 At the University of Jena he soon encountered the “Sera Circle”, an offshoot of the Youth Movement that swept Germany in the years before World War I. He became enthralled with the idea, as he later said, that social forms and behavioral standards did not have to be assimilated uncritically from the surrounding society, or from tradition, but could be freely invented. The “voluntarism” that suffuses every phase of his later philosophical career (Jeffrey 1992) seems to have had its origins here. He became not only an enthusiastic participant in the Youth Movement but also a leader, representing the Jena branch at the climactic national meeting of local Youth Movement groups at the Hoher Meißner in 1913 (Werner 2003). 