 It is recorded in the Deanery records of the Philosophy faculty that he was awarded a doctorate in his absence on 15 June 1838.Unusually for this period, he was awarded the doctorate without being called upon to submit an oral defence of his inaugural dissertation, the title and subject of which are not known.He became an enthusiastic backer of the philosophy of Johann Georg Hamann, frequently identified during the twentieth century as a leading proponent of the Counter-Enlightenment, although current historiography is more finely nuanced.