The desire to become the “Newton of the mind” was an understandable eighteenth-century aspiration. It may be less understandable that Kant awarded the honor to the philosopher whose writings seem closest to literature, and even more surprising that he does so because of Rousseau's response to a problem that seems closest to theology.

The present essay seeks to understand just what Kant meant in this unpublished note. Initial study of Rousseau's writings on the subject will raise more questions than it answers. For where Rousseau seems to be addressing the traditional problem of evil, he is conventional, even reactionary; where his work is interesting, and revolutionary, he seems to be addressing different questions altogether. Thus it may be unsurprising that this extraordinary note is seldom quoted in full, and that requests to explain it rarely produce more than the apologetic suggestion that the remark is, after all, pre-Critical. In trying to appreciate Kant's claim, I examine Rousseau's discussion of the problem of evil and his role in transforming that problem in several directions.