For this object, I must show in what manner I acquired the credit which established my former fortune, how I behaved under it, and to what purpose I employed it. I must confess that an indefatigable activity, the most accurate attention, and the most careful use of the opportunities and advantages which offered themselves to me, or which I obtained by my own efforts, contributed more to my fortune than mere accident did. Still, what is commonly called fortune was not the chief object of my desire, or at least I regarded it as a more remote consequence. I had chosen a path by which to attain fortune, but was determined sooner to let it slip than to employ improper means in acquiring it. A desire to be useful, and to perform actions which might have a wide-spread influence on the welfare of the society in which I lived, alone occupied my mind. My residence at Altona offered me but little opportunity for this, and my friends at that day, among whom Counts Rantzau-Ascheberg, Brandt, and Holck, were the most effective, at length succeeded in removing me to a wider scene of action. Although some of these friends fancied they could detect in me abilities which rendered me fitted for other enterprises than those for which a physician has a vocation, still I felt so great a liking for my profession that I should have permanently restricted myself to it, had not other circumstances eventually called me away from it. With this opinion I came to court, and I found it the more necessary to confirm myself in it, when I saw that everybody at court entertained suspicions, even if not prejudices, against me.