filled with exceeding joy.

The surroundings amidst which I had grown up, especially those in which
my first childhood was passed, had caused my senses to be much and early
exercised. The pleasures of the senses were from the first, therefore,
an object for the closest consideration with me. The results of this
analysing and questioning habit of my early boyhood were perfectly clear
and decisive, and, if not rendered into words, were yet firmly settled
in my mind. I recognised that the transitory pleasures of the senses
were without enduring and satisfying influence on man, and that they
were therefore on no account to be pursued with too great eagerness.
This conviction stamped and determined my whole being, just as my
questioning examination and comparison of the inner with the outer
world, and my study of their inter-connection, is now the basis of my
whole future life. Unceasing self-contemplation, self-analysis, and
self-education have been the fundamental characteristics of my life from
the very first, and have remained so until these latest days.

To stir up, to animate, to awaken, and to strengthen, the pleasure and
power of the human being to labour uninterruptedly at his own education,
has become and always remained the fundamental principle and aim of my
educational work.

Great was my joy when I believed I had proved completely to my own
satisfaction that I was not destined to go to hell. The stony,
oppressive dogmas of orthodox theology I very early explained away,
perhaps assisted in this by two circumstances. Firstly, I heard these
expressions used over and over again, from my habit of being present at
the lessons given by my father in our own house, in preparation for
confirmation. I heard them used also in all sorts of ways, so that my
mind almost unconsciously constructed some sort of explanation of them.
Secondly, I was often a mute witness of the strict way in which my
father performed his pastoral duties, and of the frequent scenes between
him and the many people who came to the parsonage to seek advice and
consolation. I was thus again constantly attracted from the outer to the
inner aspects of life. Life, with its inmost motives laid bare, passed
before my eyes, with my father's comments pronounced upon it; and thing
and word, act and symbol were thus perceived by me in their most vivid
relationship. I saw the disjointed, heavy-laden, torn, inharmonious life
of man as it appeared in this communi