AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 271 



older ancestors, who were not able to write, arid hence 

 expressed their laws and their history in verse, so as 

 to learn them by heart. 



p. That which a man does easily he usually does 

 willingly ; hence I was first of all a great admirer and 

 lover of poetry. This inclination was encouraged by 

 my father, who, while he had a strict sense of duty, 

 was also of an enthusiastic disposition, impassioned 

 for poetry, and particularly for the classic period of 

 German Literature. He taught German in the upper 

 classes of the Gymnasium, and read Homer with us. 

 Under his guidance we did, alternately, themes in 

 German prose and metrical exercises poems as we 

 called them. But even if most of us remained in- 

 different poets, we learned better in this way, than in 

 any other I know of, how to express what we had to say 

 in the most varied manner. 



But the most perfect mnemotechnical help is a 

 knowledge of the laws of phenomena. This I first got 

 to know in geometry. From the time of my childish 

 playing with wooden blocks, the relations of special 

 proportions to each other were well known to me from 

 actual perception. What sort of figures were produced 

 when bodies of regular shape were laid against each 

 other I knew well without much consideration. When 

 I began the scientific study of geometry, all the facts 

 which I had to learn were perfectly well known and 



