimes rather caustic wit, and in part upon his prodigious
command of knowledge--the air of noble self-confidence which the
consciousness of these advantages impressed upon his manners--and the
general knowledge of the severe innocence of his life--all combined to
give him a station of superiority to others, which generally secured
him from open contradiction. And if it sometimes happened that he met a
noisy and intemperate opposition, supported by any pretences to wit, he
usually withdrew himself from that sort of unprofitable altercation
with dignity, by contriving to give such a turn to the conversation as
won the general favor of the company to himself, and impressed,
silence, or modesty at least, upon the boldest disputant. From a person
so little familiar with opposition, it could scarcely have been
anticipated that he should daily surrender his wishes to mine--if not
without discussion, yet always without displeasure. So, however, it
was. No habit, of whatever long standing, could be objected to as
injurious to his health, but he would generally renounce it. And he had
this excellent custom in such cases, that either he would resolutely
and at once decide for his own opinion, or, if he professed to follow
his friend's, he would follow it sincerely, and not try it unfairly by
trying it imperfectly. Any plan, however trifling, which he had once
consented to adopt on the suggestion of another, was never afterwards
defeated or embarrassed by unseasonable interposition from his own
humors. And thus, the very period of his decay drew forth so many fresh
expressions of his character, in its amiable or noble features, as
daily increased my affection and reverence for his person.

Having mentioned his servants, I shall here take occasion to give some
account of his man-servant Lampe. It was a great misfortune for Kant,
in his old age and infirmities, that this man also became old, and
subject to a different sort of infirmities. This Lampe had originally
served in the Prussian army; on quitting which he entered the service
of Kant. In this situation he had lived about forty years; and, though
always dull and stupid, had, in the early part of this period,
discharged his duties with tolerable fidelity. But latterly, presuming
upon his own indispensableness, from his perfect knowledge of all the
domestic arrangements, and upon his master's weakness, he had fallen
into great irregularities and neglect of his duties. Kant had been
obliged, therefore, of late, to threaten repeatedly that he would
discharge him. I, who knew that Kant, though one of the kindest-hearted
men, was also one of the firmest, foresaw that this discharge, once
given, would be irrevocable: for the word of Kant was as sacred as
other men's oaths. Consequently, upon every opportunity, I remonstrated
with Lampe on the folly of his conduct, and his wife joined me on these
occasions. Indeed, it was high time that a change should be made in
some quarter; for it now became dangerous to leave Kant, who was
constantly falling from weakness, to the care of an old ruffian, who
was himself apt to fall from intoxication. The fact was, that from the
moment I undertook the management of Kant's affairs, Lampe saw there
was an end to his old system of abusing his master's confidence in
pecuniary affairs, and the other advantages which he took of his
helpless situation. This made him desperate, and he behaved worse and
worse; until one morning, in January, 1802, Kant told me, that,
humiliating as he felt such a confession, the fact was, that Lampe had
just treated him in a way which he was ashamed to repeat. I was too
much shocked to distress him by inquiring into the particulars. But the
result was, that Kant now insisted, temperately but firmly, on Lampe's
dismissal. Accordingly, a new servant, of the name of Kaufmann, was
immediately engaged; and on the next day Lampe was discharged with a
handsome pension for life.

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