Leo had studied in a cheap edition; and passed from him to Hegel, of whom or about whom he had also read enough to be able to say something striking. Whether from a general tendency to paradox, or with intent to be courteous, he called Hegel a “Catholic thinker”; and on the father’s laughing query how that could be substantiated, since Hegel, as Prussian State philosopher, must surely be counted definitely with the Protestants, the boy replied that precisely the phrase “State philosopher” strengthened his position, and justified his characterization in a religious, though, of course, not in a churchly-dogmatic sense. For