It is a fact that never until to-night had he thought about himself as the ordinary run of human beings think. When he had given consideration to himself it had been a sort of aloof, impersonal consideration. He had often thought about Evan Pell’s mind--as one thinks of a warehouse--and much consideration had been given to filling it with intellectual merchandise. No consideration whatever had been given to moving away any of that merchandise out of the warehouse and distributing it. His requirements had been of the simplest--food, shelter, and an opportunity to lay in intellectual goods, wares, and merchandise. With pleasure he had been unacquainted, and hence felt no desire to possess it. Sorrow was unknown to him. On the whole, he was rather like a chess-playing automaton, except that his range was somewhat wider and more complicated. But now he had discovered himself as an individual. The discovery was wholly due to Carmel Lee. He had fallen in love with her, which was a monstrous thing, but potent to prepare the soil of his mind for undesired crops. Then she had spoken to him about himself with frankness and logic. He was not disturbed by the frankness, but his antecedents rendered him apt to perceive the logic. That had impressed him. What was the use of himself, anyhow? Such was the question he considered. His object was acquisition, not dissemination. Had he been mistaken in choosing that object? This led further. What were human beings for? Why had people to be born, and to live? He recognized the necessity of utility. Was he inutile? It was ten minutes after midnight when he admitted he was inutile, or nearly so. What followed? There followed immediately a disagreeable sensation, a sense of humiliation. He, a representative, undoubtedly, of the highest order of human beings, was not useful. Members of much lower orders were useful. The ditch digger was useful; the man who collected the garbage was useful. In that event diggers and garbage men must be of more value to the world than himself. This was intolerable. He could not allow such a state of affairs to persist, but the method of abolishing it was not manifest. Mentally he tabulated the attributes of such patently useful things as he could remember, looking for their lowest common denominator. It appeared to be something like what Carmel Lee declared it to be--namely, improving some aspect of life upon this planet. If one could touch any phase of life and render it more efficient, he was useful. He wondered what aspect of life he could improve. And then he came to the most important and far-reaching discovery of his life. This discovery came at exactly ten minutes past one in the morning.... In order to find how one might be useful to life, one must know life! That was the discovery, and it quite overturned his conception of how he would live and die.