Finally the opportune moment arrived.
Having written, rewritten, altered, and abridged until he looked upon
his work as beyond his power of improvement, he now deemed his
convictions permanently formed. So the _Critique of Pure Reason_ entered
upon its career of victory. The literary and thinking world had learned
but a little of it in Hippel's book; and now there seemed to be no
inclination to probe the concise language of the master's work, for the
task appeared greater than the fruits would justify. This hesitancy was
a glaring testimony to the loose thinking and careless literary habits
of those days. But the haste with which Kant prosecuted the authorship
of his work, apart from the thoughts employed in its elaboration into a
system, furnishes some ground of apology for the failure of the public
to fathom it. "I wrote," he says in a letter to Moses Mendelssohn, "this
product of at least twelve years of diligent reflection within a period
of from four to five months, paying indeed the greatest attention to the
contents, but unable, borne away, as it were, upon the wings of thought,
to bestow that care upon the style which might have promoted a readier
insight into my meaning on the part of the reader."

Several years now pass by, and the great work is still neglected.
Perhaps it is false, or mayhap it is ill-timed. Finally Schulze hits
upon the difficulty when he conjectures that, if men only knew what was
in the book they would not only read it, but be ravished with its
contents. Thereupon he issues his _Elucidations of Kant's Critique of
Pure Reason_. Now people begin to open their eyes. The work of Schulze
is read by everybody, and in turn it serves as an introduction to the
work of Kant. Soon the universities and reading circles demand it, and
the whole land is suddenly transformed into a race of philosophers. The
popularity of the work is boundless. It is written in a style adapted
only to systematic thinkers; but no matter, it becomes a fashion to read
it. It is the topic in stagecoaches and drawing rooms. Failure to have
perused Kant's book is a mark of ignorance which receives rebuke on
every hand. In self-defense every one feels bound to read it, if the
continued respect of friends can reasonably be expected. The work itself
is interlarded with new terminology and pruned expressions that betray
the constant impress of the author's mind. So, in a short time, writers
on the various sciences employ these very t