It is not surprising that the death of his wife was a severe shock to the husband. His pessimism became complete. He was a widower at the age of twenty-eight years, and, in his condition of mental and physical exhaustion, took to morphine like his wife. He knew that it was a poison which would complete the ruin of his constitution and make his work impossible. But what was the value of his life? As his organisation was too nervous for him to adapt himself to external conditions, was it not as well to come to the aid of natural selection and so make room for others? As it happened, a large dose of morphia did not solve the problem. It produced in him a condition of extraordinary happiness combined with extreme physical weakness. Little by little the instinct of life awoke in him, and he resumed his work. Pessimism, however, remained the fundamental quality in his character. Life was not worth the pains necessary to protect it. It would be a true crime to bring into the world other living beings doomed to elimination by natural selection. Moral and physical sensibility, as they continued to develop, brought with them so much evil that there could be no good end. The “injustice” of those who were unwilling to “understand” him made life painful to the man himself and to those about him. The closest absorption and hard work made his existence more tolerable, but his pessimistic conception was not in the least altered. Thus, he was easily driven to morphia for consolation, when he suffered from some act of “injustice” or vexation. A severe fit of poisoning, however, stopped this excess. Years passed. When he discussed with his friends the problem of the goal of human life and similar topics, he was always ardent in supporting the point of view of pessimism. However, he occasionally wondered if his pleading for this were really sincere. As his nature was honest and frank, this question which he put to his conscience appeared most curious to him. Analysis of what passed in his mind revealed to him a change. It was not that his conceptions had changed in the course of years, but rather his feelings and sensations. As he was now in full maturity, between forty-five and fifty years old, he found that there was a great change in the intensity of these last. Disagreeable sounds did not trouble him to the same extent as formerly, and he was undisturbed by the caterwauling of cats or by harsh street cries. As his hypersensibility diminished his character became more tolerant. Even the injustices or wounds to his pride which formerly drove him to morphia, no longer provoked in him any painful reaction. He could easily conceal the bad effect of these upon him, and no longer felt them with the same intensity. Thus his character had become much more supportable to those with him, and much better balanced.