At the beginning of his delve into philosophy, Julius Bahnsen developed an interest in Hegelianism, which was in decline yet still popular in early 19th century Germany. From Hegel's teachings, Bahnsen found his panlogism and radical rationalism dissatisfying. In Bahnsen's view, there was a stark mismatch between the unconcealed irrationality of the world and the naive theories, rationalizations and explanations of various philosophers. Existence itself seemed harsh, confusing and downright "contradictory". Starting out from these premises, Bahnsen found Hegel's idea of the dialectic appealing. The dialectic explained the ingrained opposition of the world with itself in a cycle of perpetual conflict (as Heraclitus had observed in his fragments centuries earlier). However, Bahnsen believed that Heraclitus's postulate of an underlying Logos and Hegel's idea of the rational spirit had misled them and had contaminated Hegel's formulation of the dialectic with progressivism and historicism. As a response to this "misunderstanding", Bahnsen developed his own idea of the Realdialektik. In the "Realdialektik", there was no notion of "synthesis" between two opposing forces. The opposition results only in negation and the consequent destruction of contradicting aspects. For Bahnsen, no rationality was to be found in being and thus, there was no teleological power that led to progress at the end of every conflict.