First Part of the treatise here published, he amuses himself with tearing down by the negative criticism of Chapter III., little forseeing that in four years' time, for his inaugural dissertation of 1770, he would be choosing no other theme than that of the same vision he had thus destroyed—that namely of a mundus intelligibilis et mundus sensibilis[1] and that all through his subsequent teaching and writing, including the Critique and the Religion i. d. Gr., he would be finding the basis of his positive idealism only in those principles of the Arcana he had once affected to despise. Will not this circumstance account for the instruction given by Kant to his editor Tieftrunk (see Kant's Werke: Edition Hartenstein: Bd. VIII., 812). "I assent with pleasure to your proposal for collecting and editing my minor writings. Only I wish you would not include writings earlier than 1770. In this case a German translation of my Inaugural Dissertation De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis might form the beginning." Thus omitting the "Dreams."
In view of these investigations the importance of the Traüme as a potent factor in Kant's development is
- ↑ See Kant's "Inaugural Dissertation" of 1770, with an introduction, &c., by William G. Eckoff, Ph. D., New York, 1894.
the nature of a spirit, which is all too hypothetical, but from some actual and universally conceded observation. Presuming upon the reader's indulgence, I insert an attempt of the kind, somewhat out of my way, to be sure, and far from a demonstration, but nevertheless giving occasion, it seems to me, for not unpleasant surmises."—From the Traüme, Werke, II. 342.
