ge. The painful results of the
accident and the tedium of convalescence he bore with the utmost
equanimity, and he comforted his friends rather than himself by the
declaration that he had never met with a like misfortune, and it might
well have seemed pleasing to the gods that in this way he discharge the
debt of humanity. Now, moreover, he speedily recovered, since his
constitution, like that of a youth, was quickly restored, and thus he
became a proof for us of the way in which great physical strength may be
combined with delicacy and clean living.

As, then, his philosophy of life remained firm even under this test;
such an accident produced no change in his convictions or in his mode of
life. Companionable after his recovery as before, he took part in the
customary recreations of the social life of the court and of the city,
and with true affection and with constant endeavor shared in the
activities of the brethren of our lodge. But however much his eye seemed
always fixed on things earthly, and on the understanding and utilization
of them--yet, as a man of exceptional gifts, he could in no wise
dispense with the extramundane and the supersensual. Here also that
conflict, which we have deemed it our duty to portray in detail above,
became evident in a remarkable degree; for though he appeared to reject
everything which lay outside the bounds of general knowledge, and beyond
the sphere of what may be exemplified from experience, none the less,
while he did not transgress the lines so sharply drawn, he could never
refrain, in tentative fashion, as it were, from peeping over them, and
from constructing and representing, in his own way, an extramundane
world, a state concerning which all the innate powers of our soul can
give us no information.

Single traits of his writings afford manifold examples of this; but I
may especially recall his _Agathodaemon_ and his _Euthanasie_, and also
those beautiful declarations, as rational as they were sincere, which he
was permitted, only a short while since, to express openly and frankly
before this assembly. For a confiding love toward our lodge of brethren
had developed within him. Acquainted even as a youth with the historical
traditions regarding the mysteries of the ancients, he indeed shunned,
in conformity with his serene, lucid mode of thought, those dark
secrets; yet he did not deny that precisely under these, perhaps
uncouth, veils, higher conceptions had first been brou