As Broechner's pupil, I said a little of what was
in my mind to him, but could not induce him to begin. Then I begged
Gabriel Sibbern to furnish a thorough criticism of Nielsen's books, but
he declined. I began to doubt whether I should be able to persuade the
elder men to speak.
A review in The _Fatherland_ of the first part of Nielsen's
_Logic of Fundamental Ideas_ roused my indignation. It was in
diametric opposition to what I considered irrefutably true, and was
written in the style, and with the metaphors, which the paper's literary
criticisms had brought into fashion, a style that was repugnant to me
with its sham poetical, or meaninglessly flat expressions ("Matter is
the hammer-stroke that the Ideal requires"--"Spontaneity is like food
that has once been eaten").
In an eleven-page letter to Broechner I condensed all that I had thought
about the philosophical study at the University during these first years
of my youth, and proved to him, in the keenest terms I could think of,
that it was his duty to the ideas whose spokesman he was, to come
forward, and that it would be foolish, in fact wrong, to leave the
matter alone. I knew well enough that I was jeopardising my precious
friendship with Broechner by my action, but I was willing to take the
risk. I did not expect any immediate result of my letter, but thought to
myself that it should ferment, and some time in the future might bear
fruit.
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