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Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher who encouraged the examination of man’s inner self rather than making inferences about the inner self based upon the exterior physical self.[27] In 1775, Kant published Of the Different Human Races which proposed natural or purposive causes of variation, as opposed to mechanical law or a product of chance. He distinguished four fundamental races: Whites, Blacks, Kalmuck, and Hindustanic, and attributed the variation to differences in environment and climate, such as the air and sun, but clarified by saying that the variation served a purpose and was not purely superficial. Kant argued that human beings were equipped with the same seeds (Keime) and the natural predispositions or characteristics (Anlagen) that were expressed were dependent upon climate and served a purpose due to the circumstance. After this process had occurred, it was also irreversible. Therefore, race could not be undone by changes in climate. “Whichever germ was actualized by the conditions, the other germs would retire into inactivity."
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