Note 1631 — Chapter III · THE IDEAL OF PURE REASON

Hamann completed his translation of Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion on August 7, 1780 (cf. Hamann’s Werke, vi. 154 ff.): and Kant, notwithstanding his being occupied in finishing the Critique, read through the manuscript. It is highly likely that this first perusal of Hume’s Dialogues not only confirmed Kant in his negative attitude towards natural theology, but also enabled him to define more clearly than he otherwise would have done, the negative consequences of his own Critical principles. The chapter on the Ideal, as we have already observed (above, pp. 434-5, 527-9, 531), was probably one of the last parts of the Critique to be brought into final form. It does not seem possible, however, to establish in any specific manner the exact influence which Hume’s Dialogues may thus have exercised upon the argument of this portion of the Critique. When Schreiter’s translation of the Dialogues appeared in 1781, Hamann, not unwilling to escape the notoriety of seeming to father so sceptical a work, withdrew his own translation.