in his house, in which Dorfling's
portrait, his book, and various objects belonging to him, thrown up in
relief against draperies and surrounded by a variety of symbolical
accessories, were set forth for the pious delectation of the master of
the house and his visitors. Schrotter held aloof from this cult. He
appreciated Dorfling's character, his consistency, his strength of will
and highmindedness as they deserved, but he was never tired of
preaching and demonstrating to Wilhelm that all these admirable
qualities had been turned out of their proper course by a disturbing
morbid influence. It was monstrous, he contended, that a system of
philosophy should arm you for suicide. What if the premises should
prove false? Then your voluntary death would be a frightful mistake
which nothing could retrieve. One has no right to risk making such a
mistake. He believed in development, in the progress of the organic
world from a lower to a higher stage. Progress and development,
however, were conditional upon life, and he who has recourse to
self-destruction sets an example of unseemly revolt against one of the
most beautiful and comforting of all the laws of nature. Moreover,
suicide was a waste of force on which it was simply heartrending to
have to look. There were so many great deeds to be done which called
for the laying down of life. In a thousand different ways one might
benefit mankind by Winkelried-like actions. If one was determined to
die, one should at least render thereby to those left behind one of
those sublime services which demand the sacrifice of a life.

In their frequent conversations upon this subject, he was so earnest,
so eloquent, so markedly intentional, that Wilhelm finally gave him the
smiling assurance that he was preaching to a convert. It was true, he
had the highest respect for a man who did not hesitate to cast life
from him when his whole mind and thought led him to the conviction that
death was preferable to life; and unprincipled as suicide might be from
an objective point of view, subjectively considered, there surely was
an ideal fitness in making one's actions agree to the uttermost point
with one's opinions? Nevertheless, he himself did not approve of
Dorfling's deed, and would certainly never imitate it, for one could
never know what intentions the unknown powers might not have with
regard to the individual; by committing suicide he maybe threw up some
possible mission, or by his premature de