Immanuel Kant, one of the great philosophers of Germany, became very sick. The doctors were at a loss, because there was no reason for his sickness. They could not find anything wrong with his body. Then one of the friends who had been out of town came back. He looked around and he said, "Don't be worried, I know what is the cause." The doctors said, "We have been searching for the cause and we don't know it. You are not a doctor -- how do you know the cause?" He said, "I know Immanuel Kant. The window in the room is the place where he used to stand every morning to see the sunrise. The neighboring house has been sold to a new owner and they have planted tall trees just close to the window. And Immanuel Kant is a man who functions just like clockwork -- moment to moment, things have to be exactly the same. These trees are the cause of his sickness." The friend went to the neighbor and told him. He said, "If this is the cause, anybody could have come and told me. Immanuel Kant is so precious a man -- we will cut down the trees immediately." The trees were removed, and the next day Immanuel Kant was perfectly healthy -- not even a toothache. But because he cannot see the sunrise from his window.... He could have seen it from somewhere else, but that was not his way. He had very fixed habits. At ten o'clock in the night he would go to bed. Everybody knew about it. Once in a while somebody who was not aware of the fact would be simply shocked, because Immanuel Kant, seeing the clock striking the hour of ten, would simply jump into his bed and cover himself with his blanket. He would not even say good night, and the man was sitting there! His servant would come and say, "The master has gone to sleep. He goes exactly according to the clock, so he cannot waste a single moment even in saying good night. Now you have to go -- you can come tomorrow, or whenever you like. But don't feel offended, he does not mean any offense to anybody." He was habituated to getting up early in the morning, at five o'clock. He loved the early morning fresh air, the crispness of it, and the silence of the road. But to get up at five was a difficulty. The servant was told that he had to wake him at five, whatsoever happens. Kant would fight, he might hit the servant. The servant was allowed to hit him, drag him out of the bed, push him into the bathroom. You could do everything, but if you allowed him to sleep, your service was finished. And this was a daily ritual: the servant beating the master, the master beating the servant. He was hiding under the blanket, and the servant was pulling him out and forcing him into the bathroom; he was coming out again and again, and trying to get into the bed. Immanuel Kant would say at that time, "What are you doing? You are my servant, and I am saying that I want to sleep!" But he had warned him, "I will say such things! You are not to listen to anything. I may say that I am feeling sick, I don't want to get up. Don't listen to any argument, any excuse: your work is to put me in the bathroom, so that at exactly five I am on the road."
He was a man of tremendous intelligence and he created a great philosophical system; but as far as his attitude, his approach towards life is concerned, he behaved very childishly -- not even in a mature way. It seems his philosophical intelligence had become overgrown, and everything else had remained retarded.