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years to excogitate his work, and only five months to write it. He was a German professor, a student of solitary habits, and had never, except on one occasion, been out of Königsberg. He had, besides, to propound a new system of philosophy, and to enounce ideas that were entirely to revolutionise European thought. On the other hand, there are many excellencies of style in this work. His expression is often as precise and forcible as his thought; and, in some of his notes especially, he sums up, in two or three apt and powerful words, thoughts which, at other times, he employs pages to develope. His terminology, which has been so violently denounced, is really of great use in clearly determining his system, and in rendering its peculiarities more easy of comprehension.

A previous translation of the Kritik exists, which, had it been satisfactory, would have dispensed with the present. But the translator had, evidently, no very extensive acquaintance with the German language, and still less with his subject. A translator ought to be an interpreting intellect between the author and the reader; but, in the present case, the only interpreting medium has been the dictionary.

Indeed, Kant’s fate in this country has been a very hard one. Misunderstood by the ablest philosophers of the time, illustrated, explained, or translated by the most incompetent,—it has been his lot to be either unappreciated, misapprehended, or entirely neglected. Dugald Stewart did not understand his system of philosophy—as he had no proper opportunity of making himself acquainted with it; Nitsch^[1] and Willich^[2] undertook to introduce him to the English philosophical public; Richardson and Haywood “traduced”