My highly honoured Sir!

I hope you will not think that I have taken a liberty in describing in the preface to my “Foundation of Ethics” (which you will soon receive through Braumüller) the appearance of that book as an act of homage due to you.¹

The date of my preface will prove to you that I hoped, not without reason, to have placed the book in your hands by Oct. 1 of this year. A provoking delay in the publication has deprived me of this pleasure. It is not on this account less true that I have to thank you for the oneness of my theory of the world, and therewith for making my Ethics possible. Judge then from this of the sincerity and warmth of the good wishes which I offer you from afar. It is however the kindness with which you have received my former writings which has encouraged me to this act of homage.²

I cannot, my highly honoured Sir, expect from you that you will read this book, but if the case of a cat being suckled by a female dog should be new to you, I beg you will look at page 130.

With a veneration such as one gives only to the greatest men of science, I am &c | B. Carneri