Before I could start, I had to finish the pamphlet which, with
Sibbern's help, I had written against Nielsen's adjustment of the split
between Protestant orthodoxy and the scientific view of the universe,
and which I had called _Dualism in our Modern Philosophy_. I was not
troubled with any misgivings as to how I should get the book published.
As long ago as 1864 a polite, smiling, kindly man, who introduced
himself to me as Frederik Hegel, the bookseller, had knocked at the
door of my little room and asked me to let him print the essay which I
had written for my Master of Arts examination, and if possible he would
also like the paper which had won the University gold medal; and in
fact, anything else I might wish published. To my amazed reply that
those essays were not worth publishing, and that in general I did not
consider what I wrote sufficiently mature for publication, Hegel had
first suggested that I should leave that question to the publisher, and
then, when he saw that my refusal was honestly meant, had simply asked
me to take my work to him when I myself considered that the moment had
arrived. On this occasion, as on many others, the acute and daring
publisher gave proof of the _flair_ which made him the greatest in the
North. He accepted the little book without raising any difficulties,
merely remarking that it would have to be spread out a little in the
printing, that it might not look too thin. Even before the pamphlet was
mentioned in the Press, its author was on his way to foreign parts.