formed the object of my attack. The study of Oriental tongues seemed to
me the central point, the fountain head, whither my search was leading
me; and at once I began upon them with Hebrew and Arabic. I had a dim
idea of opening up a path through them to other Asiatic tongues,
particularly those of India[72] and Persia. I was powerfully stimulated
and attracted by what I had heard about the study of these languages,
then in its early youth--namely, the acknowledgment of a relationship
between Persian and German. Greek also attracted me in quite a special
way on account of its inner fulness, organisation, and regularity. My
whole time and energy were devoted to the two languages I have
named.[73] But I did not get far with Hebrew in spite of my genuine zeal
and my strict way with myself, because between the manner of looking at
a language congenial to my mind and the manner in which the elementary
lesson book presented it to me, lay a vast chasm which I could find no
means to bridge over. In the form in which language was offered to me, I
could find and see no means of making it a living study; and yet,
nevertheless, nothing would have drawn me from my linguistic studies had
I not been assured by educated men that these studies, especially my
work on Indian and Persian tongues, were in reality quite beside the
mark at which I aimed. Hebrew also was abandoned; but, on the other
hand, Greek irresistibly enthralled me, and nearly all my time and
energy were finally given to its study, with the help of the best books.
I was now free, happy, in good mental and bodily health and vigour, and
I gained peace within myself and without, through hard work, interrupted
only by an indisposition which kept me to my room for a few weeks. After
working all day alone, I used to walk out late in the evening, so that
at least I might receive a greeting from the friendly beams of the
setting sun. To invigorate my spirit as well as my bodily frame I would
walk on till near midnight in the beautiful neighbourhood which
surrounds Göttingen. The glittering starry sky harmonised well with my
thoughts, and a new object which appeared in the heavens at this time,
aroused my wonder in an especial degree. I knew but little of astronomy,
and the expected arrival of a large comet[74] was, therefore, quite
unknown to me; so that I found out the comet for myself, and that was a
source of special attraction. This object absorbed my contemplation in
those silent nights, and the thought of the all-embracing,
wide-spreading sphere of law and order above, developed and shaped
itself in my mind with especial force during my night-wanderings. I
often turned back home that I might note down in their freshness the
results of these musings; and then after a short sleep I rose again to
pursue my studies.
In this way the last half of the summer session passed quickly away, and
Michaelmas arrived.
The development of my inner life had meanwhile insensibly drawn me
little by little quite away from the study of languages, and led me
towards the deeper-lying unity of natural objects. My earlier plan
gradually reasserted itself, to study Nature in her first forms and
elements. But the funds which still remained to me were now too small to
permit of the longer residence at the university which that plan
necessitated. As I had nothing at all now to depend upon save my own
unaided powers, I at first thought to gain my object by turning them to
some practical account, such as literary work. I had already begun to
prepare for this, when an unexpected legacy changed my whole position.
Up to now I had had one aunt still living, a sister of my mother's, who
had spent all the best years of her life in my native village, enjoying
excellent health and free from care. By her sudden death I obtained, in
a manner I had little expected, the means of pursuing my much-desired
studies. This occurrence made a very deep impression upon me, because
this lady was the sister of that uncle of mine whose death had enabled
me to travel from Gross Milchow to Frankfurt, and so first set me upon
my career as an educator. And now again the death of a loved one made it
possible for me to attain higher culture in the service of this career.
Both brother and sister had loved with the closest affection my own
mother, dead so far too soon, and this love they had extended to her
children after her. May these two loving and beloved ones who through
their death gave me a higher life and a higher vocation, live for ever
through my work and my career.
My position was now a very pleasant one, and I felt soothing and
cheering influences such as had not visited me before.
In the autumn holidays, too, a friendly home was ready to receive me.
Besides the country-clergyman brother, who so often was a power for good
in my life, I had another brother, also older than I, who had been
living more than ten years as a well-established tradesman and citizen
in Osterode, amongst the Harz Mountains; head of a quiet,
self-contained, happy family, and father of some fine children. My
previous life and endeavours as an educator had already brought me into
connection with this circle; for I had not failed whenever I found
anything suitable to my brother's needs to let him know of it, as he was
the conscientious teacher and educator of his own children. It was in
this peaceful, active family-circle of an intellectual tradesman's home
that I passed all the vacation time during which the university
regulations released me from vigorous work. It could not prove otherwise
than that such a visit should be of the greatest service to me in my
general development, and I remember it with thankfulness even yet on
that account.
I return now to my university life. Physics, chemistry, mineralogy, and
natural history in general, were my principal studies.
The inner law and order embracing all things, and in itself conditioned
and necessitated, now presented itself to me in such clearness that I
could see nothing either in nature or in life in which it was not made
manifest, although varying greatly according to its several
manifestations, in complexity and in gradation. Just at this time those
great discoveries of the French and English philosophers became
generally known through which the great manifold external world was seen
to form a comprehensive outer unity. And the labours of the German and
Swedish philosophers to express these essentially conditioned
fundamental laws in terms of weight and number, so that they might be
studied and understood in their most exact expression, and in their
mutual interchange and connection, fitted in exactly with my own
longings and endeavours. Natural science and natural researches now
seemed to me, while themselves belonging to a distinct plane of vital
phenomena, the foundation and cornerstones which served to make clear
and definite the laws and the progress of the development, the culture,
and the education of mankind.
It was but natural that such studies should totally absorb me, occupy my
whole energies, and keep me most busily employed. I studied chemistry
and physics with the greatest possible zeal, but the teaching of the
latter did not satisfy me so thoroughly as that of the former.
What in the current half-year's term I was regarding rather from a
theoretical standpoint, I intended in the next half-year to study
practically as a factor of actual life: hence I passed to organic
chemistry and geology.[75] Those laws which I was able to observe in
Nature I desired to trace also in the life and proceedings of man,
wherefore I added to my previous studies history, politics, and
political economy. These practical departments of knowledge brought
vividly home to me the great truth that the most valuable wealth a man
can possess lies in a cultivated mind, and in its suitable exercise upon
matters growing out of its own natural conditions. I saw further that
wealth arose quite as much from vigour of production as from saving by
economical use; and that those productions were the most valuable of
all, which were the outcome and representation of lofty ideas or
remarkable thoughts; and finally, that politics itself was in its
essence but a means of uplifting man from the necessities of Nature and
of life to the freedom of the spirit and the will.
While I received much benefit from the lectures on natural history at
the university, I could not fall in with the views held there as to
fixed forms--crystallography, mineralogy, and natural philosophy. From
what I had heard of the natural history lectures of Professor Weiss in
Berlin, I felt sure that I could acquire a correct view of both these
subjects from him. And also since my means would not allow me to stay
even so long as one entire session more at Göttingen, whilst on the
other hand I might hope at Berlin to earn enough by teaching to maintain
a longer university career there, I came to the conclusion to go to
Berlin at the beginning of the next winter session to study mineralogy,
geology, and crystallography under Weiss, as well as to do some work at
physics and physical laws.
After a stay of a few weeks with my brother at Osterode, I went to
Berlin in October 1812.
The lectures for which I had so longed really came up to the needs of my
mind and soul, and awakened in me, more fervent than ever, the certainty
of the demonstrable inner connection of the whole cosmical development
of the universe. I saw also the possibility of man's becoming conscious
of this absolute unity of the universe, as well as of the diversity of
things and appearances which is perpetually unfolding itself within that
unity; and then, when I had made clear to myself, and brought fully home
to my consciousness, the view that the infinitely varied phenomena in
man's life, work, thought, feeling, and position, were all summed up in
the unity of his personal existence, I felt myself able to turn my
thoughts once more to educational problems.
To make sure of my power to maintain myself at the university, I
undertook some teaching at a private school of good reputation.[76] My
work here, beyond the sufficient support it afforded me during
residence, had no positive effect upon the endeavour of my life, for I
found neither high intelligence, lofty aims, nor unity in the course of
instruction.
The fateful year 1813 had now begun. All men grasped weapons, and
called on one another to fly to arms to defend the Fatherland. I, too,
had a home, it is true, a birthplace, I might say a Motherland, but I
could not feel that I had a Fatherland.[77] My home sent up no cry to
me; I was no Prussian,[78] and thus it came about that the universal
call to arms (in Berlin) affected me, in my retired life, but little. It
was quite another sentiment which drew me to join the ranks of German
soldiers; my enthusiasm was possibly small, but my determination was
firmly fixed as the rocks themselves.
This sentiment was the consciousness of a pure German brotherhood, which
I had always honoured in my soul as a lofty and sublime ideal; one which
I earnestly desired might make itself felt in all its fulness and
freedom all over Germany.
Besides the fidelity with which I clung to my avocation as an educator
also influenced my action in this matter. Even if I could not say truly
that I had a Fatherland, I must yet acknowledge that every boy, that
every child, who might perhaps later on come to be educated by me would
have a Fatherland, that this Fatherland was now requiring defence, and
that the child was not in a position to share in that defence. It did
not seem possible to imagine that a young man capable of bearing arms
could become a teacher of children and boys whose Fatherland he had
refused to defend with his blood and even with his life if need were;
that he who now did not feel ashamed to shrink from blows could exist
without blushing in after years, or could incite his pupils to do
something noble, something calling for sacrifice and for unselfishness,
without exposing himself to their derision and contempt. Such was the
second main reason which influenced me.
Thirdly, this summons to war seemed to me an expression of the general
need of the men, the land, and the times amidst which I lived, and I
felt that it would be altogether unworthy and unmanly to stand by
without fighting for this general need, and without taking my share in
warding off the general danger.
Before these convictions all considerations gave way, even that of my
bodily constitution, which was far too weakly for such a life.
As comrades I selected the Lützowers; and at Eastertide 1813 I arrived
at Dresden on my road to join the infantry division of Lützow's corps at
Leipzig.[79] Through the retired nature of my self-concentrated life it
came about naturally that I, although a regularly matriculated student,
had held aloof from the other students, and had gained no settled
acquaintance amongst them; thus, out of all the vigorous comrades whom I
met at Dresden, many of whom were like myself, Berlin students, I did
not find one man I knew. I made but few new friends in the army, and
these few I was fated to encounter on the first day of my entrance into
my new work of soldiering. Our sergeant at the first morning halt after
our march out from Dresden, introduced me to a comrade from Erfurt as a
Thüringer, and therefore a fellow-countryman. This was Langethal; and
casually as our acquaintance thus began, it proved to be a lasting
friendship. Our first day's march was to Meissen, where we halted. We
had enjoyed lovely spring weather during our march, and our repose was
gladdened by a still lovelier evening. I found all the university
students of the corps, driven by a like impulse, collected together in
an open place by the shores of Elbe and near a public restaurant; and
some old Meissen wine soon served us as a bond of union. We sat about
twenty strong in a jolly group at a long table, and began by welcoming
and pledging one another to friendship. It was here that Langethal
introduced me to a university friend of his at Berlin, the young
Middendorff, a divinity student from the Mark.[80] Keeping together in a
merry little society till the middle of the lovely spring night, we
united again next morning in a visit to the splendid cathedral of
Meissen. Thus from the very first did we three join fast in a common
struggle towards and on behalf of the higher life, and even if we have
not always remained in the like close outward bonds of union, we have
from that time to this, now near upon fifteen years, never lost our
comradeship in the inner life and our common endeavour after
self-education. Both Langethal and Middendorff had a third friend, named
Bauer, amongst our comrades of the camp. With him also, as I think, I
made acquaintance as early as at Meissen, but it was more particularly
at Havelberg, later on, that Bauer and I struck up a friendship
together, which has ever since endured. Even when we have not been
together in outward life, we have always remained one in our endeavours
after the highest and best. Bauer closed the narrow circle of my
friends amongst our companions in arms.[81]
I remained true to my previous way of life and thought in the manner in
which I viewed my new soldier life. My main care was always to educate
myself for the actual calling which at the moment I was following; thus,
amongst the first things I took in hand was an attempt at finding the
inner necessity and connection of the various parts of the drill and the
military services, in which, without any previous acquaintance with
military affairs, I managed, in consequence of my mathematical and
physical knowledge, to succeed very fairly and without any great
difficulty. I was able to protect myself, therefore, against many small
reprimands, which fell tolerably frequently on those who had thought
this or that instruction might be lightly passed over as too trivial to
be attended to. It came about in this way, when we were continually
drilling, after the cessation of the armistice, that the military
exercises we performed gave me genuine pleasure on account of their
regularity, their clearness, and the precision of their execution. In
probing into their nature I could see freedom beneath their recognised
necessity.
During the long sojourn of our corps in Havelberg previously alluded to,
I strengthened my inner life, so far as the military service permitted,
by spending all the time I could in the open air, in communion with
Nature, to a perception of whose loveliness a perusal of G. Forster's
"Travels in Rhineland" had newly unlocked my senses.[82]
We friends took all opportunities of meeting one another. By-and-by we
set to work to make this easier by three of us applying to be quartered
together.
In the rough, frank life of war, men presented themselves to me under
various aspects, and so became a special object of my thoughts as
regards their conduct, and their active work, and most of all as to
their higher vocation. Man and the education of man was the subject
which occupied us long and often in our walks, and in our open-air life
generally. It was particularly these discussions which drew me forcibly
towards Middendorff, the youngest of us.
I liked well our life of the bivouac, because it made so much of history
clear to me; and taught me, too, through our oft-continued and severely
laborious marches and military manoeuvres, the interchanging mutual
relations of body and spirit. It showed me how little the individual man
belongs to himself in war time; he is but an atom in a great whole, and
as such alone must he be considered.
Through the chance of our corps being far removed from the actual seat
of war, we lived our soldier life, at least I did, in a sort of dream,
notwithstanding the severe exertions caused by our military manoeuvres,
and we heard of the war only in the same sleepy way. Now and then, at
Leipzig, at Dalenburg, at Bremen, at Berlin, we seemed to wake up; but
soon sank back into feeble dreaminess again. It was particularly
depressing and weakening to me never to be able to grasp our position as
part of the great whole of the campaign, and never to find any
satisfactory explanation of the reason or the aim of our manoeuvres.
That was my case at least; others may have seen better and clearer than
I.
I gained one clear benefit from the campaign; in the course of the
actual soldier life I became enthusiastic upon the best interests of the
German land and the German people; my efforts tended to become national
in their scope. And in general, so far as my fatigues allowed, I kept
the sense of my future position always before me; even in the little
skirmishes that we had to take part in I was able to gather some
experiences which I saw would be useful to me in my future work.
Our corps marched through the Mark,[83] and in the latter part of August
through Priegnitz, Mecklenburg, the districts of Bremen and Hamburg, and
Holstein, and in the last days of 1813 we reached the Rhine. The peace
(May 30th, 1814) prevented us from seeing Paris, and we were stationed
in the Netherlands till the breaking up of the corps. At last, in July
1814, every one who did not care to serve longer had permission to
return to his home and to his former calling. Upon my entrance into
a corps of Prussian soldiers I had received, through the influence
of some good friends, the promise of a post under the Prussian
Government--namely, that of assistant at the mineralogical museum of
Berlin, under Weiss. Thither then, as the next place of my destined
work, I turned my steps. I desired also to see the Rhine and the Main,
and my birthplace as well; so I went by Dusseldorf back to Lünen, and
thence by Mainz, Frankfurt, and Rudolstadt to Berlin.
Thus I had lived through the whole campaign according to my strength,
greater or less, in a steady inner struggle towards unity and harmony
of life, but what of outward significance and worth recollection had
I received from the soldier's life? I left the army and the warlike
career with a total feeling of discontent. My inner yearning for unity
and harmony, for inward peace, was so powerful that it shaped itself
unconsciously into symbolical form and figure. In a ceaseless,
inexplicable, anxious state of longing and unrest, I had passed through
many pretty places and many gardens on my homeward way, without any of
them pleasing me. In this mood I reached F----, and entered a fairly
large and handsomely-stocked flower garden. I gazed at all the vigorous
plants and fresh gay flowers it offered me, but no flower took my fancy.
As I passed all the many varied beauties of the garden in review before
my mind, it fell upon me suddenly that I missed the lily. I asked the
owner of the garden if he had no lilies there, and he quietly replied,
_No_! When I expressed my surprise, I was answered as quietly as before
that hitherto no one had missed the lily. It was thus that I came to
know what I missed and longed for. How could my inner nature have
expressed itself more beautifully in words? "Thou art seeking silent
peacefulness of heart, harmony of life, clear purity of soul, by the
symbol of this silent, pure, simple lily." That garden, in its beautiful
variety, but without a lily, appeared to me as a gay life passed through
and squandered without unity and harmony. Another day I saw many lovely
lilies blooming in the garden of a house in the country. Great was my
joy; but, alas! they were separated from me by a hedge. Later on I
solved this symbol also; and until its solution image and longing
remained stored in my memory. One thing I ought to notice--namely, that
in the place where I was vainly seeking for lilies in the garden a
little boy of three years old came up trustfully and stood by my side.
I hastened to the scene of my new duties. How variously the different
outward circumstances of my life henceforth affected me as to the life
within, now that this had won for itself once more an assured individual
form, and how my life again resumed its true and highest aspect, I must
pass over here, since to develop these considerations with all their
connections would take me too long.
In the first days of August 1814 I arrived at Berlin, and at once
received my promised appointment. My duties busied me the greater part
of the day amongst minerals, dumb witnesses to the silent thousand-fold
creative energy of Nature, and I had to see to their arrangement in a
locked, perfectly quiet room. While engaged on this work I continually
proved to be true what had long been a presentiment with me--namely,
that even in these so-called lifeless stones and fragments of rock, torn
from their original bed, there lay germs of transforming, developing
energy and activity. Amidst the diversity of forms around me, I
recognised under all kinds of various modifications one law of
development.
All the points that in Göttingen I had thought I traced amidst outward
circumstances, confirmatory of the order of the soul's development, came
before me here also, in a hundred and again a hundred phenomena. What I
had recognised in things great or noble, or in the life of man, or in
the ways of God, as serving towards the development of the human race, I
found I could here recognise also in the smallest of these fixed forms
which Nature alone had shaped. I saw clearly, as never yet I had seen
before, that the godlike is not alone in the great; for the godlike is
also in the very small, it appears in all its fulness and power in the
most minute dimensions. And thereafter my rocks and crystals served me
as a mirror wherein I might descry mankind, and man's development and
history. These things began to stir powerfully within me; and what I now
vaguely perceived I was soon to view more definitely, and to be able to
study with thoroughness.
Geology and crystallography not only opened up for me a higher circle of
knowledge and insight, but also showed me a higher goal for my inquiry,
my speculation, and my endeavour. Nature and man now seemed to me
mutually to explain each other, through all their numberless various
stages of development. Man, as I saw, receives from a knowledge of
natural objects, even because of their immense deep-seated diversity, a
foundation for, and a guidance towards, a knowledge of himself and of
life, and a preparation for the manifestation of that knowledge. What I
thus clearly perceived in the simpler natural objects I soon traced in
the province of living Nature, in plants and growing things, so far as
these came under my observation, and in the animal kingdom as well.