To write a book is the easiest of all things in our time, if, as is customary one takes ten older works on the same subject and out of them puts together an eleventh on the same subject. In this way one gains the honor of being an author just as easily as one gains, according to Holberg’s advice, the rank of being a practiced physician and the possession of his fellow citizens’ money, trust, and esteem by getting a new black suit and writing on one’s door: “John Doe Physician.”

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