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To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government, that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France1
I
At the turn of the twentieth century, Paul Wittichen solved a riddle. He was a historian of ideas and, like many of his peers in fin de siècle Germany, had long puzzled over Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) curious relation to the French Revolution. Though Kant was an admirer of the Revolutionaries from the beginning of their campaign--at the proclamation of the First French Republic he is said to have effused, "Lord let thy servant depart in peace, for I have seen the day of salvation!" 2--he was reluctant to endorse the movement publicly in its early years. "When powerful men of affairs are drunk with rage," he told a friend, "a soft-skinned pygmy should not insert himself into their fray, even if persuaded gently and reverently." 3In 1793, however, Kant broke his silence and published "On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory but Does Not Apply in Practice" in the Berlinische Monatsschrift, in which he confirmed his respect for the Revolutionaries' ideals but raised doubts about their violent tactics.4Two years later, he reiterated his support for the republican cause in Perpetual Peace (1795).5It was this abrupt volte-face, and its odd timing in particular, that vexed Wittichen. Why would Kant remain silent at the beginning of the Revolution--during the optimistic years of liberté, égalité, and fraternité--only to offer the movement his imprimatur as it descended into the anarchy and chaos of Robespierre's Terror? Why would he defend the principles of a crusade now associated with the spectre of the guillotine, the barbarism of the sans-culottes, and regicide?
Reflecting on these questions a century later, Wittichen speculated that shortly before Kant wrote "Theory and Practice," some opponent--an interlocutor in Königsberg,...