I. Dare to Know

(See December 1783, p. 516.)¹

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred when its cause lies not in a lack of understanding but in a lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. Sapere aude!² Have courage to use your own understanding! That is therefore the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a part of mankind, after nature has long since set them free from the guidance of others (naturaliter maiorennes — of age by nature), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so comfortable to be immature. If I have a book that has understanding for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a doctor who judges my diet for me, and so on, then I need not trouble myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay; others will readily take the tiresome business upon themselves for me. That by far the greater part of mankind (including the entire fair sex) should hold the step towards maturity to be not only troublesome but also very dangerous is seen to by those guardians who have so kindly taken upon themselves the supervision of them. Having first made their domestic cattle stupid, and carefully prevented these placid creatures from daring to take a single step outside the go-cart in which they have shut them up, they then show them the danger that threatens them if they try to walk alone. Now this danger is not really so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes them timid and usually frightens them away from all further attempts.

It is thus difficult for any single individual to work his way out of the immaturity that has become almost his nature. He has even grown fond of it and is for the present really incapable of using his own understanding, because he has never been allowed to make the attempt. Statutes and formulas, those mechanical instruments of a rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over even the narrowest ditch, because he is not accustomed to such free movement. Hence there are only a few who have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and yet walking with a sure step.

But that a public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed, if it is only allowed freedom, it is almost inevitable. For there will always be some who think for themselves, even among the appointed guardians of the great mass, who, having themselves thrown off the yoke of immaturity, will spread around them the spirit of a rational appreciation of one's own worth and of each person's calling to think for himself. What is remarkable here is that the public, which was previously brought under this yoke by them, afterwards itself forces them to remain under it, if it is stirred up to do so by some of its guardians who are themselves incapable of all enlightenment. So harmful is it to plant prejudices, because in the end they take revenge on those very people who, or whose predecessors, were their authors. Thus a public can attain enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may perhaps bring about the fall of personal despotism and of avaricious or tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform in ways of thinking; instead, new prejudices will serve, just as well as the old ones, as leading-strings for the thoughtless great mass.

Kant refers to a note by the Berlin pastor Johann Friedrich Zöllner in his essay on civil marriage (Berlinische Monatsschrift, December 1783, p. 516): "What is enlightenment? This question, which is almost as important as 'What is truth?', ought surely to be answered before one begins to enlighten! And I have not yet found it answered anywhere!" ↩
"Dare to be wise!" — Horace, Epistles I, 2, 40. ↩