Nature I came once more upon the consideration of the laws of number,
particularly as manifested through figures; and this led me to a
perfectly fresh general view of the subject--namely, that number should
be regarded as horizontally related.[84] That way of considering the
subject leads one to very simple fundamental conceptions of arithmetic,
which, when applied in practice, prove to be as accurate as they are
clear. The connection of these (dynamical and arithmetical) phenomena
was demonstrably apparent to me; since arithmetic may be considered,
firstly, as the outward expression of the manifestation of force,
secondly (in its relationship to man), as an example of the laws of
human thought.

On all sides, through nature as well as through history, through life as
well as through science (and as regards the latter through pure science
as well as through the applied branches), I was thus encountered and
appealed to by the unity, the simplicity, and the unalterably necessary
course, of human development and human education. I became impelled by
an irresistible impulse towards the setting forth of that unity and
simplicity, with all the force, both of my pen and of my life, in the
shape of an educational system. I felt that education as well as science
would gain by what I may call a more human, related, affiliated,
connected treatment and consideration of the subjects of education.

I was led to this conviction on another ground, as follows:--Although my
friends Langethal, Middendorff, and Bauer served with me all through the
war in the same corps, and even in the same battalion, we were a great
deal apart towards the close of the campaign, especially at the time we
were quartered in the Netherlands, so that I, at all events, at the
disbanding of the corps, knew not whither the others had gone. It was,
therefore, an unexpected pleasure when, after a while, I found them all