of language which eventually absorbed my thoughts. Again, ideas about
language which I had conceived long ago in Switzerland crowded before my
mind. It seemed to me that the vowels _a_, _o_, _u_, _e_, _i_, _ä_,
_au_, _ei_, resembled, so to speak, force, spirit, the (inner) subject,
whilst the consonants symbolised matter, body, the (outer) object. But
just as in life and in nature all opposites are only relatively opposed,
and within every circle, every sphere, both opposites are found to be
contained, so also in language one perceives within the sphere of
speech-tones the two opposites of subject and object. For example, the
sound _i_ depicts the absolute subject, the centre, and the sound _a_
the absolute material object; the sound _e_ serves for life as such, for
existence in general; and _o_ for individual life, for an existence
narrowed to itself alone.

Language, not alone as the material for the expression of thought, but
also as a type or epitome of all forms and manifestations of life,
appeared to me to underlie the universal laws of expression. In order to
learn these laws thoroughly, as exemplified in the teaching of the
classical languages, I now returned again to the study of these latter,
under the guidance of a clever teacher; and I began to strike out the
special path which seemed to me absolutely necessary to be followed in
their acquisition.

From this time onwards I gave all my thoughts to methods of education,
whereto I was also further incited by some keen critical lectures on the
history of ancient philosophy. These again afforded me a clear
conviction of the soundness of my views of Nature and of the laws of
human development.

Through my work at the dynamical, chemical, and mathematical aspects of