The glory, jest, and riddle of the world
Exactamente al final de Kant: A Biography, me encuentro con esto:
At his funeral, he was honored with a poem — a weak performance, by all accounts. A poem by his favorite author might have been more appropriate; for Kant, who only wanted to be human, was a most remarkable example of this species celebrated by Pope in An Essay on Man with these words:
Plac’d on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or beast;
In doubt, his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus’d,
Still by himself abus’d, or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of things, yet prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world[1].
La gloria, la broma, y el acertijo del mundo. Kant, la persona, en unos cuantos versos.
[1] Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). La cita corresponde a la página 422.
Zimmerman
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