Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on Ethics

dismayed them; no conflict had the power to provoke them to anger or hostility. In short, even a casual observer was naturally compelled to respect them. "I still remember," he added, "how a dispute once broke out between the harness-makers and the saddlers concerning their respective professional rights. My father suffered considerably; nevertheless, even when talking with his own family, he spoke about this dispute with such patience and love toward his opponents, and with such firm trust in Providence Providence: the protective care of God as a spiritual power, that I shall never forget it, even though I was only a boy at the time."

He always kept a tender and grateful memory of his mother in particular, saying, "I shall never forget my mother, for she planted and nurtured the first seed of goodness in me. She opened my heart to the beauty of nature; she awakened and expanded my thoughts, and her teaching has always had a lasting and wholesome influence on my life." She died when he was only thirteen, and even in his later years, he could hardly hold back his emotion when he told his close friends how she had sacrificed her own life through her devotion to a friend.¹ Kant closely resembled his mother in his facial features and in his unusually narrow chest.

¹ The circumstances are worth recording here: This friend had fallen into a fever after being abandoned by her fiancé, to whom she was deeply attached. She could not be persuaded to swallow the foul-tasting medicine nauseous draughts: unpleasant-tasting liquid medicine prescribed for her. Kant’s mother, who was nursing her, failed in her attempt at persuasion and thought she might succeed by setting an example and taking the medicine herself. After she did so, she was seized with nausea and shivering. At the same time, she noticed spots on her friend’s body, which she mistook for fever-spots or petechiae petechiae: small red or purple spots caused by bleeding under the skin, often associated with serious fevers; original: "petechiæ". Her imagination became overwhelmed, as she believed she had caught the infection. She was struck with fever that same day and died a few days later.