The
promise was given oftener than it was asked. Only, of course, it was
childish on the part of those present at the Meeting to regard such
promises, given by the leaders of the students, and by the students
themselves in festive mood, as binding on the nations and their
statesmen.
I did not make any intellectually inspiring acquaintances through the
Meeting, although I was host to two Upsala students; neither of them,
however, interested me. I got upon a friendly footing through mutual
intellectual interests with Carl von Bergen, later so well known as an
author, he, like myself, worshipping philosophy and hoping to contribute
to intellectual progress. Carl von Bergen was a self-confident,
ceremonious Swede, who had read a great many books. At that time he was
a new Rationalist, which seemed to promise one point of interest in
common; but he was a follower of the Bostroem philosophy, and as such an
ardent Theist. At this point we came into collision, my researches and
reflections constantly tending to remove me farther from a belief in any
God outside the world, so that after the Meeting Carl von Bergen and I
exchanged letters on Theism and Pantheism, which assumed the width and
thickness of treatises. For very many years the Swedish essayist and I
kept up a friendly, though intermittent intercourse.
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