saying. Alas! the grammar leaves it rather doubtful whether the saying was that Mill himself or that Wirgman did not understand Kant. Probably Wirgman was meant, as Mill thought himself capable of seeing through most things—Kant's philosophy included. With Stewart, finally, we may couple his friend and admirer, the great Dr. Parr. Parr had sent him a note upon the etymology of the word 'sublime.' It is abbreviated in Stewart's works, because it would have filled 250 pages. Parr, however, though a monster of erudition, knew no German, and gave up Kant from the irksomeness of reading through an interpreter.[1] Obviously, nothing short of the proverbial surgical operation could have got Kant into the heads of these worthy persons.[2]
Kantism, it seems, had not made much progress in this 'commercial country.' It had, however, excited a certain alarm. In 1814 Mrs. Hannah More was terrified by a report that a Kantian Club
- ↑ Parr's Works, i. p. 712.
- ↑ Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) the chemist, father of the author of Death's Textbook, had taught himself German, and is mentioned, as Mr. Herzfeld tells me, in the Teutscher Merkur as interested in Kantian philosophy. Beddoes was a friend of Coleridge, Southey, and Davy, in the Bristol days, and probably helped to stimulate Coleridge's curiosity as to German.
