The Story of My Life — Volume 06

The author recounts his transition from family life into university, describing travel, affectionate bonds with his mother and aunt, and the exhilaration of student liberties. He depicts convivial corps life, duels, fencing, revelry, and the strain of late-night study that preceded a serious illness. Academic interests shift from legal studies to philosophy and antiquarian investigation under lecturers whose teachings introduced him to Lotze's psychological methods and to Egyptian studies via Unger and Champollion, with further reading in Lepsius and Seyffarth. He notes contemporary intellectual debates, particularly materialism versus antimaterialism, and how they shaped his emerging scholarly direction.