Immanuel Kant ( 1724-1804) is, by common consent,
the most important philosophical thinker of modern times.
No other philosopher's works are as widely or as constantly
studied. No other has left the marks of his influence on
so many widely different philosophical movements. If
everyone who has learnt something from Kant may be
called his disciple, then there are few outstanding philoso-
phers in the XIXth Century, either in Europe or in Amer-
ica, who would not have to acknowledge a disciple's debt
to him.

Kant owes this central position in modern thought to
two main factors.

(i) In his philosophy, there meet, as in a focus, all the
important movements of thought of his time. Just as the
United States has often been compared to a "melting-
pot" into which have poured streams of immigrants from
all countries of Europe and where they enter into new
combinations of diverse promise and potentiality, so Kant's
philosophy may be described as the melting-pot of the
XVIIIth Century. Physics, biology, theology, ethics, poli-
tics all fed their riches into his receptive mind, which was
powerfully influenced, too, by the philosophical thought of

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