cause me any mental fatigue if I found it necessary to learn them.

The lectures of my excellent teacher were not so useful to me as they
might have been, if I could have seen in the course of instruction and
in its progress somewhat more of necessary connection and less of
arbitrary arrangement. This want of necessary connection was the reason
of the immediate dislike I always took to every course of instruction. I
felt it even in pure mathematics, still more was it the case in applied
mathematics, and most of all in experimental physics. Here it seemed to
me as if everything were arranged in arbitrary series, so that from the
very first I found this study a fatigue. The experiments failed to
arrest my attention. I desired and sought after some inner connection
between the phenomena, deduced from and explained by some simple root
principles. But that was the very point withheld from me. Mathematical
demonstrations came like halting messengers; they only became clear to
the mind's eye when the truth to be demonstrated lay before me already
in all its living strength. On the other hand, my attention was riveted
by the study of gravitation, of force, of weight, which were living
things to me, because of their evident relation to actual facts.

In mechanics (natural philosophy) I could not understand why so many of
the so-called "mechanical powers" were assumed, and why several of them
were not reduced to cases of the inclined plane.

In mineralogy my previous education had left many gaps unfilled,
especially as regards the powers of observation. I was fond of mineral
specimens, and gave myself much trouble to comprehend their several
properties; but in consequence of my defective preparation I found
insuperable difficulties in my way, and perceived thereby that neglect
is neither quickly nor lightly to be repaired. The most assiduous