  Kant's insistence that human history is the working out of “nature's plan” to realize the full natural capacities of humans in society anticipates Crummell's social progressivism (“Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” proposition 8). For Kant the ultimate goal was the perfect form of civil society; so too for Crummell, though his vision reserves a central driving role to the character of agents, moreso than to the justice of actions. This shouldn't be overstated of course. Kant clearly regarded enlightenment as a triumph of “culture” over “barbarism” as he took it to be the generalizing of principles of justice. But Crummell's understanding of the duty to posterity seems much more entangled with the fidelity of the Negro to Moral Principles than the justice of those Principles.