3 - Review of Moscati's work Of the corporeal essential differences between the structure of animals and humans (1771)

Summary

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

The Königsbergische Gelehrte und Politische Zeitungen (Königsberg Learned and Political Newspaper) of 23 August 1771 (issue No. 67, pp. 265f.) contained an anonymous review of the German translation of a booklet by the Italian physician and anatomist, Pietro Moscati (1739–1824), professor of anatomy at the University of Pavia, entitled Von dem körperlichen wesentlichen Unterschiede zwischen der Struktur der Thiere und Menschen. Eine akademische Rede, gehalten auf dem anatomischen Theater zu Pavia (Of the Corporeal Essential Differences Between the Structure of Animals and Humans. An Academic Oration Held in the Anatomical Theater of Pavia). The Italian original had appeared in 1770 in Milan under the title Delle corporee differenze essenziali che passano fra la struttura de' bruti e la umana. A second edition, containing an appendix in which Moscati replied to his critics, came out in Brescia in 1771. The German translation was by Johann Beckmann (1738–1811), professor of philosophy and later of economics at the University of Göttingen.

Kant's authorship the review of Moscati's work has been established circumstantially. The review states Moscati's main thesis that the erect position in the human being is artificial and unnatural and enumerates the evidence cited by Moscati for his thesis. In concluding, the reviewer distinguishes between the animal nature of the human being, which is geared toward self-preservation and the preservation of the species and includes the four-legged position, and the rational nature of the human being, which is geared toward society and elicits the two-legged position.