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 Goettingen, 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