Note 1491 — Chapter I · THE PARALOGISMS OF PURE REASON[1411]
Reading edition
A 649 = B 677-8. Tetens in his Philosophische Versuche (1777) had devoted an entire chapter to this question. His term Grundkraft is that which Kant here employs. Cf. Philosophische Versuche, Bd. i., Elfter Versuch: “Concerning the fundamental power of the human soul.” Incidentally Tetens discusses Rousseau’s suggestion that this fundamental power consists in man’s capacity for perfecting himself. Cf. Kant’s Lectures on Metaphysics (Pölitz, 1821, p. 192 ff.).