 His first intellectual stirrings were in the area of linguistics, since he published a small work on this subject in 1873.Later, he was a teacher of German in Paris.He received a doctor's degree in philosophy from the University of Rostock with a dissertation edited with the title of "Essai sur les institutions politiques, religieuses, économiques et sociales de l´Empire des Incas", Paris, 1874, work for which he contacted other students of Mesoamerican antiquity.