  Later in the same year, he reported to Leipzig for compulsory military service, but was excused due to his poor eyesight. Free of his military duties, Vaihinger had the opportunity to attend lectures at the University from, among others, the founder of empirical psychology Wilhelm Wundt. It was during this time that Vaihinger first encountered the work of a figure who, next to Kant, would be his most important and lasting philosophical influence, the Neo-Kantian Friedrich Lange. Vaihinger describes the impact Lange’s History of Materialism made on him as follows: “Now at last I had found the man whom I had sought in vain during those four years [at Tübingen]. I found a master, a guide, an ideal teacher… . All that I had striven for and aimed at stood before my eyes as a finished masterpiece. From this time onwards I called myself a disciple of F.A. Lange” (PAO, xxi–xxii).