“The system” in Denmark and the pseudonyms essentially belong together. Do you recall…it was “the system.” Yes, there was a matchless movement and excitement over the system then, and Prof. M.[artensen], the profound genius, who praised it, and Professor Heiberg, who also praised it, and Stilling and Nielsen and Tryde and God knows who else—yes, there was hardly anyone in the whole kingdom, or at least in the whole capital, who in one way or another was not related to the system in suspenseful expectation. It was the system. If anyone desires a true picture of the situation at that time, pictures from life, then read one or two of the pseudonyms, who have preserved this for history. As stated: it was the system.1
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Kierkegaard, Pap. X-6 B 137 / JP 6, 6636.