I continued topographical drawing. I heard nothing purely theoretical
except mathematics; and of philosophical teaching and thought I learnt
only so much as the intercourse of university life brought with it; but
it was precisely through this intercourse that I received in various
ways a many-sided intellectual impulse. I usually grasped what had been
taught; the more thoroughly since, through my previous life, I had
become well acquainted with the principal subjects, and already knew
their relation to practical work.
Some of the lectures were almost easy for me--for instance, those on
mathematics. I have always been able to perceive with ease and pleasure
relations of geometrical figures and of planes; so that it seemed
inexplicable to me that every farmer should not be equally capable of
understanding them. This I had said before to my brother, who tried to
give me an explanation; but I did not yet grasp it. I had expected I
don't know exactly what, but certainly something higher, something
grandiose; very likely I had expected something with more life in it.
The mathematical course, therefore, at first seemed to me unimportant;
but later on I found that I, also, could not follow every detail.
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