great confidence was entertained; which he very soon managed to gain from me also.  By way of introduction, I began to speak with him on subjects of jurisprudence; and he wondered not a little at my swaggering:  for, during my residence at Leipzig, I had gained more of an insight into the requisites for the law than I have hitherto taken occasion to state in my narrative, though all I had acquired could only be reckoned as a general encyclopedical survey, and not as proper definite knowledge.  University life, even if in the course of it we may not exactly have to boast of industry, nevertheless affords endless advantages in every kind of cultivation, because we are always surrounded by men who either possess or are seeking science, so that, even if unconsciously, we are constantly drawing some nourishment from such an atmosphere.

My repetent, after he had had patience with my rambling discourse for some time, gave me at last to understand that I must first of all keep my immediate object in view, which was, to be examined, to take my degree, and then, perchance, to commence practice.  “Regarding the former,” said he, “the subject is by no means investigated at large.  It is inquired how and when a law arose, and what gave the internal or external occasion for it:  there is no inquiry as to how it has been altered by time and custom, or how far it has perhaps been perverted by false interpretation or the perverted usage of the courts.  It is in such investigations that learned men quite peculiarly spend their lives, whereas we inquire into that which exists at present:  this we stamp firmly on our memory, that it may always be ready when we wish to employ it for the use and defence of our clients.  Thus we qualify our young people for their future life, and the rest follows in proportion to their talents and activity.”  Hereupon he handed me his pamphlets, which were written in question and answer, and in which I could have stood a pretty good examination at once; for Hopp’s smaller law-catechism was yet perfectly in my memory:  the rest I supplied with some diligence, and, against my will, qualified myself in the easiest manner as a candidate.

But since in this way all my own activity in the study was cut off,—­for I had no sense for any thing positive, but wished to have every thing explained historically, if not intelligibly,—­I found for my powers a wider field, which I employed in the most singular manner by devoting myself to a matter of interest which was accidentally presented to me from without.

Most of my fellow-boarders were medical students.  These, as is well known, are the only students who zealously converse about their science and profession, even out of the hours of study.  This lies in the nature of the case.  The objects of their endeavors are those most obvious to the senses, and at the same time the highest, the most simple, and the most complicated.  Medicine employs the whole man, for it occupies itself with man as a whole.  All that the young man learns refers directly to an important, dangerous indeed, but yet in many respects lucrative, practice.  He therefore devotes himself passionately to whatever is to be known and to be done, partly because it is interesting in itself, partly because it opens to him the joyous prospect of independence and wealth.