At the end of my second year I began to reflect, that it would be an advantage in view of my future success, as well as fair to the gymnasium, that I should make myself more intimately acquainted with the professors. Accordingly I went to Director Dusch, announced to him that I was soon to leave, and told him that, as I wished a certificate from him, it would be well for him to examine me on the progress I had made, so that his certificate might be as nearly as possible in accordance with the truth. To this end he made me translate some passages from Latin and English works in prose as well as in verse, and was very well pleased with the translation. Afterwards he entered into conversation with me on some subjects in philosophy, but found me so well versed in these, that for his own safety he was obliged to back out. At last he asked me, "But how is it with your mathematics?" I begged him to examine me in this also. "In our mathematical lessons," he began, "we had advanced to somewhere about the subject of mathematical bodies. Will you work out yourself a proposition not yet taken up in the lessons, for example, that about the relation of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone to one another? You may take some days to do it." I replied that this was unnecessary, and offered to perform the task on the spot. I then demonstrated, not only the proposition prescribed, but several other propositions out of Segner's Geometry. The Director was very much surprised at this, called all the pupils in the gymnasium, and represented to them that the extraordinary progress I had made should make them ashamed of themselves. The most of them did not know what to say to this; but some replied, "Do not suppose, Herr Director, that Maimon made this progress in mathematics here. He has seldom attended the mathematical lessons, and even when he was there he paid no attention to them." They were going to say more, but the Director commanded silence, and gave me an honourable certificate, from which I cannot avoid quoting a few sentences. They became to me afterwards a constant spur to higher attainments, and I hope it will not be considered vainglory in me to cite the opinion of this esteemed man. "His capacity," says he, "for learning all that is beautiful, good and useful in general, but in particular those sciences which require severe exertion of the mental powers, abstract and profound thought, is, I might almost say, extraordinary. All those sorts of knowledge, which demand in the highest degree one's own mental efforts, appear to him the most agreeable; and intellectual occupations seem to be his chief, if not his sole, enjoyment. His favourite studies hitherto have been philosophy and mathematics, in which his progress has excited my astonishment, &c." I now bade goodbye to the teachers and officers of the gymnasium, who unanimously paid me the compliment, that I had done honour to their institution. I then set out once more for Berlin. CHAPTER XXVII.