Divinae Particula Aurae ; Genial Ideas, Organism, and Freedom: A Note on Kant's Reflection N. 938

Notes and Discussions DIVINAE PARTICULA AURAE; GENIAL IDEAS. ORGANISM, AND FREEDOM: A NOTE ON KANT'S REFLECTXONN. 938 In w 21 of my article "Kant's Early Theory of Genius (1770-1779)," published in this journal' two years ago, I quote from Kant's Reflection N. 938, of which the complete text is as follows: Spirit is referred to the universal, because it is a kind of divinae particula aurae, and it draws from the Universal Spirit. Therefore, Spirit [in itself] has no particular characters; but it vivifies in different ways, following the different talents and sensitivities [of men] it meets, and, as these are so multifarious, every [human] Spirit has something peculiar. One should not say: geniuses. [But: there is only one genius.] It is the unity of the Soul of the World? Kant refers to this Spirit as the source of both genial or "original" ideas in the human mind and of organic life in the ouside world (KETG, w167 22, 23). This theory derives of course from the ancient Platonic-Stoic-Hermetic-etc. doctrine of the Soul of the World, which had a tremendous diffusion not only in the Middle Ages (School of Chartres, etc.) but also from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century and even later, especially among Stoic, Cabbalistic, Hermetic, Pansophic, and Mosaic philosophers, both in psychology (where the human soul was taken as a part of the soul of the World) and in natural philosophy among the opponents of mechanism (either in general or in connection with living organisms only)? 1 IV (1966), 209; the article is printed in two parts, pp. 109-131 and 209-224 (cited hereafter as KETG). 2 "Weil der Geist aufs allgemeine geht, so ist er so zu sagen divinae particula aurae und aus dem allgemeinen Geist gesch6pft. Daher hat der Geist nicht besondere Eigenschaften, sondern nach den verschiedenen Talenten und Empfindsamkeiten, worauf er f~llt, belebt er verschiedentlich und, weil diese so mannigfaltig seyn, so hat ieder Geist was eigenthtimliches . Man muss nicht sagen: Die genie's. Es ist die Einheit der Weltseele" (Immanuel Kant, Gesammelte Schriften [Berlin: Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften], XV [1923], part 1, 416). This Reflection is a note on Baumgarten's Metaphysica. According to Adickes, it was probably written between 1776 and 1778, less probably in 1772. s See "World Soul" (with bibliographical references, by T. Gregory and G. Tonelli) in the 1967 ed. of the New Catholic Encyclopedia. A still useful, although very partial, historical account of this doctrine is given by A. Rechenberg (praeses) and J. D. Gilttner (Auctor & Respondens), De mundi anima dissertatio (Lipsiae, 1678). Seealso KETG, note 153. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 193 In Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth century, this doctrine was still supported in the field of natural philosophy by Christian Thomasius" and some of his pupils like Lange and Rtidiger; it also played an important role in Swedenborg's theory of life and of the soul in general, and Swedenborg was, of course, very well known to Kant (and generally in Germany, where ()tinger was one of his more fervent apostles). Therefore it is not astonishing that Kant refers to such a widespread tradition, using its terminology in a way which cannot be considered as completely metaphorical, although within Kant's system the corresponding notions underwent many basic changes, until they reappeared, in an unrecognizable shape indeed, in the Critique of Judgment. Nevertheless, the formula "divinae particula aurae" had not been frequently used in the enormous Soul-of-the-World literature, and it may be of some interest to clear up its origin (especially as this will allow us to look into the background of Kant's doctrine of the Spirit). When Kant inserted some Latin into the German context of his Reflections, it was either because he was quoting some Latin text or (much more frequently) because he had the feeling that the Latin philosophical terminology current in his day served him better than the German one. In the latter case, he would freely recombine the old terms into new (either Latin, or half German-half Latin) sentences. Both hypotheses can be considered for the formula in question. Beginning with the second, it is rather...