Nothing could have afforded us a better excuse for a _resume_ of Kant,
in this connection, than the new work of Dr. Hopkins. Of the many
treatises on Moral Science with which the reading world has been
flooded and bewildered since the time of Coleridge, there is this one
alone found worthy of being ranged along-side of the works of the
old Koenigsberg seer,--the one alone which, like his, deals with
the grander features of the science. It is the best realization
objectively of Kant's subjective principles that has yet been given.
But how, the plain English reader will ask, are we to understand from
this the place which the new work takes in literature? Not readily,
indeed, unless one has already taken the trouble to examine such of
Kant's treatises as have found their way out of German into hardly
tolerable English, and has, moreover, reflected upon the importance of
the principles therein established. But, of those who will read
this notice, not one out of fifty has had even the opportunity
for examination, not one out of five thousand has really taken the
opportunity, and, of those that have, one half, at least, have done so
independently of any philosophic aim, and have therefore reflected to
very little purpose on the principles involved.
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