ABSTRACT
Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private use of reason may often be very narrowly restricted without particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment. The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself. Now such religious compact might be possible for a short and definitely limited time, as it were, in expectation of a better. One might let every citizen, and especially the clergyman, in the role of scholar, make his comments freely and publicly, that is through writing, on the erroneous aspects of the present institution.
