10 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



We are not aware that Kant took any notice of Winckel- 

 mann, Lessing, or Goethe. Of Herder he must have 

 known enough, as Herder had been his pupil and was 

 intimate with Hamann, a friend and townsman of Kant's ; 

 but it seems that the spirit which breathed in Hamann's 

 and Herder's writings was not congenial to him. Never- 

 theless, when Kant's teaching was transplanted into the 

 centre of Germany by Eeinhold, it produced a deep and 

 lasting impression, not only on philosophical thought 

 but likewise upon general literature and science, and 

 nowhere more than on German festhetics. This was 

 owing not so much to the systematic treatment which 

 eesthetics received at the hand of Kant in the third 

 'Critique,' published in 1790, as to sundry prominent 

 ideas which he put forward and which formed starting- 

 points for the speculations of others. It will be of 

 interest if we try to specify these ideas somewhat more 

 closely. 



In his first two Critiques Kant had dealt with two 

 problems which were then exercising many thoughtful 

 minds in Germany, but he had dealt with them in a 

 novel and inspiriting manner. The philosophy of com- 

 mon-sense, imported from England and popularised by 

 the writers of the 'Aufklitrung,' had already put in a 

 fresh way before the thinking mind the two problems of 

 knowledge and practice, the questions, " What can we 

 know ? " and " What ought we to do ? " But the answer 

 to these questions could not, in Germany, remain in the 

 position which was given to it in those writings. " Com- 

 mon-sense," which in its home had mostly consisted in 

 isolated replies to isolated questions, professed in its 



