It is tempting to explain Kant’s academic failure with financial reasons—his parents were deceased and the children had no savings. Ostensibly Kant was responsible for not merely himself, but for his siblings as well. Finances were tight, at the very best. However, the Kant family did have a benefactor, their uncle Richter, who paid his course fees when Kant was enrolled and financed his publication after Kant had left (Borowski 1804: 46; Lasswitz 1902: 521). Richter would keep supporting him and paid the printer for his second book (1755), too. Poverty was thus not likely the reason for his withdrawing. Nor was it the lack of a thesis. The Living Forces is a technical tract, 256 pages in the 1749-edition, more than enough for a Magister-degree.