Page:Kant's Prolegomena etc (1883).djvu/31

 initial letter of his name from C to K, a step, it is said, he was led to adopt owing to the perversity of many persons in pronouncing it Tsant. Kant remained nine years in his tutorial capacity, before, owing to the support of a relative named Richter, he was enabled to take his degree in philosophy. One of his examination-essays, de Igne, was rewarded by the acknowledgment of his former teacher Teske, that he himself had learnt much from it. Kant received his doctorate on April 17th, 1755, in the presence of a large number of distinguished persons connected with the town and university. During the same term he defended in public debate the principles of his test-essay Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicæ, the necessary preliminary to the post of lecturer, or Privat-docent. With the winter term of 1755 he commenced lecturing on mathematics and physics, continuing to do so, for ten years, contemporaneously with his philosophical lectures. The latter were based in principle on Wolff, Baumeister, and Baumgarten, though text-books were chiefly used to furnish an order for the exposition of his own thought. Criticism was, of course, at this stage undreamt of, but the originality of the great thinker moulded with its unmistakable impress even the dogmatic metaphysics of his pre-critical days. His fascinating delivery combined with his rich and varied erudition to procure him a large audience. In the dry and cumbrous language of the 'Critique' and many other of the later works, it is difficult to detect the humorous and versatile lecturer, full of illustrations drawn from every conceivable source, his own experience of life, no less than from history and science, who charmed the students of Königsberg university, before his fame had reached the outside world. The success of the lectures was so great that constant demands were made for additional courses not contained in the original syllabus.

The first great work of Kant's appeared almost at the